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Poetry :: Ask a question
Post and discuss your favorite poet's contemporary, historical and thematic poetry and haiku here. Got a favorite line from a poem but can't remember who the poet is? We'll try to help you find it. Please do not post your original poetry here. We have a separate category to highlight your own work in the Original Writing forum.
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Books :: Ask a question
Join in on our book club to discuss favorite books and authors, offer reviews and suggested reading for all interests including fiction, non-fiction, science fiction, mysteries, history, romance, entertainment, personal improvement and much more.
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Quotes :: Ask a question
Post your favorite famous quotes here. We have topics for all kinds of quotes so please help us with the housekeeping and keep it organized. If you don't see an appropriate topic for your collection of quotes, feel free to start new topics.
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| Featured Topics |
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| 2 partial plots, need titles |
Posted by spikepipsqueak on May, 16. :: 0 Comments
You people are well read and might be able to help me.
There are two books I have been trying to track down for more than forty years, armed only with fragments of plot.
1 SF Begins with the main character standing in a glass crater formed by a nuclear explosion which he has somehow survived, but which has shunted him into another universe and another body.
He was previously a tough-as-nails warrior-type but the new body is of an adolescent wimp. He spends a lot of time with a woman character with (I think) psychic healing abilities and I have a suspicion that sentient cats are involved in the plot. For a long time I thought it was one of Andre Norton's but now not so sure.
2 Historical fiction set in rural England. Opens with a woman being hanged for some crime. She is a singer with strong throat muscles. Three attempts at hanging her are not successful, and she is released.
She has nowhere to go and is given a roof over her head by a pastor/rector/clerical type. They do a number of good works in the village and are both extremely moral people but are shunned and reviled because it is assumed they are "living in sin". There is a character called Mungo who lives wild on the moors.
If either of these rings any bells for anyone I would deeply appreciate potential titles/ authors/ starting points.
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| Rumi |
Posted by Stray Cat on May, 09. :: 3 Comments
Rumi was a 13th century Persian poet.
Here's one of his poems that I like:
A COMMUNITY OF THE SPIRIT
There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,
if you want to be held.
Sit down in the circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd's love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.
Don't accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover's mouth in yours.
You moan, "She left me." "He left me."
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I love the line:
"feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise"
Who hasn't had a few nights like that? 
And now........here's another one of his:
THE NEW RULE
It's the old rule that drunks have to argue
and get into fights.
The lover is just as bad. he falls into a hole.
But down in that hole he finds something shining,
worth more than any amount of money or power.
Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street.
I took it as a sign to start singing,
falling up into the bowl of sky.
The bowl breaks. Everywhere is falling everywhere.
Nothing else to do.
Here's the new rule: break the wineglass,
and fall toward the glassblower's breath.
Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.
The speechless full moon
comes out now.
I used to want buyers for my words.
Now I wish someone would buy me away from words.
I've made a lot of charmingly profound images,
scenes with Abraham, and Abraham's father, Azar,
who was also famous for icons.
I'm so tired of what I've been doing.
Then one image without form came,
and I quit.
Look for someone else to tend the shop.
I'm out of the image-making business.
Finally I know the freedom
of madness.
A random image arrives. I scream,
"Get out!" It disintegrates.
Only love.
Only the holder the flag fits into,
and wind. No flag. "
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am amazed at the "modern" sound of his poems.
"I'm out of the image-making business."
That sounds like something that someone working on Madison Avenue might say!
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| Fiction about a U.S. Presidential candidate |
Posted by billkarns on May, 08. :: 0 Comments
I wonder if someone can remember the title of a book or perhaps it was a short story...I believe from the '60's or '70's?
In the book a presidential candidate was selected by his party to run because he most nearly 'satisfied' the demographics of the voting American public...the title involved a number (the presumed number of discreet demographic groups) e.g., "The 387" or "The 287"
I'd like to relocate this book for reference purposes. My memory is that the fiction of that time is analagous to the 'reality' of this election which I take to be a study in bipartisan mediocrity.
Any help on the title?
BK
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| A flip dark chill winter bastard though dry |
Posted by boomerang on May, 07. :: 22 Comments
Once upon a time in college we were made to read The Epic of Gilgamesh and then write a classic "contrast and compare" paper about it. I chose as the comparision Ecclesiates 9:4 in which it is said that "surely a live dog is better than a dead lion".
I wrote that the writer of Ecclesiates spoke with such "passionate indifference".
The teacher fawned and ahhed over the expression and I recieved an A on the paper.
It was only years and years later when rereading "Lolita" that I realized I had cribbed the phrase from Nobokov.
In "A Clockwork Orange" Burgess, right at the very first of the book, has Alex describe the evening as "a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry". A phrase that, for me, really sets up the whole tone for the book.
I'm always amazed how some writers can describe something so complicated or convey such intent with so few words.
What are some of your favorite few word descriptions?
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| Beatrix Potter - what an amazing woman |
Posted by mismi on May, 04. :: 7 Comments
I just saw a movie called "Miss Potter" with Renee Zellweger playing Beatrix Potter. It was so good. I enjoyed it so much. One of the things it said that I find wonderful is that Beatrix Potter donated 4000 acres of land to Britain to be preserved. I must read more about her. I have all of her books and have read them to my children countless numbers of times but I never knew about her, and I am now on a mission.
Has anyone read anything about her that you can recommend?
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