There’s really only one way to deal with this SOPA nonsense.
We steal the Declaration of Independence.
(Source: watercolourcocaine)
Matthew R Moore: Fast Cash, Faster Words, and What You Missed on the Internet Last Night ↘
This caught my attention, and it should catch your attention too. Under the ‘Writing’ sub-Reddit, an anonymous voice is claiming to have brought in over $1,000 in a single day of online self-publication. His sales, if you believe him, have been rising consistently while, he says, his writing is…
It was the kind of night that made you resent the need for clothing.
It was the kind of love that made you resent the necessity of skin.
More than You’d Ever Wanted to Know About Ghazals
What’s a ghazal?
The ghazal (pronounced ghuzzels)is originally a Persian form of panegyric (speech or text in praise of something or someone) poetry called qasida, usually exalting Persian emperors or their noblemen. Centuries passed and the ghazal was accepted into several Eastern cultures to be written, read and sung prodigiously in languages such as Arabic, Hindi and Urdu.
English poets have recently taken on writing original English ghazals.
Ten points to define the English ghazal:
1) The ghazal is comprised of couplets. Each couplet stands alone as a complete poem. The idea is to make the ghazal like a pearl necklace. The necklace (ghazal) as a whole is striking, but each pearl (couplet) may stand alone in its own beauty and completion of expression. So, the ghazal is not a poem in itself, but a collection of poems in the form of couplets.
English writers tend to interpret this idea in very personal ways. However, to provide a measurable context, it is safe to say that however a couplet reads, it must end in a definitive fashion as if a concluding period could occur at the close of the second line.
2) While the first and second lines of each couplet together often complete a thought, they are themselves each thoughts with some degree of independence. Hence a natural, brief pause ought to occur at the end of the first line in completion of the first half of the thought.
3) There are between 5 and 15 couplets.
4) The second line of every couplet closes with a refrain.
5) In the opening couplet, both the first and second lines close with the refrain.
6) The refrain is a word or brief phrase. When a phrase is used, it
contains no more than three words.
7) A mono-rhyme is used throughout the couplets. The rhyme terminates at the syllable before each refrain. So, the rhyme is used twice in the first couplet and once on the second line of every couplet ensuing. If there are 15 couplets, the mono-rhyme is used 16 times. This can get interesting.
8) Except for the fact that each couplet uses a refrain, there is no end rhyme. However, end rhyme may be introduced as a compliment to the form. If end rhyme is used in any manner, it is used in conjunction with the mono-rhyme, not in place of it.
9) Each line throughout the poem uses the same meter.
Here it is worth noting that traditional ghazals use one of 19 specific meters. But, so far, I have not figured out a way to make an English ghazal adhere to any of these meters. I believe the variation of English accents makes this pretty much impossible to accomplish, so it seems my only choice for now are the metric structures found in English prosody.
10) The poet uses his or her penname in the final couplet. This reference can be made on the first or second line of the final couplet. This is sometimes called the “signature couplet”. Traditional poets writing ghazals have often used this as a means of opening a sort of dialogue with themselves.
Information taken from Zahhar.
Meanderings on VW’s To the Lighthouse
I kept looking at the text and thinking, “Okay I see this and this aesthetics happening, but why?” And since the novel does not lend itself to any sort of epiphany, per say, I try to read deeper into it—like insert meaning here. It’s a slippery slope. I feel Woolf is suggesting something about life that requires seeing oneself within the context of the whole. I’d use the words “connected consciousness” to describe it, but I realize this is a vague description. From my readings, this impression of “connected consciousness” is one she imprints on all her work: “the universal human need for meaningful therapeutic mirroring of self-continuity in a world that can, at any moment and for no reason, inflict pain, loss, and powerlessness” (Thomas Caramagno). The excerpt is taken from “Reading without Resolution,” a section in The Flight of the Mind. The piece suggests that Woolf is constructing a “self” able to cope with life’s lack of meaning. My intent isn’t to branch off into “therapeutic” discussions of the novel, but this idea that Woolf is proposing no meaning is significant. She herself even stated that she meant nothing by the Lighthouse. How to discuss this “nothingness”? Relating nothingness to the abstract approach Lily takes with her painting may be one way. Lily is not attempting an exact representation: no iconography, no realism. But Woolf is careful never to describe the painting itself, only Lily’s reactions to it. So we can never really visualize it existing of its own; it is an extension of Lily. This throws a curve in my initial belief that Woolf is insisting on a broader view of life in order to gain awareness or truth. Lily definitely discovers something with that final brush stroke. Or maybe it isn’t discovery. Is it instead acceptance?
I appreciated the reading on Robert Pinsky, as well as hearing the philosophy of process over product used in connection to poetry. This notion is heard of often in art, but never really touted in relation to writing. I can’t help but think of Jackson Pollock’s pour paintings. In an interview, Pollock was once asked how he knew he’d finished a painting. He retorted by asking the interviewer how he knew when he’d finished making love. Wonderful retort, right? Pollock was a bit of a bad ass. He did things his way. He was the first known (or celebrated, at any rate) artist to take his canvas off the easel and onto the floor.
Now, I don’t think Pinsky believes in throwing the methods for good writing to the wind and giving all to the melodic vibrating air he adores. He obviously knows what he’s doing with words. Plus, he spends a moment discussing the desire to give shape to those sensory feelings through words. I’m taken back by his final question: “How much of what you did while you were alive was you? How much was created by your circumstances?” There are so many angles by which you could approach this question. I’d like to think of it as a challenge, not just to make something new, but to be unafraid of the words that compose you—the words that you feel when you are writing. Let them out, whether they’re nonsense or sing-songy. Give the feeling voice. You can give that voice a shape later. But if you don’t know ever allow yourself to speak with conviction and without criticism, you’ll never know what your words can be.
