false 2216359 632963 Gwyn McVay 36 Lancaster, PA 04/2009 12/2009 2798132 Shaindel Beers 58 110 94 true 5814720 read 1 true 4822509 currently-reading 15 true 4822508 to-read 4 false 4830474 poetry 2 false 9273940 i-wrote-this 1 false 9120209 graphic-novel 1 false 9273925 im-in-this http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/255624-my-naked-self http://photo.goodreads.com/groups/1182288212p2/233.jpg 2216359 Gwyn http://photo.goodreads.com/users/1239643659p2/2216359.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2216359-gwyn Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:52:05 -0800
Loving the Jewish haiku (though many of them, being about the endeavors of humans rather than nature, are technically senryu). Have you ever read a book called Zen Judaism? (I took Zen precepts formally a little over a decade ago; people give me all kinds of books that relate in various degrees to Buddhism.) I think my favorite saying from it is, "If the self is an illusion, then whose arthritis is this?"

Also, Gabrielle, you could point out quite rightly of Dickinson that she didn't get out a lot, but remained situated firmly within the cultural context of the New England Protestant revival of the mid-19th century -- hence the ballad stanza that is at least a point of departure in the great majority of her poems. This is why many of them (e.g. "I died for Beauty") can be sung to either "The Yellow Rose of Texas" or "Amazing Grace." She was formally and conceptually innovative in a great many ways, but it's not like her work is sui generis in that she just sat up one morning and started to write without any influence by prior, or contemporary, poets.]]> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/208364-how-to-write-a-love-poem http://photo.goodreads.com/groups/1182288212p2/233.jpg 2216359 Gwyn http://photo.goodreads.com/users/1239643659p2/2216359.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2216359-gwyn Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:50:39 -0800 one injustice my first husband didn't perpetrate... I think.

That brings up an interesting point, though. Even the poems assigned to me by my therapist (best therapy homework ever; I'm keeping this one) became challenges in my mind: how do I turn this raw emotion into something that actually holds water artistically? I'm still not sure one such poem, "Ave Atque Viva La Bye-Bye," is finished finished, but it went through revision before I even brought it to therapy. After a while revision becomes not only a habit, but a compulsion.]]> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/236450-three-to-verse-wisconsin http://photo.goodreads.com/groups/1182288212p2/233.jpg 2216359 Gwyn http://photo.goodreads.com/users/1239643659p2/2216359.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2216359-gwyn Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:39:54 -0800
The bits of Christianity that pop up in Beowulf could, as you say, be the result of later scribal tampering. They could also represent the culture's being, often forcibly, Christianized away from its original gods, beliefs, and folkways. It's an interesting debate, and reminds me of the question of whether the Wife of Bath's "Five housbondes have I had at chirche dore" is merely a reference to common-law marriage (i.e. stopping at the door, but not entering the church to receive the actual sacrament), or an allusion to the Samaritan woman spoken to by Jesus in John 4:17 (who has had five husbands plus one additional partner!), or a bit of both.

In Chaucer class in undergrad, instead of writing a research paper, I received permission to write my own ersatz Canterbury Tale in Middle English. I further complicated my own task by picking rime-royal stanza -- but it got a lot easier when I discovered the way in which Chaucer "cheated": he used all the Norman words as end-rhymes. There are a lot of end-rhymes on "-esse" in the original, for example. That was good fun.

Best, Gwyn]]> Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-Po Mailing List (Tradepaper) by Moira Richards]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/81512472 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1203957070s/2330312.jpg 2216359 Gwyn http://photo.goodreads.com/users/1239643659p2/2216359.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2216359-gwyn Sat, 19 Dec 2009 16:26:04 -0800 http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/256802-dan-beachy-quick-s-this-nest-swift-passerine http://photo.goodreads.com/groups/1182288212p2/233.jpg 2216359 Gwyn http://photo.goodreads.com/users/1239643659p2/2216359.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2216359-gwyn Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:55:49 -0800 The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo (Book 1) by Dwight L. MacPherson]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79959353 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1185223743s/1559839.jpg 2216359 Gwyn http://photo.goodreads.com/users/1239643659p2/2216359.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2216359-gwyn Sat, 05 Dec 2009 07:00:47 -0800 more...]]>