Day 729 (Tidbits)

I'm going to go ahead and post some quotes I believe in - right before reviewing the Day 729 entry on THE 800 DAYS BLOG.

Why would I do such a thing? Well... just so you get the IMPACT of what Blake does...

The quotes:

"Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular. "

~~Aristotle.

"Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does."

~~Allen Ginsberg.

"Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history."

~~Plato.

"When a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experiences."

~~T.S. Eliot.

"Poetry doesn't belong to those who write it, but to those who need it."

~~Unknown.

"Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance."

~~Carl Sandburg.

"Poets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge of the mind, because they drink at streams which we have not made accessible to science."

~~Sigmund Freud.

Unfortunately, of my fave quotes, almost all of them come from old, dead dudes - lol. I feel that in our current day and age, POETRY AND POETICS are a lost art, misunderstood and greatly undervalued. In ancient times, a great deal of time was spent on poetry and poetics in education systems. Today, many youngsters equate "poetry" with only "rhyme" that occurs at the end of every couple of lines of text or so, using the most commonly rhymed words - while alliteration, syllabic structure, apostrophe (not a punctuation mark - but an effect in poetry), synechdoche - techniques and effects - are largely ignored and even unknown to vast numbers in our civilized population.

I'm not sure how much Blake has studied poetics but his knowledge of how words go together, sometimes quite artistically - sometimes in powerful prose for effect - is worth looking at within the context of the quotes above...

Just take a few moments, please, and chill... letting the quotes above sink in... before continuing on to Blake's 800 DAYS blog.

What awaits on The 800 Days blog is

POETRY

Three Sections of Expression by Blake4d on The 800 Days blog await: "Autogenesis," "My Religion Is Not What I Want," and "Of Starlight, Crimson, and Scarlet: The Last Prophecy."

The Day 729 post is associated with Wednesday December 22 2010.

Day 733 (Tidbits)

Mood Music time again, Courtesy of Blake Hall IV! Not only that, but also more of Blake's poetry.

Titles:
The Test (Vid) - Chemical Brothers with Robin Ashcroft
Elle Erotica Gallante (Poetry) - Poet, Blake Hall IV
As Love Evolved (Poetry) - Poet, Blake Hall IV

I would recommend that you push "play" on the youtube vid, settle into your chair comfortably, then begin to read Blake's two poems. Take your time, breathe at the end of each line - stop to ponder the words and meanings on a line-by-line basis...

Then...scroll to the top and read again...the same way - without the music...

Any difference?

Day 733 is associated with Saturday December 18 2010.

Day 769 (Tidbits)

Do you like Coffee or Tea? You'll want to take some time for yourself in reading about what's on THE 800 DAYS blog. Surely, if you've read some consecutive articles or done some reading of back to back posts, it's time to get in "artsy" head space for just a few moments. For the Day 769 post, what you'll find is poetry. If you usually drink coffee...try a tea as you sit down to read some poetry. If you normally drink tea - try some coffee. Try something different - DO something different than you normally do today... it helps - as poetry surely does - to build different ways of perceiving of the world.

Enjoy!

You'll still require a THINKING CAP, of course, but Blake's material for Day 769 is significant without being something that will hit you like a sack of hammers. I know, I know - sometimes the content for the 800 Day Countdown has been nothing short of DIFFICULT to wrap a head around so far - but Blake's piece, "Nameless The Goddess" is a nice change of pace for everyone.

Now, I wasn't joking about the thinking cap. If you want to know how to make a thinking cap:

 Free Thinking Cap (paper construction directions here)

I tried making a paper thinking cap... ended up with a conical sort of funnel thing that made me look quite stoopid while reading Blake's Nameless The Goddess poem... but I didn't/don't care. It's what's inside the cap that's important.

:)

Favourite lines of Nameless The Goddess:

Shield your eyes with my kind sighs

Cover your heart and its flutters

The silence will tame the beast

The dark will tame the beast

I don't know whose eyes and sighs are whose but this hasn't kept me from enjoying the blending of sense perception that we are asked to endure, imagine, accept in these lines.

ie: sighs are abstract - sounds - not material, physical things like a hand which might cover someone's eyes.

I enjoyed creating that sense/stretch or sense/mixup in my mind as I read what Blake's poetics demanded of the reader.

I went on to assume (but you don't have to) that the heart-covering and the covering of heart-flutters was also the domain/management of the abstract sighs - and THIS created a lot of physical sensation...I ended up sighing to "invoke," in a way, the ability to take this sense/blend far enough to use it to cover my heart.

I like that the silence and darkness are mentioned with beast...that's not "typical" in many poems where "beast" is mentioned. I like the new association I was just able to make with "beast" - with "beast" as being calmed in darkness and silence.

Normally, when I see "beast" in any literature or art, it is with the associations of:

• crashing noise
• loud roars
• some darkness but with the beast surrounded by flame, fire, sparks, etc
• the beast in semi-darkness but with the darkness in the background
• agitation (an agitated beast)
• violent movements
• agitated, forceful movements which create noise

With the newer associations, however, the beast is uncharacteristically attached to "calm" and "darkness." The beast no longer roars, nor comes from some moody, darkened landscape to leap noisily and violently into view...

Well - that's by my interpretation and via my imagination, anyway.  I hope you enjoy Nameless The Goddess by Blake4d as much as I did...with or without the thinking cap!

Day 769 is associated with Friday November 12, 2010 in the 800 Day Countdown.

(If you read this poem a couple of times in a row and find it "speaks to you," perhaps then you'll know - if you didn't before - why it is that arts and literature have so often been banned and put off limits in the past... Powerful...moving. Enjoy!)