M Christine Delea's Blog, page 28
October 18, 2023
Autumn by Siegfried Sassoon
Autumn
by Siegfried Sassoon
October's bellowing anger breaks and cleaves The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood In whose lament I hear a voice that grieves For battle's fruitless harvest, and the feud Of outraged men. Their lives are like the leaves Scattered in flocks of ruin, tossed and blown Along the westering furnace flaring red. O martyred youth and manhood overthrown, The burden of your wrongs is on my head.
October 15, 2023
All Hallows: Writing Prompt
Louise Glück died on Friday, October 13, 2023, at the age of 80. She grew up in Hewlett, a Nassau County hamlet on Long Island. She published 12 books of poetry, with her first book, Firstborn, coming out in 1968. She and her books won a Pulitzer Prize, a Bollinger Prize, a Nobel Prize in Literature, a Sara Teasdale Memorial Prize, and many others. She was also a U.S. Poet Laureate.
She wrote a great deal about dark spaces: grief, loneliness, family dysfunction, isolation, regret, unfulfilled l...
Autumnal by Louise Glück
Autumnal
by Louise Glück
(from her 1976 book, Descending Figure, The Ecco Press, NY)
Public sorrow, the acquired
gold of the leaf, the falling off,
the prefigured burning of the yield:
which is accomplished. At the lake's edge,
the metal pails are full vats of fire.
So waste is elevated
into beauty. And the scattered dead
unite in one consuming vision of order.
In the end, everything is bare.
Above the cold, receptive earth
the trees bend. Beyond,
the lake shines, placid, giving back
the es...
October 11, 2023
October by Robert Frost
October
by Robert Frost
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with...
October 8, 2023
Write to the Music: Writing Prompt
As usual (although not always), this week's prompt takes its cue from today's blog poem, Middle-Aged Karaoke by Timothy Houghton.
But you don't need to be middle-aged or have experience singing karaoke.
For this week's prompt, write a poem, story, essay, etc. that includes a reference to a favorite song. You can do as Tim did and call out what you think is the best song by a certain band. That's up to you. You can also make your reference part of the physical imagery, as Tim also did, or you ...
Middle-Aged Karaoke by Timothy Houghton
Middle-Aged Karaoke by Timothy Houghton
Published in SNReview, Spring/Summer 2008
A big woman jumps out of a booth deftly, avoiding tabletop and plastic vines behind her head. In the chrome diner she sways at a microphone singing "Daydream Believer," The Monkees' best song. She's a slow tsunami, same as me, though I sway sitting down, enervated by many drinks. Her friend --a girls' night out-- closes the paper umbrella above the rim of a mug an...
October 4, 2023
The Fury of Beautiful Bones by Anne Sexton
The Fury of Beautiful Bones
by Anne Sexton
(from The Complete Poems, Houghton Mifflin, 1982)
Sing me a thrush, bone.
Sing me a nest of cup and pestle.
Sing me a sweetbread from an old grandfather.
Sing me a foot and a doorknob, for you are my love.
Oh sing, bone bag man, sing.
Your head is what I remember that August
you were in love with another woman but
that didn't matter. I was the fury of your
bones, your fingers long and nubby, your
forehead a beacon, bare as marble and I worri...
October 1, 2023
Sugar or Storm: Prompt
Two choices this week . . . or combine this two things for more of a challenge!
Choice one: describe the end of a storm as Jean Toomer does in Storm's End, today's blog poem. Use every sense and be as descriptive as possible.
Choice two: write about sugar, as that is the type of cane meant in Jean Toomer's Cane. (And if you have never read this wonderful book, or if it has been a while, I urge you to read it/read it again. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of literature ever written.)
Th...
Storm Ending by Jean Toomer
Storm Ending
by Jean Toomer
(from his 1923 poetic novel, Cane)
Thunder blossoms gorgeously above our heads,
Great, hollow, bell-like flowers,
Rumbling in the wind,
Stretching clappers to strike our ears . . .
Full-lipped flowers
Bitten by the sun
Bleeding rain
Dripping rain like golden honey—
And the sweet earth flying from the thunder.
September 27, 2023
A Dirge Melody: Don’t Let the Humans Know We Contain Souls by Elizabeth Upshur
A Dirge Melody: Don’t Let the Humans Know We Contain Souls
by Elizabeth Upshur
published in Mistake House (2017)
If you want the pearlthe oyster growled as a lionessyou will have to pry me from this rock wrest my shell jaws open cut my living muscle self apart. Can you do that?
They can. They do. They polish, bleach, buff, label the pearl grade C light luster, barely usable.
No one asks the dead why are you dead, when piously wearing their flesh. For a pearl: the gravel irritat...
