There were major differences.
Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper were young rock and roll stars on the rise when their plane went down in Minnesota snow in 1959. Their ages ranged from 18 to 29. The incident was tragic in every sense of the word.
Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett, Michael Jackson all passed away separately. The youngest, Jackson, was 50 years old and had already hit the height of his fame 25 years ago. Farah Fawcett lost a two year battle to cancer and Ed McMahon lost an 86 year battle with life.
So, there were major differences.
However, McMahon, Fawcett and Jackson were no less iconic than Holly, Valens and Big Bopper. They were icons to a different generation - those of us who seem to fall somewhere between the Baby Boomers and Generation X.
We have no recollection or knowledge of ever having seen Holly play and sing on television, but we certainly recall a certain poster of Farah Fawcett in a red bathing suit. Most of us don't know the lyrics to Chantilly Lace, but we'll never forget, "Heeeeeeerrreee's Johnny!". We probably heard Oh, Donna or La Bamba on a musical retrospective, but can they really match up to Beat It, Bad or Thriller?
A different time, a different place, we might have been fans of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. Who can really know? There's one thing I wonder about, however.
Will anyone write a memorial song for Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett and/or Michael Jackson?
Somehow, I don't think so.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
These Avenues Electric
As parents, we spend a lot of time on the road trucking our kids from one event to the next, especially if you live in a more rural setting as I do. (I sort of miss the accessibility and convenience of suburbia.) Some of this taxi service is provided with a sigh and resignation, for it seems like we are always on the go and would dearly love to have some extended down time.
But some of the ferrying is actually looked forward to with some anticipation. Having had both sons involved in Little League (I coached for three years as well), I always enjoyed going to the practices and games.
Eventually, though, as the kids grow older, venues change - so do the routes we drive. That small town baseball field gets left behind in the past. The elementary school auditorium no longer echoes with the off-key singing of our kids' musicals. And so on.
It was with this in mind that I wrote, These Avenues Electric, which I am posting here. It is in my fourth poetry book. It is also one of my personal favorites.
But some of the ferrying is actually looked forward to with some anticipation. Having had both sons involved in Little League (I coached for three years as well), I always enjoyed going to the practices and games.
Eventually, though, as the kids grow older, venues change - so do the routes we drive. That small town baseball field gets left behind in the past. The elementary school auditorium no longer echoes with the off-key singing of our kids' musicals. And so on.
It was with this in mind that I wrote, These Avenues Electric, which I am posting here. It is in my fourth poetry book. It is also one of my personal favorites.
These Avenues Electric
These avenues electric,
These roads that are more traveled -
They race our lives eclectic
On pavement, maybe graveled.
Aligned, alit on both sides
In a breathless power surge.
It's never mind for more rides,
And we'll always find the urge.
These avenues electric
Blaze their paths within our souls
In shapes more geometric
Than the math that they control.
An added time and distance
Plus the cost to make it go
Reaps a rambling existence,
Pays a debt which no one owes.
Comes a day these avenues
Will lose their frantic current.
Lightly bright will fade, subdue
The memories that warrent
A pedestal for marking
That which we remember best:
These avenues were sparking,
But we were just a guest.
©August 2008. All Rights Reserved
These avenues electric,
These roads that are more traveled -
They race our lives eclectic
On pavement, maybe graveled.
Aligned, alit on both sides
In a breathless power surge.
It's never mind for more rides,
And we'll always find the urge.
These avenues electric
Blaze their paths within our souls
In shapes more geometric
Than the math that they control.
An added time and distance
Plus the cost to make it go
Reaps a rambling existence,
Pays a debt which no one owes.
Comes a day these avenues
Will lose their frantic current.
Lightly bright will fade, subdue
The memories that warrent
A pedestal for marking
That which we remember best:
These avenues were sparking,
But we were just a guest.
©August 2008. All Rights Reserved
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Is it Me? Or is it Them?
Having been on poetry sites for most of about three years now, I have read a lot of verse written by armchair scrawlers, some of it good, some of it quite bad. It has gotten to the point, though, where it's all starting to read the same to me.
I'm not sure why this is. Maybe there's a certain homogenizing that takes place as everyone tries to describe how sad they feel from lost love in free verse. Maybe it's because the topics all seem to distill down to about five common themes with most everyone.
All I know is that my mind and eyes are tired from either trying to make sense of what's been written or trying to find some particular verse that really stirs something deep inside.
The odd thing about it all is there are so many people on these sites that continuously praise (with high praise, I must say) these same folks I am reading. It's as if they all see something I can't seem to see, or feel something I can't seem to feel. So it makes me wonder if I've just gotten a bit too jaded to be able to experience the same things they do when reading these pieces.
Is it all really that good? What am I missing?
You see, there is poetry that does to me what I described earlier. It touches something inside me, makes me think or experience it in ways that have a deeper meaning. Some examples I have pulled from poems include:
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
**************************
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
**************************
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
**************************
they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance
**************************
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders;
Of course, these were written a long time ago by some well known names in the world of poetic literature. So I guess there's a good reason why they stand out. But you would think that with everyone being a poet these days, someone would rise above the ground-level clutter with something that soars free from the shackles of cliche, doggerel and just plain dull poetry.
Some have.
Blaze by Carol Brandt
Winter in Waiting by Emil Donatello
Nightscapes by Keith Bickerstaffe
These are a few that stand out in my mind. You won't find any of these people on the pages of any books on the shelves of Borders, but they have produced fine work. There are others as well, but they are too few and far between to remember.
Maybe that's the way it's always been. Only a small percentage of the whole will have any real merit.
If that's the case, then, once again, why are all these people being praised by others on the sites?
It's gotta be me. I guess I'm just too dense to "get it."
I'm not sure why this is. Maybe there's a certain homogenizing that takes place as everyone tries to describe how sad they feel from lost love in free verse. Maybe it's because the topics all seem to distill down to about five common themes with most everyone.
All I know is that my mind and eyes are tired from either trying to make sense of what's been written or trying to find some particular verse that really stirs something deep inside.
The odd thing about it all is there are so many people on these sites that continuously praise (with high praise, I must say) these same folks I am reading. It's as if they all see something I can't seem to see, or feel something I can't seem to feel. So it makes me wonder if I've just gotten a bit too jaded to be able to experience the same things they do when reading these pieces.
Is it all really that good? What am I missing?
You see, there is poetry that does to me what I described earlier. It touches something inside me, makes me think or experience it in ways that have a deeper meaning. Some examples I have pulled from poems include:
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
**************************
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
**************************
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
**************************
they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance
**************************
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders;
Of course, these were written a long time ago by some well known names in the world of poetic literature. So I guess there's a good reason why they stand out. But you would think that with everyone being a poet these days, someone would rise above the ground-level clutter with something that soars free from the shackles of cliche, doggerel and just plain dull poetry.
Some have.
Blaze by Carol Brandt
Winter in Waiting by Emil Donatello
Nightscapes by Keith Bickerstaffe
These are a few that stand out in my mind. You won't find any of these people on the pages of any books on the shelves of Borders, but they have produced fine work. There are others as well, but they are too few and far between to remember.
Maybe that's the way it's always been. Only a small percentage of the whole will have any real merit.
If that's the case, then, once again, why are all these people being praised by others on the sites?
It's gotta be me. I guess I'm just too dense to "get it."
Monday, June 15, 2009
Yes, But Does it Rhyme?
One of the more irritating things about poetry review sites is the number of people who absolutely have to have perfect rhymes in the poems they review, if they rhyme at all. These people are ignoring a whole different aspect of rhyme that has been used by famous poets who write far better than they do. Here is some information that I copied from another website with regard to rhyme.
(From Wikipedia, but only because they have the most complete information that I've found on it)
(From Wikipedia, but only because they have the most complete information that I've found on it)
The word "Rhyme" can be used in a specific and a general sense. In the specific sense, two words rhyme if their final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical; two lines of poetry rhyme if their final strong positions are filled with rhyming words. A rhyme in the strict sense is also called a perfect rhyme. Examples are sight and flight, deign and gain, madness and sadness.
Perfect rhymes can be classified according to the number of syllables included in the rhyme
- masculine: a rhyme in which the stress is on the final syllable of the words. (rhyme, sublime)
- feminine: a rhyme in which the stress is on the penultimate (second from last) syllable of the words. (picky, tricky)
- dactylic: a rhyme in which the stress is on the antepenultimate (third from last) syllable ('cacophonies", "Aristophanes")
In the general sense, "rhyme" can refer to various kinds of phonetic similarity between words, and to the use of such similar-sounding words in organizing verse. Rhymes in this general sense are classified according to the degree and manner of the phonetic similarity:
- syllabic: a rhyme in which the last syllable of each word sounds the same but does not necessarily contain vowels. (cleaver, silver, or pitter, patter)
- imperfect: a rhyme between a stressed and an unstressed syllable. (wing, caring)
- semirhyme: a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. (bend, ending)
- oblique (or slant/forced): a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound. (green, fiend; one, thumb)
- assonance: matching vowels. (shake, hate) Assonance is sometimes used to refer to slant rhymes.
- consonance: matching consonants. (rabies, robbers)
- half rhyme (or sprung rhyme): matching final consonants. (bent, ant)
- alliteration (or head rhyme): matching initial consonants. (short,ship)
It has already been remarked that in a perfect rhyme the last stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical in both words. If this identity of sound extends further to the left, the rhyme becomes more than perfect. An example of such a "super-rhyme" is the "identical rhyme", in which not only the vowels but also the onsets of the rhyming syllables are identical, as in gun and begun. Punning rhymes such are "bare" and "bear" are also identical rhymes. The rhyme may of course extend even further to the left than the last stressed vowel. If it extends all the way to the beginning of the line, so that we have two lines that sound identical, then it is called "holorhyme" ("For I scream/For ice cream").
The last type of rhyme is the sight (or eye), or similarity in spelling but not in sound, as with cough, bough, or love, move. These are not rhymes in the strict sense, but often were formerly. For example, "sea" and "grey" rhymed in the early eighteenth century, though now they would make at best an eye rhyme.
The preceding classification has been based on the nature of the rhyme; but we may also classify rhymes according to their position in the verse:
- tail rhyme (also called end rhyme or rime couée): a rhyme in the final syllable(s) of a verse (the most common kind)
- When a word at the end of the line rhymes with a word in the interior of the line, it is called an internal rhyme.
- Holorhyme has already been mentioned, by which not just two individual words, but two entire lines rhyme.
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming lines in a poem. Internal rhyme is rhyme which occurs within a single line of verse.
In the scope of the poetic word, there is a lot of room for play and nuance. I usually ignore those who insist that it has to be just one way, and one way only to be right. Once someone starts harping on rhyme in this manner, I see them as, oh, perhaps, less than competent with verse. And I really don' t want their opinion.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Rambling
Lakers are up 3 to 1 against the Magic in the championship series. When I heard that this morning on the radio sports news, I just said to myself, "I don't care if LA wins it." Back in the 80s, I would have hated to see the Lakers on top. But then again, the 70s and 80s Celtics were my team. I haven't really followed professional basketball since 1988.
Which got me thinking about Major League Baseball. I loved the Red Sox in the 70s. I like them now and feel somewhat disappointed when they don't make it all the way. But I'm not devastated. I don't know... I just have a hard time getting to wrapped up in fandom of any sports team these days. They are fun to watch now and then, fun to talk about. I just can't get to the level of worship of these overpaid game players that some people do, though.
It's unfortunate, but the skyrocketing payrolls of professional sports teams have made the sports inaccessible to me. I can't afford to take the family to Fenway Park to catch a game, though my son keeps bugging me to. Back in the 70s, a box seat went for $5. Even in the 80s when I was in college in the greater Boston area, seating was affordable. Now, they start at $125 - if you can get them.
We don't have cable TV, so we can't watch any of the games as almost all of them are broadcast on NESN. I tried a month of MLB-TV which is streamed over the internet, but all live Red Sox games are blacked out.
I don't mean to sound like I'm living in the past, but I miss those days when you could catch a game on network television or just go to the ticket counter at Fenway Park and buy tickets the day of the game.
Speaking of the past, whatever happened to curb feelers? You know, those springy metal things people clipped to their car bodies to warn them when they got to close to the curb when parking? I wonder how the curb feeler industry ended up going out of business - lack of interest?
I see Obama wants to drive this country into the ground with his seemingly popular brand of fascism. I think it's getting time to hunker in the bunker.
Later.
Which got me thinking about Major League Baseball. I loved the Red Sox in the 70s. I like them now and feel somewhat disappointed when they don't make it all the way. But I'm not devastated. I don't know... I just have a hard time getting to wrapped up in fandom of any sports team these days. They are fun to watch now and then, fun to talk about. I just can't get to the level of worship of these overpaid game players that some people do, though.
It's unfortunate, but the skyrocketing payrolls of professional sports teams have made the sports inaccessible to me. I can't afford to take the family to Fenway Park to catch a game, though my son keeps bugging me to. Back in the 70s, a box seat went for $5. Even in the 80s when I was in college in the greater Boston area, seating was affordable. Now, they start at $125 - if you can get them.
We don't have cable TV, so we can't watch any of the games as almost all of them are broadcast on NESN. I tried a month of MLB-TV which is streamed over the internet, but all live Red Sox games are blacked out.
I don't mean to sound like I'm living in the past, but I miss those days when you could catch a game on network television or just go to the ticket counter at Fenway Park and buy tickets the day of the game.
Speaking of the past, whatever happened to curb feelers? You know, those springy metal things people clipped to their car bodies to warn them when they got to close to the curb when parking? I wonder how the curb feeler industry ended up going out of business - lack of interest?
I see Obama wants to drive this country into the ground with his seemingly popular brand of fascism. I think it's getting time to hunker in the bunker.
Later.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
How Time Slips by Unnoticed
Been almost a month since the last entry. Too busy here, with work and other things - not a satisfying labor, but a kind of crazy work demanded by others.
No idea when the next blog entry will be.
No idea when the next blog entry will be.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Say What?
I used to think writing was a good thing - you know, a way to express some creativity. But now I wonder. It has stirred up some sort of pot which was bubbling away in the background. Or I think it has. Maybe that pot would have stirred on its own with the passage of time.
I am 48, going on 49. For the last three years, or so, I have experienced middle age. Some would call it a crisis. I wouldn't go that far, for there is no real danger of anything beyond losing my mind. An argument can be made that that happened a long time ago (yes, self-deprecating sarcasm, sorry about that).
Despite there being no danger, there has been a hammering realization that aging is a reality. That the past is the past, separate from us, yet still attached. The future is no comfort because we now actually get a feeling of what it may be like with the degradation of certain bodily functions. The present is no friend as we use that time to consider both the future and the past. Middle age is a vortex, a desperate grab to hold on to what was and a furtive attempt to avoid heading down the dreaded hill.
I thought writing would benefit my attempts to record the past, to somehow rebreathe life back into it. I don't want to live in the past; just simply experience it again from time to time. Unfortunately, it's left me frustrated more than anything. It seems that I can't capture any of it in a manner which is realistic and fulfilling. I've tried with poetry. I've tried with fiction. I get glimpses of it now and then, but the sum totality of it all is missing.
I keep thinking that I just need the right combination of words to act as a key to unlock the chambers that hold the essence of what I seek. The search for the right combination has been fruitless, though, to a large extent. Additionally, there seems to be an attention deficit disorder lurking in the shadows that robs me of my will to keep searching. It's as if I sense a futility in the trying. It's also as if the task seems so daunting that I just can't see the point of attempting it.
Maybe there's a spot of laziness as well.
Now, I look back over what I have written here, and I see the ADD has taken over again. This has missed the mark of what I was attempting to do, and I have lost that thread already.
Just a part of getting older, I guess.
I am 48, going on 49. For the last three years, or so, I have experienced middle age. Some would call it a crisis. I wouldn't go that far, for there is no real danger of anything beyond losing my mind. An argument can be made that that happened a long time ago (yes, self-deprecating sarcasm, sorry about that).
Despite there being no danger, there has been a hammering realization that aging is a reality. That the past is the past, separate from us, yet still attached. The future is no comfort because we now actually get a feeling of what it may be like with the degradation of certain bodily functions. The present is no friend as we use that time to consider both the future and the past. Middle age is a vortex, a desperate grab to hold on to what was and a furtive attempt to avoid heading down the dreaded hill.
I thought writing would benefit my attempts to record the past, to somehow rebreathe life back into it. I don't want to live in the past; just simply experience it again from time to time. Unfortunately, it's left me frustrated more than anything. It seems that I can't capture any of it in a manner which is realistic and fulfilling. I've tried with poetry. I've tried with fiction. I get glimpses of it now and then, but the sum totality of it all is missing.
I keep thinking that I just need the right combination of words to act as a key to unlock the chambers that hold the essence of what I seek. The search for the right combination has been fruitless, though, to a large extent. Additionally, there seems to be an attention deficit disorder lurking in the shadows that robs me of my will to keep searching. It's as if I sense a futility in the trying. It's also as if the task seems so daunting that I just can't see the point of attempting it.
Maybe there's a spot of laziness as well.
Now, I look back over what I have written here, and I see the ADD has taken over again. This has missed the mark of what I was attempting to do, and I have lost that thread already.
Just a part of getting older, I guess.
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