Posts Tagged ‘poetry’
The Song of Lunch
Watch The Song of Lunch Preview on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.
Poetry in film seems to be a thing with me lately. How else to explain my serendipitous discovery of both motionpoems and the wonderful dramatization of Christopher Reid’s acclaimed narrative poem, The Song of Lunch, starring Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson. Continue Reading
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CommentWhen at a Certain Party in NYC
For the latest video installment from Motionpoems, Amy Schmitt designed and animated Erin Belieu’s poem “When at a Certain Party in NYC.” It’s absolutely brilliant! Continue Reading
Advent
It’s hard to believe that the beginning of December has arrived. Everyone says this every December, but somehow this year seems to have flown by with particular speed. Does time really fly when we’re having fun, or are we too busy to slow down and notice the wonder in something as seemingly inconsequential as “dirty sleet, within its streetlight?” Continue Reading
Cloud 9 Looks SO Tiny from Up Here
We skip from cloud to cloud,
and occasionally we end up at nine,
but the golfers among us don’t get it,
and we laugh.
Cloud 66 looks good from where I stand,
and if you can find a cloud better than that,
then the drinks are on you
when you invite us to join you there.
With every credit due to my dear friend A.E.
Reading Goethe
I love reading poetry and it’s been a while since I’ve found something to engage my interest on that front. A website I read sometimes quotes the poetry of Goethe on occasion and, although I know him more as a philosopher than as a poet, I was inspired to buy a book of his poetic works today.
Goethe’s poetry was essentially autobiographical. One of his poems, “The Diary,” was suppressed for more than a century for its eroticism. Well, of course, the thing we want to read first and most is that which has the excitement of the forbidden! So I started there. You should read it for yourself, but here are the final lines:
This life’s a crazy journey, and our heart
May stumble, but two mighty powers, we’ll find,
Can move the world and help us as we go:
To Duty much, to Love far more we owe.
How lovely!
A Little Madness in the Spring
I’m having incredible writer’s block today and all of the things I’ve been working on sit in various stages of incompletion. So instead, I’ll offer up a poem that captures very nicely the sense of joy that you can see in everyone due to the glorious warmth and sun that we’ve had here in Boston over the past few days.
From Emily Dickinson:
A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown,
Who ponders this tremendous scene,
This whole experiment of green,
As if it were his own!
Leaves are popping out; flowers are blooming everywhere. I saw a bluejay on my street today. Walking in this “experiment of green” after the grey and gloom of winter does make one feel a bit giddy and mad for Spring.
Autumn Feelings
Okay, so it’s not Autumn. In fact, there’s a crazy February snow storm happening outside in Boston and I’m just glad not to be out in it any more. But I’ve been awake since 3:30 am (do visit the new PR and marketing page of the site, which is the product of my early morning insomnia) and somehow the intelligent Trend Tuesdays report I’ve been working on is not coming out of my tired brain. Maybe this week we’ll have a Trend Thursday. How’s that?
Anyway…
So as not to disappoint anyone who was looking for something to read today, I bring you a lovely poem by Goethe that I only recently discovered. I think it needn’t be Autumn to appreciate such lovely words.
FLOURISH greener, as ye clamber,
Oh ye leaves, to seek my chamber,Up the trellis’d vine on high!
May ye swell, twin-berries tender,
Juicier far,–and with more splendourRipen, and more speedily!
O’er ye broods the sun at even
As he sinks to rest, and heavenSoftly breathes into your ear
All its fertilising fullness,
While the moon’s refreshing coolness,Magic-laden, hovers near;
And, alas! ye’re watered everBy a stream of tears that rill
From mine eyes–tears ceasing never,Tears of love that nought can still!
Autumn Feelings by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
My name is Angela Eloise and I am a freelance writer. That sounds as if I am copping to an addiction. I am. In addition to writing this blog, I also write a column about social media and I am at work on a series of essays that I hope to see in print some day. Cloud of Chaos was born from my desire to dance with the absurdity of life, to create a space where I could write and share all of the gorgeous, fun, snarky deliciousness I find spinning around me every day. What does a spinning cloud of chaos have to do with writing? Everything, as it turns out.
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