5 Things About October

Mushtaq tagged me for "5 Random Things". My collection isn't very random, but there it is.

I love October wind
scattering gold in front
of a grey storm-wall. I love Ray Bradbury
who invented October (before him
it was just another page on the calendar),
and I love the candles
in the jack-o-lantern hearts
of my city. I love the stained-glass
leaves on the Tartar maples.
I love the smell of windfall apples
on the sidewalk. Allah,
how beautiful is Thy creation.

Let's hear from...
Rafael
Mike
Rethabile

Y'all don't have to do it in poetry...

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Rethabile's questions

Rethabile at Poefrika has put up some questions for poets. I'm going to add some answers. Pop over there and offer him yours, as well. ("I" in the last question is Rethabile, not me.) 

Question one: Why do you write poetry (or literature) at all?

Because if I don't, confined divine inspiration will burn a hole in my head.

Question two: What is your favourite poem? You know, the one you'd have loved to have written, the one by whose standard you base all other works of art. If your life depended on answering this question, what poem would you suggest to the person holding the knife to your throat?

That's a tough one-- but if my life really depended on it, Shelley's "Ozymandias".

Question three: According to you, what is the state of poetry today? Is poetry flourishing or dying?

The writing of poetry is flourishing. The market for poetry is being splintered into increasingly narrow niches. The craft of poetry continues to develop into newer areas such as multi-media and performance poetry, without entirely losing its grip on traditional technique; however, the proportion of poets who attach importance to craft may not be on the rise.

See also Bruce Sterling's comments. I don't agree with everything he says, and some things that I do agree with I don't think are bad. But there's much food for thought.

Question four: What kind of poetry (or literature) do you dislike, and would not consider buying?

Confessional (as distinct from autobiographical). By that I mean poetry that has nothing to offer other than the poet's own experiences and responses.

Question five: Between the styles of Come (by Makhosana Xaba) and word speaks (by Kojo Baffoe) which do you prefer? Care to tell us why? Obviously, Makhosana and Kojo aren't required to answer this question.

I like them both, but would use them for different purposes. Style should be a tool, not a straitjacket. 

In both these poems, there are deliberate stylistic choices that I think enhance the content.  In Come, the varied line length gives the poem a playful, relaxed feeling that a stricter stanza structure might have stifled. In word speaks, the absence of capitalization, punctuation etc. adds to the general bleakness of the piece, and also calls attention to the fact that the speaker is in fact a word, sort of an ur-word that precedes (and will exist after) language, therefore need not (or cannot) observe typographic conventions.

Question six: What was the last poetry book you bought?

Ray Bradbury's "Farewell Summer". Don't tell me that isn't poetry.

Question seven: Where do you go for poetry on the web?

Check my sidebar for the list of blogs I follow.

Question eight: Do you talk poetry (or literature) with friends and family? "Hi honey -- Hey, I read this incredible poem today..."

Occasionally with my husband, rarely with my friends-- although I do post a poem a month in our office, and sometimes people want to talk about them.

Question nine: What one piece of advice would you give to a beginning poet (or writer in general)? One. What would you tell them to do or not to do?

READ!

Question ten: What line comes to you after the following two verses (in other words, please write the third verse -- these are spontaneous lines from me and are no part of any poem I'm writing or will be writing).

When the light from the lantern
beamed and fell upon the child,
abcd efg hijkl mno p qrst uvwxyz

he scribbled knowing he had only
moments of light in which to practice
his precious letters 

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Poetry meme

Both This Girl Remembers and Crafty Green Poet tagged me for the poetry blog meme. Here's how it works: list at least four things each you think a beginning poet should and shouldn't do: tag someone else.

Full speed ahead, the good ship Curmudgeonry!

So, the first list:

1. Read. Read everything you can get your hands on. Read poetry, prose, newspaper articles, song lyrics, advertising copy. Read critically. Do you like what you're reading? Why or why not? What is it trying to accomplish, does it get there, how does it get there? What tricks is it using that you might be able to use in your writing?

Soak yourself in words, then wring yourself out when you

2. Write. I'm not necessarily an advocate of the "write something every day" school, but the more you write the easier you will find it to write. If nothing else, your typing speed will pick up. You'll find that when you reach for words, they come more easily. Write regularly and copiously. Write as many different kinds of things as you can think of-- which leads to:

3. Experiment. Try new things. People tend to get more or less good at one way of doing things, and then settle into that comfort zone. Once that happens, artistically you're dead; you may still be producing good work, but the heart is gone. This goes for every aspect of writing: form, content, style.

Some artists feel that trying new things scatters their creative energy and makes it difficult for them to focus. Well, maybe creativity should be scattered generously about rather than cautiously hoarded against some future day when it might be in short supply. Now, the time to experiment is not when you're in the middle of a major project that has established its own artistic parameters. But, as many of my teachers have told me, "If you're not making mistakes, you're not learning." (God knows my life has been full of learning.) So get out there and make a mess!

4. Practice form. This one is specific to poetry. Lots of poets hate forms. Do it anyway. I'm not going to argue the merits or otherwise of formal poetry; I'll just say, if you don't know how to write in forms, you can't claim that not using them is a choice. It's a skill every poet should acquire even if they choose not to use it.

Now, for the don't dos...

1. Don't just write about your own experience. I'm not saying "Never." Autobiographical poetry can be as good as any other kind of poetry (and by "autobiographical" I don't just mean poetry that relates events in your life, but poetry that is focused on things you have seen/felt, or are seeing/feeling.) But we've been sold a gospel that poetry is supposed to be "personal experience". It's bogus. You can write about anything you can possibly imagine.

2. Don't fall in love with your own product. This is kind of a negative way of saying be open to criticism, be willing to make edits. Take suggestions. You don't have to accept all of them-- sometimes you are the one who knows best-- but you should at least consider them.

Blogs in my experience aren't the best way to get critiques. However, there are literally hundreds of online forums and discussion groups that will help you out. Shop around.

But maybe the more important point here is: As writers, we become very attached to our "creations" and we invest a lot of ourselves in them. This is healthy and necessary. However, we also have to be able to let go of them.

3. Don't be isolated. The stereotype of the Byronic brooding hermit-poet is finally dying away, I think (and it was never very accurate. Byron had close friendships with several other poets during his lifetime and they routinely shared rough drafts, gave each other critical feedback, and picked up one another's bar tabs), but writing is still something that happens mostly inside one person's head. (For now we'll assume that your word processor or pad of paper is an extension of your head.) It's easy to get wrapped up in that little world, and in the short run sometimes it's necessary to cloister yourself and put big uninterrupted chunks of time into a project. In the long run, this is not emotionally healthy for most people.

4. Never forget God. This one you can interpret however you like. I experience poetry as something that comes through me from elsewhere. "Elsewhere" goes under many names; you can call it Nature, the universe, the collective unconsciousness, or whatever you want. But there is a connection outside or inside, a conduit to something other than oneself. Lose it and you lose everything.

Now, tags: Alan at Cornfedtrouble, Rachel at Velveteen Rabbi, Russell at Yuckelbel's Canon, Mike at Word Anger.

If you like poetry, check out the weekly prompt site at Totally Optional Prompts

Blogging tips meme

I got tagged for a meme by Whirling Dervish at stoneymoss. This meme is interesting in that it addresses blogging behavior, and also tries to incorporate the sort of upmod/downmod capability seen on many discussion forum softwares these days. A very late-90s meme.

-Start Copy-

It’s very simple. When this is passed on to you, copy the whole thing, skim the list and put a * star beside those that you like. (Check out especially the * starred ones.)
Add the next number (1. 2. 3. 4. 5., etc.) and write your own blogging tip for other bloggers. Try to make your tip general.

After that, tag 10 other people. Link love some friends!

Just think- if 10 people start this, the 10 people pass it onto another 10 people, you have 100 links already!

1. Look, read, and learn. ******
NeonScent

2. Be, EXCELLENT to each other. ****
Bush Mackel

3. Don’t let money change ya! *
The Random Forest

4. Always reply to your comments. ******
The Kat House

5. Link liberally — it keeps you and your friends afloat in the Sea of Technorati. ***
Chip's Quips

6. Don’t give up - persistence is fertile. *****
Velcro City

7. Give link credit where credit is due. *******
SF Signal

8. Pictures say a thousand words and can usually add to any post.*****
SciFiChick.com

9. Participating in ‘memes’ is a destructive habit and should be avoided at all costs. **
Neth Space

10. Don’t hold back.***
A Dribble of Ink

11. Short Fiction is the bomb!*
The Soulless Machine Review

12. Redesign your site often. Visual boredom breeds textual complacency. *
9 to 5 Poet

13. Labels--not too many, not too few--help your readers browse.**
stoneymoss

14. Get involved in a blog community like Poetry Thursday- this adds creative inspiration to your blog and adds instant visitors- as well as connects you with other bloggers with similar interests.*
stoneymoss

15. Host a blog carnival. Not only do you get to read a lot of great posts, you get to meet a lot of great people.
Knocking From Inside

-End Copy-

I'm not going to tag 10 people, 'cause I'm not sure such rapid proliferation is actually a good thing. So:

Maliha at Lightness of Being
Susan at Rickety Contrivances of Doing Good
Dale at mole

You all are now "it". You know what to do...

Thinking Blogger

 

I've been tagged as a "Thinking Blogger" by Susan over at Rickety Contrivances of Doing Good. Thanks, Susan!

This meme has been around for some time, and by now I think everyone knows how these things work: when you're tagged, you get to post about five blogs that make you think, and pass the tag on to them. They then get to post about five other blogs. Etc. These are the specifics:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to five blogs that make you think,

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,

3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award.' (Shown above.)

Even allowing for some redundancy, a meme like this can expand pretty rapidly to the point where all the good blogs have already been tagged. Hopefully we're not there yet.

My five, in no particular order:

1. Thick as Thieves, the blog of Washington resident, curry cook, and martial artist Bobbe Edmonds. Bobbe writes with flair and passion about truths most people find uncomfortable. He's been there: he writes about it so the rest of us don't have to go there. Oh, and he reviews cheesy movies.

2. Inspirations and Creative Thoughts, Sadiq Alam's blog. Sadiq posts more often and more regularly than anyone else in my blogroll, and it's always worth reading for anyone with an interest in the life of the spirit.

3. Traceless Warrior, my old friend Mushtaq Ali's blog. Mushtaq doesn't post as often as he used to, but the archives of this blog contain stuff you will find nowhere else. What kind? Everything from music recommends to commentary on ancient Sumerian texts. Now you know.

4. Old Enough to Know Better than almost anyone, is author, martial artist and guitarist Steve Perry. (I mean, that's his blog.) For anyone with thoughts of getting into professional or semi-professional writing, Steve's thoughts are priceless, er, invaluable.

5. The Toad Abode, which always makes me think of love. And family. And dogs, cats, toads, and snakes. But most of all, love.

And another round of blogger tag!

Maliha tagged me for "10 things you don't know about me". Of course that depends who "you" are... but since I seem to have acquired a fair number of new readers recently, I'll assume you know very little about me...

1) I was born in Philadelphia, but like to think I've overcome that handicap.
2) I have a pet snake, in addition to the several other animals who share my home.
3) I belong to the Qadiri-Rifai tariqa.
4) I was raised in Tanzania.
5) I once burned a book. (Okay, a pamphlet.)
6) I've been known to eat a couple of pounds of cherries in one sitting. (On the way home.)
7) I spent 4 weeks camping on a mountain in southeastern Oregon one summer, and dreamed I wasn't really me.
8) I'm registered as an independent voter.
9) I don't like eggplant.
10) I play African drums and Indonesian martial arts.

I'm passing this tag to people I don't know well. So: Majnuun, musicalchef, Dale, Cynthia, the Soulless One-- Heads up! Y'all are it!

Tagged Again

I got this tag from Ruth.

Seven things I plan to do, insh'Allah:
make Hajj
publish a novel
travel the Silk Road
become a mother
write a verse epic
learn humility
become a guru in Serak

Seven things I can do, subhan'Allah:
write poetry that makes people cry (or laugh)
drive a 14-ft truck
get myself into trouble
play West African drums-- djembe, tolerably: dununs, not so well
teach women how to maul an attacker and leave him helpless
change a flat tire (on my car, not on the 14-ft truck)
grow my own food and slaughter it if I have to

Seven things I can't do:
bake. It never turns out right. I have no idea why
be the life of the party
break my book addiction
sing
stop being a smart-aleck
eat large quantities of chocolate
count to seven

Seven things I say most often:
Good grief!
%$(#*%# rain! (I use the funny characters because it's Ramadan and I'm trying not to swear)
Research and Evaluation, this is Tiel.
Do your djurus!
I need to do more djurus.
TGTF (Thank God Tomorrow's Friday, mumbled Thursday evening after getting home from all kinds of after-work activities...)
Alhamdulillah

Seven people I want to pass this tag to:
Todd
Terry
Kwasi
Kevin
Nalo
Sadiq

oops, that's only six. Well, the last time I was tagged, I could only think of two people to pass it to... and actually, several of the people I'd normally think of already have been tagged on this round.

Tag: Reprise

...So I found out the answers to question 2: you can read them at The Toad Abode. Yes, that's my husband in the picture.

Tag, I'm It

Thanks, Mushtaq.

1. Total number of books I'’ve owned:

Well, as my previous post shows, this is kind of an... issue.

I asked Todd to do a ballpark estimate on our house. He thinks we have about 3000 books. I'm going to guess our lifetime ownership to date at between two and three times that-- we routinely take books to used book stores, and most of the technical books we can't even resell because they go out of date so fast.

2. Last book I bought:

We mostly buy books online; they arrive at our house in a never-ending stream. Book most recently received? Most recently ordered? I don't actually know the answer to either of those right now.

3. Last book I read: Hallowed Hunt by Lois Bujold

4. Five books that mean a lot to me:

Dune by Frank Herbert
The Illuminated Rumi transl. Coleman Barks
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
anything by Steven J. Gould
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman

Now, who to pass this to?

Todd

Terry

Unfortunately I don't know that many people with blogs. Why doesn't Steve Perry have one?