Poetry Tuesday: A Poem by Auden

I have my english exam today and my big essau question required me to decipher a poem by Auden and compare it to one of the books I read this year in class.  I think I did pretty well...or I might've been overly reptitive.  Either way, I thought the poem was really cool and I am going to share it with you.  Feel free to decipher it for yourself!

Musée des Beaux Arts

W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Wednesday Writing Tip: Randomness

Here is a trick I learned from Anne Rice:

All writers have that moment when they are writing where they get completely and totally stuck.  You wrote yourself into the corner, or your inspiration has died, or you are so freakin' bored with your character/story that you can't move one.  I think the technical term for this moment is Writer's Block.  Well, here is a very interesting way to defeat it: do something random.

Okay, this sound crazy, right?  Wrong!   Actually, no, it is right, but writers need to be crazy.  Anyway,  back to my point, do something completely random.  Make your character randomly do a backflip, or kiss the person next to them, or kill there best friend.  At the very least, have them shout "I'm bored!".  This will create an action for you, and the more dramatic the better because with every action, there is an equal reaction.  Newton's First Law?  Second?  Third?  I'm not a science person, but the prinicple is the same.  You have caused something to happen, and now you have to clean up the mess left behind.  Thus, your Writer's Block is destroyed...for now.

I used this technique during NaNoWriMo (which I failed at, by the way. *sigh*).  I wrote myself into a hole and I was bored, my character was bored, and my story was bored.  So, I made piano play by itself.  Of course, once I did that, I have to create some vague explantation, which led to be creating a disembodied voice.   Naturally, I had to create a reaction for my character, who was a young Victorian girl who couldn't understand why the piano was playing by itself and a mysterious voice was talking to her.  Then I had to create dialogue, some panicky thoughts, etc.  It was a lot of fun and it dragged my out of my pit of despair!

So, what are you waiting for!  Defeat Writer's Block and make something strange happen!

Poetry Tuesday: A Poem..erm...Song by Florence and the Machine

Songs are but poetry put to music.  They are tend to be more potent.  Enjoy!

Friday Writing Prompt

I'm really tired today, so....

Describe the day when you were most tired.

Feel free to post your response in the comments.

About Thursday....

Quick update!  I'm moving Thursday Book Review to Sunday.  So, enjoy the new Sunday Book Review...on Sunday.

Wednesday Writing Tip: Page-A-Day

As writers, many of us decide to achieve the impossible.  We attempt to write a novel.  Thus, we are forcing ourselves to create an amazing story that covers over 300 pages.  Naturally, these attempts often are futile because who can focus on one story for so long?  Certainly not me, my computer will tell you.  Lucky, I picked up this handy tip from Be-A-Better-Writer.com.   It is simple:  Make a goal to write one page a day.  That's just write a page a day.  In one year, you'll have a 365 page novel.  If you write two-pages a day, in 6 months you'll have a 365 novel.  Easy and simple.  Something you can easily do.  Just write a page a day and soon you will have a novel.

A Poem by Alfred Noyes

Here is a poem by my favorite poet!  You'll be seeing many poems by him on this blog.  Anyway, can anyone figure out the meaning of this poem, but I'm still not sure what it means.  I just like the way it sounds.

The thousand-windowed towers were all alight.
Throngs of all nations filled that glittering way;
And, rich with dreams of the approaching day,
Flags of all nations trampled down the night.
No clouds, at sunset, die in airs as bright.
No clouds, at dawn, awake in winds as gay;
For Freedom rose in that august array,
Crowned with the stars and weaponed for the right.

Then, in a place of whispering leaves and gloom,
I saw, too dark, too dumb for bronze or stone,
One tragic head that bowed against the sky;
O, in a hush too deep for any tomb
I saw Beethoven, dreadfully alone
With his own grief, and his own majesty.

Firday Writing Prompt

Here is this weeks writing prompt!

You are trapped in a dystopian world and are asked to lead an uprising?  What do you do?

Feel free to share your stories in the comments!

-Dru

Wednesday Writing Tip: Where to Write?

Having trouble writing?  Can't focus?  The ideas just not flowing?  Well, here is a question you should ask"  Where am I writing?  Where you write can have an impact on how well you write.  For me, I write often in my house, but I'm far to distracted.  There's food, the TV, Facebook...needless to say, little gets done.  So, I tended to write at school.  I can't watch TV, eat food, or use Facebook in the library, plus my mind is stimulated by school work.  The result is a whole lot of progress.  So, if you are having trouble writing, try writing someplace else.  Maybe sitting in front of the TV isn't working for you, or maybe it will.  Maybe your house completely kills your story, or maybe it is the only way it can possibly be written.  Switch things up and see what happens!

A Poem by Robet E. Howard

It's poem Tuesday!  Today's poem is by Robet E. Howard and is from his book "The Phoniex on the Sword".  It is one of my favorites because it is so very pretty but also sends out a very true message.  It also kinda reminds me of the times of Beowulf, but that might just be me.  I hope you enjoy it!

"When I was a fighting man, the kettle drums they beat,

The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet;

But now I am a great king, the people hound my track

With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back."