Sonya Rhen's Blog, page 11
April 2, 2014
What Bird – National Poetry Month Day 3 with Bonnie McClellan
Welcome to day three of National Poetry Month. Today I am pleased to present fellow WordPress blogger and poet Bonnie McClellan. Her blog contains many of her expressive poems as well as poems from other participants in International Poetry Month in February. Check those out on her link below. Enjoy!
The locust tree begins:
scarlet thorns, greening branches.
Impatient spring slips wetly
the van der Waals bonds
of this weak winter.
Time, time, time,
wasted in blank tasks:
showers, flossing, the recycling of newspapers.
I forget what bird I saw this morning.
Bonnie McClellan is a poet from Northeastern Texas who has been living in Italy for the last seven years. She enjoys trying to translate what she sees in a country almost suffocated by its own history into the broad, open cadences of English. More of her poetry can be found at her website: http://bonniemcclellan.wordpress.com/tag/my-work/
Paper publications: CCWriter:Magazine of creative nonfiction, short stories, poetry and Art, Summer 2006; Duck Soup: Magazine of Creative Expression, Fall 2006; Versitude, May, August and November of 1998.
Web publications: Blood Orange Review, August 2009; Bolts of Silk April 2009 and August 2010; DotTom Cafe (2000-2009 various dates).
April 1, 2014
For the Love of Poetry – National Poetry Month Day 2 with DA Botta
Welcome to day two of National Poetry Month. Today I am pleased to present a fellow author and poet DA Botta who I met through B.G. Bowers. He has written a thoughtful intro on why poetry is important. Enjoy!
On the Importance of Poetry
The fact that we still have a National Poetry Month, and thousands upon thousands of talented poets to keep it alive and thriving, is remarkable. Poetry, and all arts – I suppose – have often suffered the appalling misperception (perhaps only an American one, I am not sure) that art is simply ancillary to life. Creativity is considered hobby and pastime and whimsy and daydream. It is invigorating to have met so many fine poets over the last few years, whose passion and perseverance in verse is so beautifully resolute. It is exhilarating to be one of the rebellious dreamers who may prove the cynics wrong.
To quote from Mr. John Keating (Dead Poet’s Society, 1989) – now irrevocably and woefully commercialized by Apple Corporation: “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race and the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
In The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock (1920), T. S. Eliot masterfully asks one of the most tantalizing questions of the human experience:
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
To which generation after generation of poets and artists reply:
We disturb it, yes, just fine.
_______________________________________
Gypsy Kiss
I long for the woods: the smell of pine
Oft admired by tender minds
And all the natural display
The solitude of an empty place
And sweet embers burn and char until
Petals fall down from daffodil
Peace upon the dewdrop rain
Candles in the weathervane
Chance of winds and breezes bare
Troll away the fret and care
To breach the barren nakedness
Nothing does confide, confess
Like soils of richness, air of mist
Inhale, exhale, together again
The symphony of dry kindling then
The flame that rages and consumes
Shoos away the world’s perfume
What will is is, what might is is –
The dreamscape of a gypsy kiss
© d a botta 2014
_______________________________________
D A Botta
D A Botta lives on the south shore of Massachusetts with this family. He recently published a collection of 200 poems, entitled There in Them Blues (2014). D A has published 3 novels in a fantasy series, Elyzian Chronicles: Hysteriata (2011) Sinfluence (2012) and Sycamortem (2013), which use a blend of witchcraft, magic, tarot, astrology and mythology to create a rich experience of the protagonist’s struggle with love, power, loss, and purpose. He is currently working on the fourth in the series Hexamtyr which is expected to be completed in the fall of 2014.
Website | www.dabotta.com
Twitter | dabotta17
Amazon | author profile
March 31, 2014
Deleteriousfulness – National Poetry Month Day 1 with Pamela Telkamp
Welcome to the start of National Poetry Month. For this week, we have the following poets: Pamela Telkamp, DA Botta, Bonnie McClellan, Anna Mosca, and Elizabeth Fountain. I’m very excited about all the varied contributions, showing the wide reaching scope of poetry.
Today is day one, being April 1st, or some may say April Fool’s and I have friend, fellow bellydancer and poet Pamela Telkamp. I thought it would be very fitting to post her interpretation of Vogon Poetry. April Fool’s!
There isn’t much to say about it except it was written as a challenge for a Hitchhiker’s Guide themed birthday party. If you don’t get the reference, you won’t’ get the poem.
PS I won the prize. I received a Babel fish (stuffed). :)
Deleteriousfulness
A poem in 42 parts
Part I
O pain
O agony
O verbonuous sin
O torture
O misery
O tormentful
O anguish
O suffering
O wretchedness
O weep weep weep
O disgrace
O dishonor
O pity
O shame
O humiliation
O the vogonity
O degrade
O homemade
O sleep sleep sleep
O liver
O spleen
O gallbladder green
O pancree-ass
O flabby ass
O vitreous fluid
O large intestine
O tenekas
O spituitary
O woe is me
O drangle me
O flonase
O brothel sprouts
O demon sheep
O bulshetiski
O crinkly bindlewurdles
O pebak
O spinny killbot
O Bushlexia
O Misunderestimated me
Part II
There! Lives! Gnarled-tooth, green-eared Sheewa Magrin, dripped blahblah and blew hohohoho ka wooo flooo. And the reason that it dripped blahblah and blew hohohoho kawooo flooo was because it was always hungry. And the reason it was always hungry was because it dripped blahblah and blew hohohoho ka wooo flooo. And the reason that it dripped blahblah and blew hohohoho kawooo flooo was because it was always hungry. And the reason it was always hungry was because it dripped blahblah and blew hohohoho ka wooo flooo.
Part III
Politicians
Used car salesmen
Telemarketers
Bankers
Small-town sheriffs
TV wrestlers
Drunk guy
Handsy, drunk guy
Old, handsy, drunk guy
Televangelists
Mall cops
Proctologists
“Customer service” reps
Disgruntled waiters
Media spin doctors
Pop psychologists
IRS agents
Jack hammer operators
Poets
Part IV
O pain
O agony
O verbonuous sin
O torture
O misery
O tormentful
O anguish
O suffering
O wretchedness
O weep weep weep
O disgrace
O dishonor
O pity
O shame
O humiliation
O the vogonity
O degrade
O homemade
O sleep sleep sleep
O liver
O spleen
O gallbladder green
O pancree-ass
O flabby ass
O vitreous fluid
O large intestine
O tenekas
O spituitary
O woe is me
O drangle me
O flonase
O brothel sprouts
O demon sheep
O bulshetiski
O crinkly bindlewurdles
O pebak
O spinny killbot
O Bushlexia
O Misunderestimated me
by Pamela Telkamp
March 28, 2014
Next week is National Poetry Month
April 1st begins National Poetry Month here in the United States. You can look for or start events in your area. The official poster is available at Poets.org.
They also have a list of 3o ways to celebrate the month. I like “Take a poem out to lunch” and “Put a poem on the pavement”.
http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/94
I am excited to have the following guest bloggers contribute poems which will be posted every day in April. I still have spots available. If you are interested please comment below.
B.G. Bowers
Elizabeth Fountain
Roderick Hart
J.D. Brink
Amanda Hough
Eric Huffman
Michael O’Connor
Lori Lynne Armstrong (Tertia)
Anna Mosca
Rachel “in the OC” Thompson
D.A. Botta
Casi Thomason
Bonnie McClellan
Jakub OFranko
Tonjia Atomic
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Jodey Mann
I’m so excited for April. Check back next Tuesday for all the fun.
March 24, 2014
Spring is here – What are you waiting for?
This morning I found this flower beginning to bloom right outside my front door. I smiled and thought, “Spring is really here.” The crocuses have come and gone already, which they say is always the first sign of Spring, but I don’t trust them. They often don’t know any better and come out without their coats on and freeze.
I was noticing these buds as I was contemplating what to write today. Then it struck me. As with writing and many other things, we often find that life gets in the way. When that happens we sometimes have to just stop and truly embrace it. We need that.
However, sometimes we find that what we think of as life getting in the way, is often just our way of procrastinating. I used to think that procrastinating was something that you did to avoid doing something that you really didn’t want to do. I’ve come to realize that unfortunately, it is also a way to avoid doing something that you love or really want to do. The thing that causes the procrastination is not the lack of love, but fear.
There’s that terrible word. There is real fear when your life is in mortal danger and then there is that imagined fear; the fear of the unknown, of rejection, of disapproval, of not being perfect. These imagined fears are no less terrifying and they can often prevent us from doing what we really want to be doing with our life.
The story below is one I wrote when I was trying to think of a short story quickly and couldn’t come up with anything. I also, have always loved that image of Snoopy sitting on his doghouse with his typewriter. Isn’t that the most icon picture of a writer anywhere?
In the story, the man has writer’s block. He has been writing, but he is running out of time. Will life get in his way?
It was a dark and stormy night
By Sonya Rhen
Michael was sitting at his computer. He was staring at the blank screen. Where to start? It was a dark and stormy night popped into his head. Then he pictured Snoopy on his dog house sitting at his typewriter. That wouldn’t do.
Ann came in behind him. She ran her fingers through his hair. Michael felt a shiver run up his spine at her touch.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m trying to write,” Michael answered without looking up at her. “I don’t have a lot of time.”
“Am I bothering you?” Ann asked coyly.
Michael breathed out heavily through his nose. He didn’t want to be rude, but he was anxious to get some writing in this evening.
“What are you writing about?” she asked, when he didn’t answer.
“I guess that’s the trouble.” Michael ran his fingers through his brown hair, straightening the hair that Ann had ruffled.
“You should write about Vampires,” Ann suggested, “or zombies.”
“They’ve been done to death,” Michael couldn’t help saying.
Ann groaned. Then she smiled broadly, “You could write about me.”
“What?”
“Me!” Ann repeated.
“That’s crazy.” Michael stabbed at the keyboard. He typed “Title” and under it he typed “by Michael Jameson”.
“That’s not much of a title,” she read over his shoulder.
“I haven’t thought of one yet.”
“What’s so crazy about it?”
Michael picked up the cup of coffee sitting on the desk next to his computer. He took a sip while he tried to remember her previous train of thought. “Nothing, I guess.”
“Is that coffee?” Ann looked at the cup closely. “You’ll be up all night.”
Michael raised his eyebrows at her.
“Whatever,” she continued. “I still think you should write about me. I’ve always wanted to be in a book. Maybe you could call it Ann of White Picket Fences?”
He thought about the picket fence that ran along the front face of the house. They were not great gardeners. It was overgrown with bushes and vines that grew out front. He shook his head. “You don’t spell your name with an ‘e’. I don’t think it would work.”
Michael felt Ann swirling the hair on top of his head with her finger. It triggered that spot in the middle of his back. He squirmed.
She whispered in his ear, “I could help you brainstorm. I could be a foreign spy on a top secret mission, ‘Tell me all your secrets, darling.’”
He chuckled at her Natasha Fatale impression. A glance out the window told him that the sun was setting. He looked anxiously at the clock on the computer. “It’s really nice of you to offer to help, but…”
“Why won’t you write about me?” Ann insisted. “I’m fun and interesting. I’d make a great character in your book. You never write about me.”
He looked at her pouty face and sighed. “I’ll dedicate the book to you.”
He wanted to write something exciting, maybe a mystery or thriller. He’d need a tough character. Thoughts of Dashiell Hammett or Mickey Spillane ran through his head. Ann just didn’t fit in that picture.
“You’ve never been anywhere foreign,” Michael reminded her. He felt like holding down a key, any key, on the keyboard, just so he wouldn’t see all that blank space on the page.
“It’s fiction,” Ann said, “I could be whatever you wrote me to be. It could be a present. Our anniversary is coming up.”
Michael didn’t even notice the crinkles in his forehead forming at that suggestion. He gave a non-committal, “Hm.”
“A ghost story!” Ann breathed with excitement.
“Ghosts are so trite,” Michael said without thinking.
“Oh!,” Ann exclaimed.
Michael felt a stab of regret at the sound of her voice. He was going to pay for that remark for a long time. He turned in time to see her form vanish through the closed office door.
He turned back to the computer in front of him, even though he knew it would be too late. He frowned down at the long hard nails and furry hands that hovered uselessly over the keyboard.
“Stupid full moon.”
Tomorrow will come for Michael and then maybe life won’t get in his way. I imagine that he will finish his story and makeup with Ann, because that will be his passion, what he really wants in life.
What is your passion? What do you really want in life?
Spring is here – What are you waiting for?
March 22, 2014
April is National Poetry Month – Blog Anyone?
http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/41
Since April is National Poetry Month, I thought it would be fun to have guest bloggers post a poem a day in the month of April. This is not a contest and would be a non-judgmental fun way to celebrate National Poetry Month.
Let me know if you are interested in joining me. I’ll take 29 posts from fellow writers. Just comment below if you would like to be included and I will get you the details.
Thanks and Happy Writing!
March 11, 2014
“Space Tripping with the Shredded Orphans” is Live on Google Play
“Space Tripping with the Shredded Orphans” is Live on Google Play
Hello all another short post. I’ll try to have a longer blog up soon. My book is now Live on Google Play. Thanks!
March 7, 2014
Book Giveaway
Just a short post. Fellow author, Blakely Bennett, is having a Book Release Day Giveaway party on Facebook. Looking forward to it. For those of you that don’t know about the party, you can check it out on the link below and enter to win ebooks and other great prizes. I have 5 ebooks of “Space Tripping with the Shredded Orphans” in the pot for prizes. Good luck!
https://www.facebook.com/events/729147253770291/permalink/748195611865455/
January 21, 2014
Keeping Time with Music
You know the old saying, “I am a product of my times”? I have never felt this more acutely than when I listen to music. A friend once told me how she had explained to a younger colleague that when you get to a certain point in your life you no longer listen to “new” music and only like the music of your past. She was clearly exaggerating, because I know she listens to at least some new music. However, I get her point.
My formative years were the 70′s and 80′s. I love the music of that time period, not all of it, but what I liked then, I still like now. Case in point, when I listen to KEXP and hear a song that I like (this is usually when I am running errands in the car) I try and remember the time of day and look it up on their playlist. I get excited that there is a new song out that I really like. I immediately click their link to buy on Amazon and put it on my wish list. If it’s already on my wish list, then I set the priority to “High”. (Yes, I have a very long wish list.) Often I find that the “new” music that I am grooving to (highly technical 70′s term to mean “like”) is a song from the 80s or late 70s. It is most likely that I had heard the song before, but forgotten it. Sad that I had forgotten something that I had probably heard many times before and also that my heart seems to be pointing in the past and not the future. Another sign of aging, I suppose. (Sigh!)
I sometimes wonder if it is just me, or if everyone does this? I do know of people that discard all things old and only try to live in the moment. Is this something people do to help move things in a forward or new direction? I can’t help thinking that possibly those people fear death. To keep moving forward with newer and better things to try and outrun the inevitable. (See the movie Moonstruck for more on this topic.) That’s just my thoughts on the matter.
It’s not just the 70′s and 80′s, though, music of my peers. I also have a fondness for music that my parent’s loved. We drove everywhere in our old station wagon and my parents listened to classical music and music of the 40′s and 50′s. The oldies station would occasionally throw in some 60′s music. The span of music from my formative years is larger than the actual “formative years” were. I know this is not just me, since I find that some music of today has a feel of a time past. Those musicians must have their heart set to that time, at least for the moment of creating that piece music.
In 2004, I purchased the CD Brian Wilson Presents Smile. When I first listened to it, I was disappointed to find that it sounded like an old Beach Boys record. After more listens, I find that the beauty of it lies in the fact that it sounds like an old Beach Boys record. I am drawn to music that sounds like it belongs to another age. I love the band Tennis and the album Cape Dory. The feel is very 60s.
There seems to be a 60s music revival going on. Another favorite of mine is Best Coast’s “When I’m With You”.
There are many more 60s sounding new bands in my CD collection, not to mention the rest of the world of music.
I am eagerly awaiting the release of the CD from Broken Bells. It has a quality that I thought was long past. Can you guess? The CD is called After the Disco and possibly no surprise now is the song I like sounds like a 70′s Bee Gees song. Looking up the CD online brought me to this interview with them on NPR and you can hear this awesome (here I’ve mixed times with a 80′s/90′s term meaning really cool) song, “Holding On For Life.”
The CD is due out on February 4, 2014. I’m ready, are you? I can hardly wait!
New music or old music, what is the flavor your heart desires? What time is it for you?
December 31, 2013
Happy New Year!
I was thrilled to be able to publish "Space Tripping With the Shredded Orphans" the first in my science fiction novel series and a collection of poetry, "Requite Me".
Here's to a good 2014 for all and Happy Reading!
Happy New Year to everyone!
Sonya Rhen
