Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco. He became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years in Lawrence, enrolled at Dartmouth College in Vermont in 1892, and later at Harvard University in Boston, though he never earned a formal college degree. His first published poem, "My Butterfly," appeared on November 8, 1894, in the New York newspaper The Independent.
Robert Frost and his wife, Elinor, moved to England in 1912 and it was abroad that Frost met and was influenced by such contemporary British poets as Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, and Robert Graves. While in England, Frost also established a friendship with the poet Ezra Pound, who helped to promote and publish his work.
Though his work is principally associated with the life and landscape of New England—and though he was a poet of traditional verse forms and metrics who remained steadfastly aloof from the poetic movements and fashions of his time—Frost is anything but merely a regional poet. The author of searching and often dark meditations on universal themes, he is a quintessentially modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actually spoken, in the psychological complexity of his portraits, and in the degree to which his work is infused with layers of ambiguity and irony. - Read the full article at Poets.org, where you will also find a list with links to many of his well-known poems.
I am certain that we all have favourite lines written by Robert Frost, that have been as closely held as old companions, or poems which we memorized in our youths and never forgot. He had a way of summing up simple truths in single sentences, while demonstrating an intense understanding of the human condition. For this challenge, I encourage you all to revisit his poetry, or peruse a variety of his quoted words on Goodreads.com and to respond in what ever way you feel inspired to do.
This month, I am featuring three unique women writers, diverse from one another in terms of their chosen genre, but sharing such unique vision, that they each impacted on the Twentieth Century to such an extent, that their legacy is indelible.
Ayn Rand
2 February 1905 "The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."
Ayn Rand was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2, 1905. At age six she taught herself to read and two years later discovered her first fictional hero in a French magazine for children, thus capturing the heroic vision which sustained her throughout her life. [A Brief History of Ayn Rand] Her contribution to both literature and philosophy are legendary, and her magnum opus novel, Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, contains Rand's most extensive statement of Objectivism in any of her works of fiction. It contains elements of science fiction, philosophy and the love story. She described it as a 'mystery' novel, "not about the murder of man's body, but about the murder — and rebirth — of man's spirit".
Alice Walker
9 February 1944 “No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”
Novelist, poet and feminist Alice Malsenior Walker was born on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. Alice Walker is one of the most admired African-American writers working today. The youngest daughter of sharecroppers, she grew up poor. [Bio.TrueStory] Walker is an internationally acclaimed author, poet and activist, whose 1982 novel, The Color Purple, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction (1983). She was the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer, though in her opinion, not the first to deserve it. Read more on the Alice Walker Website.
Anaïs
Nin
21 February 1903
“We write to taste life twice,
in the moment and in retrospect.”
Anais Nin was born as Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell on 21 February 1903 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France to artistic parents. Nin’s father Joaquín Nin was a Spanish artist and a composer who lived in Cuba where he met Nin’s mother Rosa Culmell of French and Danish descent who was a well-trained professional classical singer based in Cuba. As a child Nin was brought up in Spain.
Anais Nin was a renowned writer who is famous for her journals written for a period spanning six decades. Nin's works revolved around accounts of her relationships with authors, artists, psychoanalysts, and other figures. Her journals spoke of life and its balancing acts. Much of Nin's written works have been published after her death. Nin is hailed as a great erotic literature writer and one of her most notable and popular works is Delta of Venus.
[TheFamousPeople]
Each of these authors has created a legacy of literary art, based on their personal philosophies of womanhood and lifestyle. Please follow the links below to read many examples of their writing on Goodreads.com.
The theme for this mini-challenge is INDIVIDUALISM. Individualism is belief in the primary importance of the individual and in the virtues of self-reliance and personal independence.You may choose a particular work, quote or character created by one of our featured authors, or create an entirely original piece. New poems are preferred for this challenge.
Our featured poet this month, Marianne Moore, was born on 15 November 1887. We owe a great deal to this Pulitzer Prizewinning poet, here on Real Toads, because her poem, Poetry is the inspiration behind our blog's conception. We embrace the notion that while acknowledging the role of imagination in writing and a poet's artistic right to idealize beauty and virtue, poets also have the onerous task of tackling the sometimes ugly, uncomfortable or harsh realities of the human condition.
"Her most famous poem is perhaps the one entitled, appropriately, "Poetry", in which she hopes for poets who can produce "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." It also expressed her idea that meter, or anything else that claims the exclusive title "poetry", is not as important as delight in language and precise, heartfelt expression in any form... These syllabic lines from "Poetry" illustrate her position: poetry is a matter of skill and honesty in any form whatsoever, while anything written poorly, although in perfect form, cannot be poetry:
nor is it valid
to discriminate against "business documents and
school-books": all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry..." wikipedia
Moore was widely recognized for her work: 'She wrote with the freedom characteristic of the other modernist poets, often incorporating quotes from other sources into the text, yet her use of language was always extraordinarily condensed and precise, capable of suggesting a variety of ideas and associations within a single, compact image.' She was an animal-lover and a big fan of professional baseball, among other sports.
Source Above
Marianne Moore lived in New York City for most of her adult life. She associated with many Imagist poets of the early 1900s, including William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens. She contributed to the Dial Literary Magazine, and took on the role of its acting editor for a time. Over the years, she became a patron of poetry and offered her support and encouragement to emerging modern poets, such as Elizabeth Bishop and Allen Ginsberg.
Source Above
The theme for our mini-challenge is "imaginary gardens with real toads in them".
Guidelines:
Choose an idyllic setting for your poem; this backdrop will become 'the imaginary garden'. Moore showed a preference for natural settings and also wrote of sports but I leave these suggestions as optional.
Place some object, person or event into your environment which is shown in blatant contrast, thus introducing the 'real toad' into your piece. This should raise a very realistic social issue or make a statement regarding hypocrisy, inhumanity, violence, corruption etc.
Consider including a quote from another source.
Moore's style was based on syllabic verse. In essence, the poet decides on the number of syllables for each line (usually between 5 - 9) but does not use a stress pattern. You may like to model your form on her example. Many of her poems are available for reading on the Poets.org site linked to her name above. I have included a link to quotes from Marianne Moore on Goodreads.com.
Should you choose to participate in this challenge, please write a new poem which adheres to the theme and instructions. Any unrelated links will be removed.
{extract from Tenebrae (Fall of 1967) by Denise Levertov}
Denise Levertov
Publicity Photo (Source ?)
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Denise Levertov, was born on 24 October 1923. When she was five years old she declared she would be a writer. At the age of 12, she sent some of her poems to T. S. Eliot, who replied with a two-page letter of encouragement. In 1940, when she was 17, Levertov published her first poem. Her first book, The Double Image, was published six years later.
In 1947, she married American writer Mitchell Goodman and moved with him to the United States the following year.
Levertov's first two books had concentrated on traditional forms and language, but as she accepted the US as her new home, she became fascinated with the American idiom. She came under the influence of the Black Mountain poets. Her first American book of poetry, Here and Now, shows the beginnings of this transition and transformation. Her poem “With Eyes at the Back of Our Heads” established her reputation (I could find only one on-line copy HERE).
During the 1960s and 70s, Levertov became more politically active in her life and work. As poetry editor for The Nation, she was able to support and publish the work of feminist and other leftist activist poets. The Vietnam War was an especially important focus of her poetry, which often tried to weave together the personal and political, as in her poem "The Sorrow Dance", which speaks of her sister's death. Both politics and war are major themes in Levertov's poetry. She felt it was part of a poet's calling to point out the injustice of the Vietnam War, and she also actively participated in rallies, reading poetry at some.
For more information about the poet, click HERE.
Levertov reads six of her poems in this video clip extract from an hour long reading she gave for the Lannon Foundation in Los Angeles in 1993. This video is copyrightLannan
Foundation-1994- and posted on YouTube with permission.
The poems are: 'Settling', 'Open Secret', 'Tragic Error', 'The Danger Moment', 'A Gift' and 'For Those Whom the Gods Love Less'.
As Levertov's poetry is still under copyright, I hesitate to reproduce her work here but I do encourage a reading of her writing where it is available on-line. Goodreads has a selection of quotes from her poetry, and I have provided several links to individual poems on the Poets.org site below.
Our challenge today is to write a poem inspired by the work of Denise Levertov. Whether it be in response to her themes or style of writing is up to individual choice. Please write a new poem for this prompt. The Sunday Mini-Challenge is posted on Saturday at noon, in order to allow extra time for the creative process.
In researching poets born in July, I happened upon a lucky coincidence: two poets born 600 years apart who have made the sonnet their form of choice.
Francesco Petrarch
Public Domain
The first is Francesco Petrarch, born on 20 July 1304 in the city of Arezzo, Italy. He is credited historically with the development of the sonnet form, having written 317 poems based on the rules established by 13th Century poet, Guittone of Arezzo.
Gli Occhi Di Chi' Io Parlai Those eyes, 'neath which my passionate rapture rose, The arms, hands, feet, the beauty that erewhile Could my own soul from its own self beguile, And in a separate world of dreams enclose, The hair's bright tresses, full of golden glows, And the soft lightning of the angelic smile That changed this earth to some celestial isle, Are now but dust, poor dust, that nothing knows. And yet I live! Myself I grieve and scorn, Left dark without the light I loved in vain, Adrift in tempest on a bark forlorn; Dead is the source of all my amorous strain, Dry is the channel of my thoughts outworn, And my sad harp can sound but notes of pain. (Translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson)
The Petrarchan sonnet, at least in its Italian-language form, generally follows a set rhyme scheme, which runs as follows: a b b a a b b a c d c d c d.
The first eight lines, or octave, do not often deviate from the abba abba pattern, but the last six lines, or sestet, frequently follow a different pattern, such as cde cde, cde ced, or cdc dee. Each line also has the same number of syllables, usually 11 or 7 by Petrarch. Source
Pablo Neruda
Public Domain
The second poet being featured today has written many sonnets in the Petrarchan form. Pablo Neruda(born 12 July 1904) was a
Chilean poet, diplomat, political activist, and communist refugee- to name a
few of his incarnations. Throughout his career he integrated private and public
concerns, and was known as the people’s poet. During his life Neruda received
numerous prestigious awards, including the International Peace Prize in 1950 and the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1971. He is considered to be among the greatest Latin-American
poets of all time. Source
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This link provides additional quotes from Neruda's work.
What I find fascinating about reading Neruda's sonnets (many more can be found HERE) in English, is the absence of a rhyme scheme and loss of the iambic meter, which translators have not been at pains to carry over. What is left is the essence of the poem, the imagery, the words and the structure of octave and sestet, which Neruda further splits up into two quatrains and two tercets. This seems to offer a more modern approach to writing in a form that is 7 centuries old, and in the past, I have attempted to write my English poetry in a 'Nerudan' style. (Example HERE)
Our challenge today (and I apologize if it is not so 'mini') is to write a sonnet, choosing either the classic style of Francesco Petrarch, or in the style of Pablo Neruda, as his poems appear in translation. The Sunday Challenge is posted on Saturday at noon CST to allow extra time for the form
challenge. We stipulate
that only poems written for this challenge may be added to the Mr Linky. Management reserves the right to remove
unrelated links, but invites you to share a poem of your choice on Open Link
Monday.
“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
Allen Ginsberg was born on 3 June 1926.
He was admitted to Columbia University, and as a student there in the 1940s, he began close friendships with William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac, all of whom later became leading figures of the Beat movement. As an icon of the Beats, Ginsberg was involved in countless political activities, including protests against the Vietnam War, and he spoke openly about issues that concerned him, such as free speech and gay rights agendas. Read more on Poets.org.
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“I saw the best minds of my generation
destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at
dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient
heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery
of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high
sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of
cities contemplating jazz...”
"This is perhaps the most famous line in all of Ginsberg's poetry. From his poem "Howl," it first describes the subject of the poem - the 'best minds' - figures who have been rejected by society for their unwillingness to conform to its institutions and ideals." Read more HERE. Ginsberg was concerned with the state of creative thinking in the 50s - how it was bound by conformity and laws preventing freedom of expression, if the ideas being expressed were deemed inappropriate. Howl itself was considered obscene and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who published it under City Lights Press, was arrested and brought to trial in 1957.
However, times have changed. Here we are in the second decade of the Twenty First Century, and I'm wondering if we have anything to howl about... If you do have a rant, then let us hear it. The form is prose-poetry or free verse, inspired by that of Ginsberg and in honour of his innovation and enormous contribution to the poetic movement of the 20th Century.
