Poetry

🌾 Today’s Poem ~ A Hymn to Love

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A Hymn to Love

Robert Herrick

I will confess
With cheerfulness,
Love is a thing so likes me,
That, let her lay
On me all day,
I’ll kiss the hand that strikes me.

I will not, I,
Now blubb’ring cry,
It, ah! too late repents me
That I did fall
To love at all–
Since love so much contents me.

No, no, I’ll be
In fetters free;
While others they sit wringing
Their hands for pain,
I’ll entertain
The wounds of love with singing.

With flowers and wine,
And cakes divine,
To strike me I will tempt thee;
Which done, no more
I’ll come before
Thee and thine altars empty.

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✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ What Do You See in Your Marble?

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Make The Marble

Michelangelo reputedly said, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” Writers must free their angels as well. But first you need the marble. The marble in this case is all the primary material that will come to form the basis of your novel. For many of us, that involves research.

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✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Creating a Writing Space

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Cooks know there’s something called a mise en place: You read the recipe, if there is one, and assemble your tools and ingredients. It’s another way of saying that the cooking begins before you begin cooking.

The same thing is true for writing. The writer’s mise en place is in fact a place. Do you have a place where you can think, where you can dream and explore? A private office is wonderful, but it isn’t essential. I’ve written several books on various dining room tables. . . . Your writer’s mise en place will help you settle into your creative mind, reduce outside distractions, and signal to your subconscious that you’re about to begin. Instead of avoiding all the heavy thinking and struggling that you might be putting off, you can let the physical world gently lead you into the story.

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🌾 Today’s Poem ~ Why Do I Love You, Sir?

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Why Do I Love You, Sir

Emily Dickinson

“Why do I love” You, Sir?
Because —
The Wind does not require the Grass
To answer — Wherefore when He pass
She cannot keep Her place.

Because He knows — and
Do not You —
And We know not —
Enough for Us
The Wisdom it be so —

The Lightning — never asked an Eye
Wherefore it shut — when He was by —
Because He knows it cannot speak —
And reasons not contained —
— Of Talk —
There be — preferred by Daintier Folk —

The Sunrise — Sire — compelleth Me —
Because He’s Sunrise — and I see —
Therefore — Then —
I love Thee —

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🌾 Today’s Poem ~ you being in love

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you being in love

e. e. cummings

you being in love
will tell who softly asks in love,
am i separated from your body smile brain hands merely
to become the jumping puppets of a dream? oh i mean:
entirely having in my careful how
careful arms created this at length
inexcusable, this inexplicable pleasure-you go from several
persons: believe me that strangers arrive
when i have kissed you into a memory
slowly, oh seriously
-that since and if you disappear
solemnly
myselves
ask “life, the question how do i drink dream smile
and how do i prefer this face to another and
why do i weep eat sleep-what does the whole intend”
they wonder. oh and they cry “to be, being, that i am alive
this absurd fraction in its lowest terms
with everything cancelled
but shadows
-what does it all come down to? love? Love
if you like and i like,for the reason that i
hate people and lean out of this window is love,love
and the reason that i laugh and breathe is oh love and the reason
that i do not fall into this street is love.”

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✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Want to Write a Thriller?

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The best thrillers stab the heart, throughout. They do it by getting readers to experience the emotions of the scenes. How can you do that? First, by experiencing them yourself. Sense memory is a technique used by many serious actors. Here’s how it works: You concentrate on recalling an emotional moment in your life, and recreate each of the senses in your memory (sight, smell, touch, sound, etc.) until you begin to feel the emotion again. And you will. The actor transfers that to her role; the writer, to the page.

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🌾 Today’s Poem ~ I Knew a Woman

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I Knew a Woman

Theodore Roethke

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek.)

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin:
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing did we make.)

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved.)

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I’m martyr to a motion not my own;
What’s freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways.)

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✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Are You Stuck? Here’s A Trick

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Another method is the old Raymond Chandler advice: When things slow down, bring in a man with a gun. It doesn’t have to be an actual man with an actual gun, of course. It can be anything that bursts into a scene and shakes things up. Here’s the key: Get your imagination to give you the surprise without justification.

Make a quick list of at least 10 things that just pop into your mind. For example:

  1. A woman runs in screaming.
  2. The lights go out.
  3. A car crashes through the wall.
  4. Heart attack.
  5. SWAT team outside.
  6. Marching band outside.
  7. TV announcer mentions character’s name.
  8. A baby cries (what baby?).
  9. Blood drips down the wall.
  10. Justin Bieber comes in with a gun.

Some things on your list will seem silly. That’s OK. Don’t judge. Look back and find the most original item, and only then find a reason for it.

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🌾 Today’s Poem ~ A Lover’s Quarrel

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A Lover’s Quarrel

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We two were lovers, the Sea and I;
We plighted our troth ‘neath a summer sky.
And all through the riotous, ardent weather
We dreamed, and loved, and rejoiced together.
At times my lover would rage and storm.
I said: ‘No matter, his heart is warm.’
Whatever his humour, I loved his ways,
And so we lived through the golden days.
I know not the manner it came about,
But in the autumn we two fell out.
Yet this I know-’twas the fault of the Sea,
And was not my fault, that he changed to me.
I lingered as long as a woman may
To find what her lover will do or say.
But he met my smiles with a sullen frown,
And so I turned to the wooing Town.
Oh, bold was this suitor, and blithe as bold!
His look was as bright as the Sea’s was cold.
As the Sea was sullen, the Town was gay;
He made me forget for a winter day.
For a winter day and a winter night
He laughed my sorrow away from sight.
And yet, in spite of his mirth and cheer,
I knew full well he was insincere.
And when the young buds burst on the tree,
The old love woke in my heart for the Sea.
Pride was forgotten-I knew, I knew,
That the soul of the Sea, like my own, was true.
I heard him calling, and lo! I came,
To find him waiting, for ever the same.
And when he saw me, with murmurs sweet
He ran to meet me, and fell at my feet.
And so again ‘neath a summer sky
We have plighted our troth, the Sea and I.

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✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Write Yourself into Corners

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There’s nothing like a stunning twist or shock to keep readers flipping, clicking or swiping pages. Part of the fun for readers is thinking a story is going one way, and getting taken completely by surprise.

Harlan Coben is one of the reigning kings of the art of surprise. “I’ve rarely met a twist I didn’t like,” he has said. His method, if it can be called that, is to write himself “into a lot of corners” and see how things work out. That’s one way to go. Forcing your writer’s mind to deal with conundrums is a great practice.

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