Muse Swings - THE BOOK!

 

 

 

MUSE SWINGS

I've not been by to update my blog in a few weeks, months, okay, okay, years. Its been a long time! I've missed my bloggy friends, but one day I was sitting at  the computer and I completely ran out of things to say. Plus I found Face Book, and it became easier just to say a few random things throughout the day. I can sit around hitting the LIKE button on other posts, whether I really like them or not. It gives one a false sense of accomplishment while the dishes pile up in the sink.

 I do try to avoid posting my aches and pains on Face Book, and especially stuff like what I'm having for dinner. Unless of course those things are so spectacular that they fall into the "world needs to know category". In these instances, you can bet your bottom they are posted, and with a picture.

I've not been completely idle! After 15 years of saying "I really ought to publish my poetry" to myself and a few chosen others, I've gone and done it! I have a book, and it's available on Amazon.com in paperback and as an e-book.

 The most difficult part of publishing was digging about through odds and ends of old computers, notebooks, award lists, anthologies and this blog and then popping up through the rubble now and again, poem in hand, to add  another to my list of poetry to include in Muse Swings. Once I was satisfied that I had located those worthy of a good read I formatted, spell checked and (patting myself on the back here) created a searchable table of contents I used www.kdp.kindle.com and www.createspace.com to publish the poems. These are self publishing sites, and they are free! If you have been threatening to publish your short stories, poems or novel and just have not gotten around to it, check these sites out. They sell your books on Amazon.com in the US, Europe, Japan, Canada and Mexico, and you earn royalties on your sales.

My main purpose for publishing is to create a legacy. I want my poetry to outlast me. I don't want it to disappear into the atmosphere. As long as its out there somewhere on a dusty bookshelf or a discarded Kindle, it will still exist. I also get a bit of a tingle when I pop over to Amazon.com 15 or 20 times a day, type in my name, and do an Author search.

Check it out! These thin little tomes make great hostess gifts, coasters for your coffee cups and additions to your library.

Some Thoughts on Poetry - Painless Lesson #1

Did you know poems are intended to be read aloud? The best method for reading a poem is to read it three times? The first time to get an idea of the rhythm, words and subject. The second time to better understand what it is all about. What is the poet telling you? The third time, read it out loud to get the full enjoyment of it.

One of the most well known opening lines of all time is from a poem. Do you recognize this:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

We've probably all said these lines or heard them sometime in our lives. This is sonnet #43 from Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She was a recluse for many years after the tragic death of her brother. She rarely left her bedroom, yet she wrote beautiful, haunting and imaginative poetry. She did eventually marry, at age 40 - she eloped - and had a happy marriage and gave birth to a child at age 43.

This is the entire sonnet:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

The classic verse form she used is called a Petrarchan Sonnet.

Besides verse form, poets use many different devices in their poetry such as irony, figures of speech, imagery, metaphor.

Check out this short poem and imagine the color and texture of what he is saying:

The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

The author just wrote a few short lines, yet with his use of figurative language, didn't he pop open your imagination with colors and texture? Aren't those chickens bright against the red of the wheelbarrow. Did you get your feet wet standing out there in the rain looking at it?

Another short poem where the author uses irony:

Earth by John Hall Wheelock

"A planet doesn't explode of itself," said dryly

The Martian astonomer, gazing off into the air-

"That they are able to do it is proof that highly

Intelligent beings must have been living there."

The irony, I'm sure you noted is that the people living on the planet - probably earth- are so intelligent they figured out how to blow themselves into oblivion. How intelligent was that?

I have to get real now and go wash the floors and take some spaghetti sauce out of the freezer for dinner. So I gotta go. I was in a poetry mood and wanted to share a few bits of information with you. I'll probably do it again soon, so I've called this lesson number one. Watch out for those white chickens! See you later.