Coffee Time with Lyn
random topics I’m interested in and want to discuss.
Quote
“For every poet, it is always morning in the world. History a forgotten, insomniac night; History and elemental awe are always our early beginning because the fate of poetry is to fall in love with the world, in spite of History.” ~Derek Walcott
Walcott passed on March 7th, 2017 at his home in St. Lucia. His metaphorical poetry captured the physical beauty of the Caribbean while never forgetting the complexities of his existence in a two culture world. Walcott was a mixed race poet living on a British-ruled island.
“Where shall I turn, divided to the vein? I who have cursed …
I who have cursed …
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?”
The Season of Phantasmal Peace
Then all the nations of birds lifted together
the huge net of the shadows of this earth
in multitudinous dialects, twittering tongues,
stitching and crossing it. They lifted up
the shadows of long pines down trackless slopes,
the shadows of glass-faced towers down evening streets,
the shadow of a frail plant on a city sill—
the net rising soundless as night, the birds’ cries soundless, until
there was no longer dusk, or season, decline, or weather,
only this passage of phantasmal light
that not the narrowest shadow dared to sever.
And men could not see, looking up, what the wild geese drew,
what the ospreys trailed behind them in silvery ropes
that flashed in the icy sunlight; they could not hear
battalions of starlings waging peaceful cries,
bearing the net higher, covering this world
like the vines of an orchard, or a mother drawing
the trembling gauze over the trembling eyes
of a child fluttering to sleep;
it was the light
that you will see at evening on the side of a hill
in yellow October, and no one hearing knew
what change had brought into the raven’s cawing,
the killdeer’s screech, the ember-circling chough
such an immense, soundless, and high concern
for the fields and cities where the birds belong,
except it was their seasonal passing, Love,
made seasonless, or, from the high privilege of their birth,
something brighter than pity for the wingless ones
below them who shared dark holes in windows and in houses,
and higher they lifted the net with soundless voices
above all change, betrayals of falling suns,
and this season lasted one moment, like the pause
between dusk and darkness, between fury and peace,
but, for such as our earth is now, it lasted long.
Derek Walcott, “The Season of Phantasmal Peace” from Collected Poems: 1948-1984. Copyright © 1987 by Derek Walcott. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Self-Promotion
I was looking in my port on Writing.com when I saw this poem, it’s one of my favorite poems I’ve written. I looked to see if I had shared it here on WordPress and discovered it among my early posts when I had one follower so I decided to share it again since I do have a larger following of poetry lovers.
It is done in couplets with a rhyming pattern on the end.
Love of an Irish Lass
He bowed his head in silence,
allowing his rattled breath to slow.
Closing his eyes, he could feel
the lively Celtic music flow.
He was swept away to days past,
Where her feet moved to and fro.
Oh wee lass, dance for me, I long to
see those ye’s rosy cheeks aglow.
Take me back to those days
Of hornpipes and tapping heel and toe.
Show me again those green Irish eyes
when you paused and bowed ever so low.
He lowered his head in silence again
cherishing his memories of long ago.
The lovely Irish ballad faded quietly away
and with it the old man’s final deathblow.©
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
I love seeing all the witty Irish proverbs appear:
- May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone too far.
- A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures.
- If it’s drowning your after, don’t torment yourself with shallow water.
- May you get all your wishes but one, so that you’ll always have something to strive for.
- ‘Here’s to women’s kisses, and to whiskey, amber clear. Not as sweet as a woman’s kiss, but a darn sight more sincere!” ( My grandpa used to say this a lot especially when grandma and him were at odds.)
- May the hinges of your friendship never grow rusty.
- What butter and whiskey won’t cure, there is no cure for. 🙂
- Where ever you go, and what ever you do, may the luck of Irish be with you.
Quote
“People are afraid to empty their minds fearing that they will be engulfed by the void. What they don’t realize is that their own mind is the void.” ~ Huang Po
Quote
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw
Quote
“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has been before.”
—Albert Einstein
Women’s History Month
This month is women’s history month! Who are some of your favorite female authors?
Mine are in no particular order just as they popped into my head:
Eleanor Roosevelt, Virgina Woolf, Kate Chopin, Maya Angelou, Natalie Goldberg, Anne Lindberg,
Jane Austin, Mary Shelley. Louisa Alcott, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Pema Chodron,
Rachel Corson, Wilma Mankiller, Toni Morrison, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot,
Alice Walker, Emily Bronte, Emily Dickinson, Ursula K Le Guin, Margaret Mitchell, Edith
Wharton, Willa Cather, Judy Blume, Mary Wollstonecraft, Anne Frank, Malala
Yousafzaifzai, Susan Sontag, Margaret Sanger, and Shirley Jackson.
Please take a moment to recognize women authors.
Editors and the 3 second rule
So many editors out there don’t or won’t invest more than 3 seconds maybe if we’re lucky 5 seconds to read our work. It’s true! Sad, but true. Publishers and editors have so many books crossing their desk or inbox they don’t have the time to invest more than that.
So how do you get them to read our work?
You have to write the best opening line possible? Write it and rewrite it again until everyone that you’ve shared your work says wow. Don’t be afraid to seek lots of opinions before you submit because getting the truth from family and friends is a lot easier to take than that rejection letter or worse the silent treatment.
Here are some great opening lines, you’re probably familiar with already.
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
“It was a pleasure to burn.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
So how do we create lines like this I suggest you check out this Hooked by Les Edgerton. He provides a concise informative read to help us create great openers too!
“The road to rejection is paved with bad beginnings. Agents and editors agree: Improper story beginnings are the single biggest barrier to publication. Why? If a novel or short story has a bad beginning, then no one will keep reading. It’s just that simple.”~ Amazon
Passions Beyond Writing 2
I made a LeMoyne Star pattern in the center and then added the rose appliques on top to make this centerpiece for my table. I machine quilted the top and appliqued the flowers by machine. The project took about 5 hours from start to finish. To me, there is something inviting about having a centerpiece on a table don’t you agree. However, in our home, it seems to encourage morning and evening interest.
It’s been a pattern all of this week for W.B. Yeats to take his morning snooze there.
He’s our almost 13-year-old tabby.
In the evenings we have our 2-year-old blush tabby Macavity taking his siesta.
Itis good to know my artistic endeavors are appreciated.
lyncrain 