Literally Literary

[done_got_old]

As an English teacher it's hard to pick my favorite novel, but certainly one is "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston

The best book I read for young adults is "When Dad Killed Mom" by Julius Lester...the book was a favorite with my 8th graders, their mothers, the school secretary, the principal, the counselor and other teachers. (The class had just completed a session on teenage pregnancy, so the beginning didn't cause a problem.)

It's also difficult to pick my favorite poem, so I'll give you two of them.......perhaps later I'll name the others.

Preacher, Don't Send me
Maya Angelou


Preacher, Don't Send me
when I die
to some big ghetto
in the sky
where rats eat cats
of the leopard type
and Sunday brunch
is grits and tripe.

I've known those rats
I've seen them kill
and grits I've had
would make a hill,
or maybe a mountain,
so what I need
from you on Sunday
is a different creed.

Preacher, please don't
promise me
streets of gold
and milk for free.
I stopped all milk
at four years old
and once I'm dead
I won't need gold.

I'd call a place
pure paradise
where families are loyal
and strangers are nice,
where the music is jazz
and the season is fall.
Promise me that
or nothing at all




Invictus
by
William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.


In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.


It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

 

[SecretLove69]

Oh I love Maya Angelou. She has such a rhythm.

"Alone"

Well I was lying, thinking, last night,
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty,
and bread loaf is not stone
Well, I came up with one thing,
and I don't believe that I'm wrong:

Alone, all alone,
Nobody can make it out here alone
Nobody can make it out here alone

Well, there are some millionaires
With money they can't use,
Their wives run around like banshees,
And their children, they're singing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure they're hearts of stone,
But nobody, no nobody, can make it alone

Alone, all alone,
Nobody can make it out here alone
Nobody can make it out here alone

Now if you listen closely, I'll tell you what I know,
Storm clouds are gathering,the wind is gonna blow.
The race of man is suffering, and I can hear the moan,
But nobody, no nobody, can make it alone.

Alone, all alone,
Nobody can make it out here alone
Nobody can make it out here alone

 

[done_got_old]

I never tired of teaching poetry.

 

[TheLadyOfShalott]

My teachers almost turned me off to poetry in High School, but I think I've learned to just enjoy it for itself

One of my favorites(don't know exactly why) is 'The Prisoner of Chillon' by Byron - much too long to post the whole thing here.

and if it isn't obvious I love The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson too

As for books... the one I've read the most (probably close to 10 times) is We The Living - Ayn Rand. I don't subscribe to her philosophy but there is something tragically beautiful about the struggle to be/find yourself despite what society says you should be.

Uh oh... now everyone knows I'm much too serious sometimes
What can I say - I'm a book worm, the library has always been one of my favorite places (I'm thinking of changing career paths... I think librarian might suit me )

 

[done_got_old]

My teachers almost turned me off to poetry in High School, but I think I've learned to just enjoy it for itself

One of my favorites(don't know exactly why) is 'The Prisoner of Chillon' by Byron - much too long to post the whole thing here.

and if it isn't obvious I love The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson too

As for books... the one I've read the most (probably close to 10 times) is We The Living - Ayn Rand. I don't subscribe to her philosophy but there is something tragically beautiful about the struggle to be/find yourself despite what society says you should be.

Uh oh... now everyone knows I'm much too serious sometimes
What can I say - I'm a book worm, the library has always been one of my favorite places (I'm thinking of changing career paths... I think librarian might suit me )

I love books too. I had planned to be a docent at the library when I retired, but bad knees have not allowed that. As a child I read every book I could get my hands on.

 

[MrMikelobe1952]

My pleasure

HEY - here's an old bone I haven't seen for a while. Thought the Lit dogs had long since buried this one.

Thanks for the resurrection Mike

Anything I can bring to life for you would make me very happy, m'lady.

 

[SecretLove69]

What can I say - I'm a book worm, the library has always been one of my favorite places (I'm thinking of changing career paths... I think librarian might suit me )

I worked in a library for 4 years. Behind the scenes getting all the new materials ready for the shelves. Got my hands on everything before anyone else. My mother read to me a lot when I was little and I still have all my old books - the Golden Books I loved. She said I would take a book and hold it upside down and read it outloud word for word before I could actually read. I owe my love of books and my vivid imagination to her.

 

[MrMikelobe1952]

I thought you would like this thread, Red

As an English teacher it's hard to pick my favorite novel, but certainly one is "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston

The best book I read for young adults is "When Dad Killed Mom" by Julius Lester...the book was a favorite with my 8th graders, their mothers, the school secretary, the principal, the counselor and other teachers. (The class had just completed a session on teenage pregnancy, so the beginning didn't cause a problem.)

It's also difficult to pick my favorite poem, so I'll give you two of them.......perhaps later I'll name the others.

Preacher, Don't Send me
Maya Angelou


Preacher, Don't Send me
when I die
to some big ghetto
in the sky
where rats eat cats
of the leopard type
and Sunday brunch
is grits and tripe.

I've known those rats
I've seen them kill
and grits I've had
would make a hill,
or maybe a mountain,
so what I need
from you on Sunday
is a different creed.

Preacher, please don't
promise me
streets of gold
and milk for free.
I stopped all milk
at four years old
and once I'm dead
I won't need gold.

I'd call a place
pure paradise
where families are loyal
and strangers are nice,
where the music is jazz
and the season is fall.
Promise me that
or nothing at all




Invictus
by
William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.


In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.


It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I'm not as literate in poetry
(except for those classic Massachusetts poems about Nantucket, of course)

 

[SecretLove69]

Anything I can bring to life for you would make me very happy, m'lady.

Oh I'm sure I would enjoy "reading" you over and over. Memorizing every line and subtle nuance of your story.

 

[done_got_old]

I worked in a library for 4 years. Behind the scenes getting all the new materials ready for the shelves. Got my hands on everything before anyone else. My mother read to me a lot when I was little and I still have all my old books - the Golden Books I loved. She said I would take a book and hold it upside down and read it outloud word for word before I could actually read. I owe my love of books and my vivid imagination to her.

I started speech therapy before I started school. Back then kindergarten was only a half day. In first grade the teacher discovered I could read. Strange since it was nearly impossible to understand me. The speech teacher took me out of the class three times a week during reading time since I was the only reader in the class.

The librarian in the bookmobile that stopped near our house finally told me I couldn't check "Farmer Boy" out again until I read the other Little House books. Then she gave me other books that she thought I would enjoy. Thank God for librarians that look for books to interest kids.

 

[MrMikelobe1952]

Oh I'm sure I would enjoy "reading" you over and over. Memorizing every line and subtle nuance of your story.

Ah, I would love to open my pages to your study.
I have no doubt you would make discoveries that I would find most surprising.

 

[AtFirstSight]

I would have to say that my favorite books are Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides, and Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte. There are tons of smut books (haha) that I enjoy (esp. Erin McCarthy books) as well, but they can't compare with MS or WH.

 

[TheLadyOfShalott]

I started speech therapy before I started school. Back then kindergarten was only a half day. In first grade the teacher discovered I could read. Strange since it was nearly impossible to understand me. The speech teacher took me out of the class three times a week during reading time since I was the only reader in the class.

The librarian in the bookmobile that stopped near our house finally told me I couldn't check "Farmer Boy" out again until I read the other Little House books. Then she gave me other books that she thought I would enjoy. Thank God for librarians that look for books to interest kids.

I was an early starter too... actually started reading at 2. Not that I understood it, I didn't even believe it until my mom showed me the old home movie of me standing between my dad's legs reading the newspaper headlines to him

Then since both my parent's worked I spent my afternoons after school at the library reading until my mom would pick me up a little after 5... at least I wasn't home planted infront of the TV.

~ I just needed to add, out of classic romances I think my favorite would have to be Jane Austen's Persuasion

 

[MrMikelobe1952]

I would have to say that my favorite books are Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides, and Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte. There are tons of smut books (haha) that I enjoy (esp. Erin McCarthy books) as well, but they can't compare with MS or WH.

Perhaps that should be a separate thread.
Favorite erotica ( or porn).

 

[SecretLove69]

Perhaps that should be a separate thread.
Favorite erotica ( or porn).

Hey literature is literature. Whatever you like to read is fine with me. Post away.
I don't read much porn anymore - used to get my fix out of PlayGirl but haven't seen one of those in many years.
Besides it's easier to masturbate to a video than it is to a book - hands being busy and all.

Literotica brought us here - we can certainly discuss it.

 

[SecretLove69]

Oh and Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible is a read and re-read for me. I think I've listened to the book on cassette twice now too. I'd love to see someone make a movie out of this one. I found it not only funny but also able to move me to tears. I highly recommend it.

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it--from garden seeds to Scripture--is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

 

[done_got_old]

I would have to say that my favorite books are Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides, and Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte. There are tons of smut books (haha) that I enjoy (esp. Erin McCarthy books) as well, but they can't compare with MS or WH.

I have never enjoyed the Bronte sisters. I'm so thankful I never had to teach any of their work!

 

[TitilateMe]

I'm into Ishiguro for my lit-fix. I re-read his books about every year. I'm the same with Morrison's work.

Oh, and I love To Kill a Mockingbird. There's something about how Lee wrote about race, class, and growing up that is really amazing.

For something from the Canon, Moby-Dick beats all. I mean, the guy was funny, smart, and truly creative. Nobody played with form like Melville wrote that novel. Oh, and it's a bit smutty, too. Definitely works in the Nantucket ideas...

 

[MrMikelobe1952]

Hey literature is literature. Whatever you like to read is fine with me. Post away.
I don't read much porn anymore - used to get my fix out of PlayGirl but haven't seen one of those in many years.
Besides it's easier to masturbate to a video than it is to a book - hands being busy and all.

Literotica brought us here - we can certainly discuss it.

I find the arousal from videos and from written porn to be different.
There's a greater urgency and intensity, perhaps, to getting visual arousal, but its also somewhat more businesslike. You know what you are watching it for. Get turned on and take care of business. A bit mechanical. Reading erotica allows you to use your imagination a bit. Put yourself in the story, if you will. Build the erotic tension more gradually.

Oh, and what was the Barbara Kingsolver book about 3 characters. One was a naturalist woman living alone in the woods. An older male character who was trying to save the American chestnut?

Mike

 

[SecretLove69]

I find the arousal from videos and from written porn to be different.
There's a greater urgency and intensity, perhaps, to getting visual arousal, but its also somewhat more businesslike. You know what you are watching it for. Get turned on and take care of business. A bit mechanical. Reading erotica allows you to use your imagination a bit. Put yourself in the story, if you will. Build the erotic tension more gradually.

Oh, and what was the Barbara Kingsolver book about 3 characters. One was a naturalist woman living alone in the woods. An older male character who was trying to save the American chestnut?

Mike

I'd have to agree with you Mike. Video porn is just kind of the "down and dirty - let's get to it" stuff. The "I need to cum now" fix. Erotic reading is so much more - hmmm foreplay I guess. It gets into my brain - which is what I really like. Stimulate my mind cuz it's a direct link to the rest of me.

I believe the book to which you're referring is
Prodigal Summer. Set in southern Appalachia. Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist; Eddie Bondo, a young hunter; Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife; and a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors.

I also want to read her newest Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Her first non-fiction. An eye-opening look into an old truth: You are what you eat.

I just love the way Kingsolver writes and wish I could, at least, make a meager attempt at mimicking her.

 

[MrMikelobe1952]

Prodigal Summer!

I'd have to agree with you Mike. Video porn is just kind of the "down and dirty - let's get to it" stuff. The "I need to cum now" fix. Erotic reading is so much more - hmmm foreplay I guess. It gets into my brain - which is what I really like. Stimulate my mind cuz it's a direct link to the rest of me.

I believe the book to which you're referring is
Prodigal Summer. Set in southern Appalachia. Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist; Eddie Bondo, a young hunter; Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife; and a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors.

I also want to read her newest Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Her first non-fiction. An eye-opening look into an old truth: You are what you eat.

I just love the way Kingsolver writes and wish I could, at least, make a meager attempt at mimicking her.

That is it.
That is my favorite of her works.
As for the question of "you are what you eat...."
R U calling me a pussy?

 

[SecretLove69]

As for the question of "you are what you eat...."
R U calling me a pussy?

LOL - well dear, if I were to call you a pussy - you would certainly have to call me a dick. (hmmm and after this morning you might also call me an ass - but judging from another thread I've seen you post on - you could be hailed under the "ass" title as well).

 

[chronicle_tenko]

Hmm a second one. i remember an original long ago that I was quite enamoured with.

Well as for the entry question, I'm a silly young man, and Adams wrote my favorite book. HHGTTG

Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy. But I'm a nerd more than a little silly at times, and I enjoy humour. It's probably why I enjoy reading George Carlin so much.

But I've read serious work and I've enjoyed and still do enjoy it. In between my fiction and fantasy and literary smut (Of which there are precious few good authours. Nin is a charmed favorite though.) I read philosophy, religious text, and the occasional non book-of-the-month, of-the-month. I also read a LOT of comics. Usually with a heavy heart and not often with the saem enjoyment I once had. Though once you've read twenty or thirty years of ongoing story it does become an incredibly interesting read.

I also deny someone to tell me Alan Moore's Watchmen isn't a piece of literature.

At this point in time I am finishing Frameshift by Robert J. Sawyer, which is involving enough fiction. The Crown and the Sword by Douglas Niles, A reccomended to me by a friend story that so far is not quite what I expected form medieval heroism, but it's part 2 of a trilogy and I finish what my friends reccomend even when they aren't very good. Though I don't finish what I find terrible.

Cable and Deadpool is basically the only comic I'm reading right now, at least for another few months until some of the trades come out. Then i will catch up on what I have missed.

I'm still running over about 5 sections of the bible because people seem to love making me look things up for them. Mostly in Leviticus and then over Corinthians and Galatians. People like thier rules, that and I'm defending my choice to be polyamourous.

I think that's all I'm reading right now. It sounds kind of immature, but I at least wanted to contribute.

 

[SecretLove69]

Hmm a second one. i remember an original long ago that I was quite enamoured with.

Well as for the entry question, I'm a silly young man, and Adams wrote my favorite book. HHGTTG

Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy. But I'm a nerd more than a little silly at times, and I enjoy humour. It's probably why I enjoy reading George Carlin so much.

But I've read serious work and I've enjoyed and still do enjoy it. In between my fiction and fantasy and literary smut (Of which there are precious few good authours. Nin is a charmed favorite though.) I read philosophy, religious text, and the occasional non book-of-the-month, of-the-month. I also read a LOT of comics. Usually with a heavy heart and not often with the saem enjoyment I once had. Though once you've read twenty or thirty years of ongoing story it does become an incredibly interesting read.

I also deny someone to tell me Alan Moore's Watchmen isn't a piece of literature.

At this point in time I am finishing Frameshift by Robert J. Sawyer, which is involving enough fiction. The Crown and the Sword by Douglas Niles, A reccomended to me by a friend story that so far is not quite what I expected form medieval heroism, but it's part 2 of a trilogy and I finish what my friends reccomend even when they aren't very good. Though I don't finish what I find terrible.

Cable and Deadpool is basically the only comic I'm reading right now, at least for another few months until some of the trades come out. Then i will catch up on what I have missed.

I'm still running over about 5 sections of the bible because people seem to love making me look things up for them. Mostly in Leviticus and then over Corinthians and Galatians. People like thier rules, that and I'm defending my choice to be polyamourous.

I think that's all I'm reading right now. It sounds kind of immature, but I at least wanted to contribute.

First - thanks for your contribution - none of it sounds immature to me. (take that for what it's worth) LOL.
I like medieval tales too - but just haven't found one that I'm crazy about. Any recommendations?

AND Second - there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with being polyamourous. My theory is - I have a large capacity for love and affection - why stifle my emotions just because some people can't think outside their own boxes. Trust, loyalty and empathy are not exclusive to monogamy. Just because I've only been married once doesn't mean I can't have a lot of husbands.

WOW - I kinda got off the "literary" train there for a minute.

 

[NorCalMan2007]

2 Books come to mind immediately ...

Rich Dad / Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

The Magic of Thinking Big by Dr. Swartz