Monday, June 30, 2014

Open Link Monday

Welcome to the Imaginary Garden ...

photo credit: Photography by Tiwago via photopin cc

Good morning to all friends, visitors and regular followers of Real Toads. You are all most welcome to our weekly Open Link, which provides an opportunity to share a poem of your choice in this forum.

I think it would be remiss of me if I did not make mention of the Centenary of World War 1 today. On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, and within a month, Austria-Hungary had declared war on Serbia. By 1 August, Germany had declared war on Russia and England declared war on Germany 3 days later. The chain of events which led to one of the worst examples of human conflict can be seen on the BBC website.



Of course, we as poets will remember what words arose from the horrors of the trenches and gave rise to the group of writers known as the War Poets. It is a humbling reminder of the strength of human compassion and intellect that art could be created in the worst of circumstances powerful enough to sway human consciousness against the age-old notion:


The Wilfred Owen Association has an International Poetry Competition running, but the closing date is today! If you are interested in submitting a piece, please click HERE


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Kerry, thank you for the reminder. A very sobering day.

The poem I am linking was really inspired by your avant edge challenge. K.

Steve King said...

Good morning, Kerry, and all. A pleasure to be with you this morning.

Susan said...

Thanks for the Owen's, Kerry. I've read few war poets who achieve the depth. I couldn't go there today. I pretty much went to quite an opposite place.

Sherry Blue Sky said...

Good morning, kids. Thanks for the reminder, Kerry. War is always horrifying, and back then, all the men endured is sobering to think about. I tried out Hannah's new boomerang metaphor poetry form, which really intrigues me. She and I have a Poet Chat coming up at Poets United about this form on July 14. I'll give you all a reminder in the chat roll just before.

Sherry Blue Sky said...

p.s. I am babysitting all morning so will be back this afternoon to make the rounds.

Ella said...

Thank you for reminding us~ It is horrific what our past hides and says.

I started a poem about my hound, who stopped to smell the flowers. It is the little things. I believe stopping to fill our wells with joy-does help!

Jim said...

Hi Kerry ~~ I hope you don't mind my linking yesterday's challenge poem again today. It was a late entry then when I posted my poem.

WWII was a horrible war as most are. One that wasn't horrible was when our Key West, Florida, seceded from the U.S. on April, 1982, and became the Conch Republic.

Per Wikipedia, "Mayor Wardlow was proclaimed Prime Minister of the Republic, which immediately declared war against the U.S."

That didn't last long as the United States soon offered concessions to Key West.
..

Fireblossom said...

^^^wtf?

Happy Monday, Toads. I'm feeling mellow today, and i hope everyone's having a good start to the week.

Margaret said...

Thanks, Kerry for the Avant Guard post (which dumbfounded me) and today's reminiscence. My son is home visiting tonight from college but I hope to be ready for poetry tomorrow!