New Year's Resolutions, 2019

Yes, I know. I'm a bit late on this. Late enough that some of those heartfelt resolutions made on 01/01 have probably already found themselves on the discard pile.

Think of this thread as your second (and, perhaps, better thought out) chance to change your life.

Or think of it as a place you can publicly commit to personal improvements that you'll be embarrassed about in March, or June, or certainly by September (but those cookies looked so good!).

Here's my own list of resolutions I will (almost certainly) renege on:

• My annual resolution to re-read Finnegans Wake. I actually read it once, so this resolution should rightly be about my reading Ulysses, but it's easier to ignore if I cite a literary peak I have once crested, albeit so lacking oxygen I could probably not name any of the major characters.
  
• My annual resolution to read a BIG serial novel, like C.P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers, Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, or the shorter, denser, and hyper more difficult In Search of Lost Time by Proust.
  
  I will, if past performance predicts, read one or two of the lead-in novels before deciding that, you know, Alan Moore's Watchmen graphic novel is what's really relevant to readers today.
  
• The standard "lose weight," "make more friends," "exercise more," etc. But those are all year-long issues, don't y'know.

In any case, Happy New Year to everyone here. I hope 2019 is a good, even great, year for you all.

Happy New Year to you too
Facebook has a lot to answer for, namely me rarely reading a book now and I used to 'devour' books from the time I learned to place letters in the right order. Even now as I wait for my body to heal and I have all the time in the world, I'm still not reading. Not even my Kindle
I've always said my resolution was not to make resolutions and so far I've stuck to it!

Happy New Year Tzara and poets.

I you all.

I read a lot, just am addicted to it. Last year I reread some of my favorite Dickens novels (Bleak House, Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickleby). My conclusion: I still love his writing, especially the many characters whose side plots all tie together, eventually. The bathos annoys me more now though.

My new discovery though is books on tape (streamed?). I never was interested in this before, but I do love being read to. I wrote a poem about it. So that's a resolution: I'm gonna be read to more. My local library has a wonderful digital collection.

Also I'ma try to stay out of the hospital this year!

Peace.

Angeline said:

Happy New Year Tzara and poets.

I you all.

I read a lot, just am addicted to it. Last year I reread some of my favorite Dickens novels (Bleak House, Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickleby). My conclusion: I still love his writing, especially the many characters whose side plots all tie together, eventually. The bathos annoys me more now though.

My new discovery though is books on tape (streamed?). I never was interested in this before, but I do love being read to. I wrote a poem about it. So that's a resolution: I'm gonna be read to more. My local library has a wonderful digital collection.

Also I'ma try to stay out of the hospital this year!

Peace.

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One thing about Facebook, Lit found me the poet, Facebook opened up the you

Happy New Year to you all. I do find that I miss my Lit poetry friends often and so I show up, read a bit and occassionally post something. I will be back more often since, even if I don't write a poem a day, I want to make one each week and so will share them here when I do.

I'm so happy to have you all to read when I need to be reminded of beautiful and well put together poetry. Thank you.

Five Different Resolutions

1.
Standing on the buff and slate
deposit of an Artic ice pack
at 75 degrees North the compass
sends man out onto the breathing
floe of a grey ocean autumn to hunt
the ghosts of winters yet to be
and test the endurance of Resolute Bay.

2.
Hearing promise and determination
when plans are made to last.
The strength and power assure
that those who stand are resolute,
they will see it through the end.

3.
My night viewed in high definition
plays out in 1024 resolution
slo-mo stop action speed bumps
as a snowflake spirals through
a laser beam of cold blue light
turns out grainy anyway

4.
If, as is said in certain circles,
resolutions are made to be broken
what then do promises and goals
become? Empty words fail to inspire,
shallow smiles to touch hearts
and silent shadows are frightening.

5.
My mythology writes resolve and method
where blank pages once stared with sad
patience at the ink in the pen, waiting
for the hand to inscribe those sayings
that will mean maybe, just maybe, one
out of a dozen resolutions will be kept.

To follow Michael Polan's advice "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

Dear Resolute Resolutioners:

Thank you all for stepping up and confessing to what you will try (and, of course, possibly fail) to do or achieve in 2019. I feel some prizes (well, mostly reading suggestions) coming on:

• To Annie: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. So English. Such lovely prose. So calm but delightful to read while recovering from illness. Get well, m'dear, and have a biscuit with tea while reading this.
• To Angie: The Whole Truth, by James Cummings. Sorry, it's out of print, but I think the perfect present for you, being the odd combination of a Perry Mason story that is told in sestinas. (I happily envision your look of horror at the word "sestina.") I'm hoping your anxiety about the form gets your lungs working overdrive so that maybe you can ditch the oxygen assist.
• To Champie: A reminder for you to re-read Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy and a promise that I will actually start paying attention to the NHL when the Seattle team starts playing in 2021. (And we will kick your ass, whether it be Edmonton or Calgary--I'm not sure which you're closest to [if either].)
• To Piscator: I don't know you as well, so I'll just leave a copy of Mary Dalton's (Canadian poet) Hooking on the desk next to you. No, it is not a book about prostitution, nor really a book about rug making, which the cover photo implies. It is a book of centos (Annie can explain) with a Can/American/European focus.
  
  Whatever that means.

Sorry. We now return you to your usual programming.

Thank you Sweetie, very good advice apart from one thing, I am very unEnglish in one respect .......... I hate tea

I have given up hockey watching now that we are a house of feminine concerns. Now it's SciFi and online poetry.

Excuse me hi-jacking your thread rather than starting a new one, but it's just a question. I was looking at your advice about how to write a Cento and you mentioned a challenge called 'Lift a line'. Do you know where I can find that please? I tried looking for it myself with no success.

UnderYourSpell said:

Excuse me hi-jacking your thread rather than starting a new one, but it's just a question. I was looking at your advice about how to write a Cento and you mentioned a challenge called 'Lift a line'. Do you know where I can find that please? I tried looking for it myself with no success.

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I couldn't find the thread either, which starts to make me think I dreamed it or something, though I don't think that is the case.

I'm not sure it would have been all that helpful to you, though, as it was only one line--something like the "Frankenstein sonnets" Dean Rader and Simone Muench wrote together in their book Suture. They take a line from an existing sonnet, then alternately write "fill-in" quatrains or tercets to finish the poem. End up with a poem that is "stitched together," they would likely say.

Let me suggest the Academy of American Poets article on the cento, instead. Or, better, David Lehman's article in the American Scholar on constructing a cento, including his (not very good, in my opinion) example.

At least, it gives you an idea of how to start one.

Tzara said:

I couldn't find the thread either, which starts to make me think I dreamed it or something, though I don't think that is the case.

I'm not sure it would have been all that helpful to you, though, as it was only one line--something like the "Frankenstein sonnets" Dean Rader and Simone Muench wrote together in their book Suture. They take a line from an existing sonnet, then alternately write "fill-in" quatrains or tercets to finish the poem. End up with a poem that is "stitched together," they would likely say.

Let me suggest the Academy of American Poets article on the cento, instead. Or, better, David Lehman's article in the American Scholar on constructing a cento, including his (not very good, in my opinion) example.

At least, it gives you an idea of how to start one.

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Thanks I do know how to write one, I was just checking, but that sounded like an interesting thread to investigate and maybe revive. Maybe it was one that was deleted from lack of use or something.

deleting

Tzara said:

Dear Resolute Resolutioners:

Thank you all for stepping up and confessing to what you will try (and, of course, possibly fail) to do or achieve in 2019. I feel some prizes (well, mostly reading suggestions) coming on:

[*]To Piscator: I don't know you as well, so I'll just leave a copy of Mary Dalton's (Canadian poet) Hooking on the desk next to you. No, it is not a book about prostitution, nor really a book about rug making, which the cover photo implies. It is a book of centos (Annie can explain) with a Can/American/European focus.

Whatever that means.[/list]Sorry. We now return you to your usual programming.

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Tzara - Belated thanks but definitively a catchy title. I'll look for it. Centros, sounds like a difficult possibly tedious and pretentious form, but from the reviews I read Mary Dalton makes it more than an academic exercise.


My piscatorial suggestions for you are prose rather than poetry, although Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America comes close, and both David James Duncan's The River Why (I'd lend you my copy but have yet to get back copies I've lent previously.) and Maclean's A River Runs Through It are set in your corner of the US.