STUDENTS, PUBLISH HERE!

Prosperity...Wasperity

2012-01-28T16:22:00.000-08:00

The Wasp

Of those uncertain creatures
Who take a simple joy
In swelling up one's features
On purpose to annoy,
Things void of natural sweetness,
Aggressive and inhosp.
(Pardon the incompleteness)
You are the first, O wasp.

There is no place we visit
In England's pleasant land
(It isn't your place, is it?)
But you must take a hand;
You set the nerves a-jangle,
You turn the tan to chalk
Of anglers when they angle,
Of walkers when they walk.

In no uncertain manner
You bid the bather flee;
You foil the caravanner
Who merely wants his tea;
You raid the earnest hopper,
You break upon our sports,
And are, I'm told, improper
To river girls in shorts.

We slap at you and swat you;
We fell you as we may
(The rapture when we've got you
Is more than words can say);
One may see great deeds daily
When men unused to strife
Brave you, albeit palely,
For screaming child or wife.

And we have learnt to fashion
A lure that cannot fail,
Born of a lasting passion
That you confess for ale;
An artful jar that cozens
You in and, when you're tight,
Drowns you in drink by dozens,
A most immoral sight.

But when the day is sinking
And you retire to rest
That, to my private thinking,
Is where man comes out best;
Armed with his apparatus
He tracks you to the comb
Whence you come forth to bait us;
Then, when the last wasp's home,

Bring forth, O man, your funnel;
With oil and poison come;
Take heed lest haply one'll
Pass down a warning hum;
Insert with care the former;
Pour down the latter thick;
That should have made things warmer;
That will have done the trick.

Thus with discreet defiance
We tackle you, and yet,
For all the arts of science,
You don't seem much upset;
Alert and undiminished
You still appear to prosp.;
I leave the word unfinished
To rhyme with you, O wasp.

-- John Kendall

Calling all Vegans!

2012-01-23T16:32:00.000-08:00

Vegan Delight

Ackees, chapatties

Dumplins an nan,

Channa an rotis

Onion uttapam,

Masala dosa

Green callaloo

Bhel an samosa

Corn an aloo.

Yam an cassava

Pepperpot stew,

Rotlo an guava

Rice an tofu,

Puri, paratha

Sesame casserole,

Brown eggless pasta

An brown bread rolls.

Soya milked muesli

Soya bean curd,

Soya sweet sweeties

Soya's de word,

Soya bean margarine

Soya bean sauce

What can mek medicine?

Soya of course.

Soya meks yoghurt

Soya ice-cream,

Or soya sorbet

Soya reigns supreme,

Soya sticks liquoriced

Soya salads

Try any soya dish

Soya is bad.

Plantain an tabouli

Cornmeal pudding

Onion bhajee

Wid plenty cumin,

Breadfruit an coconuts

Molasses tea

Dairy free omelettes

Very chilli.

Ginger bread, nut roast

Sorrell, paw paw,

Cocoa an rye toast

I tek dem on tour,

Drinking cool maubi

Meks me feel sweet,

What was dat question now?

What do we eat?

-- Benjamin Zephaniah

View From Afar

2012-01-21T13:00:00.000-08:00

An Exile's Lament

Beneath the golden balm

Settling on the fields

Evening steals in calm

And farmers count their yields

The bee is in the lavender,

The honey fills the comb,

But here a rain falls never-ending

And I am far from home.

-- Jacqueline Carey

The Ludicrous

2012-01-18T15:00:00.000-08:00

The Hunter

The hunter crouches in his blind.

'Neath camouflage of every kind.

This grown-up man, with luck and pluck,

Is hoping to outwit a duck.

--Ogden Nash

"Nothing Worse than Too Late"

2012-01-17T13:30:00.000-08:00

oh yes

there are worse things than

being alone

but it often takes decades

to realize this

and most often

when you do

it's too late

and there's nothing worse

than

too late.

-- Charles Bukowski

Identity: Christ's Own Forever

2012-01-16T11:52:00.000-08:00

Identity

I reshape
With the color, movement, and pattern
Of a turning kaleidoscope
Showing variegated emotions---
Hate and love; joy and grief.

Yet here I live.

I romance
A bright blue sky in October,
Hot chocolate and a good book,
Ocean winds through my hair,
Cooling rains dripping down my skin.

I revel in wonders.

I pursue
Confidence from knowledge,
Respect paired with trust,
Love and laughter around friendship,
Great variety found in beauty.

I seek these things.

I hope
You see me in these words
About simple things;
Though my words stumble, trip,
I am just a fallen human.

He is not.

I follow
The Greatest Teacher
The best Friend anyone could.
All beautiful things are His.
And He is my Lover forever.

My identity resides in Him.

--Abigail Hope Neff (Grade 9)

Washington Irving on Tears

2012-01-14T12:30:00.000-08:00

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.” --Washington Irving

Lope de Vega on Love

2012-01-10T10:00:00.000-08:00

What is Love?

Fainted, bold, furious,

tender, aloof, generous,

dead, alive, courageous,

loyal, cowardly, treacherous.

Not to find beyond your lover, satisfaction or peace.

To look happy, sad, humble, arrogant,

angry, valiant, fugitive,

satisfied, offended, distrustful.

To turn your face from clear proofs of deceit,

To drink poison as if it were a soothing liquor,

To disregard gain and delight in being injured.

To believe that heaven can lie contained in hell;

To devote your life and soul to being disillusioned;

This is love; whoever has tasted it, knows.

--Lope de Vega (1562-1635)

The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson

2012-01-08T11:57:00.000-08:00

The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown--

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!

-- Robert Louis Stevenson

W. Somerset Maugham on Ancestral Lands

2012-01-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest.

—from The Moon and Sixpence
W. Somerset Maugham, 1919

Chesterton on Poetry and Cheese

2012-01-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." --G.K. Chesterson

We are going to change that in February. Readers are invited to submit poems of any form and length to Students Publish Here. The theme is cheese!

The best of the lot will be published.

Deadline: February 20, 2012
Include first and last name; grade in school and email address
Submit to aproeditor-at-gmail-dot-com

Best wishes for the new year!
Alice C. Linsley

The Road Not Taken

2012-01-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I marked the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

--Robert Frost

Related reading: Robert Frost on the Heavens; Spring: Time of Mud

A Winter Ode

2012-01-03T15:42:00.001-08:00

A Winter Ode to the Old Men of Lummus Park, Miami, Florida

Risen from rented rooms, old ghosts

Come back to haunt our parks by day,

They crept up Fifth Street through the crowd,

Unseeing and almost unseen,

Halting before the shops for breath,

Still proud, pretending to admire

The fat hens dressed and hung for flies

There, or perhaps the lone, dead fern

Dressing the window of a small

Hotel. Winter had blown them south--

How many? Twelve in Lummus Park

I counted, shivering where they stood,

A little thicket of thin trees,

And more on benches, turning with

The sun, wan heliotropes, all day.

O you who wear against the breast

The torturous flannel undervest

Winter and summer, yet are cold,

Poor cracked thermometers stuck now

At zero everlastingly,

Old men, bent like your walking sticks

As with the pressure of some hand,

Surely they must have thought you strong

To lean on you so hard, so long!

-- Donald Justice

Shakespeare on Making a Good End

2012-01-02T11:32:00.000-08:00

I've said farewell to 2011. The old year has passed and I'm glad to see it go. We must let it go well... that's why we party. It isn't so much to greet the New Year as to make a good end of the old one.

"Oh, that a man might know the end of this day’s business ere it come! But it sufficeth that the day will end, and then the end will be known. I don’t know if we’ll meet again. Therefore, accept my everlasting farewell. Forever and forever, farewell! If we meet again, then we’ll smile. If not, then this parting was well made." -- William Shakespeare

Dorothy Sayers Wisdom for 2012

2012-01-01T10:15:00.000-08:00

"None of us feels the true love of God till we realize how wicked we are. But you can't teach people that - they have to learn by experience."

"The great advantage about telling the turth is that nobody ever believes it."

"A human being must have an occupation, if he or she is not to become a nuisance in the world."

"Death seems to provide the mind of the Anglo-Saxon race with a greater fund of amusement than any other single subject."

"As I grow older and older, and totter toward the tomb, I find that I care less and less who goes to bed with whom.

Related reading: Dorothy Sayers The Lost Tools of Learning; Dorothy Sayers The Final Redemption of Cats

Carl Sandburg on Happiness

2011-12-31T07:21:00.000-08:00

This new year I intend to be content with the simplier things in life. I thought this poem by Carl Sandburg captured the idea.

HAPPINESS

I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell

me what is happiness.

And I went to famous executives who boss the work of

thousands of men.

They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though

I was trying to fool with them

And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along

the Desplaines river

And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with

their women and children and a keg of beer and an

accordion.

--Carl Sandburg

Christmas Fast Approaches

2011-12-19T11:05:00.000-08:00

Christmas fast approaches;
Frost is on the wreath.
The cloudless night so bright
brings a canopy of chill.
Split logs stacked by the door
house a mouse or two.
Chimney smoke spirals
through the leafless maple
and warm inside the cottage
grandchildren laugh as they inspect
wrapped gifts under the tree.

--Alice C. Linsley

Vacant Chair by Paul Turnidge

2011-12-16T15:51:00.000-08:00

The gentleman who wrote this touching poem lost his wife, Flo, about a week before my mother died. Flo and my mother were friends. I hope they’ve met each other by now in heaven.

VACANT CHAIR

I love you dear with all my heart,
True love was ours to share,
God has called you to His Home,
I’m left with a vacant chair.

I think of things I’ve done today,
My toil and my care;
I praise the Lord you’re free from pain,
But I’m left with a vacant chair.

The day will come, I’ll join you there,
In Heaven, bright and fair,
We’ll praise the Lord, with all our heart,
And there’ll be no vacant chair!

--Paul R. Turnidge

Winners of the Random Word Poetry Contest

2011-12-05T04:50:00.000-08:00

And the winners are... Jordan Romain and Ed Pacht. Here are their winning entries:

Web of Lies

Your web of lies appears to show
the gladness of a kind soul,
masking the prickly strips of silk,
fragments that flash
like hollowing salutes.
A pair of love-soaked silk ribbons
swoop between the pillars,
cinching a tightly laced corset.
The dust of betrayal fades,
revealing a blood-red trench.
In its midst clay
molds your life to the lies
you created.
Deeper still,
iron chains box and bind you.
Before you realize, you are forever deep
in the bottomless pit,
caught in your web of lies.

---Jordan Romain (Grade 10)

The Love-Soaked Road

The cacti stood in prickly rows beside the path,
much like pillars lined beside a sacred way.
A pair was walking hand-in hand in blowing dust,
bare feet slapping on the hard-packed clay.
In gladness beginning a journey together,
they watched the eagles swoop so far above,
with snow-white feathers flashing in the sun
in silent salute to their growing love.

For two whose lives were cut to ribbons
by the iron forces of a cruel world,
pounded into battered fragments,
and into the trash with scorn were hurled,
there seemed no choice for such as these,
that were prisoned, and trapped in that dark box,
and hopelessly caught like flies in a web,
straining and struggling to break through the locks.

Then a kind soul with a voice like silk
discovered those two, each in a trench,
brought them together, lifted them up,
and left them alone on a little stone bench,
hollowing there a place in their hearts
each for the other, where pain had been,
reaching to touch both hands and soul,
each healing the other deeply within.

The cacti stood in prickly rows beside the path,
much like pillars lined beside a sacred way.
A pair was walking that love-soaked road,
bare feet slapping on the hard-packed clay.
In gladness beginning a journey together,
they watched as sunset made the sky red,
a radiant salute to their growing love,
knowing that soon their vows would be said.

---ed pacht

Archaeologist and Poet

2011-11-28T11:34:00.000-08:00

The Potter

By Nathan Alterman

So said the potter: I, God’s servant, have amassed,

as is my custom, this damp clay of mire.

And made a pretty pot which overnight has passed

inside the reddish and the burning fire.

In order that it carries oil, the clearest gold,

or wine, which all the darkness will enjoy.

And decorate these like a city-wall, a stronghold,

and create for them a face of joy.

It is a pot. And not the main theme but a second

to all this action and the theory employed.

But being broken and upon the mound abandoned,

it is a sign: the kingdom was destroyed.

Translated by Ronny Reich. From here.

A Thanksgiving Wish

2011-11-22T05:50:00.000-08:00

By Hope Ellen Rapson

What God's Love Can Do

2011-11-19T07:37:00.000-08:00

In Process

The Mighty Author from above

Revises me so I can love.

Not only Him, but also you

So together we might be true

To the plot, purpose, and design

He formed for us before all time.

--Hope Ellen Rapson

Read other writings by Hope Rapson here, here and here.

Random Word Poetry Contest

2011-11-08T03:55:00.000-08:00

You are invited to submit a poem for the November contest. You must use all the words in the list below. Some may be used in the title. The poem must be at least 12 lines and the form is optional. Rhyme is not required.

Deadline: Dec. 5, 2011

Here are the words you must use:

ribbons
love-soaked
red
trench
fragments
swoop
web
pillar
box
prickly
salute
flashing
gladness
a pair
clay
hollowing
dust
kind soul
silk
iron

Email your poems to me at aproeditor@gmail.com. Good luck!

To read the poems of former winners go here, here and here.

Winner of the Story Ending

2011-10-31T03:50:00.000-07:00

The winner is Chandler Hamby. Here is how she ended T.T. Lacey's story.

“Those were innocent people.” I said angrily. “People who never hurt you; what reason did you have to do that?”

He stared at the wall, lost in thought. Finally he answered, “I had a reason, but it’s something you probably will say I’m totally crazy for saying. I did it, because I needed release.”

Release? Release from what? I thought.

“I don’t understand what you are trying to say,” I said in some frustration, “so please tell me what exactly you needed release from, then maybe I’ll stop feeling completely lost.”

He smiled a little at that, then stood up, and began pacing back and forth across the small space of the cell. His legs brushed my knees as he walked away, and then turned around.

“It’s a long story; something that will take time even for me to totally understand. Can I share a little secret with you, Mr. O’Reilly?”

I nodded rather warily. After all, this man was supposed to be insane, and from the looks of things, I’d say he was. But I needed to hear everything, so he began.

“It all started a few years ago. I was twenty-four, and I felt completely lost. I lived in a big city in Montana, had a job as a custom home builder, and was doing ok in this big world. But all the time I had this knowing feeling inside that there was something missing. Something I hadn’t thought of before, but that I could, if I could just know how.”

He paused for breath, and I nodded for him to continue.

“I began to wonder what the thing missing was. At first I thought maybe I was just depressed. But I soon realized that this was not a mental or physical state, it was simply there. And it was persisting. So I looked into all sorts of things to try to get my mind off of it. I tried everything; TV shows, books, movies, anything that could solve my problems. That didn’t work. So then I consulted a mental expert, similar to you, Mr. O’Reilly, and he told me I just needed a change of scenery. So I went to California to try to relax and think. One day I saw a woman on the beach who attracted my attention because of her beauty or style. I simply felt attracted. She was reading aloud to a group of people gathered around her out of a small, black leather book. I listened, and soon heard her saying, “For we know that all things work together for the good of those that love God.” I realized that she was reading out of the Bible, a book I had never really read or looked into. She saw me and smiled. I smiled back, and sat down to listen. Amazingly, I sat there for over an hour, entranced. When she finished she said that she would be there again next week.

For several days I wondered if I would go listen again. I felt touched; for those few hours I felt that queer longing vanish, and I felt satisfied. So I went again the next week, and the next, and for several months. I finally realized that I had fallen in love with this lady, so after reading as usual, I asked her out to lunch, and she accepted. While during lunch I told her everything. I don’t know why, I just felt like I could trust this person. She told me something I hadn’t thought about before:
“Sir,” she began, “could I be really honest with you?”

I told her, “Of course.”

She said, “Sir, you are lost, and I believe Christ is calling you.”

I’d listened to her reading long enough to know that Jesus was supposed to be the Son of God, and I almost believed it; That’s how stirred I felt.

“I don’t know anything about Jesus except what you’ve been reading, and I need a few questions answered. The first is this: how do I know Jesus is any more real than all the other gods and religions everyone’s saying are so real? I just don’t get it.”

She sat for a few moments thinking, and then answered, “Sir, I can tell you are truly curious. As to your question, I think I can answer it.”

She pulled out the Bible she had been reading from, and flipped through it. When she found it, she began to read:

“’Now faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen.”’ Hebrews 11:1.” Sir, this answers your question in part, but to make it clear here is another verse; “’for I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”’ John 14:6. this verse is basically saying that you cannot believe unless you have faith. It will take awhile, but I believe you are chosen.”

We discussed a little more each week, every time she read, afterwards we went out to lunch and talked. I gradually began to understand, and then finally I believed! This longing vanished, and I was for the first time truly happy. I went to church, professed faith and became a member. I was satisfied in Jesus! I proposed to the lady, whose name was Miss Janice Aberdeen, and we were married.”

I looked at his face. It had lit up with a beautiful light. I started to wonder if this man was insane or just still searching for answers. He continued.

“For a while I was happy finding answers in my wife, just getting my still many questions answered. This took several years, and for the time I was satisfied. But I began to hunger for more, and so we went to New York, where we heard a well known minister was preaching. We stayed for a week, and then, the night before we went to the service where the pastor would be preaching, the unthinkable happened: my wife went out to get some things we needed, and while walking by an alleyway, she was attacked, robbed and then murdered. I was staggered. My wife, after being married for four years, had been abruptly snatched away from me. I was angry and heartbroken. I left, without even seeing the minister. For several months I wandered around, over and over again asking the same question: why did this happen? She didn’t deserve that! She had done nothing against God, so why did He do this? I grew more bitter and angry every time I asked that question.

Then I began taking my wrath out on people. I was harsh, critical, and unkind towards everyone around me. I even began physically hurting people. One night, I put on my clothes, slipped a gun into my pocket, and went outside. I saw a house, and the blinds were open. I looked inside, and saw a family, a father and mother sitting together, and a little child playing, and they looked so happy, so contented I was angered, and, hardly knowing what I did, I aimed the gun at the father, and pulled the trigger. I heard screams, and saw the father fall to the ground with blood on his shirt. I had killed him pretty much instantly. The mother looked up and saw me, and screamed. I was terrified; I knew that I mustn’t be found out, so I aimed it at her, and she too fell. The child was screaming and weeping, clinging to her parent’s bodies. I shot them too and then heard a siren’s wail. Someone had called the police. Before I even really knew what happened I was grabbed and thrown down. When I fought, someone hit me and I blacked out. Then they brought me here. I’ve been here for about a week already; plenty of time to reflect.”

For about a minute we both sat in silence. Finally, I broke the silence.

“Is that all?”

“Not quite. Before I am judged and, as I know I will be, condemned, please know this. I now am, as I mentioned, in a totally different state of mind now. What I did was wrong, and could I go back, I would never have done that. You may think me crazy, and maybe I am, but I have repented. I have started finding answers.”

At this he pulled out a small black book.

“This was Janice’s.” He said, stroking it gently. “The police found it, the only thing still on her. Maybe the thieves just did not think it was worth taking it; I don’t know. I have asked Jesus to forgive me, and now I am at peace.”

As if at his words, a look of the most perfect peace and happiness spread over his face. His eyes were closed. At last he opened them and said, “Thank you, Mr. O’Reilly, that’s all.”

I left the cell more thoughtful than I had entered. I didn’t know why, but I knew I needed to start looking for this Jesus who freed Mr. Smith.

END

Short Story Ending Contest

2011-10-24T03:56:00.000-07:00

The short story ending contest winners will be posted on November 1, 2011.

The deadline of Oct. 31 is fast approaching. Please send in your endings as soon as possible.

A random word poetry contest will be announced on November 15. Watch for further details.

Short Story Ending Contest

2011-10-02T14:14:00.000-07:00

Here is a short story written by an imaginative high school freshman. You are invited to write the ending of the story. The best endings will be published at Students Publish Here along with T.T. Lacy's original ending. The ending may be a surprise, funny, tragic, ironic, surreal or scary.

DEADLINE: October 31, 2011

Just a Few Questions

by Thomas Toland Lacy

It was around 1:00 am and I was so tired I didn't even want to look at my watch. I'm a psychiatrist and my name is Tom O'Reilly. I assist in police investigations and it often means long hours. I got into this a few years ago when I helped the police interrogate a psychopath. Now every time a looney is arrested, the detectives call me.

Tonight, when I entered the precint headquarters I was greeted by detective Jonas Stewart.

"We got a real psycho this time," the detective told me.

I shook my head and responded, "Aren't they all? So what's up with this case?"

Stewart and I walked down the hall together as he explained, "Well, he isn't talking for one and we're pretty sure that he murdered three people."

"What name does he go by?"

"Smith. He calls himself Mr. Smith."

"Oh great! Another cliche," I said, feeling annoyed by the prospect of spending a late night in a small interrogation room with a lack-luster criminal.

"That's all he'd tell us, Tom. You have your hands full with this one!"

Detective Stewart started to humm. His soft humming often continued during the interrogation, which was enough to drive me nuts.

We arrived at the door and I hesitated before entering.

"Okay, let's see what I can find out."

Stewart shrugged his shoulders and opened the door.

The suspect was

He sat stiffly in the chair opposite me.

"Hello, Mr. Smith."

No response.

"Mind if I ask you a few questions?"

After a prolonged silence he said, "I guess so, but you're just some doctor trying to find out if I'm crazy."

No one had ever said that to me and before I could think of a reply, he said with some agitation, "Just start asking!"

"Okay. Did you kill the Lovett family?"

"Yes I did. Why do you as?. I'm in a different state of mind, you see. You may think that I'm insane, but I'm not... just in a different state of mind."

This was a first. The man was admitting that he was insane, that is, assuming an insane state of mind.

I asked, "What state of mind are you in, Mr. Smith?"

"I'm perfectly sane, you see."

So that's how he wants to play, never giving me a straight answer.

"Okay. Let's consider this: either you are sane or insane. Which state of mind would you say describes you at the moment?"

"Well sir, I'm in between. I know I did wrong to kill those people. They never did anything to me, but I did it anyway."

I could feel my blood pressure rising.

[...]

Homeless in LA

2011-09-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

The old man wore a white goatee

the length and width of the nation.

He was ill when they first identified him.

His body was found in Los Angeles.

It cost me five bucks and

I broke a rule that May

for a short time

to sit at his old place near the bus stop.

The incumbent gone,

I felt like a pioneer

at the corner of Sixth and Main.

-- Matthew Morgan

The Great Saying

2011-09-10T14:20:00.000-07:00

You, Great Giver, gave me this treasure.
I’m blessed, but afraid that I will not be
The mother and wife I want to be,
Your servant.
Give me strength to be all
That You know I wish to be,
What You will help me to be.

Thank you for this promise,
This gift and sign of Your love.
In the years ahead I will praise You,
I will exalt the Lord and rejoice
For I suffered in labor, but you whispered
“You’re safe. The victory is mine.”

Generations of women have fought this fight and won.
Though we sit at the hearth, not the battlefield,
Though we spin instead of fight,
The greatest honor ever given to woman
Is when she holds her squalling child
And sighs, “I have fought a battle of life with death and won!”

As you hold him, the fruit of love and patience,
As your hopes and fears for him come together
Like a rushing wind
The roar is hushed by a great saying: “I love you!”

--Chandler Hamby

South Carolina Readers: Heads Up!

2011-08-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

Go listen to this very fine poet!

St. John of the Ladder Orthodox Church

701 Augusta Arbor Way
Piedmont (Greenville), SC 29673

864-299-1140

St. John of the Ladder Orthodox Church is centrally located in the Greater Greenville Area near the intersection of US 25S and I-185 (the ‘Southern Connector’), and can be accessed via Interstates 85, 185, 385 and US 25.

A Woven Journey: A Cooperatively Written Short Story

2011-08-14T08:50:00.000-07:00

What follows is a short story cooperatively written by the Hero’s Journey Class (May 2011).

Hope E. Rapson, Writing Instructor

Class Members

Julia Cline

Sarah Cline
Christopher McCort
Haley McCort
John Mark Porter
Jerryana Williams

A Woven Journey

The yellow and red oak leaves crunched beneath Wallace’s worn black sneakers as the sixteen year old headed toward his thinking thicket. His mind filled with flashes of faces staring at him in the high school hallway. Were those eyes filled with pity, laughter, confusion, curiosity? Were those mouths talking about him? Were they speculating about his parents? Spreading rumors about the strange car in his driveway last night? Wallace had to get away and work through this; he needed to be alone.

Crossing the dry stream bed, he though he heard the creaking of the rope of his tire swing. “Probably just wind,” he mumbled to himself. He pushed back the shrubbery, and out of the corner of his eye he saw something tumble onto the yellowing grass. Startled, Wallace stared wide eyed at the intruder. This is my turf! Anger saturated his mind; adrenaline startled his body.

The thin girl slowly stood up and brushed dirt and leaves from her stone washed jeans. She had the look of a cornered bobcat.

“Stay where you are!” she hissed.

“Why?” Wallace exploded. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

     “None of your business!”

     “This is my tree house and my tire swing. I come here…”

     “…to play? Tough! Today I was here first,” she finished.

     Wallace shook his head and looked down. “Now, let’s start over here.”

     The petulant girl raised her eyebrows and stared at him with her large dark eyes; her arms crossed and waiting.

     “My name is Wallace Ohne. I live in the brick ranch on Grey Stone Lane back there. Me and my….” he hesitated, then swallowed hard. “My dad and I build this retreat together.”

     He waited for a response. The girl flicked long black hair over her shoulder and began fingering the thick woven bracelet tied on her pale wrist.

     “Well, who are you?” Wallace paused to sit down on the mossy boulder beside him.

“Why do you want to know?” The girl replied with distrust.

Wallace shook his head. “Whatever! I don’t need this today.”

He rose and stomped off, heading in the direction that he had arrived. Wallace’s stride was faster and louder as he headed home through the fallen leaves. No need to be quiet now; apparently the whole world knows about my hideout.

He frowned and pulled his coat around his shivering body. It was early evening but there was already a chill in the air that seeped through his clothes and he was having flashbacks of his father towering over him, smiling and laughing in that same clearing. Perhaps he should just give up the space to the belligerent girl, whoever she was. He didn’t know if he could bear doing it. The place brought back memories, very good memories that reminded him of how much worse life had gotten. His family would never be the same now. Wallace shook his head and sighed as he saw the outline of his house through the trees. He swiftly climbed the steps to the back porch, slammed the screen door behind him, and muttered, “Now what?”

He slouched through the kitchen and into the living room. He headed for his father’s old leather recliner. That was where his father usually sat to muse about the events of his day. He slumped into the comfort of the familiar chair. Why had his father and mother been taken away?

The garage door opener grind interrupted this broken hearted plea. That would be Aunt Eloise, coming back from new Wal-Mart with the groceries. He knew she would want help. As he jumped up, the rickety recliner shifted and nearly fell over. “What a klutz!” Wallace whispered barely managing to keep it upright before he heard Aunt El calling him. He rushed to help. She is all I have now, he thought.

While carrying in the brown bags of groceries, he noticed the only other house down Grey Stone Lane had lights on in every window. A couple of days ago, he had watched the men in tan uniforms carry numerous boxes from their moving truck. He was trying to remember the name the singers whose voice drifted out of the top bedroom, when his aunt called, “Wallace! I need those groceries to make your dinner!”

After consuming a big plate of Aunt El’s spicy spaghetti, and after doing the dishes under the strict supervision, Wallace wandered back to the living room. He noticed that the seat cover of Dad’s easy on the floor tucked beneath the chair. He was astonished to find maps and photos under the papers. Strange, he thought. Dad is a neat freak; he wouldn’t normally store things like this…and he had been sitting here reading when they came for him. Instinctively, he gathered the papers, maps and photo and headed upstairs to his room. He spread them across the top of his desk and switched the study light to a brighter level to examine them.

The papers were some kind of legal forms, the maps were unfamiliar, and the photos were in especially bad condition. The worst one had been burned with a match and all that was visible was a little dark haired girl next three sets of legs…one her size, probably a boy, and the other two? Definitely a man and woman…perhaps her parents? What was that wrapped around her upper arm? Turning the damaged picture over carefully, Wallace read, “2012 - Lydia Kate O.”

Wallace’s conjecture was interrupted by a voice calling from downstairs. “Wallace, I need you to take this pie to the new family down the street. I hear they have a girl about your age.”

“Okay,” Wallace called back reluctantly. He took the stairs by two; his mind racing over the details of his discovery. He’d finish this chore and get back to his room as soon as possible.

Wallace picked up the apple pie and pushed his way through the front screen door. Hearing the familiar slam, he yelled over his shoulder, “I’ll be home soon, Aunt El.”

At the new neighbor’s house, Wallace rang the doorbell. He jumped backwards when the girl from the clearing opened the door.

     “It’s you! What was your name… Wallace?” The girl asked, stammering from shock herself.

     He thrust the pie into her hands, and blurted out, “This pie is to welcome you to the neighborhood. It’s from my Aunt Eloise.”

     “Okay. Thanks.” She took the pie and turned to shut the door with her hip, lifting the foil up to inspect the pie.

     “Wait!” Wallace shouted and thrust his foot onto the door jam. He winced as the door made solid contact.

With a roll of her dark eyes, the girl opened the door wide again. “What?!” she said tapping her foot impatiently.

     “That bracelet you’re wearing. Where did you get it?”

     “I have had it since I was a kid,” she quipped. Then suspicion flashed across her face. “Why do you want to know?”

     “Lydia, who’s here?” A man’s deep voice called out with concern and curiosity. Heavy footsteps sounded louder with each step.

     Wallace removed his foot when Lydia mouthed, “Got to go!” and began to shut the door again.

     “Meet me at the tree house mid-morning tomorrow,” Wallace urgently whispered as the door closed. Turning to go, he overheard her nonchalant answer, “Just the neighbor saying hello, Pop. With a pie to welcome us.”

******

     Wallace was waiting at the tree house. Lydia was nowhere to be seen. It was far past time for her to show up. “Where is she?” Wallace wondered aloud. As he nervously glanced at the entrance, he heard leaves crunching. Lydia suddenly appeared out of the shrubbery.

     “You’re late,” said Wallace.

     “Sorry! I had to wash the dishes,” she replied.

With a sigh, Wallace sat down on a decaying log and motioned to the seat next to him.

“I prefer to stand, thanks,“ said Lydia. “Now, why did you want to meet?”

Wallace reached inside his orange back pack and delicately pulled out the burned photo and held it up for her to get a good look.

“That bracelet,” she stammered in half voice fingering hers. “It looks like mine.”

     “Exactly the reason I called you here,” Wallace answered.

     Lydia sat down beside him in deep thought, staring into space. Could that little girl be me? If it is…why does Wallace, a guy I have never met before, have this photo?

     She had always been haunted by the feeling that she didn’t belong with her Pop and her Mom. Could I have been adopted?

That’s when the two began to talk, really talk.

*****

At noon the next day, Lydia and Wallace entered the Woodford Community Library. Lydia paused, surveying her surroundings. Several small worn sofas sat in the corner of the room alongside cheap wooden chairs. The rest of the room was taken up with books, and more books of every imaginable kind. She was surprised that so many could be crammed into such a small space.

     “This place is…” her voice trailed off.

     “Cozy?” Wallace filled in.

     “Not exactly the word that I was going to use,” she quipped.

     Ignoring the sarcasm in her voice, Wallace continued, “Alright, you start at the computers. Search for records from about sixteen years ago and after. I’ll look in the periodicals.”

     Nodding Lydia turns towards the computers while Wallace headed to the newspaper. He flipped through the newspapers, looking at the date. Ten, twelve, fifteen and, finally, sixteen years ago. “New family moves in,” one title announced. “John Burger places first in local spelling bee.” Nothing about birth…Suddenly, Wallace pocket buzzed. Pulling out his cell phone, he opened this text:

big find meet bak lib dor

Wallace frowned, but wove around the library stacks to where the computer cubicle was. Lydia was gone. He turned toward the exit, and was surprised to see Aunt Eloise hurriedly looking through the juvenile section.

     “Aunt El, what are you doing here?” Wallace asked.

    Pausing for a moment his Aunt said, “Just getting some books for Mrs. Halus; she’s been sick.”

     “Did you see the neighbor girl as you were coming in? She was here doing research with me, but now I can’t seem to find her. Actually, maybe the security guard has seen her.”

His aunt cut in hurriedly, “There’s no need.” Taking his arm and turning him around she commented, “I’m sure she’ll resurface.”

Wallace, however, felt urgency of mind and resisted. “But I have something important to tell her. I need to find her now.”

Breaking his Aunt’s firm hold, he turned and walked quickly to the guard standing outside the door of the library.

     Walking briskly to the checkout desk, Aunt Eloise quietly handed the librarian a small piece of paper. “Do you have this title?”

     “Yes. It’s in the basement storage stacks.”

     “Here comes the boy with the security guard; lead them to the second level down. Stall them as long as you can and make sure they remain unaware that you are trying to stop them. I need plenty of time to set the trap.”

Wallace was having quite a different conversation. The guard ended up being one of his former Boy Scout leaders, “Sure, I’ll help you find her,” said Bob.

The librarian approached them. “Ms. Ohne informed me that you had a question. May I be of service?”

“Yes, Ma’m.” replied Wallace. “Have you seen a girl about my age with dark hair and pale skin?”

“Oh, yes. I directed her to the first level of the basement; follow me this way.”

Walking down a flight of stairs they reached a room full of magazines and newspapers. “I guess she left,” said the librarian. “She might have gone to the next lower level.” After the three reached the lowest level, Wallace paused in apprehension. Lydia was not there.

The silence was broken with a loud “Now!” A dark clad assailant rushed toward them. Bob’s trained instincts took over. Fumbling for the light switch, he yelled, “Run!” Wallace dashed out of the doorway and ran up the stairs. Once he reached the ground level, he threw himself under the heavy library desk and tried to calm his ragged breathing. Controlling himself, he looked down on the papers he had been lying on and saw to his delight that one of them was the library’s floor plan. Studying it he realized that on the bottom basement there was a small chamber that led to the outside that was apparently for the conveyance of books to and from the library. Maybe he could go there to find Lydia.

He cautiously rose to survey the area. Aunt El, looking down isles, had her back inches away from him. Sighing with relief, he whispered her name. Eloise turned around and hugged him, but with a forced smile that was foreign to him. The previous dark assailant seized Wallace, forcing him down the stairwell, and throwing him into a side room. Stunned by Aunt Eloise’s complicity and the suddenness of these events, Wallace hardly struggled as he was gagged, and bound hand and foot to a chair. Feet away from him sat Lydia bound but not gagged; her unconscious head sagged on her chest. Inches away from her lay Robert, the security guard, with a bloody head wound, possibly alive, but probably dead. He felt a needle enter the back of his shoulder, and as his surroundings began to fade out, he thought he saw his father and mother at his left, also bound and gagged.

Waking up with a start, he looked for them again, but only Lydia and Coach Tyler remained. Using his body, he shifted back and forth inching toward Lydia. When he got close enough, he kicked at her leg. Getting no response, he tried a second and a third time. Only on the fourth attempt did he succeed in waking her. She woke up with a start and seeing the dead man next to her, would have screamed, if she had not also caught the warning look in Wallace’s eyes. He gestured with his eyes. She responded with whispered guesses, until she understood the plan.

Wallace winced as the Lydia’s heavy chair fell onto his legs. Lydia wiggled towards Wallace’s side pocket and slowly, with her nose and mouth retrieved the Boy Scout pocket knife. She dropped it between Wallace’s legs. Pinning it with his knees as it fell, Wallace brought his face down to it and arduously pried it open with his teeth. Then he started cutting through the duct tape that bound Lydia’s hands. Once her hands were free, she whipped through Wallace’s bonds. At that very moment, they heard movement outside the door and both of them hurriedly reordered the chairs and their bodies in their former positions.

     “Pop!” gasped Lydia. Ignoring her, Wade “Pop” Stronsky strolled forward through the inside door. He put his hand on the Wallace’s shoulder, and brought out a hand gun from his jean jacket pocket; he twirled it, enjoying both his captives’ fearful looks. Placing his face right in front of Wallace’s and pointing toward Lydia, he whispered, “Don’t worry… you won’t be around long enough…for that… Ha!”

     His assailants murderous intentions emboldened Wallace. He tucked in his head as in submission, but with one adrenaline energized jerk, swiftly butted Wade under the chin sending him sideways hard against the concrete wall. Leaping forward, Wallace grabbed Bob’s stun gun and shot it three times. He shouted to Lydia, “Quick!” and grabbing Lydia’s arm, they rushed toward the outside door.

     Aunt Eloise opened that door and was thrown to the asphalt as Wallace and Lydia charged out. They looked ahead to see a man at the back of a white delivery truck hurriedly pulling down its back door. Wallace’s parents bound and gagged lay on the floor boards. Reflexively Wallace shot at the driver’s knees. He would not lose his parents again.

The man went sprawling and with a scream dropped the knife he was holding. Lydia now firmly held Aunt Eloise by her grey hair with one arm twisted behind her. She kicked the knife out of reach as two police cars pulled up to the scene, their sirens screaming. Bob’s shift relief came out the library’s delivery entrance. He was holding a gun and a cell phone.

Wallace ran to free his parents. The police relived Lydia of her cursing captive, but she hung back, tightly grasping Wallace’s pocket knife in her trembling hands.

James and Anne Ohne embraced their son, and turned toward Lydia with tears streaming down their faces. Anne slowly stepped forward and gently touched Lydia’s bracelet. She whispered, “I knew when I put this on you that you would some day come back to us …our little girl.”

“Mommy?” The child deep within Lydia, hardened by the need to survive, spoke clearly, yearning to know, to be known, and to belong.

As Wallace and his father approached, Lydia collapsed into her mother’s arms.

James pulled his reunited family into his strong embrace and said, “What a journey we’ve had, all because we wanted to protect you both from something like what just happened.”

Wallace flashed a grin and pointed to Lydia’s bracelet. Then he pulled the half burned photo from his pocket and they both looked at it again.

     “One thing is clear,” Wallace said, “we have many more questions now than when we first met.”

     Lydia giggled, her eyes shining with relief and joy.

     With that, Wallace and Lydia looked toward their parents, eager to discover the mystery of their lives. They were no longer young neighbors stuck with each other and fighting for a place to belong, but brother and sister. Theirs was a woven journey.

END

Ed Pacht on How Nothing is Something

2011-08-05T04:30:00.000-07:00

I recently received this message from Ed Pacht, a regular reader, and I am posting it with his permission.

Alice,

In the course of writing a response to that good article on workshops, it occurred to me that you might find some value in this piece. I've been trying to write every day (today was day #434) and some days have been without much inspiration. Some have a kind of writer's block, and that is what I make myself write about. I call the results, "Nothing Poems." This is one of those, which will be gathered together into a chapbook entiled, "Nothing: Poems about Not Writing Poems."

Why do I write?

I have to write.
When words within my head
jostle one another for a place
upon the paper or the screen
that blankly sits before me,
I have to write.
I have to set them down,
to let them speak,
to say the things they wish to say:
profound thoughts of highest wisdom,
incoherent babblings of an empty mind,
something worthwhile to be said,
or not.
I have to write.
I want to write.
It is in writing that I find myself,
whether what I find is what I’d like to find,
or whether what I find will make me cringe,
and wish that I were not the one I find.
I want to write.
I want to put my thoughts in print.
I want to share them as I read aloud,
and, I guess, to share with others what I am,
but why?
Am I really of much interest to those others?
Am I really worth my own attention?
Often do I ask myself these questions;
seldom do I find a worthy answer.
Do I think my writing to be worth the sharing?
Is it honest to be saying that I do?
Probably not,
but …
I have to write.

--ed pacht

Interview with Orhan Pamuk

2011-08-03T04:00:00.000-07:00

The Turkish writer, Orhan Pamuk, was a winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature. He passionately embraces his Turkish identity and sees himself as a bridge between the East and West. Pamuk's work is rooted in his beloved Istanbul, but he explores themes of universal human experience and yearning. An outspoken critic of those who limit free speech, he faced imprisonment in 2005 in Turkey and now lives in Mumbai. His eight novels include several international best sellers such as My Name is Red, Snow, and now The Museum of Innocence.

Reporting on the recent resignation of Turkey's highest ranking military officers, Christopher Hitchens explains, "cooperation between ostensibly secular and newly pious may have had something to do with a growing sense of shame among the educated secular citizenry of big cities like Istanbul, who always knew they could count on the army to uphold their rights but who didn't enjoy exerting the privilege. The fiction of Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's complex Nobelist and generally liberal author, has explored this paradox very well. His novel Snow is perhaps the best dress rehearsal for the argument.

Because of course Pamuk is also the most edgy spokesman for the rights of the Kurds and the Armenians, and of those whose very nationality has put them in collision with the state. He has been threatened with imprisonment under archaic laws forbidding the discussion of certain topics, and he must have noticed the high rate of death that has overcome dissidents, like Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink, who have exercised insufficient caution."

Nirmala Lakshman recently interviewed Pamuk in Mumbai on his life and work. Read excerpts from the interview here.

Paul Greenberg on Writers' Conferences

2011-08-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

I went to the Arkansas Writers Conference the other day to talk about writing.

Talk about writing? Rather defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Like driving somewhere to walk. Or attending a conference to learn how to pray in solitude.

But I accepted the invitation anyway. I had a few things I wanted to say about the tendency to teach writing as a process. Much like churning out pre-cast concrete, no doubt. Or producing a political speech that, you can tell, has been written by asking all the politician's advisers for their, to use another unfortunate term: input. Because that's the accepted process. As in processed cheese.

There's a reason Mr. Lincoln wrote his Gettysburg Address, and the ineffable Second Inaugural, alone. Writing should concentrate thought, not diffuse it.

But we live in the age of writing coaches. You find them everywhere:

•At corporate headquarters.

•At conventions of writers, which is an interesting concept in itself, considering what a solitary business writing is, or ought to be.

•Or, you can consult a writing coach on your own. ("Have a seat, Count Tolstoy, and let a real pro show you how it's done. First off, you'll want to foreshadow Anna Karenina's character rather than just throwing her into some messy Russian household, don't you think? And this Vronsky character, he's still a bit of a blank. Your reader's got to wonder what Anna ever saw in him. If you could just bring him out, give him some strong convictions, maybe make him a political activist seeking social justice. ... But on the whole your plot has great potential. There are real possibilities here. You work this thing just right, and you could have a ... screenplay!")

As with any other craft - such as restoring furniture or auto body work or shoe repair - there ought to be a way to teach writing. I used to think so - before I tried to do it once a week at the Little Rock branch of the University of Arkansas. I soon found out there's no teaching it, no way to turn out a writer who wasn't essentially one before he fell into my clutches.

No talent, no writer. Yes, given enough time and inexhaustible patience, we might be able to produce a wordsmith that way - but not a writer.

Some of the well-trained even might be able to pass for writers among the undiscerning. Often enough, I feel as if I'm passing for one. A fellow could dine out on that kind of adulation. I know.

I've found that those impressed by the wannabe writer, the writer manque, aren't worth impressing. Unless maybe they have a nice big grant to hand out.

The surest sign of a writer worth reading is that he's not much interested in talking about writing at conferences or workshops. Or anyplace else.

Talking is one thing, writing quite another.

Now and then, somebody will want to talk to me about this great idea he has for an article or a book, usually only vaguely. I make it a rule to do him a great favor. I tell him to just write it up instead. Write, don't talk about writing. Show, don't tell. That way, there'll be something on paper, or at least on the computer screen, to work with: actual, written words.

For a year to the day, I attended an hourlong editorial conference every weekday morning at the old Chicago Daily News, and watched good ideas talked away daily.

The Daily News was a great newspaper when it still had a fine corps of foreign correspondents and a local columnist named Mike Royko. He was so local, so Chicago, he was a national treasure. That's what having a sense of place will do for a columnist. Or for a real writer, a Faulkner, a Barry Hannah, a Walker Percy, an Ellen Gilchrist.

But how do you teach anybody a sense of place?

Short answer: You don't. You just stand aside and get out of the way when a Buddy Portis comes roaring by, or rather comes trotting by in the perfect 19th-century prose of his soul-daughter Mattie Ross out of Yell County, she of, and with, "True Grit."

Teach somebody to write like that? At a conference? In a classroom? At a writers' workshop?

Please.

Kingsley Amis, who should never go unmentioned when writers are discussed, once said that everything wrong about his post-war era could be summed up in one word: Workshop.

Maybe that's because so much talking is done in workshops, while writing - good writing, at least - is done alone.

Writers, like other dangerous criminals, should come to know solitary confinement. It does 'em a world of good. No wonder prisons have incubated the best political writing, certainly in Russia, whether under tsar or commissar. (No matter how much Russia changes, it remains Russia.)

There are certain words that let you know at once that the kind of writing they describe will be certifiably, professionally bad. Words that sound as if they came out of an industrial manual.

For excruciating example:

Process.
Input.
Product.

Raymond Carver said that once a writer starts talking about technique, you know he's out of ideas.

Writing is simple enough. All you need do is walk into a room, sit down - alone - and look at that blank page staring you in the face like a cobra.

Then it is time to face the most terrifying of audiences, the one that can see through your every trick: yourself.

This column is based on a talk to the Arkansas Writers Conference by Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Bachelors Degree in Creative Writing

2011-07-31T16:49:00.000-07:00

Earn a Bachelor's degree in Creative Writing online through Full Sail University.

Good stories are the foundation of all entertainment. Those tearjerking moments, hair-raising plot twists, and love-to-hate characters are found across all entertainment media – from games, to animation, to movies and TV.

If you've got the imagination and the drive to develop original narratives, Full Sail University's Creative Writing for Entertainment bachelor's degree program can teach you the essential tools, from storyboarding and scriptwriting, to genres and literary devices, to transmedia storytelling. You'll complete the program with a digital portfolio and the industry knowledge to market your work.

Poem for my Godchild with Leukemia

2011-07-10T20:53:00.000-07:00

Leah, Age 7

Leah's Burden

Hard things come upon us.
When we are unready they assault us.
When our hopes are high and we have dared to breathe again,
Hope is dashed and darkness floods into our souls.

When the body of a pretty child
turns upon itself in bitter ugliness,
How it wrenches loving watching hearts!
How it tears them from their trusted moorings!
How the grief pervades their very being!
And what questions tear apart their minds!
Earthly reason cannot comprehend such a thing as this is,
And a solid faith is by it strained,

For we do not know,
Cannot know,
The whys and hows and reasons of such a thing as this,
And in our anguish only scream in useless hurt,
In doubt, perhaps, that God is truly good,
and we are brought so near to deep despair.

God knows.
He knows what this child must be enduring.
He knows the hurt that fills a parent's soul.
He knows the questions that the younger ones must face,
And He knows the meaning borne in this sad and tragic tale.

God knows.
God loves,
And in His plan all things are brought to work for good,
All things,
Even this,
Though we cannot see the good that He is working,
Though we surely cannot now give thanks,
And though we want to raise our fists in our frustration,
God is good,
Cold comfort when we hear it in the midst of pain,
Yet it is true,
And, in our grieving, if we only let Him hold us,
He will bring us through.

--ed pacht

This is Leah's second battle with leukemia. She was in remission for about 10 months. Leah continues her fight with Leukemia (ALL) and is embarking on a several months journey of chemotherapy leading up to another long journey of a bone marrow transplant. This challenges all in the family, including her mother Sarah, her father Robert, and her precious siblings: Mae- age 6, Issac- age 4, and Aaron- age 2. Through this LotsaHelpingHands website, we hope to rally your support. You can help with housecleaning, meals, prayers, and financial assistance.

If you can help Leah and her family, please do by going to Lots a Helping Hands. You will need to register to sign up to help. It is easy. If you have any trouble, email the case worker, Nanette Efird at lnashky@gmail.com. Nanette can sign you up over the phone or by email.

If you are a member at St. Andrew Church, coordinate taking the Nash family meals with Alison Morris 859 263-7732.

Thanks for praying!

Alice C. Linsley

Sarah Cline's Writing Journey

2011-07-06T17:39:00.000-07:00

Sarah Cline (Grade 7)

June 20, 2011

The Small Steps that Make a Writer

      I know that they are there somewhere; those little white books, made of nothing but stapled together office paper, my messy illustrations and my mom’s neat handwriting. They are probably in one of the white boxes labeled “memorabilia”, under a pile of photos and an untidy stack of imaginative, though not particularly decipherable, childhood drawings. I won’t know exactly where, however, until I take the time to search for them, time I have not had recently. Even so, I still like to think about them.

      From around the age of five, I would narrate stories I had thought of to my mom. She would write them down, and then staple the pages of the story together into a small, flat little book. These little books were some of the first pieces of writing I ever worked on. They were my first Book attempts. Some of them were my version of popular fairytales like “Cinderella,” while others were whole new stories I came up with myself. Though I don’t remember all of these inventive stories, there are a few that stick out in my mind. The one I wrote about a child dinosaur not wanting to take a bath, for example, or the one about the Princess slumber party. Those books, as silly and whimsical as they were, played an important part in my growth as a writer. They laid the foundation for my writing journey, a foundation I am still building on.

      Although the stories I wrote as a young child acted as a foundation for my understanding of writing, by the age of eight, I had somewhat outgrown the resourceful little stories. Still, I had not stopped writing. I began to transition into a new kind of writing that I had discovered: poetry. I may or may not have written poems before the age of eight, but I do recall writing my first poems at eight years old. I was in my grandparents’ small vacation home in Florida, and it was late, approximately ten at night. I had carefully worked on several poems in my makeshift bedroom, writing them into a journal. My favorite of the night and the one I most clearly remember was “Dragon Nest.” I quickly committed it to memory, and got it published in a small competition at my local library called “Kids in Print” a few years later. The poem was simple, the rhymes unexceptional, but I was extremely proud of my work.

      A year later, in fourth grade, something little happened that, nevertheless, had a big impact on me as a writer. I was one, maybe two weeks into the school year. I had for the first time in my life been enrolled in a home school group with a curriculum and deadlines and teachers, as well as many other new things. I don’t remember much, but one class stands out clearly in my mind. It was a writing class. I also remember the teacher. She stood out to me for her honest love of teaching, her vivacious personality, and the fact that she always added something into the class to make it interesting. Class was nearly at an end, and the teacher was announcing the winner for the bio poem project we had been assigned. I was leaning on the table in a bored way, only half listening, when my eyes widened and her voice came into sharp focus. Was it true? It was! She had said that the winner of the bio poem assignment was me! The prize she handed me was nothing special, a sticker I believe, or maybe a pretty pencil or two, but it meant the world in my eyes. Not the small prizes, simply the fact that out of all my classmates, there was something about my poem that Ms. Hope had deemed unique and good. To me it seemed like a validation of something I had suspected, but not yet confirmed; that I was a good writer, and maybe, just maybe, other people would think I was too.

      As small as that was, it felt and still feels like that day was a mile stone. It was the first time I really started believing in myself as a writer. I think from there my interest in writing really took off, developing into less of an interest and more of a love. I’m now so grateful I took those classes in writing. Even the basic things I learned there, like how to dress up sentences and how to “show not tell” when I wrote helped me develop my writing skills so much. I think what I appreciate most about those classes now is the fact that they really put me outside my comfort zone as a writer. Though that is what I once disliked most about these classes, now I am grateful that I was pushed as a writer. I would, for example, never have written “Mary’s Adventure” in fifth grade, a story about a girl traveling on the Mayflower, had I not taken those classes. I simply wouldn’t have looked into writing about a topic like that. And therefore, I would have never gotten it published in a blog called “Student’s Publish Here!” I would have missed a great writing opportunity! That’s another thing that taking writing classes gave me: opportunities; opportunities to get my work out into the world, even in small ways, and opportunities to build my confidence as a writer. I believe taking writing classes have played a crucial roll in evolving my writing skills, and just generally giving me so much more knowledge about writing then I had before I took the classes. I plan to get much more out of writing classes in the future!

      Now I am in seventh grade, and my love for writing is continuing to grow. I am still writing poetry, and my knowledge of poetry specifically has diversified. As much as I love writing poems with simple rhythms and rhymes, I now also enjoy writing poems with more complicated rhythms, and more complicated subjects. I’ve also recently begun writing a book. I believe I may have plunged into a plot line too complicated for a first-time novel writer, but I am comforted by the fact that, whether my luck holds or not, this book attempt will be better than those little white books, made of nothing but stapled together office paper, my messy illustrations and my mom’s neat handwriting. In fact, over the years, I’ve seen my writing improve a lot. That’s what I’m most proud of. I know my writing will never be perfect, but the constant improvement I’ve seen in my writing gives me motivation to make it even better, and the confidence that I can

      Why I was ever interested in writing at a very young age, I don’t well remember. I suppose at such a young age I saw it mostly as a pass time, a way to fill up the hours not spent doing other vital things, like dress up and make believe games with my sisters. Since my love for writing has grown, however, I’ve come to see writing not as a pastime but as a form of art. Through writing, you can express yourself, paint a beautiful picture of anything you want, if only you have the right words, and know how to use them. I am still learning all the words I can, as well as learning how to use them. Yet, I can’t help but see I have a bright future ahead in writing, whether it affects my life in little or big ways. Even so, I know that throughout my life I will always have more to learn about writing. But that’s just one of the many things I look forward to when it comes to writing; there’s always a new challenge to face, always something else to improve, and always something new to learn.

Poet to Poet: Reflections on Screaming Fire

2011-07-03T17:29:00.000-07:00

The following poem is a reflection on Screaming Fire, a Fourth of July poem written by Chandler Hamby.

Fire Screaming in the Sky

There are times when one observes what is around one,
and one sees much more than eyes have seen,
when in the midst of seeming joyous celebration,
one’s heart begins to flag, one’s joy to fade,
when the beauty of exploding fiery patterns,
the music fit for bravely marching armies,
and the words of proud and patriotic exultation
fail to fill the blackness of the darkness of the soul,
and only serve as highlights in the looming blackness.
In times like that a poet may be moved to write,
may attempt description of the beauty of the show,
may want to speak of the brightness then attempted,
but one’s heart is drawn to pierce beyond that veil,
to see the blackness and the bleakness of the shadow,
to sense the falseness of the wild display,
to cringe without full knowledge in its presence,
and to speak what one does not know that one is speaking.
In times like these the poet’s muse is active,
speaking through the cracks between one’s words,
and truth, even when one has not quite heard it,
flows from undetected depths within one’s person,
speaking with a still small voice within another heart,
and I have heard those quiet words that have been spoken,
and as the colors fade away to darkness,
those words are resonating in my soul.

--ed pacht

Poem for the Fourth of July

2011-06-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

Screaming Fire

Streams of color light the night,

Exploding across the dark dome

of heaven,

Red, yellow, blue and white

Against the black veil they flash.

Their colors light up the night.

Sulfur, charcoal, nitrate; elements
of earth
Stream fire up, up
As if to reach the heavens
Then dissolve into darkness,
Leaving one last color: black.

--Chandler Hamby

Contrasting Realities

2011-06-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

Two Real Worlds

dark and gloomy grins arise
fire burns the innocents alive
smoke and death, unbearable smell
this is the world, a second hell

bright and praise-filled voices sing
water for parched tongues He'll bring
the fragrance of life our hearts to leaven
this is the world, a second heaven

--Jordan Romain (Grade 10)

A Great Book for Summer Reading!

2011-06-14T08:34:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Clare Cannon

I, Juan de Pareja

by Elizabeth De Trevino

written for ages 9-12

highly recommended

published in 2008 (1965) Square Fish,192 pages

Juan is born into slavery in Seville, Spain in the early 1600s, and after the death of his mother, when he is just five years old, he becomes the pageboy of a wealthy Spanish lady, Emilia. Upon her death, during one of many plagues to sweep through Spain, Juan is inherited by Emilia's nephew, the painter Diego Velazquez.

Juan is an honourable and loyal slave who grows to deeply love his master. He works for him as a canvas-stretcher and paint grinder and becomes his good companion. However, his passion for painting - something which was illegal for slaves in Spain - leads him to deceive his master, and he secretly steals paints and makes his own artistic studies in his room. Juan accompanies Velazquez and his family when King Philip IV of Spain requests they move into his court, and assists the painter in his many portraits of the King and his family. He also accompanies Velazquez to Rome for a portrait of Pope Innocent X, and the portraits of many other Italian noblemen. Juan eventually takes the advice of a young apprentie, Murillo, to find a suitable time to tell his master of his secret. The opportunity comes when the King discovers one of Juan's paintings. Juan confesses to both King and master, and Velazquez generously grants him his freedom, feeling remorse that he had not done so before.

The story is based on known facts of the life of Velazquez and his freed slave, Juan de Pareja. It is imbued with a rich Christian ethic and care for people that the author perceives in Velazquez's artwork. It also explores the painting style and attitude of master Velazquez, his focus on portraying the beauty of realism rather than creating an embellished and beautified reality. Slavery is presented as an injustice which the author presumes her readers understand, but without bitterness, since her characters are able to rise above it. Overall, the book is well written, full of interesting information and is a moving story of friendship and generosity.

The New York Times Book Review says it all for me: “This brilliant historical novel captures and holds the attention from its rhythmic opening sentence - ”I, Juan de Pareja, was born into slavery“ - all the way through to the end. A splendid book, vivid, unforgettable.”

Clare Cannon lives in Sydney, Australia where she is the manager of Portico Books. This review first appeared at MercatorNet.

Another Dialog Poem

2011-06-10T05:30:00.000-07:00

The Milliner's Daughter

"I love your hat, Miss Lamentaine."

     "Why thank you kindly, little Jane."

"It's made of silk, that sweet pink bow?"

     "Indeed it is. How did you know?"

"My Mama is the milliner; she uses such fine wares.

She makes each hat with tasteful eye, and always utmost care."

     "How clever she must be, my dear, to make such lovely hats!"

"Clever indeed is she, and still more clever than that."

--Miriam Parrish

And the Winners Are...

2011-06-08T04:30:00.000-07:00

There were 5 entries this year and all were good, but only 2 were chosen as winners. They present very different images and are well crafted.

And the winning poems are Miriam Parrish's Topaz's Misadventure and Ed Pacht's Lament for the Hills.

Topaz’s Misadventure

The unblemished day is young;
The verdant hills are calling.
Topaz paces the plush new grass,
Tense, alert, tongue lolling.

She longs to leave the yard and go
Where grand adventures hang
(A joyride or a cat pursuit)
To earn a fearsome name.

She leaps over the gate and runs
Past streets and alleyways,
Even through dew-studded spiders' nets;
She will not be delayed.

She trots into the local zoo
Exploring here and there until
She comes across a tawny beast,
Sitting statue still.

He has a slanted, mint-green gaze;
A mane of golden wealth.
His tasseled tail flips listlessly;
His paws suggest his stealth.

She barks, and rage consumes the beast.
Reaching, he rants and roars
With pride and fearsome fame!
Pup flees to safety's tempting shores.

Exhausted, frightened, and contrite;
Thirst for adventure quite spent,
She gladly returns to paradise:
Life without embellishment.

--Miriam Parrish

Lament for the Hills

Reaching for the verdant hills,

he loudly roars in deep frustration,

that the onward march of progress,

the embellishment of daily life

by things that no one really needs,

and the constant urge to take a joyride

through the once unblemished countryside,

so quickly touches and consumes all that it sees.

He looks with love upon the slanted slopes,

studded with the flowers that glow like topaz,

plush with verdure green and cool as mint,

and watches as a bighorn ram leaps upon the rocks above.

Yet there are those who would destroy this grandeur,

not contrite for all the wreckage they may cause,

seeing nothing but the bottom line of what they net,

the other green on which their thoughts all hang,

and thus it is, in reaching for those verdant hills,

he loudly roars and cries his tears of deep frustration.

--ed pacht

Ed's comment is worth publishing also. He describes how the random words suggest images so that a poem forms like the swirling force of a tornado. He wrote: "I'm always amazed how it works that, if I take one or two of the words in the list, a theme emerges and sucks the rest of the words into its vortex. The first two lines, including three of your words certainly set the pace for this one. I had no idea where it might be going, but it unfolded amazingly quickly. I didn't expect a piece of environmental commentary, but that's what came out, and the lines are longer than I usually do, but here it is."

Congratulations to Ed and Miriam! And thanks to the other poets who participated.

Watch for another Random Word Poetry Contest in October.

Another Poem by Miriam Parrish

2011-06-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

A Spot of Sunlight, Please

Lend me a patch of sunlight, please,
Oh, lend me a patch of gold.
Lend me a spot
Where the sunlight’s hot,
When times and days grow cold.

Oh, keep it there when the sun hangs up
In the middle of sky
Save me a spot
Where the sunlight’s hot,
And the rest of my life passes by.

Leave it there, for a poor old dog,
For a friend whose youth is passed,
Show him a spot
Where the sunlight’s hot,
And a bit of warmth will last.

And down will I lay;
Nor will I bark or bay.
“Till the life in my bones is passed;
Yes, the life in my bones is passed.”

--Miriam Parrish

A Poem About Horses

2011-06-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

Two Old Stallions

Forward spring the horses
Eager, reaching strides
Ears alert and muscles ready;
Wildly rolling eyes.

The bay, with coat of flaming red,
Extends across the track.
His tail behind cascading down
And flickering mane coal black.

The second -- stormy gray in color,
An ivory tail he sports --
Engages the bay with pounding hooves
And fierce, emphatic snorts.

Neck and neck, with no surrender,
Their stout hearts set on triumph.
Hearing no sound save beating hooves
They gallop yet, defiant.

The gray gains inches, laboring,
His dark eyes glint; heart drumming.
But the bay will not capitulate
He toils on, still running.

Stallions snorting fire,
Fence posts blinking by.
The gray is surging past the bay
His long legs, flashing, fly.

He drives beyond the straining bay
The latter grunts, annoyed.
The former claims his victory
And throws a buck of joy.

The stallion stops and turns around
He nickers to the bay.
Two old friends, both retired
Reliving glory days.

-- Miriam Parrish
(Grade 8)

Topaz the Hunter

2011-06-01T05:30:00.000-07:00

Here is another poem by the talented young poet, Miriam Parrish. The first of Miriam's poems to appear at STUDENTS PUBLISH HERE! was co-authored with Madeline Smith and titled "The Petty Slight."

Hopeless Hunt

“Topaz, my pup, small and slim,
What is it you want to win?”

“I am swift, lithe, bold, and smart
I’ll catch a squirrel: I know the art.”

“Squirrels above use twig and bough.
But you cannot, and even now
The squirrels bound overhead quite free!
Alas, you simply will not see!"

“Just watch! Such little faith have you.
I’ll catch a squirrel and slay it, too.”

--Miriam Parrish

Sun-Moon: Are They Opposites?

2011-05-31T05:30:00.000-07:00

A diamante contains opposing concepts which meet in the middle line and is structured in a diamond shape. The conception of the Sun and Moon as opposites is very ancient. In the ancient world, the Sun represented the male principle in creation and the Moon the female principle. We see this concept in the Spanish language where sol (sun) takes the masculine article el and luna (moon) takes the feminine article la. The binary opposition of Sun and Moon is not strong in this poem, but I still like it.

Sun

big, bright

shining, glowing, warming

sky, sunset, night, stars

twinkling, reflecting, beaming

full, white

Moon

--Madeline Smith

Related reading: The Sun and the Moon in Genesis

A Breezy Dialog Poem

2011-05-28T05:30:00.000-07:00

Madeline Smith is a talented young writer. This is the second of Madeline's poems published at STUDENTS PUBLISH HERE! The first is here. Watch for others to appear in the near future.

Tea Talk

Two ladies were at tea one day.
The hostess then began to say
‘Ah, yes, my figure has grown lanky
With twenty children to chase and spanky!”
The guest said, “I thought nineteen?”
The first, “Things are not as they seem.
I, in fact, gave birth last night.”
Then, the reply: “What a delight!
Pray, what is the dear babe’s name?”
“Malcolm Mauritius Cornelius Tremain
Vernon Jamaica...and Edwards, of course.”
“Well, I too gave birth.”
“What’s that, your fourth?”
“No, the other day to join the mix,
We adopted twenty-six!”

--Madeline Smith
(Grade 8)

Pantoum: The Petty Slight

2011-05-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

The Petty Slight

It actually was a petty slight.
He started it!
I returned it with a bite.
I didn’t mean to!

He started it!
He slapped me in my line of sight.
He didn’t mean to!
I bawled so loud that he took fright.

He tried to fix my line of sight.
We saw how petty we had been.
He’d taken such a dreadful fright.
I wished I hadn’t bitten him.

We laughed at how petty we’d been.
He promised he would slap no more.
I said I would not bite again.
We walked away with peace restored.

--Miriam Parrish and Madeline Smith

Luci Shaw's New Book "Harvesting Fog"

2011-05-22T12:38:00.000-07:00

In Harvesting Fog, Luci Shaw uses the gathering of moisture from mist as the prevailing metaphor for writing poetry about seen and unseen realities.

Harvesting Fog is Luci Shaw's 30th book, released in 2010 by Pinyon Publishing. The title comes from a reference in the National Geographic Magazine about Lima, Peru, where there is little rain but a persistent, clammy fog. Residents of Lima collect water from the nets they hang outside, on which the fog condenses into water droplets. Shaw uses this as a metaphor for the gathering of images and ideas for poems that link transcendent with immanent, as Malcolm Guite has commented, "heaven in the ordinary."

“One might argue with Heidegger that only in poetry—particularly the lyric poem—can Being achieve adequate articulation, find a "local habitation and a name," become known. For a poet of profound religious sensibility such as Luci Shaw, whose poems so brilliantly and movingly locate authentic Being in the forms and processes of nature, the lyric impulse often approaches the incarnational. At one point she writes, "Something sacramental speaks/in the rinsing of hard stone by mountain run-off." The same could be said of the elegantly crafted poems, word made flesh, in Harvesting Fog.” —B. H. Fairchild, author, The Art of the Lathe

Read more here.

Random Word Poetry Contest IV

2011-05-20T17:27:00.000-07:00

Attention: Poetry Lovers!

Every year STUDENTS PUBLISH HERE! hosts a random word poetry contest. Everyone is invited to participate. Here are the details:

You must use all the words in the list below. Some words may be used in the title. The poem can take any form you wish. Poems should be between 12 and 30 lines. Words may be used in any order.

Submit your finished poem to Alice C. Linsley at aproeditor (@) gmail-dot-com. The deadline is Wednesday, June 8, 2011.
Here are the words you must use:

slanted
embellishment
roars
studded
verdant hills
contrite
mint
plush
net
leaps
unblemished
joyride
hang
topaz
reaching
consumes
___________________

The 2010 winners were Ed Pacht, John C. Nichols and Dior Hartje. Read their poems here.

Ed Pacht was a winner in 2009. Read his winning poem here.

John C. Nichols was a winner in 2009 also. Read his poem here.

Ed Pacht was the winner in 2008. Read his poem here.

I look forward to reading your work!

Alice C. Linsley

The Death of Death

2011-05-08T09:20:00.000-07:00

The Death of Death

Hanging on the tree,
Breathing his last breaths,
He cried out to His Father,
“Must I suffer this cruel death?

Yet let Thy will, not mine, be done,
And while I still do breath,
Oh please remember Thine only son,
And give Me strength Thee to please.”

Great drops of blood stood on His brow,
Great nails pierced hands and feet.
A jeering mob looked on below,
and He went on, His father soon to meet.

Yet love and mercy filled His heart,
“Father, forgive them I plea,”
He chose to save them, in His love,
“Father, I give My spirit to Thee.”

Now heart diminishes its beat,
But death has died, not He,
Death has been defeated now,
He died for sinners we.

Loving Father, accept my praise,
For You have saved us all.
Death has taken its last toll,
The cross its bitter gall.

--Chandler Hamby

Noah Barleywater Runs Away

2011-04-29T18:04:00.000-07:00

Noah Barleywater Runs Away by John Boyne
David Fickling Books, 2011 (ages 9-12)

One day, eight year-old Noah Barleywater runs away from his home and his problems. Before long, Noah has been branded an apple thief and encountered a grumpy adult, a hungry donkey and a helpful dachsund. Most amazing of all however, is Noah's discovery of a magic oak tree and the toyshop that lies beyond it. There, Noah is greeted by an old toymaker every bit as mysterious and magical as the toyshop itself, a toymaker whose stories will change Noah's life forever.

Noah Barleywater marks John Boyne's return to children's fiction after the success of his deservedly celebrated first novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. I do not want to give too much away about the plot as there are a few secrets that some readers may want to uncover for themselves. One thing that I can say is that Noah Barleywater not only met but surpassed my expectations from an author of Boyne's calibre. The book has been called and marketed as a "fairytale" and it is my opinion that Boyne's enchanting prose could not be described as anything less. However, while the vocabulary of a nine year-old may be able to cope with the language used in the book (as well as be enriched by it), Noah's "problems" require an older, more mature, audience. The theme of death and its effects on family is explored. Also the imagery and metaphors used would be lost to a younger audience. In order to be able to fully appreciate this book and all its meaning, I would recommend it be read by teenagers and adults from the ages of fifteen onwards. It is comparable to Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince which, while its story can be appreciated as a fairytale by younger audiences, has infinite value for older readers.

Maryana Garcia is the eldest of four sisters. A student at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, she plans to major in History and is currently an employee at the Mount Albert Community Library. This piece was first published at MercatorNet.

This is for you, Mom

2011-04-26T17:17:00.000-07:00

The Hands that Prepared
By Dan Overcash

Rough, red, cracked and scarred

Mom serves shelled butterbeans

As Sunday fare….

Glad my buddies didn’t come.

Glancing away and down to pray,

“Thank you, Lord, for this food

And the hands that prepared it.”

Gnarled fingers clasp to agree

But in that silent pause,

My heart sees with better eyes.

Thread winding, cone to cone

From midnight to dawn;

Scrubbing flour sacks,

Shirting sewn for a son

That “will make it one day.”

Soapy dishes, shucking corn

Picking cotton in noonday heat;

Strips binding bloody fingers

Where thorny bowls cut deep

Into hands holding hope.

Shiny leather stride stairs to center stage

NASA engineers stand amazed.

“We will launch a manned mission

To Mars in 2020, and this is how…”

Not ashamed, nor bowed,

Head up, fingers spread,

The old familiar grace resounds!

“Bless the hands that prepared…”

Dismissing the ritual “Amen,”

I gently whisper, “This is for you, Mom.”

Hope Rapson Offers Writing Instruction

2011-04-21T20:38:00.000-07:00

Here are two writing workshops that are well worth the effort. Hope Rapson has been teaching Creative Writing for 20+ years and has had many students published. Some of her former students write professionally.

Writing Poetry, Grades 7-10

Dates: Monday through Thursday, May 16 to 19, 2011

Times: 9-12 A.M.

Fees: $100 for 1-2 students decreasing $10 dependent on enrollment (8 maximum)

All writing supplies will be provided; home access to email and computer processing are required. Students will be assigned a day to bring snacks and drinks to share with the class.

A nonrefundable registration deposit of $20 is required by May 13th; this will be deducted from the class fee.

Instructor: Hope Ellen Rapson
Columbia, SC 29212
803-381-2551 or email hopellen@bellsouth.net for further information and/or registration.

Writing the Hero’s Journey Story for Grades 7-10

Dates: Monday through Thursday, May 16 to 19, 2011

Times: 1-4 P.M.

Fees: $100 for 1-2 students decreasing $10 dependent on enrollment (8 maximum)

All writing supplies will be provided; home access to email and computer processing are required. Students will be assigned a day to bring snacks and drinks to share with the class.

A nonrefundable registration deposit of $20 is required by May 13th; this will be deducted from the class fee.

Instructor: Hope Ellen Rapson
Place: Columbia, SC 29212
Call 803-381-2551 or email hopellen@bellsouth.net for further information and/or registration.

Best Colleges for Aspiring Writers

2011-04-21T04:00:00.000-07:00

An aspiring writer choosing a college is a lot like a child trying to make a decision in a candy store. Cliched simile aside, the amount of colleges with utterly brilliant writing programs, both at the graduate and undergraduate level, is astounding. That being said, everyone has a different set of preferences for a writing class, and writing programs can vary quite significantly, making that meticulous search for the right school highly rewarding in the end. As with any college search, you should take into account school location, class size for your concentration, and faculty, among other factors, to ensure the right decision for your future. And, of course, always keep in mind what style or genre of writing you wish to pursue.

1. Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia): Ask anyone for the best schools for writers, and Emory will inevitably emerge. With a plethora of outstanding minds flocking to and from Emory every year (be it guest lecturers, students, or alumni), it is no wonder why Emory would be a prime place for a budding writer. Emory offers extraordinary flexibility to its students; the only required course of all English majors is Poetry. Emory also allows English majors to double major in creative writing through Emory's very own undergraduate Creative Writing program, which offers workshops spanning over several genres, including poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, playwriting, and screenwriting. Students looking for more personal settings with professors will be happy to find that most English classes cap at 15 students, while the largest cap at 25.

2. Hamilton College (Clinton, New York): Hamilton College is known not only for its high quality coursework or wide breadth of options for English majors but also for its nationally renowned writing center. Like Emory, Hamilton College allows English majors to concentrate in either English literature or creative writing. Hamilton's creative writing program offers courses and workshops in poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and playwriting (in which students will write and stage a one-act play). Whether concentrating in English or creative writing, Hamilton strives to cultivate all its students into elegant writers and great thinkers. And with one of the greatest writing centers in the nation to boot, it is a challenge to find a better place to study the English language.

3. Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland): There are few programs in Johns Hopkins that aren't among the best in the nation. Their English department boasts a long history of producing well-received and distinguished writers. While they do offer courses in creative writing, Johns Hopkins focuses much more on literary writing, critical analysis, and literature education to improve writing skills. Those seeking workshop settings should perhaps look elsewhere, but those wanting to master their control and understanding of the English language should look no further. With a published and highly regarded faculty in small, intimate classroom settings, great ideas and voices have nothing to do but flourish.

4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts): Most people wouldn't immediately think of MIT as a great writing school given its enormous reputation for engineering, computer science, and technology. However, MIT offers an extensive and unique writing program that not only produces great writers but prepares them to be competitive in the harsh job market of English graduates. One thing that sets MIT apart from other universities is the fact that, rather than having one English department that covers both writing and literature, they split the traditional English department into two entirely separate programs. Their writing program not only instructs creative writing but also science writing and digital media. They boast a dynamic faculty of novelists, essayists, poets, translators, biographers, historians, engineers, and scientists. Students focusing in creative writing are encouraged to choose a sub discipline as well (humanities, arts, or social sciences) which creates for an extremely unique, well-rounded, and practical English language experience at the university level. Not to mention, Cambridge is just a stone's throw away from the lively cultural hub that is Boston.

5. New York University (New York, New York): Beyond the acclaimed faculty and progressive coursework, the location of NYU itself is reason enough to study there. Imagine living in the heart of New York City (what some call the greatest city in the world) for four years. Surrounded by museums, parks, and huge historical landmarks, there is no way not to be inspired. Combine this with the large variety of English concentrations offered, including a creative writing program, and an English education at NYU seems unbeatable. What's more, NYU creative writing graduate program has enormous amounts of prestige and is often ranked top five on most publications' top creative writing programs lists. Maybe this is due to the location; maybe it's the published and award-winning faculty; maybe it's the variety and quality of courses.

6. Washington University in St. Louis (St. Louis, Missouri): A haven for any growing writer, Wash U's creative writing program offers a variety of courses, taught by their talented MFA faculty as well as second-year MFA students. Beyond your traditional poetry and fiction classes, Wash U offers unique special topics such as The Short-Short, Sudden Fiction and Microfiction, Literary Journalism, and Stories From the Suburbs with plenty more in mind for increased expansion. The program places added emphasis on critical reading and workshopping to produce well-rounded writers with a deep grasp of their craft. Wash U's MFA program is often ranked in the top ten of MFA programs each year, and, with such a blossoming undergraduate program and dedicated faculty, this trend seems very likely to continue.

7. University of Iowa (Iowa City, Iowa): For at least the past decade, Iowa has dominated the ranks of creative writing MFA programs. Easily labeled the best program in which to study fiction writing (and their poetry program is nothing to sneeze at either), Iowa has recently taken their creative writing success at the graduate level and started applying it to an undergraduate creative writing track. Offering a variety of courses including writing for fiction, poetry, non-fiction, playwriting, translation, new media, and ecologically aware, this undergraduate track is great for young writers looking for a diverse writing experience. With an exception faculty, numerous unique courses, and plenty of opportunity for writing, editing, and workshop experience, this creative writing track is a recipe for success for any writer.

8. Columbia (New York, New York): Columbia may be the only school in New York that can stand head to toe with NYU's location. Just a few miles north on the Island, surrounded by parks and only a couple blocks away from Central Park, Columbia is the perfect environment to muse off your surroundings and become entranced in inspiration. With names like J.D. Salinger, Federico Garcia Lorca, Hunter S. Thompson, Eudora Welty, Jack Kerouac, Langston Hughes, and Allen Ginsberg, Columbia boasts an enormous literary legacy of producing great writers. While Columbia is known for its preparation in journalism, they also offer a very nice creative writing program. Their undergraduate creative writing program combines intensive writing workshops with seminars that study literature from a writer's perspective, resulting in a vital and unique experience for writers that you can't receive from just any English program. Their graduate MFA program is ranked among the best in the nation every year and boasts a highly talented and respected faculty.

9. University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Michigan): Like most undergraduate schools these days, Michigan offers an undergraduate writing program in addition to their English major. Both English and non-majors are encouraged to take the program; in addition to teaching students to write effective analytic arguments, the undergraduate writing program also offers courses in creative writing for fiction and poetry. Michigan's notable creative writing MFA program remains top-ranking for the past few years, and that does not appear to change anytime soon.

10. Colorado College (Colorado Springs, Colorado): This private liberal arts college offers a great deal of variety through their English department. In addition to studying the English major, students can concentrate in creative writing or film studies. Both concentrations require additional courses and study than it would to simply complete a regular English major, but with great work comes great reward. In the creative writing concentration, students review each other's work, collaborate on projects, and present writing pieces near the end of their course of study at Colorado. In the film studies track, the department focuses on story development and film writing. While filmmaking is also an offered course, more emphasis seems to be placed on writing, understanding character development, and plot.

From here.

Donne's Annunciation

2011-03-30T14:32:00.000-07:00

ANNUNCIATION

That All, which always is All everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Loe, faithful Virgin, yields himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though he there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet he will wear
Taken from thence, flesh,
which death's force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created, thou
Wast in his mind, who is thy Son, and Brother,
Whom thou conceiv'st, conceiv'd;
yea thou art now
Thy maker's maker, and thy Father's mother,
Thou hast light in dark; and shutst in little room,
Immensity, cloistered in thy dear womb.

- John Donne (1572-1631)

April is National Poetry Month

2011-03-23T14:57:00.000-07:00

Margaret Bolit

An invitation to get involved:

Margaret Bolit

April is National Poetry Month, and somehow, terrifyingly, April is also little more than a week away. I really like poetry, love that it has a month devoted to celebrating it, and last year I really enjoyed collecting favorite poems from people I love to post here. This year I want to do something to mark the month as well, but I’m going to try something a little different. Something which may not work at all. Though actually, its success is far more up to you than me.

I don’t think I’ve ever read as much poetry as I have over the past year. Part of this is probably that I’ve been working in a book store where I shelve the poetry section, so the sheer number of books of poetry that I touch on a daily basis has risen exponentially compared with every other period of my life. But part of this is also that I’ve felt really mentally raw and sensitive for large portions of the past twelve months, and this has made my mind open and attuned to the nuances of poetry in a way I’ve never experienced with any kind of longevity before. Also, I’ve had trouble reading anything long. And a lot of poems are short.

I love poetry. Something else I love is getting mail. And for some reason it feels like a really good idea to combine these two things I really like in celebration of National Poetry Month 2011, so what I’m going to do is this: I will mail you poems. That is, I will mail you poems if you’d like me too. I will mail out one poem a week, to the address of your choice, postage on me, for the entire month of April.

I realize this entails giving me your address…but I kind of assume that everyone who reads this blog I actually know, and likely know well enough to know where they live. And if we’ve never met, you should still feel welcome to take me up on this offer. I’d love to send you poetry too. And if you’re uncomfortable giving out your address, or you don’t want actual, real, made-out-of-paper mail, I’m willing to send the poems that I choose to an email address as well. And–within reason–if there’s someone you know who would really like to receive a poem in the mail every week of April, but who (for some strange reason) doesn’t read my blog, you can either let them know about this post and have them contact me themselves, or you can give me an address and I’ll add them to the list.

So, that’s what I’d like to do…whether any of this actually happens is kind of up to you. I really will do pretty much all the work here: I’ll choose the poems, put them on paper, put the paper into envelopes, stamp those envelopes and mail them. I will do this at least four times throughout April. Maybe more if I get really into it (and I’m obviously already pretty into it). All I need from you is a response to this post, either as a comment or as an email to mpbostrom@gmail.com, telling me that you’re interested, and indicating how you’d like to receive your poem (real mail, email) and to what address you’d like me to send them. And I need this response as soon as possible, and definitely before April 1. So! Let’s begin. Happy Almost National Poetry Month!

The First Day of Spring

2011-03-20T21:20:00.000-07:00

When Spring Dons Her Flowers

Soon winter will be over,
And flowers will bloom in bright array.
Sweet lilacs, roses anointed with dew, and lilies in their finery
Each dressed in the colors of God’s design.

I will sit in the fields and praise the LORD,
And by the brooks I will not be silent.

Thank you LORD for this season,
Which surpasses Winter’s snow,
And Autumn’s bounty of leaves.
Spring’s flowers and fragrances
Add to Summer’s joys.

-- Chandler Hamby

CENTER for CREATIVITY

2011-02-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

Check out Hannah Millikin's wonderful new blog Center for Creativity.

This is a place where students can share what they create or design. Hannah is seeking poems, art work, photos of Lego creations, robots, or crafts executed by young people. She hopes that her new blog will be a place where others can show off their God-given talents.

Here are Hannah's poems at Students Publish Here:

Song of the Birds
A Star in the Lion Sky

John Nichols - The Silent Cold

2011-02-13T09:47:00.000-08:00

The silent cold seeps through the seams

Of my taught, pale jacket,
The covering which holds my flame;
Yet the chill refuses to absolve its hold.
Its life-drinking kiss steals the breath;
Its wretched tendrils embrace the beating heart:
It draws us toward anger, hate, death, dying.
It tells us to cry, curse, rage, fear, cower, cringe.
And nothing can be done.

Who would stand against this cold? This chill?
This cold seeps through the senses.
It is black, unseen, yet all pervading.
Who could stand against this absolute?
This vast, vacant emptiness where nothing lives?
Can any fight it? Can any know when it strikes?
It tells us to shriek, to shirk, to sink, to sleep;
It wants us to shiver, to chatter, to huddle, to scream,
To sleep. To sleep. To sleep.

But we dare not dream.

Should we flee? Could we flee? Would we flee?
Will we consummate this unholy matrimony?
Will we consent to slip away into dreamless unrest
And submit to the frigid, killing bite of renunciation?
The hoarfrost wraps its withered hands about the heart,
Stifles its thumping rush, its vibrant vitality,
Slowly kills it, sucking, draining, choking, drowning,
Until a shriveled, barren husk hangs silent.
Not I, but we. Never I only we.

My shivering heart, now wrinkled, yet pale,
Is bruised, yet not broken, but lifeless.
The pallor of sable death has infected my
Jacket, my worn, warm covering. That chill
Has seeped into its fibers, diluting the warmth,
The heat, the fire, the life, the burning passion,
The all-consuming wrath, the rage, the revolution.
My insides rot and burn away, stirring new life
Within, yet without, the same.

But I am, at least, free.

Black, sable cold seeps through my jacket seams,
Burns away its passion, leaving it numb, senseless.
It calls us to cry, scream, despair, fragment.
It drives us to oneness, to tolerance, to crusade
Lady Hoarfrost bares her teeth in wanton pleasure,
Her wolf’s snarl malicious, seductive, chilling.
She beckons us to love, to fear, to protect, to kill,
To embrace the withered fingers of the cold,
To sleep. To sleep. TO SLEEP.
O, the horror of dreamless sleep!

Death.
Chill.
Frost.
Sleep.
We.

-- John Nichols

A Poem About Winning

2011-02-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

The following poem was written by my creative writing student, Curtis Surovy (grade 11). In this poem Curtis expresses the many emotional dimensions to winning and how the most precious victories sometimes aren't won in public.

Trophy

Anger red pulses in his neck
as he channels into a single
glorious moment of recovery
all his losses.
Hoisting triumph,
he indulges success before
his enemy's gaping mind.
From anger to victory,
from glory to locker room
where coach rubs liniment
into his aching calves.
He hangs his head
not wanting the others to see
the tear.

Key Considerations in Fiction Writing

2011-02-02T07:23:00.000-08:00

Point of view: From whose perspective is the story being told? The main charcter? The unseen all-knowing narrator (the author)? Will there be more than one point of view and if so, how willyou handle these?

Characterization: Min characters are always better drawn when they have a foil – Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, etc.

Plotting: Know where you are going and how the story will end. What is the conflict and how will the character handle it? How will things get worse for him? How will you "thicken" the plot?

Dialog: Use the correct format. Each conversational thread should be set in a new paragraph. Is the conversation natural? Don't put sophisticated language in the mouths of simple country folk.

Symbol and Metaphor: Used to imply a deeper meaning to the story. Use lightly but effectively. A pair of gold earrings could symbolism the feminine principle, for example.

Word Economy: The best fiction writers edit their work after they have finished the story. This is when you shorten sentences and cut useless words. Think of how Ernest Hemingway used few words to maximum effect.

The Title: Let your title be the “working title” only. A better title will suggest itself by the time you get to the end of the story.

Composition Writing

2011-01-27T16:49:00.000-08:00

We are going to work on skills related to composition development. Key elements include:

An attention-grabbing opening paragraph that also focuses the piece
Details that support your position or your main idea. Use historical events, data, discoveries, and/or experiences to provide supportive details.
Good transition sentences so that one paragraph or one idea flows well into the next.
A conclusion that summarizes key ideas and ties the composition together
Good grammar, correct spelling and proper punctuation

Here is a prompt like those used for the Governor's Cup competitions. Write a 250 word composition on this topic and email it to me as an attachment.

Many of the problems in the United States are directly related to illiteracy. Illiteracy is passed along by parents who cannot read so that a family may have several generations of non-readers. Research shows that two-thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by age nine will end up in jail or on welfare. The fourth grade is the watershed year.

Why are students not learning to read in elementary schools and what do you think can be done to improve the lives of the illiterate?

On the Mount of the Lord it Shall be Provided

2011-01-21T08:31:00.000-08:00

The LORD Will Provide

Chandler Hamby (Grade 6)

It all started when the Harrison family, which included Mom, Dad, Edward and Christy, decided to take a trip to their vacation home on a mountain that the family had decided to call “Mount Blessing.” Here they would explore, relax and pray. The family planned to camp for a couple days, during which they intended to explore more of the mountain, going from the bottom up.

After a week of preparation, they arrived and unpacked, eager to explore before dinner. Christy suggested this as the wild freedom of the mountain thrilled her. She loved to explore the enormous gorge near the middle of the mountain, which she had discovered while looking for wildlife.

Theirs was a large stone house, with a river across the trail road and animals on the mountain slopes. It was a very secluded place so they enjoyed peace and quiet all the time.

One afternoon, Christy and her brother set out to explore the mountain from the bottom up. Edward brought his leather pouch with a survival kit, including a rope and climbing gear. Although they were well equipped, he felt an odd sensation as he drove down the mountain, and left their car on the edge of the road.

“Let’s start climbing!” Christy exclaimed, eager to start the ascent.

“Hold on, little hiker, this will take a minute,” Dad replied. After a wait they finally put on their backpacks with half the food in Edward’s and the other in Dad’s while they did the same with the gear.

After several hours of hiking, the family encountered a river with a cascading waterfall. They decided to try to wade it, as the current, though strong, was not very deep. They managed to make it to the middle, when a sudden drop-off swept Christy off her feet and carried her downstream. Her terrified shriek brought the others to see her almost at the edge of the waterfall, and rapidly approaching its edge. “Christy!” yelled Edward, who had made it to the bank and ran after her.

Upon reaching the spot where she was holding on for dear life to a small branch stuck in the water, he dove in. But the force of his weight instantly snapped the branch, and in an instant they were swept right over the roaring water. For a split second they looked back at Mom and Dad, who were running as hard as they could, and mom crying and screaming. Then, with a roar they both were drug under and over the cliff. The yells coming from Edward and Christy were something their parents never forgot, and as they plunged down the waterfall Edward held Christy’s hand and prayed, “Dear LORD save us! please, if you do we will forever dedicate this mountain to you!”

At that very moment, spying a smaller cliff with a log hanging off it, he desperately threw himself out of the water onto it and gripping her hand, managed to pull Christy out as well. For a terrified moment they shuffled and crawled towards the bank, then fell onto it gasping for breath. Christy and Edward never cried, but only looked at each other and thanked the LORD for their miraculous escape. Then Edward looked up the waterfall from whence they had come, and saw that they had fallen over two hundred feet in less than five seconds. Christy recovered, and looking at Edward asked plaintively, “How do we get back up?”

“I don’t know,” Edward replied. “I guess we could try the climbing gear. If we can climb up the waterfall we can find the path and get back to the car. Let’s pray! The LORD will provide.” Edward was peaceful and confident, although he thought that the car probably would be gone.

“Well, we must try, this mountain is rocky, and we may be able to get back, if there is any hope we must try,” replied Christy with a trembling voice.

“All right, come on," Edward said, as he took off the climbing gear and put on the climbing hooks. He tied the rope around Christy's waist and looped it around his own, hooked the spikes in to the rock, and started the long, toilsome journey. It was a long, hard climb, but to while away some time, they tried to sing all the hymns they knew that mentioned mountains, one verse of each. After three hours their efforts were rewarded by being able to see through the mist of the fall, the top. They had gone about 150 feet, and just as they were beginning to have hope about getting back, they saw a huge, snarling mountain lion. It was climbing stealthily up to where they were.

“Christy,” Edward said very quietly, “Pull the pistol out of my survival kit.”

Christy did so.

“Now aim at its head and fire,” whispered Edward still very quietly.

Christy slowly raised the pistol, aimed, breathed a prayer and fired. Her hand was shaking badly and the first bullet missed. She again fired, this time hitting the lion's head. The roar it gave was so loud it almost made them fall, but as it with its last breath sprang, it fell and rolled off the cliff. Edward's face was gray.

“Thank the LORD, Christy! I did not know why I wanted to bring this kit, but the LORD must have prompted me to, because he knew what would happen. He has truly used this mountain to strengthen our faith in him!

As they climbed they were silent. Finally, after what seemed a decade, they pulled themselves over the edge, and saw the water fall. After some searching, and thanks to Edward’s compass, they found the path from hence they had come. They found the path almost as quickly and for some hours descended it. The car was not there, and for a moment the two children stared at the space it had occupied with blank expressions. Then, with simple, child-like faith began to pray.
“Dear LORD,” began Edward, “you have saved us from death, the waterfall, and the lion. You have used this mountain to strengthen our faith, and it has. Please, oh LORD, help us to find our parents! In the name of your Son. Amen.

“Amen!” solemnly repeated Christy.

Suddenly, they heard rustling and saw their parents. They called out to them: “Mom! Dad!” and ran into their arms.
After much praising God, they told the story to their parents. They listened in silent wonder as the children recounted how the LORD had saved them.

“Children, I've heard this and indeed the LORD helped you. Because of this, we will christen this mountain, ‘Providence,’ instead of Blessing, to forever remember what God has done.”

“Amen!” the family agreed.

So they hiked back, and arrived at the cabin as the light was waning.

After a week, they returned home and when people asked what mountain they visited, they smilingly replied, “Mount Providence.” And now you know why.

--End--

A Poem about Memories

2011-01-14T05:00:00.000-08:00

Remembering

There I lie in the cold sweet snow.
I hear a calming whisper.
It is the voice I used to know,
My mother’s gentle tone –
A memory.
Then, an inner warmth
Like my father’s touch
Reminds me of when he was near
But he is gone.
As I lie longer in the soft snow
Looking at the midnight sky
Thinking about the world,
The memories fade away
Like a fire turning to ashes
Like a picture fading in a frame.
The snow no longer feels sweet,
No longer a place for snow angels.
It feels cold.

--Jordan Romain (Grade 9)

A Christmas Poem

2010-12-24T14:00:00.000-08:00

The First Christmas

Bells are ringing,
and everyone is gay,
happy ones are caroling,
for Christ is born today!

Born in a stable,
with courtiers of sheep,
he could not be more exalted,
this king under stars asleep.

The angels sing a heavenly tune,
to celebrate his birth,
and dancing with stars so bright,
they laugh with unbounded mirth.

The humble shepherds bring their sheep,
the Christ child to behold,
the Wise men come with gifts for the king,
with frankincense and gold.

Mild Mary attends her infant son,
and Joseph watches with care,
as dearest Jesus sleeps in peace,
peace is embodied here.

Chandler Hamby (Grade 6)

Christmas Signs of Love

2010-12-23T09:00:00.000-08:00

The Christmas Tree

This seablue fir that rode the mountain storm
Is swaddled here in splints of tin to die.
Sofas around in chubby velvet swarm;
Onlooking cabinets glitter with flat eye;
Here lacquer in the branches runs like rain
And resin of treasure starts from every vein.

Light is a dancer here and cannot rest.
No tanagers or jays are half so bright
As swarms of fire that deep in fragrance nest
In jungles of the gilt exotic night
Where melons hang like moonstone. White above
Rises that perfect star, the sign of love.

On carpets’ fairy turf, in rainbow dark,
Here once the enchanted children laid their heads,
Reached for the floating moon above the park,
And all their hopes were simple blues and reds.
Beneath the electric halo, none could see
Swords in the ankle of the victim tree.

Each named a patron star: Arthur said green
For August in the country; and Betty blue
For swinging and the Florida surf; while Jeanne
Decided gold. One horoscope was true:
The star of Donald low and lava-red—
Enlisted Donald, in Australia dead.

Our lives were bound to sorcery and night.
Zodiacs crumble on the boughs of rust
For every child is gone. Some burned too bright
And now lie broken in the bins of dust;
And some, a fortunate few, adventured far
And found assurance in the perfect star.

--John Frederick Nims

Another Dior Hartje Poem!

2010-12-16T03:00:00.000-08:00

The Hope of New Snow

The white below my feet, so innocently soft
Soon is blackened from the dirt we fling,
Our once clean feet are dark with filth.
Yet, soft flakes will fall again;
Cover our mistakes with a new innocence.
New life, like new snow, offers hope to children
Once pure,
Now begrimed by the world.

--Dior Hartje (Grade 9)

Chandler Hamby, Promising Young Poet

2010-12-07T04:00:00.000-08:00

I'd like to introduce a promising young writer, Chandler Hamby, who is eleven years old. This poem expresses sentiments well beyond her years, I think.

my birth

I saw you from up in the sky,
just a twinkle in your eye,
while God looked down and smiling said,
"Would you like to have that empty bed?"

I told him yes, and thanked him much,
to be granted parents like such,
I said good-bye to my heavenly friends,
and told them God is good to all ends.

So I danced along the path of stars
and said good-bye to brother Mars,
I told the sun I'd see him soon,
along with Jupiter and Neptune.

At last I lighted on a cloud,
which took me down to you.
In your womb I finally grew,
a seed which God had given to you.

At last the joyful tidings spread,
that I was born upon the bed.
That now is not the bed of want because I came to you,
as well as some brothers few.

So now I'm older and I'm grown,
but still the seed that you have sown,
your work is almost done,
there remains no tasks but one:

That task is to keep praying ,
even while your hairs are greying,
and I for one will praise the LORD,
who sent me once to you.

--Chandler Hamby (Grade 6)

Gary Gregg's Third Novel in the Sporran Series

2010-12-06T04:45:00.000-08:00

As holiday reading and giving approaches, consider ordering Gary Gregg's third novel - The Iona Conspiracy. Published by Winged Lion Press and available for Christmas giving, this young adult adventure novel follows Jacob Boyd from his home in America to Scotland's sacred island of Iona where he discovers ancient burials, battles the evil "Mortimer," rescues a friend and mourns the death of another. Tapping into real history, events, and mysteries related to Iona, Saint Columba, the Book of Kells, Oran's Chapel, and Arthurian legends, the adventure doesn't end until Jacob must confront his greatest nightmare in the modern Gorgon of Lilith Frost.

Though it will be available through retail channels in the coming months, personalized copies for gift giving for 2010 can only be ordered direct from me. The 422 page book will retail for $17.95, but if you order by December 15, Dr. Gregg will pay shipping and handling if you order by that deadline.

Send your name, shipping address, and inscription request, with a check to Krysten Gregg, PO Box 43, LaGrange, KY 40031.

I've read his first two novels and they are unique, thoughtful and exciting. Adults will enjoy them too. Ask him to send you all three.

Find out more at http://www.thesporran.com/

Another Hannah Millikin Poem

2010-12-04T03:30:00.000-08:00

Song of the Birds

They bounce and they hop and they chirp;
Spreading their wings with glee,
they fly from tree to tree;
The crisp, cool drops of rain
splash on their gleaming feathers;
They sing a joyful melody
and a song of praise;
Beckoning to their young,
the mothers teach them to laugh, to play and to rejoice;
Yet as the pitter-patter of the rain fades away,
these little ones are still found glowing with merriment.
Splashing in the fresh, new puddles,
they sing the song of the birds –
a testament and a praise to their glorious Maker.

-- Hannah Millikin
Grade 9

Winter is Coming!

2010-11-27T06:35:00.000-08:00

Approach of Winter

The half-stripped trees

struck by a wind together,

bending all,

the leaves flutter drily

and refuse to let go

or driven like hail

stream bitterly out to one side

and fall

where the salvias, hard carmine--

like no leaf that ever was--

edge the bare garden.

--William Carlos Williams

Poems are Orange Juice Concentrate

2010-11-07T04:22:00.000-08:00

A good poem is like orange concentrate before adding the water. A poem that shows rather than tells is at once thick, rich, tart and sweet. It is memorable. Here are short poems in which my former writing students succeeding in giving the reader orange concentrate.

View of the Sea

The sea eats ships
beneath an endless darkness.
Salt burns eyes and dries flesh.
Slippery greens tickle fish at play
and moored boats
rise and
fall
as waves crash.

--Justin Clements (Grade 10)

Winter's Alliteration

Frail relationships are made firm
when flurries fly.
Families form
when frost falls.
Neighborhoods forget
distances, fences and yards
watching children frolic
in winter's frigid fantasy.

--Justin Clements
Justin lived most of his life in California. He wrote this poem after living for a year in Kentucky where he experienced his first snow storm.

Morning Birdsong

Still sleepy eyed,
the birds taunt me
to join in song and so I do.
Together, in perfect harmony
we praise the sunrise.
For one glad moment
I feel all the happiness promised
of a new day
and fly teary eyed
in the first lavendar glow
that softens the edges of the world.

--Sam Whitaker (Grade 11)

Banana Man

Hanging,
gentle winds brush
green lingering leaves.
Banana Man's rough mitt
soft grasps the yellow cluster
and places it with brothers
in a basket to be sold
golden new or speckled brown.
Banana Man knows the way
from womb to cradle of death,
from green to empty husk.

--Ansil Williams (Grade 12)
Ansil comes from Trinidad and Tobago. This poem reflects memories of life on the island.

And the Winners Are ...

2010-10-20T05:30:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed reading the entries for this random word poetry contest. There are three winners, each has a unique voice and perspective. Here they are:

The Casting Up of the Bested Sailors of a Sunken Ship
By Ed Pacht

I heard slivers of a harpy's tune,

lilting, luminous, distant in the mist,

in the stillness of the lackluster grey

of a leaden sky whose ebony smudges

seemed endowed with darksome portent

of a storm that soon would burst its bonds,

releasing roaring winds and pounding rains,

and bring to an end the carefree voyage

undertaken with my peers upon a sunny day.

I heard the faint, appealing singing,

and by it thought to find a sheltered cove,

some safety on terrestrial shores,

but the island haven that I sought

was miserly in granting refuge to the lost,

and my vessel on the rocks was broken,

spewing forth all that were on board,

and as we landed in that land of singing,

those that sang, revealed in their full stature,

caught and ate each one that landed,

sparing only me to tell the tale.

The Sunken Ship

By John Nichols

The luminous ghosts of Fortune’s peers

Now reside only as smudges

Upon the casements of slimy portholes

That sink in silt ‘neath the pounding waves.

Slivers of beams from that sunken ship

Float in utter night, lackluster, carefree;

The miserly hold grips its gold,

Casting up naught but a harpy’s tune:

A siren’s call from the deep.

Those ghastly bested beings rise

From their deep sheltered sleep;

Their ebon eyes luminous in the wreck,

Their terrestrial forms distant and gone,

Endowed with new souls, wise

And carapaced hosts of the deep.

The lilting cadence of their

Alluring song, the shriek of banshees,

Drive the soul to burst its bonds

And dive deep into the well of mystery

Where all men stand at full stature.

Last Gasp
By Dior Hartje, Grade 9

The sunken ship has burst its bounds, sheltered in the ebony.
Carefree smudges and distant pounding endowed the harpy’s song.
Terrestrial slivers have cost the giant its full stature.
Its lackluster peers watch, miserly
At the beauty’s casting up of its final luminous rays,
Attempting again to catch the lilting air.

A Reminder about the Contest Deadline

2010-10-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, October 19 is the last day to submit poems using the random word list. So far I have received 4 entries, inlcuding a submission from each of last year's winners.

Here is the list of words to be used.

endowed
lackluster
smudges
burst its bonds
harpy's tune
carefree
sunken ship
miserly
full stature
ebony
luminous
lilting
distant
sheltered
pounding
slivers
casting up
bested
terrestrial
peers

They really were randomly selected, but they do suggest themes that move in a certain direction.

Please send me your submissions as soon as possible.

Best wishes,
Alice C. Linsley

Poetry Contest: Randomly Selected Words

2010-10-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

Contestants have 2 weeks to use all of the following words or all but 3 of the words in a single poem. The 3 words that are not used in the body of the poem must be used in the title.

Submit your poem to Editor at aproeditor - at- gmail - dot -com and I will post the winners on October 20.

endowed
lackluster
smudges
burst its bonds
harpy's tune
carefree
sunken ship
miserly
full stature
ebony
luminous
lilting
distant
sheltered
pounding
slivers
casting up
bested
terrestrial
peers

Random Word Poetry Contest

2010-10-04T17:24:00.000-07:00

Each year I post a list of randomly selected words that can be used to write a poem and I post the best poems. Tomorrow the list will appear with instructions on how to compete.

Here are the winners from last year's contest:

Lay of the Angry Jiggler of the Smooth Speckled Stones
by Ed Pacht (June 2009)

Caring for none, dryer than death,
his empty spirit falling away,
he trudges onward in a weary road,
with a smoldering bitterness deep within
that pierces like a painful splinter,
laboring longer, clenching fists,
longing for he knows not what,
and never coming to find it..

Before him looms a towering presence,
a pair of dark forbidden portals,
opening to a land of ugliness and deep despair,
reeking with the smell of rotting broken eggs,
with a doom forecast for those who fall into its lure,
drawn by their own deep hidden hatreds,
straggling or stranded in their horrid grip,
and falling through those gates into that smoking pit.

But in his ears there is a hint of harmony,
a quiet song of softly gentle sweet persuasion,
whose renderings, like a tinkling wind-chime chorus,
draw his tortured soul to look another way,
to turn aside from those dark portals,
to turn himself toward pleasant gates,
to enter into the Presence of the place,
to know, to find, to love, in joy.

A Lonely Chorus of Wind Chimes
John C. Nichols (June 2009)

I find that I
Am caring for none,
Feeling no remorse as I swiftly stab
The lifeless living with glass so fragile
Like a broken egg, like a painful splinter
Stuck in my heart.
I find that I
Am longing for all, yearning for that
Which is me denied.
Yet ev’ry word I spew is naught but
A lonely Chorus of Wind Chimes
Tinkling in the straggling breeze.
I find that I
Am falling away burned out and broken.
My heart’s deep desires
Imprisoned and slain
By that towering presence, that presence of this place
Which sucks my passions dryer than Death,
Colder than space.

It is Kurtz to me—
An Abomination, a Heart of Darkness.
A truth so black a lie must suffice.
I wish it were not so.
I wish these renderings would return to my mind,
So that I may paint in harmony once again
And with this gentle persuasion
I bid thee:

Set me free that I may write again.

New Magazine for Young Christian Writers

2010-09-20T15:14:00.000-07:00

Alethia Magazine is a new writing magazine by Christian youth for Christian youth. The Editor, Nick Muzekari, is now accepting story, poetry and artwork submissions for the premier issue.

Submit your work by email to Editor here: writealethia@gmail.com

Sarah Cline's Poem: The Graveyard

2010-09-16T06:45:00.000-07:00

The Graveyard

By Sarah Cline, Grade 7

Open the gate, once shiny and black,
Now twisted and brown with rust.
Open the gate, your fait to await,
But open it just if you must.

Now creep through the entrance, go in a slow way,
So not to disturb those who quietly lay.

See the old tree, with a bench by it’s roots,
The bench swinging gently, the tree slightly bent,

See the old church, now abandoned by all,
Lonely and homely as it stands grey and small.

See the dirt pathway, now covered with weeds,
It softens the trod of the few that approach.

See all the names of the people once breathing,
A small prayer by their dates, names, and deeds.

This is the song of the graveyard,
quiet and old, yet it feels quite a live.
The song of the ones that lay here alone,
Somber and still as they lay under stone.

John Nichols: A Psychological Thriller

2010-09-12T11:36:00.000-07:00

To Know Avail
By John Nichols

Click.

The sound of the hammer being drawn back caused David to open his eyes and stare at the steel death in his hands. A teardrop slipped down his cheek and splashed harshly against the cold metal, dissipating into dozens of tiny droplets, like a life shattered irreconcilably.

With his elbows on his knees and the revolver between his cold sweaty palms, David shuddered and clenched his eyes shut, blocking out the world around him, the world that had ignored him, tuned him out like the cries of the dead and dying.

David shook his head to clear his mind, but to no avail.

Disjointed memories came rushing back to him, shattered like the teardrop on the gun, like the mess that used to be a life.

That time, when he was fifteen, that first kiss, sloppy and awkward. That very next day when she was with someone else, for some reason known only to her. It just wonÆt work. I've got to be thinking about my future now.

A future, set in stone, at fifteen.

When he put that pencil grip on a girl's desk in the third grade, the girl that he "liked", since love had not yet entered his vocabulary. That girl that left the school in fifth grade, the girl he had tried to get together with, the girl that would not deign to speak with him now. Just....not my type....

A type, typical.

David jumped up from the couch and put his hands to his head, feeling the barrel of the gun tap against his head as if reminding him why he was where he was today. He paced back and forth across the floor, the fabric of his jeans quietly swishing when he moved, the soles of his shoes squeaking every time he took a step. He stopped in front of the bay window and stared out. There was the world, the place that had beat his head into the dust, condescending to him like the lowlife he was.

Again memories came back to him, like the teardrop, like the life.

Sixteen, buying his first car, worried about the money he did not have. That car that would bring him a moment of happiness, that car that became the laughingstock of the school. The girl that left because it would not start quick enough. Sorry, but I can't be with someone who can't buy me things.

Money, the only important thing, why not marry it?

Eighteen, at the awards assembly when he received eight, almost nine, different awards, more than anyone else combined. Eight because, well, you could not win them all could you? The hardest working, most accomplished guy in the class, and no one seemed to notice. Except they did, and he knew that they noticed. How did he get all those awards? My grades were higher.

Pieces of paper, "honorable mention", worthless trash.

The day he turned nineteen, the girl he had been courting for six months, the moment she said yes to his rose and crummy poem. A dream come true, a dream no one else seemed to notice. The day she tried to leave. "You have to let me go. David, please....you have to let me go."

David whirled around pointing the gun at the woman tied to the chair in front of him. Her pleading echoed through his head, the begging from her heart: David, I don't want to be here. I want to leave. I don't want to be with you anymore.

"You know I can't do that, love." David stated flatly. "I have to keep you here until you understand." She would understand; he hoped dearly that she would.

David sat back down on the sofa, forcing his gaze to the floor so as not to meet the desperate gaze of his love, his love that no longer loved him. He turned the gun over in his hands, studying it as if for the first time, as if contemplating its purpose. To kill or defend? To preserve or to maim?

Ten years old, first day at a new school, afraid of the unknown. The howling jeers, the disgusted looks on disgusted faces. The beatings, the girl who helped him, the girl who ran away from home, the girl who was found murdered, amongst other things. Dead, because of him.

Compassion kills, does it not?

David glanced up from the gun and stared at the woman before him. A pretty little thing, she was. The spitting image of what that world said was beauty. Olive skin, golden locks, blue-green eyes. Lips full of life, ruby red gems of seduction. Voice strained with fear, yet still persuasive in its own way.

"Please David, you must let me go. You aren't helping yourself by keeping me here."

His first kiss in what he had thought would be his last relationship. What he had thought would be his last first kiss. Soft, tender, full of life and love. Her lips, sensuous, pleasurable to the touch.

Irrelevant.

He lifted the gun up to eye level, pointed it at the woman and said softly, his words as cold and lifeless as the steel in his hand, "You will stay here, tied to that chair, and locked in this apartment until you understand that you do love me. I'll make sure that you do."

Again he stood. Again he paced to the window, looking out at the world before him: the street below, the apartment building across that street, the people passing by, oblivious, that police car slowly coming to a stop and parking.

The officer within opening the door and exiting the vehicle.

That officer making her way toward the front door of his complex.

Panic struck David in that instant, but he shook his head trying to forget the world and what he had seen. No! I'm imagining things. I'm paranoid. I just want to feel loved...

He whirled around, pacing feverishly toward the door of his fourth-story unit, glanced out the eyehole, saw nothing. Darting back to the window and glancing out, the officer walking past the door and out of sight of the window.

"David, you cannot be loved if you keep me here."

And I cannot let your heart be seduced by another. The memory flashed before him. The day he had followed her, to see what had caused her to turn away.

"David, why are you keeping me locked up inside this room?"

Paranoia is not paranoia if it is true is it?

"I can't let your heart be seduced, love. He was going to steal it, and I couldn't let that happen, love." For if the heart falls, the mind and body are not far behind.

David wiped his hand across his forehead, clearing the sweat gathering on his face. That was his purpose, right? To protect his love here so that her heart could not be seduced by another jealous, evil suitor, one who would destroy her heart and her very soul.

That day, when he was twelve, abandoned...

That day, in middle school, rejected...

That day, hated, scorned, mocked, spat upon...

The tears, the anger, the hatred...

The longing, the burning passion, full of desire to be wanted.

To be loved...

But to no avail...

David's hand shook as he raised and pointed weapon at the woman tied to the chair, bound tightly with no hope of escape. A silent tear ran down his cheek, his breath heaved itself in and out of his lungs, prolonged his misery moment by moment.

"Please, love, please," he sobbed, tears freely running their course, dying as they fell from his cheek to floor, "please love me. You have to love me."

"David," the woman said, eyes rimmed in red from the tears she had shed, "let go. This is not love."

David stood in silence, gun shaking, tears burning his cheeks as they, too, abandoned his forlorn figure.

He sank down onto the chair behind him, and from there, David fell to his knees, weeping openly. His body writhed and twisted as the pain of rejection wracked his human frame.

The woman looked on, pity for David in her eyes. "David, I have never left you. Never have I forgotten you. I have always been with you, and I will always be with you. But you must let me go. You cannot keep someone locked up and expect them to love you. Let go, David."

David rolled onto his side, curling himself into a ball, his sorrow flowing from him like a drain empties a bathtub of water, leaving it cold and unfilled. Her words echoed in his head. Let go, David.

Let go.

David.

Let go!

He raised his head, staring into the deep green eyes of the woman. It was like staring into the depths of an emerald forest, a whole life-filled forest, where things were...right.

He nearly stood and freed her then and there.

Thud, thud, thud.

A frantic glance at the door.

Fear and anger replacing the sorrow and surrender.

David, standing, aiming hate and death at the door.

"David, no!" the woman screamed.

Another set of pounding on the door. A voice outside calling to him, "David, let me in! I can help." A woman's voice.

"No!" David screamed, turning the gun toward the woman bound to the chair, "don't come in here, or I'll kill her."

Fresh tears from David's captive love.

"David, don't do anything you'l forever regret. Please, let me help you. I know what you're looking for; I can give you the answers you can't seem to find, but you have to let me in."

"No, I can't let you in. You'll ruin everything!"

"David, I'm begging you, listen to what I'm saying. That pain, that fear, that anger: I know how it feels; I've been there."

A pause. And in that pause, David thought he heard, in his delirium, tears coming from the other side of the door.

"David, oh David. How it must hurt."

Confusion mixed in with the fear and anger in David's head, causing the gun to waver for a brief moment.

What was this foolish cop trying to do?

"David, believe me, I've been in your shoes before. More people than you know have stood where you stand. The only difference is that they went down a road no one could ever come back from. We can save you, David. You have to let me in and take your friend with me."

"She's not my friend! I love her! She's my love."

"David, free your love, let her go. Keeping your love tied up is no way to show love to her. Please, David let me in."

The gun wavered again, but David still refused to move.

"David...my...love," the woman in the chair whispered. His eyes returned to the deep emerald oceans of right-ness, and the gun wavered yet again. All other sounds seemed to be drowned in that sea, in the thick, sweet nectar of her voice.

"David, please, let go...just, let go. If you love me, let go."

Something in that voice, something so very right about it, struck David deeply. He shuddered, sobbing uncontrollably. The gun fell to his side, and his shoulders drooped. David was ready to let go. He loosened the bonds of his love, so that she might move freely.

"Stay there," he said, "please."

David moved to the door, unlocked the latch and said, "I'm going to let you in, but wait until I say you can come in."

He received no acknowledgment from the other side, but David still took two long steps back from the door.

Suddenly, the door flew open and the officer rushed in, arms wide as if running for an embrace...or a tackle. She had a large smile on her face with tears running down her cheeks.

But David saw none of this.

Reacting without thought, he raised the weapon.

Pulled the trigger.

With a loud report, the officer fell to the floor dead.

The woman in the chair screamed, but did not move from the chair as if she was unable.

David stared blankly at the dead woman on the floor, then at the woman in the chair.

"I'm sorry," he said, as he raised the pistol to his head.

But before he could find the strength to pull the trigger, David fell to the floor, unconscious.

Through the blackness, he seemed to hear voices calling for him, echoes of memories.

David, please, let go.

David, please, let me in.

David, my love.

I want to be loved!

But to no avail.

The darkness tightened its grip about him, threatening to tear him limb from limb. Yet far off in the distance, there shone a light, a small pinprick of emerald.

Music filled the darkness as the light grew.

Music about love.

The light grew so bright, David's consciousness had to squint its eyes.

And suddenly, he awoke.

The white ceiling greeted his waking eyes. He pushed himself up on his elbows and glanced around his apartment. Everything was as it should be, everything in its place. Yet somehow, it was all wrong. Nothing was as he remembered. He glanced toward the door: no body, no bloodstain. Toward the chair: no duct tape or sweat stains.

Had it all been a dream? David glanced at his hand, the empty hand that held no gun. And then, David knew that his struggle had been a war with his own heart.

A knock sounded on the door. David jumped up and pulled the door wide. "Hello, my love," said a woman with emerald green eyes.

And in that instant, David came to know avail.

High School Freshman on What Really Matters

2010-09-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

Forever Changing World
By Jordan Romaine, Grade 9

We have all these plans

to go somewhere

be something

but life gets in the way.

We dream big of what we want

to accomplish in life,

ready, set, go …

with the fashion craze or sports,

forgetting who was with us from the beginning,

leaving friends in the dust

as we run after beauty that fades.

What matters are the choices we make,

the friends we gain,

the lasting things of the Lord

that hold us in place in this forever changing world.

Read Jordan's excellent short story - The Flint Knife - here.

New Biography of Flannery O'Connor

2010-09-05T14:35:00.000-07:00

The subtitle of this excellent book by Lorriane V. Murray is "'Flannery O'Connor's Spiritual Journey'. Read a review of the book here.

A Day in My Life

2010-09-04T13:43:00.000-07:00

I spent the morning in the garden. I transplanted, pruned, weeded, mulched and watered. We have had very high temperatures this past month and the ground is dry. I'm praying for rain soon.

I'm also praying for my children, all grown now. As I approach my 61st birthday, I realize that there isn't anything more I can say or do to nurture them to adulthood. They are there!

Likewise, there is little more for me to do in the garden until spring, so I will begin the next task: splitting and stacking wood for the winter. I heat my cottage with wood.

I took my dog for a walk this afternoon. We walk around the lake next to my cottage. She and I have been doing this for more than 4 years and I realized today that both of us are slowing down. It has been a cool day so I can't use heat as the excuse. In fact, today has been the first pleasant day in at least 6 weeks. It is so dry here that several counties have declared a bann on burning.

Just in time for the World Equestrian Games in 19 days! Instead of Kentucky bluegrass, our guests from around the world will find brown grass.

I've also been praying for a friend of mine who has been on pilgrimage to the holy Orthodox places in England. There she has been richly blessed and I am awaiting her emailed reports of the pilgrimage.

Another person I'm praying for is in prison in Peru. Her name is Lori Berenson and if you read Spanish, you can learn about her trials and tribulations here.

I continue the research in Biblical Anthropology. There are a few detractors and some faithful supporters, but most people simply ignore the research. Still, I press on.

Autumn: My Favorite Season

2010-09-03T16:10:00.000-07:00

Not only because I was born in October! It is a time of color and I am a person who reponds readily to visual stimuli.

Here is a poem about autumn by William Shakespeare.

Sonnet 73
by William Shakespeare (1609)

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

As a gardiner, I recognize that plants expire this time of the year, no matter how I much I coax them to live a few more weeks. There is a sadness to the garden in fall. It is the time to pull up dead plants and toss them into the mulch pile. But in preparing the ground for the next year's planting, I'm reminded that life is victorious over death and I thank God.

Dorothy Sayers: A Mind of Her Own

2010-08-22T16:24:00.000-07:00

Alice C. Linsley

Dorothy Sayers’ writings reveal her to be one of the most politically and religiously unaccommodating women of the 20th century. She distained propaganda, saw through commercial advertizing, resisted trends, defended human dignity and argued for the integrity of the creative process.

Carl Olson writes, “In an age of skepticism, cynicism, and false ‘freedoms,’ Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) was a passionate and occasionally scathing voice of reason. Like her friends C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and Charles Williams, Sayers was a brilliant Christian thinker, an Anglo-Catholic who took doctrine seriously and bristled at the growth of ‘fads, schisms, heresies, and anti-Christ’ within the Church of England.”

Sayers’ writings reveal her opposition to all careless regard for human dignity. Lord Peter is always delicate, even compassionate, in making inquiries of the broken-hearted and the scandalized. He must overcome his lordly pride in order to accept his beloved Harriet Vane on her own dignified terms. On the matter of life and death, Sayers takes the high road, opposing euthanasia on moral and religious grounds.

In those last weeks or hours of pain and unconsciousness, the soul may be undergoing some necessary part of its pilgrimage on earth. It isn’t our business to cut it short. Who are we to take life and death into our hands? ... the wrongness of the thing lies much more in the harm it does the killer than in anything it can do to the person who is killed. Especially, of course, if the killing is to the killer’s own advantage. (Unnatural Death)

Her mysteries, which at places offer rich catholic insight, nonetheless gave offense to both the catholic and the evangelical because she refused to fashion her characters as good High Churchmen or even as born-again Evangelicals.

Well-meaning readers who try to identify the writer with his characters or to excavate the author’s personality and opinions from his books are frequently astonished by the ferocious rudeness with which the author himself salutes these efforts at reabsorbing his work into himself. They are an assault upon the independence of his creatures, which he very properly resents. Painful misunderstandings of this kind may rive the foundations of social intercourse, and produce explosions which seem quite out of proportion to the apparent causes….

“I am sure Lord Peter will end up as a convinced Christian.’

“From what I know of him, nothing is more unlikely.”

“But as a Christian yourself, you must want him to be one.”

“He would be horribly embarrassed by any such suggestion.”

“But he’s far too intelligent and far too nice, not to be a Christian.”

“My dear lady, Peter is not the Ideal Man; he is an eighteenth-century Whig gentleman, born a little out of his time, and doubtful whether any claim to possess a soul is not a rather vulgar piece of presumption.”

“I am disappointed.’

“I’m afraid I can’t help that.”

(No; you shall not impose either your will or mine upon my creature. He is what he is, I will work no irrelevant miracles upon him, either for propaganda, or to curry favour, or to establish the consistency of my own principles. He exists I his own right and not to please you. Hands off.) (The Mind of the Maker)

Sayers was a deeply religion person, but not stuffy. She is well depicted in Mrs. Budge’s description of the affable and astute Miss Climpson, whose high church ways are a mystery to the Chapel-going Mrs. Budge:

“…you might find her up at the church. She often drops in there to say her prayers like. Not a respectful way to approach a place of worship to my mind…Popping in and out on a week-day, the same as if it was a friend’s house. And coming home from Communion as cheerful as anything and ready to laugh and make jokes. I don’t see as how we was meant to make an ordinary thing of religion that way – so disrespectful and nothing uplifting to the ‘art about it. But there! we all ‘as our failings, and Miss Climpson is a nice lady and that I must say, even if she is a Roaming Catholic or next door to one.”

Lord Peter thought that Roaming Catholic was rather an appropriate name for the more ultramontane section of the High Church party.” (Unnatural Death)

Finally, a sketch of Dorothy Sayers would not be complete without mentioning her thoughts on the arts and the necessity of human creativity. She wrote, “Man is never truly himself except when he is actively creating something.” She asserted this because she believed that humans share in the nature of the Creator.

The Church asserts that there is a Mind which made the universe, that He made it because He is the sort of Mind that takes pleasure in creation, and that if we want to know what the Mind of the Creator is, we must look at Christ. In Him, we shall discover a Mind that loved His own creation so completely that He became part of it, suffered with and for it, and made it a sharer in His own glory and a fellow-worker with Himself in the working out of His own design for it. (Creed and Chaos, Chapter 10)

Painters and patrons of the arts take the leading role in two of her novels: Five Red Herring and Thrones and Dominions, a book which Sayers never finished. In the first, a hot-headed and heavy-drinking Scottish painter is murdered and in the second the flirtatious wife of a patron of the arts is murdered.

In Five Red Herrings we read this description of a temperamental artist:

Graham pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket and set to work… The picture came up before their eyes with the conjuring quickness of a lightening sketch at the cinema- the burn, the trees, the bridge and a mass of bulging white cloud, so like the actual canvas Wimsey had seen on the easel that he was thoroughly startled.

You ought to be making a living by impersonations, Jock.”

That’s my trouble. Too versatile. Paint in everybody’s style, except my own. Worries the critics…But It’s fun. Look, here’s Gowan.”

He rubbed out the sketch and substituted a vivid chalk impression of one of Gowan’s characteristic compositions – a grim border-keep, a wide sweep of coast, a boat I the foreground, with muscular fishermen bending over their nets.

“Here’s Ferguson – one tree with decorative roots, one reflection of same in water – dim blue distance; in fact, general blues all over – one heap of stones to hold the composition up. Here’s Farren – view of the roofs of Kirkcudbright complete with Tolbooth, looking like Noah’s Ark built out of nursery bricks – vermilion, Naples yellow, ultramarine – sophisticated naïveté and no cast shadows. Waters – ‘none of these charlatans take the trouble to draw’ – bird’s-eye view of a stone-quarry with every bump identifiable – horse and cart violently foreshortened at the bottom, to show that he can do it. Bless you” – he slopped some beer on the counter and wiped the mess away with a ragged sleeve – “the whole bunch of them have only got one gift between them that I lack, and that’s the single eye, more’s the pity. They’re perfectly sincere, I’m not – that’s what makes the difference. I tell you, Wimsey, half those damned portraits people pay me for are caricatures – only the fools don’t know it.” (Five Red Herrings, Chapter 7)

In Thrones and Dominions, Laurence Harwell backs plays for a hobby while his wife, Rosamund', wants him to back a play by Claude Amery, her "pet poet." This, and Rosamund sitting for the amorous French painter Gaston Chapparelle, strains their marriage. Rosamund turns up murdered in the Harwells’ country estate and Lord Peter solves the mystery.

Sayers seemed to enjoy the demise of undisciplined artists and unfaithful artsy women. They represented people who gave the arts a bad name. Worse, in her thinking they embodied “a loose and sentimental theology” that “begets loose and sentimental art-forms.” (The Man Born to Be King: A Play Cycle on the Life of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ)

High School Junior Writes About What Matters

2010-08-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

The Deepest Desires of Mankind

By Elizabeth Barney, Grade 11

Materialism has been defined as the belief that physical well-being and worldly possessions hold the greatest goods and highest values in life. People have become so successful at fabricating and manipulating the world that we have come to believe that altering our surroundings is the way to solve our problems. Due to these assumptions, materialism now directs our lives. Humans identify themselves and others by beauty, power, and wealth.

The 20th century has seen a huge upsurge in the importance of physical beauty, particularly in women. The fashion, cosmetics, and plastic surgery industries have thrived on the preoccupation that affects women in every sphere, whether they choose to pander to it or not. Alissa Quart wrote, “Youth is nothing less than a metaphor for change.” Kids are just trying to establish their identities (Colson 127). From puberty onwards, young girls are pressured by the media to look a certain way. This is nothing more than grooming young girls to be the sexual objects young men want them to be (Colson 137). Beauty is the beast that drives females to depression (McDowell 169). Without beauty people often feel powerless.

Power is what people have come to see as a capacity to impose control on others and their own unruly emotions. Power comes from taking advantage of differences between people. Humanists believe that man is sincerely capable of delivering himself and his world from all evils without the help of any god (McDowell 189). Napoleon Bonaparte, a former leader in France, had this exact belief. Bonaparte even once said, “I love power. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.” (Brainyquotes.com)

Barack Obama is another person that is going to go down in history as one who hungers for power. He has said, “Yes, we can change. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can seize our future.”(Cnnpolitics.com) Obama believes that he can fix the problems of the world with his own power and control. This is evident in how aggressively he climbed to the top in the political world. Humans, especially men – in the military, in the church, in the work place – quickly arrange themselves vertically, according to their power and control. In many cases, the higher someone is on the economic ladder, the higher they are on the power ladder.

NARAL, America’s most powerful abortion organization, hits the right chords when it comes to wealth and promoting. Their website is full of “fun and crazy ways” to push for abortion and to recruit more followers (Colson 54). This is a prime example of how America is being consumed by materialism. NARAL vindicates their argument about killing babies simply for more money. In one general hospital abortion brought $68,000.00 in a ten-year period (Lutzer 105). The world not only justifies killing babies but it also justifies the porn industry. Selling sex is one of the oldest businesses in the world, and right now, business has never been better. Pornography brings America at least $3.9 billion dollars a year (Forbes.com). People are becoming so blinded by material things, such as money, that they are completely forgetting about moral values.

American society has been in hot pursuit of everything that is killing our souls. We spend millions of dollars a year seeking the ideal physical images to find our inner peace. Some of us think we can find that “peace” by being revered by those we have stepped on to get to the top. Others walk through life with their vision completely clouded by dollar signs. All of us have holes in our hearts that we long to fill, but will these materialistic aspirations make us complete? Are physical attributions, authority, and monetary gain really the greatest good and highest value in life?

The world seeks after things that aren’t going to satisfy their deepest desires. They’re deceived into believing that the emptiness they feel can easily be fixed by pursuing everything but the Truth. God created mankind intentionally to hunger for Him and only Him. Beauty, power, and wealth will never bring us true joy; A personal relationship with Christ is the only medicine.

Works Cited

Ackamn, Dan. "How Big is Porn?" Forbes Online. 25 May 2001. http://www.forbes.com/2001/05/25/0524porn.html

Bonaparte, Napoleon. BrainyQuote.com. Xplore Incorporated. 17 May 2010. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/napoleonbo150182.html

Colson, Charles. Lies That Go Unchallenged in Popular Culture. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers Incorporated, 2005.

Lutzer, Erwin W. Twelve Myths American Believe. Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1993.

McDowell, Josh. Don't Check Your Brains at the Door. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Incorporated, 1992.

Jonathan B. Hall on Oral Tradition

2010-08-11T04:15:00.000-07:00

We are continuing discussion of oral tradition from here.

Jonathan B. Hall's writings mostly concern the pipe organ and sacred music. Before studying organ, he studied English literature. In this piece, he combines his interests in music and literature.

Over at his blog, Jonathan has written about how symmetry (what I call "binary distinctions") are an aspect of the form that provides greater meaning. He notes that the loss of grandfather in a popular holiday poem, results in imbalance and loss of meaning. The Bible sustains the binary distinction of male-female, heaven-earth, God-Mankind, because the tension of the opposites reveals the greater meaning. In this thoughtful piece, Jonathan demonstrates how this is so.

Jonathan writes:

One of the holiday songs we all don’t know in common is “Over the River and Through the Woods,” a poem by Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) of Medford, Massachusetts.

Five miles northwest of Boston, Medford is, I think, the birthplace of much of our historic New England, Currier-and-Ives iconography of an American Christmas. “Jingle Bells” was composed here, in honor of the sleigh races down Salem Street. The most popular American liquor, Old Medford Rum, was made here. Paul Revere stopped here, rousing Captain Hall of the Medford Minutemen.

My own family roots are deep in the town that gave us all of this iconography.

So, what’s the correction?

The opening lines of the song, that’s what.

Normally, we Americans sing the song like this:

Over the river and through the woods,
to grandmother’s house we go;
ta-dum-da-dee-dum,
ta-dum-da-dee-dum,
da-da-da-dum-dum-dum….

Later on, if anyone’s still singing, we sing: “…now grandmother’s cap I spy! Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?…” and so on. It’s all there on YouTube. But:

Where’s grandfather?

Well, he is supposed to be there too. He’s been edited out—I’ll leave the reader to decide why.

Here’s how Miss Child wrote the poem:

Over the river and through the wood,
to grandfather’s house we go;
the horse knows the way
to carry the sleigh
through the light and drifting snow…

Grandfather’s house. Not Grandmother’s. The early appearance of “grandfather’s house” in the original text makes “grandmother’s cap” all the more delightful, all the more poetically balanced, when it appears in its proper place in the poem.

There’s equality, too; it’s Grandfather’s House, but the first person we see, the one whose sight delights us first, is Grandmother! (The “cap” is a synechdoche, standing in for Grandmother the way “house” does for Grandfather, only with greater personal immediacy. We meet the Grandparents via synechdoche; neither one is erased.)

What a beautiful image of America, the spiritual Zion, and our heavenly destiny. Grandfather’s House. This poem resonates because it’s also deeply anagogic: the poet is also thinking of our journey home to God, Who may be appropriately envisioned as an elderly male (though of course, God transcends gender, even if we cannot). The poetry is exquisitely Christian:

Over the river: by the agency of Baptism; by crossing the Jordan. (Literally, the Mystick River that flows through Medford.)

Through the woods: the vale of tears, the earthly life of uncertainty. The Selva Oscura. (Literally, the religiously-iconic wilderness of Massachusetts.)

Grandfather’s House: heaven.

Grandmother’s cap: the foretaste of glory. What great female saints we shall meet there as well! How welcoming; how like a complete family it shall be. (May one dare to think of our Lady?)

Even:

Is the pudding done? The feast of the Kingdom.— O sacrum convivium… futuræ gloriæ nobis pignus datur.

From now on, I will make a point to teach and lead this song with its correct, deeply-resonant text. Grandfather’s house it is, and shall remain!

The First Ruler, Part 3

2010-08-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

Alice C. Linsley
(Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.)

It was cool when Ra left his cave but it grew warmer as he descended to the spring-fed lake. He stood on the bank of the lake facing the east and began his prayers as the sun rose over the horizon. Using the half of the sacred ostrich egg, Ra scooped up water and poured the water on the ground, forming a straight line from west to east, between where he stood and the bank of the lake. He prayed:

“Father, I greet you as you come from your house in the east and begin your daily journey to your abode in the west.”

Ra then poured water in a line perpendicular to the first line, this one running north to south to form a cross. Then he prayed again:

“I have but one dwelling place as I am but dust and will return to dust. Father, grant that my territory might extend from the north to the south for as far as the eye can see.”

Then Ra stood at the center of the lines he had made with the water, at the center of the cross, and he poured the last of the water over his head and prayed:

“May I not give offense, since you see all things. Make me clean with this water as the rains wash away the dust. As the water brings life and sustains life, make me and my house to live before you. Shower me with blessings from above. Make my house into a great house. Grant that my son may have a territory like you have, with two houses, that he too may go forth like a bright light.”

When he had finished his prayers, Ra turned to hide the ostrich egg in the tree of life and was startled to see Ha's mother standing under the tree. She was watching him. He was sure that he was seeing a ghost and he started to run away but stopped when she called him by name.

"Ra, It is I. Don't be afraid."

Ra turned to face the woman.

"But I thought you were dead. You didn't want to live. You..."

The woman stepped toward Ra and smiled.

"The Southlanders found me and took me to one of their villages. I'm alive and I've come to tell you. It is time to make friends with the Southlanders. They are strong and know many things. They know how to read the stars and they count days by the Moon. They have work cycles for the men and for the women - 6 moon cycles for the women during which they plant and harvest and store grain. That's the time when they bring forth their young. And there are 6 for the men when they hunt, make war and sit in council. Their numbers increase because they have food and good shelter. They have good water and they take blood from the earth."

"What do you mean 'they take blood from the earth'? How is that possible?"

"They have made great caves in the high mountains and they bring red stones out of them. Then they pound the stones to a powder and use it to make images on the walls of their caves and to bury their chiefs and their ruling women. They believe that life is in the blood as we believe that life is in the water."

"But how can I make friends with them? They will surely kill me and take Ha and my sons."

"Sons? You have sons? Why didn't you tell me? Take me to see them. Let's go now!"

So Ra and Ha's mother climbed to the cliff where Ra's family lived and as they climbed higher, both began to call out to Ha so that she would not be frightened as Ra had been. When they reached the cave, Ha threw her arms around her mother and cried for joy and the two women embraced each other and wept and laughed. Ra watched his wife and her mother, noticing how much they looked alike with their eyes the color of roasted coffee beans and their long black hair framing their wide faces. They had the same high cheek bones. The older woman was almost as beautiful as the younger.

"I would have come sooner," Ha's mother said. "But I was very weak. The wife of the chief cared for me until I was strong enough to return. She wanted me to stay and serve her, but I slipped away. The chief will not be angry because I told him that I would return with a gift for him. If we make friends with the Southlander chief we can live more securely as neighbors."

"But won't the chief's wife be angry that you ran away?"

"Not if I bring her something of value when I return."

"What do we have of value that the Southlanders don't already have?"

Ha's mother frowned and shook her head.

"It is something we must think about. But now, let me see these fine sons."

She sat down and took the youngest grandson into her arms. Ha sat beside her mother and smiled.

"Let's talk about this later, " Ha said to her husband. "Now is time to celebrate. My mother is alive! She is here."

Later that night Ra, Ha and Ha's mother considered how they might make friends with the Southlander chief who had saved Ha's mother.

"We can give them ostrich eggs," Ha suggested.

"No. They have many ostriches wehre they live and the villagers use them as we do."

"Perhaps they would like our horde of turtle shells. Our's are very large and make excellent vessels for gathering seeds and berries. and for storing grain."

"No. They have turtles there," Ha's mother explained. "We must think of something truely special to offer them, soemthing that they do not have. I know! The tree that throbs with life. They don't have a tree like our's. Their sacred tree is the opposite. The branches look like serpents, all twisted about and they say the tree serpents speak to them when they eat a certain plant. Whereas with our tree, it is the roots that look like serpents going down into the ground, not trying to climb up to the heavesns. It is as if the 2 trees were reversed. Isn't that strange?"

"But we can't take the tree to them," Ra protested. "It can't be moved, and if we cut it down it will no longer live and we will no longer have the tree wo mark the holy place."

"Then we must bring the chief to the tree and offer it to him here."

Ra didn't like that idea. It frightened him and made his face turn down. What would happen when the Southlanders knew about the tree? Why should he invite them to come here where he and his family lived in peace? What Ha's mother was asking of them was not good. It smelled of great danger. There had to be another way to make friends with the Southlander chief who saved Ha's mother from death and let her come home to them. There had to be a way to offer friendship without surrendering his holding, the place that he needed to build a territory for his son Ka.

Register NOW for the Philadelphia Writers' Conference

2010-08-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

Go here for more information.

Mother Goose: A Modern Oral Tradition

2010-08-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

Mother Goose is an archetypical country woman who supposedly wrote stories and rhymes that have become standard fare for the nursery. Nobody knows who she is or whether she even lived, though most would agree that her roots are in England. In fact, there are different versions of her rhymes so even the words aren't set in stone.

The Mother Goose ryhmes are a good example of how oral tradition preserves meaning while not always preserving form. We are not going to explore the possible social critique conveyed in these rhymes. We are interested only in how the various versions maintain meaning. Consider the following versions of Bah, Bah Black Sheep.

Bah, bah, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes, marry have I,
Three bags full;
One for my master,
One for my dame,
But none for the little boy
Who cries in the lane.

Here's another version:

Bah, bah, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.
One for the master,
One for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.
Bah, bah, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.

The The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 88, has this shorter and more formal version:

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.
One for the master,
One for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

Ed Pacht, a regular reader has made this observation:

I've always been intrigued with nursery rhymes -- as a teen My uncle found me reading a book about nursery rhymes, and failing to notice that it was a historical and political commentary, made fun of me for being concerned with stuff I should have outgrown. These rhymes, whether really old ones or relatively modern do indeed carry a great deal of meaning, and do it by being preserved in a form. I'm afraid I don't see that you've demonstrated your theseis here: that oral tradition preserves meaning while not always preserving form. The two versions you quote preserve the form remarkably well, but in actuality reverse the meaning rather than preserving it. I find this to be a common phenomenon in the transmission of folklore. In this case the climactic line in each version concerns a little boy in the lane. Without attempting to identify the historical referent (though it can certainly be fruitful to make the attempt), it is quite clear that the whole point has been reversed.

In one version, which I would guess to be the older, there is NONE for the little boy, contrasting him sharply with the Master and Dame, and producing a mood of deprivation and crying, as well as a bit of a mystery as to the disposition of the third bag. There most certainly is a story here, probably filled with intrigue and perhaps moral significance.

In the other version (probably altered from the original) there is ONE for the little boy, putting him on a par with the master and dame, eliminating both the mystery and the feel of tragedy, and converting the story to as rather simple and bucolic one with little significance.

I've heard both versions before and have been much struck with the contrast. Whatever the referent of the original, when the events had receded from memory, the form of the rhyme persisted, altered to carry a much less puzzling meaning. Similar things have happened to the classic Faerie stories and other folk tales, in which the rough edges have worn off and the deeper significance has eroded, while the outline and form have remained constant. Compare earlier and later versions of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood and others.

I would propose that oral tradition most certainly preserves form, but often alters meaning, and that use of oral tradition in historiography needs to involve finding out what the story originally conveyed and why the change occured.

Here is my response to Ed's excellent observation:

You are quite right! None for the little boy and one for the little boy appear as reversals, but I was thinking in terms of a 4-way proportion. There are three bags and presumably 3 people, but if this is about taxes (as often supposed), the the narrator must keep something for himself. Then it seems that, though the form is different, the point is the same: heavy taxation disempowers the one being taxed, the narrator.

An old-guard Republican would argue that the heavy tax makes it impossible for the one taxed to spare something for the neighbor boy. The Democrat/Socialist would argue that 3 bags should be distributed to 3 parties: 2 ruling members and one on welfare. Where does that leave the one being taxed?

Ed responded:

The original may well have refered to the heavy taxation placed upon wool in late medieval England, a tax that was almost confiscatory -- different only in degree from Stalin's treatment of the Ukraine. That original version with that specific cause would certainly bear your interpretation: none for the boy because the King and his collector (perhaps the narrator) got his bag.

The second version (One for the boy) serves as a good example of what happens when the original referent for a beloved rhyme is forgotten. Someone reciting it was unhappy with the seeming disappearance of one bag, so he gave it back to the little boy, thus producing the pleasant, warm, and friendly version I learned as a kid -- everybody satisfied, no one crying, the narrator being only an observer. Precisely the opposite effect, taxation having disappeared from the equation.

My response:

In pre-literate societies, which depend on story-tellers (such as griots) to preserve history from generation to generation through narrative and genealogy, usually both form and meaning are preserved since the story is regarded as sacred. This is why anthropologists claim that meaning in oral tradition is stable among tribal peoples. Yet there is evidence that form is more likely to change than meaning.

Consider the seemingly opposite interpretations of Afro-Asiatic cosmology as it is presented in the Bible. In one tradition the Earth is the center with the Sun (God's eye, chariot or solar boat) making a daily circuit. This geocentric cosmology stresses God's omnipresence and omniscience. Yet the ancient Afro-Asiatics, who were great observers of nature, also had a heliocentric tradition by which they oriented their sacred buildings and defined God, whose emblem was the Sun, as the sacred center of all things. The traditions - geocentric and heliocentric - take different forms, but they are saying the same things about God.

This relates to the confusion about Science and the Bible. Both sides miss the point that both the geocentric and heliocentric forms speak of the same metaphysical center. Jacques Derrida, after all his deconstructive "freeplay" of narratives, concluded that the center is real, absolute and fixed, and that it is called by different names, including God. In a series of lectures that Derrida delivered at Villanova University, he said: "It would be possible to show that all the terms related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the center have always designated the constant of a presence, ... essence, existence, substance, subject, ... transcendentality, consciousness or conscience, god, man, and so forth.” The existence of the metaphysical center is detected by examining the reversal of form. This reversal of the subordinated term of an opposition is no small aspect of deconstruction's strategy. Derrida's argument is that in examining a binary opposition and reversal, deconstruction brings to light traces of meaning that cannot be said to be present, but which must have metaphysical existence. This is not a new idea or even a new approach to meaning. It is consistent with the mystical approaches of the Afro-Asiatics and Derrida, as a North African Arabic-speaking Jew, introduced Western Philosophy to their interpretive approach to meaning.

For more on Oral Tradition, go here.

Longfellow: The Children's Hour

2010-07-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

The Children's Hour
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

Before the "Dark Hour of Reason"

2010-07-25T18:55:00.000-07:00

"Childhood," said English poet John Betjeman, "is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows." Indeed, poems about childhood seem colored by innocence and naiveté, memories that make the rooms of a house more grand, the shadows near the bed at night more horrifying. In these works, poets document remembered people, places, and pastimes with an attention that children have for the world before ritual and maturity strips life of its daily magic.

In "A Replica of the Parthenon," for example, Mark Doty recounts a game he and a neighbor girl played without understanding the profound meaning of what they were doing:

Every night we took turns dying.
One would lie down while the other
folded the corpse's hands and,
with the true solemnity of children,
brought flowers.

In "A Happy Childhood," William Matthews captures another aspect of one’s early years: that not all memories are true. "It turns out you are the story of your childhood," Matthews wrote, "and you're under constant revision." In the poem, Matthews tries to reveal the contradictions that arise when one tries to remember the details of a far-off time:

He'll remember like a prayer
how his mother made breakfast for him
every morning before he trudged out
to snip the papers free. Just as
his mother will remember she felt
guilty never to wake up with him
to give him breakfast. It was Cream
of Wheat they always or never had together.

Sometimes a poet writes of childhood as a time of happiness, or sometimes as an uncomfortable period in which the child cannot yet live side-by-side with adults, as in James Merrill’s "The World and the Child," which describes the sweet pain of a child who lies in bed, separated from the adults, longing to be loved:

He lies awake in pain, he does not move,
He will not scream. Any who heard him scream
Would let their wisdom be the whole of love.

People have filled the room he lies above.
Their talk, mild variation, chilling theme,
Falls on the child...

And finally, of course, poems about childhood can be just plain fun. Take, for example, the springtime world E.E. Cummings creates in the poem "In Just," full of hop-scotch and jump-rope and rain, all "mud-luscious" and "puddle-wonderful." Or the Lewis Carroll poem "Jabberwocky," which begins

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

From here.

Glimmer Train Short Fiction Contest

2010-07-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

Glimmer Train VERY SHORT FICTION AWARD

Deadline: July 31

Prizes:

1st place wins $1,200, publication in Glimmer Train Stories, and 20 copies.

2nd-place: $500 and possible publication.

3rd-place: $300 and possible publication.

Other considerations:

Open to all writers.
Length not to exceed 3,000 words. Any shorter lengths are welcome.
Reading fee is $15 per story.
Results post on September 30. Winning story will be published in Issue 81.
Editors' Take on Very Short Fiction Submissions.

The First Ruler: Part 2

2010-07-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

Alice C. Linsley

(To read Part One, go here.)

Ra's Morning at the Tree of Life

Ra was a tall man with black hair and reddish brown skin. His eyes were like chunks of agate, a dark honey color. His hands were strong. Once he had killed a giant cobra with his bare hands. He also was adept at weaving rope from grasses and making baskets from reeds. His large hands were capable of gentle handling of precious things like his son Ka and the fragile ostrich egg that he used for his daily prayers.

Ra said his prayers every morning. He came down from his cave in the hills to the edge of the lake and stood under an ancient tree with large grey roots only half buried under the ground. The roots were twisted so that from certain angles they looked like snakes rising up from the earth. Ra often sat on one of these roots while he waited for the first rays of light to flicker across the horizon. The great roots were like an elephant’s trunk, sucking water from the lake. Ra thought that this explained the thrumming that he sometimes felt when he sat on the roots. It seemed that the ancient tree pulsed with life from the tips of its boughs to the tips of its deepest roots.

Ra stood under the tree facing the east. It was early and the Sun had not begun to show its first rays upon the horizon. The pale pre-dawn light made the water appear darker than usual and all was quiet, the way it is when the night sounds have ceased but the morning sounds haven’t yet begun.

Ra’s stomach grumbled but it didn’t concern him. His wife would have something for him to eat when he returned to the cave. He never ate until he had completed his prayers to the Father who lived above. It was a small thing but it was the right way to show honor to the Father whose territory stretched in all directions. One day Ra hoped to give his son a kingdom, though it would be a small one, since Ra and his wife never ventured far from the cave and the water near the great tree. Perhaps from this small piece of land, there would come a bigger kingdom. It was something that Ra wanted, but what price would he have to pay for his ambition?

When the Sun began to rise it cast a lavender glow across the water and birds began to chirp and chatter in the tree branches over Ra’s head. That was when he stepped out from under the tree and walked to the water’s edge. He was carrying half of an ostrich egg and now he stooped down and used the egg shell to scoop up water. Then he stood very erect, his dark face radiant in the Sun’s light. When the Sun had risen so that he could see the full orb, Ra poured some of the water onto the ground in a straight line from west to east, between where he stood and the bank of the lake. He prayed:

“Father, I greet you as you come from your house in the east and begin your daily journey to your abode in the west.”

Ra then poured water in a line perpendicular to the first line, this one running north to south to form a cross. Then he prayed again:

“I have but one dwelling place as I am but dust and will return to dust. Father, grant that my territory might extend from the north to the south for as far as the eye can see.”

Then Ra stood at the center of the lines he had made with the water, at the center of the cross, and he poured the last of the water over his head and prayed:

“May I not give offense, since you see all things. Make me clean and shower me with blessings from the highest heaven. Make my house into a great house. Grant that my son may have a territory like you have, with two houses, that he too may go forth like a bright light.”

When Ra finished his prayers he returned to the great tree and gently wrapped to ostrich egg in a large leaf. He reached up and placed the bundle in the V formed by two large branches. Then he headed home for his breakfast, feeling content with his life and eager to see his young son.

When Ra arrived the fire was cold and he could not find his wife. A sick feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that something was wrong. He crouched toward the entrance of the cave and looked in but there was no sign of his wife and infant son. He heard a muffled sound above him and looked up. His wife was motioning to him from a cliff above the cave where she was laying flat against the stone. He could see fear in her eyes and before he could scramble up to her, he heard the angry roar of a lion. Ra braced himself for the attack, but the lion turned and leapt into the forest as if pursued. Then Ra heard voices. He signaled for his wife to put her head down and he moved behind a tree at the edge of the clearing. From there he could watch the approaching hunting party. He could hear them moving through the forest and knew that unless they picked up the animal’s tracks further up, they would surely come into his clearing.

You see, Ra was a Firstling but he was not the only Firstling. There were others and they now outnumbered his small family. It was best to avoid confrontation, if he could. So he hid himself, hoping that the strangers would not discover his cave. He waited until the hunting party had passed and then he climbed to where his wife was crouching. His son lay asleep in her lap, unaware of the dangers he faced in that time and place so long ago when his father prayed for blessings from heaven and a territory for his son.

Now Ra sat beside his wife and stroked the tender face of his son. He looked up to see that his wife was watching him. Then she smiled. Ra smiled back. That's when Ha told her husband that she was going to have another child. Ra laughed. Wasn't he blessed to have Ka? And now there would be another! They would wait until the child was 6 moon cycles old to name him. Ra was certain it would be another man child though Ha was hoping for a girl. Either way, a name could be given only once so they would wait to be sure that the baby lived. In those days many babies didn't live very long.

You've probably noticed that all the names in Ra's family are single syllable names. That's because Ra, Ha and Ka spoke a language with one and two syllable words. That is a trait of the languages still spoken in the place where they struggled to survive. Today we would consider their language a precursor of the Chadic languages. If you look on a map of Africa you will be able to find a country called Chad. But you must remember that there were no countries in Ra's time. That is why it is so remarkable that Ra imagined controlling a territory for his son. If you are a boy, you probably think it is only natural that he'd want to control a piece of land. It would make it easier for him to protect Ha and Ka and the new baby. Girls don't think much about controlling land. Maybe because they have their hands full trying to control situations and relationships. But Ra was a man of vision and he intended that the tree where he prayed would be at the very center of his territory. Just as the roots of the great tree radiated from the tree's trunk, so his territory would stretch in all directions from the ancient tree that thrummed with life.

Swift's Meditation Upon a Broomstick

2010-07-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

ACCORDING TO THE STYLE AND MANNER OF THE HONOURABLE ROBERT BOYLE'S MEDITATIONS

This single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing state in a forest; it was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs; but now, in vain does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk; 'tis now at best but the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches on the earth, and the root in the air; 'tis now handled by every dirty wench, condemned to do her drudgery, and, by a capricious kind of fate, destined to make other things clean, and be nasty itself: at length, worn to the stumps in the service of the maids, 'tis either thrown out of doors, or condemned to its last use, of kindling a fire. When I beheld this I sighed, and said within myself, Surely mortal man is a Broomstick! Nature sent him into the world strong and lusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his head, the proper branches of this reasoning vegetable, till the axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs, and left him a withered trunk: he then flies to art, and puts on a periwig, valuing himself upon an unnatural bundle of hairs, all covered with powder, that never grew on his head; but now should this our broomstick pretend to enter the scene, proud of those birchen spoils it never bore, and all covered with dust, though the sweepings of the finest lady's chamber, we should be apt to ridicule and despise its vanity. Partial judges that we are of our own excellencies, and other man's defaults!

But the broomstick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree standing on its head; and pray what is man, but a topsyturvy creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational, his head where hisheels should be, grovelling on the earth! And yet with all his faults, he sets up to be an universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances, rakes into every slut's corner of Nature, bringing hidden corruptions to the light, and raises a mighty dust where there was none before; sharing deeply all teh while in teh very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away. His last days are spent in slavery to women, and generally the least deserving, till, worn out to the stumps, like his brother besom, he is either kicked out of doors, or made use of to kindle flames for others to warm themselves by.

Jonathan Swift, 1701

Mark Twain 100 Years Later

2010-07-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

by Father Steven Reilly, LC

As Hemingway put it, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” Even as we commemorate the 100th anniversary of Samuel Langhorne Clemens’ death this year, the novels he wrote as Mark Twain still hold an envied place in the annals of literature.

A great writer, and also a complex personality, Twain was the premier humorist of his day — the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts gives an annual award for humor named after him. Yet the laughter often carried a tinge of cynicism. He viewed the world with a jaundiced eye. Life, after all, had dealt him heavy blows, particularly with the deaths of his beloved wife, Olivia, and two of his daughters in their 20s.

Love for Joan of Arc

As for faith, generally he believed in an afterlife, but often it was conflicted and frequently wavering (“Faith is believing in what you know ain’t so.”). Still, Catholics may be impressed to know that Twain said that he liked his 1896 Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc “best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others; twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing. The others needed no preparation and got none.” Yes, the author of Huckleberry Finn, a book that frequently vies for “Great American Novel” status, held Joan of Arc in higher esteem. What was the source of this feeling?

Quite simply, Twain loved the medieval heroine and saint. In a separate essay in 1904, he wrote, “There is no blemish in that rounded and beautiful character. ... She is easily and by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced.”

Twain originally published his novel serially in Harper’s Magazine under a different pseudonym, Louis de Conte. He feared the reactions of readers who had come to expect a certain kind of writing from him and so presented the book at first as the real memoir of Joan’s page and secretary recently translated to English. How long the ruse was maintained is hard to say, but the shining admiration of the fictional narrator, the elderly bachelor Louis de Conte, is pure Twain.
Read it all here.

The First Ruler: Part 1

2010-06-29T08:27:00.000-07:00

Alice C. Linsley

Dear Grandchildren,

I promised to tell you the story of the first ruler and so I shall. It is a strange tale about a time so far in the past that there may be parts that can’t be told, at least not until we learn more about the Firstlings. You mustn’t think that I actually lived in those days. Really I’m not THAT old, though doubtless I seem ancient to you.

One day you’ll recognize that this story is more than a great adventure. It is a window through which you will glimpse a world that only the best science – the study of Mankind – is capable of describing. That study is called Anthropology and perhaps one day you will take it up and make a great contribution to our store of knowledge. Until then, let us simply enjoy looking through the window at the Firstling who was called Ra, the father of the first ruler.

You probably are wondering where he lived. It wasn’t a place like where you live. It was more like a very big garden. There were trees of many kinds and flowers such as we’ve never seen with huge fragrant blossoms. There were lakes, rivers, streams, marshlands, ponds, springs and salt water inlets. The mountains were very high in those days and the peaks were covered with snow and often wreathed with swirling fog.

Ra lived not far from the sea, well above the inlet since he knew that water ways overflow their banks after heavy rains. A craggy mountain towered over his pleasant valley, but he never ventured there. That was a place of great mystery and too close to the high heaven, a place where one might intrude upon the High God, and Ra was a cautious man. That is not to say that he was a coward or a fearful man. When faced with danger he had shown himself quite capable of self-defense. He had killed cobras and driven away lions. He had explored unknown lands beyond his valley, even land belonging to the Southlanders. He had saved himself from the great river beast with sharp teeth. He had even fought and won in combat against a man who had entered his cave to steal his wife.

Ra was very protective of his wife. Her name was Ha. She was also his half-sister and the only remaining member of their family. Their father and his two wives had been attacked by Firstlings from Southland. Ra and his wife had scarcely escaped. They ran and ran until they reached the cave where they now lived and they hid themselves there for days. The Southlanders had never come after them.

When Ra returned to where his family had lived, he found his father dead with his face in the dirt. One of his wives, Ha’s mother, sat beside her dead husband. Her eyes were blank as if she were dead too, but she was alive. Ra spoke to her, urging her to get up. He would take her to live with him, but she never moved and never spoke. He brought her water, but she never drank. Finally, he left her alone and buried his father.

When he had finished with that sad job, he returned to Ha’s mother and lifted her from the ground. He began to carry her to a safer place, away from the scent of blood which was attracting the fierce beasts. Ra could see that she didn’t want to go on living and he didn’t know what to say to her, so he prayed:

“Father, here sits the wife of my father and she will not move. Breathe your life into her so she will return to the land of the living. If not, I will have to abandon her for I can’t leave Ha alone now that her time is near.”

Then Ra sat down and waited. He knew that just because he asked for something to be done that didn’t mean that the High God would do it just like that. No, Ra knew that the High God did everything the right way, and Ra didn’t always know what was the right way to do things. So he waited, and while he waited he spoke to Ha’s mother, telling her how Ha was soon to have a child. This would surely rouse the woman, but it did not. So Ra began to build a small platform in one of the trees close to the nearby cliffs. The cliff gave protection from the wind and rain. Then he gathered fruits, berries and roots and wrapped them in leaves. He found an ostrich egg and placed it on the platform with the fruit. He wove banana leaves together to create a pouch and filled the pouch with water. Then he lifted Ha’s mother and put her on the platform. That’s were he left her. Two days had passed and he could wait no more.

“Goodbye, wife of my father. May the High God be with you. I must go back to Ha. She is going to have a child.”

So it was that Ra returned to his wife with news of her mother. When Ha heard how her mother had not spoken, eaten or taken any water, she told her husband that her mother’s spirit was going to leave. Then she cried and after she cried, she thanked her husband for making her mother safe until the time when she would die.

Now Ra had a son and he was determined that his son would help him to re-establish his people in this very valley which Ra and his father believed had been given to them by the High God. Ra’s son was named Ka and he would become the first ruler. He’s the one I’m going to tell you about, and you must think long and hard about what I’m going to tell you. There are many good lessons here that are never taught in school.

Your loving Grandmother

Naming Fictional Characters

2010-06-24T19:23:00.000-07:00

Much thought must go into finding just the right name for a fictional character. Naming a character is like naming the new baby.

Names are more important than one might think. An ideal name will fit a character like a shoe fits a foot, a wrong name is like an off-note on the music scale. What if Scarlet O’Hara had been called Myrtle O’Hara, or Huckleberry Finn had been called Strawberry Jones? Names carry with them a specific history and connotations about a character’s personality.

Read more at Suite101: Naming Fictional Characters: Finding the Best First Name and Surname for your Characters http://writingfiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/naming_fictional_characters#ixzz0rpMIOm9R

I'm working on a piece of fiction in which all the characters have one syllable names and no surnames. It is about the first people on Earth who I call the Firstlings. I wouldn't have guessed the challenge of coming up with meaningful one-syllable names!

To Kill a Mockingbird: 50 years of Magic

2010-06-21T09:10:00.000-07:00

To Kill a Mockingbird is a magical book. That is the word. From the moment of its publication 50 years ago it radiated magic. To this day you may with confidence place it in the hands of anyone, anywhere, of any age, race or gender and know that if they do not love it, they have missed something transcendent.

The first thing to be said to clarify the magic is that its portrayal of childhood is wonderful. I mean this not as a stock word of praise from an author afraid of blundering stylistically if he writes “magical” again. I mean it literally: Mockingbird captures the wonder of childhood.

Once Scout and Jem befriend the visiting Dill, their familiar world cracks open with a series of delightful fissures caused not by the shattering impact of evil, though it surrounds them, but because it is expanding wonderfully and must do so. They are able to have a series of new adventures undreamed of before it all started yet somehow perfectly natural once they are happening. And this, to me, is one of the outstanding features of a good childhood.

I should interject autobiographically that I was fortunate enough to have a happy childhood including reading many books whose spell never entirely faded. Mockingbird was not among them, and when I first read it in my early 30s I was inclined to add to my very short list of regrets about my life that I didn’t read it as a kid. Try as we might to become again as little children, almost nothing that happens to us as adults seems to have that luminous quality of immanence that pervades a happy childhood, where every day or week may bring some new, unexpected wonder larger and richer than we have yet experienced.

On reflection I’ve changed my mind on that point. Part of the magic of the book for me when I did read it was its uncanny capacity to conjure up overpowering flashes of childhood (including the plan to lay out lemon drops that Boo Radley would follow “like an ant”). I believe I relished these far more for being an adult.

If all the book did was remind you of what childhood excitement felt like it might be at best a minor classic. But it did far more. It made sense of that excitement.

Mockingbird has had its share of detractors. Not just racists who objected to its obvious and compelling refutation of their position but critics and other authors who found it childish, naive, unworthy of study. At the risk of seeming all these things myself, I would suggest that their real problem is that the book is hopeful.

When a Virginia school board was considering banning it as “immoral literature” in 1966, Harper Lee wrote a stinging letter to the editor whose key passage was “Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners.”

That response underlines the two key reasons the book is so important. From an American, and especially southern American perspective, the book is an act of statesmanship. Not some Yankee ridiculing of mean rednecks, it was a key part of the redemption of the South, a reminder that however deep the currents of racism might run, there were other currents deeper still (a magic from before the beginning of time, one might even say) that were incompatible with it.

Generations of southerners, including Confederate soldiers, might have been at once honorable and Christian and bigoted. But it was an unnatural combination and in their hearts they knew it. Indeed, the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s depended upon finally getting white southerners to admit to themselves that they did know it.

This deep magic is not limited to time and place. In reminding white southerners of this thing they always knew about their particular situation, Mockingbird reminds all of us of the things we always know about our situation whatever it may be, knowledge we cannot evade but struggle to heed. Atticus Finch is not just a man who knows what he must do. Almost anyone can manage that. Atticus Finch is a man who knows he must do it, and does it, and we wish we were more certain that we were like him.

Atticus stands for truth against the mob. He faces down his own fears and therefore other men’s viciousness. He meets with triumph and disaster and treats these two imposters both the same, and so shows his children what the meaning is of a world that keeps opening new and marvelous vistas for them. And again I use “marvelous” with etymology aforethought: The world is full of marvels and Mockingbird knows it.

Its particular and often dark marvels make it to some extent a “coming of age” book. Within its pages we see Scout growing up a little; three years is a long time when you’re six and her childish conceits about “hants” and so forth become a bit more mature within its pages. Outside its pages, in part because of the flashback narrative technique, we sense what sort of adult she will become, in large part through the influence of her father and other adults, both good and evil. And thus we know that “coming of age” is not just a matter of growing bigger and more self-aware, or self-absorbed, while eventually discovering girls or boys.

The transition from childhood to adulthood is above all about morality, about becoming one of those who does take responsibility for what is right and wrong. In this context it has been suggested that Mockingbird’s “coming of age” theme is tragic, as the characters come to grips with failure. Such critics clearly missed the magic. What Harper Lee tells us in this story is that success and failure cast lights and shadows in this world but take place within us. Atticus is never a failure even when he fails. Nor will his daughter be.

If like Han Solo we explore the world around us we’re bound to see “a lot of strange stuff”. But that’s not the marvel. Nor is it real growing up. The magic, the expansion from childish wonder to the adult kind, is realizing that life means something, something incredibly important and boundlessly joyful: The fundamental structure of the universe is moral not material.

That is the magic at the core of To Kill a Mockingbird. And it has only gained in brilliance in the last half century.

From here. John Robson is a writer and broadcaster living in Ottawa, Canada.

Creative Writing with Middle School Students

2010-06-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

Alice C. Linsley

I recently finished an 8-week writing skills class for middle school students and we had a blast! They were asked to build their vocabularies by reading great literature and using unfamiliar words in sentences. We then discussed their sentences in class and sometimes found we needed to clarify the word's meaning.

We started all our sessions with each student reading aloud the opening paragraph of a classic. We then discussed what made that paragraph great. Some of the books we discussed include:

Sir Walter Scott
Ivanhoe

R. L Stevenson
Treasure Island
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights
Jane Eyre

Fyodor Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishement

Jack London
The Call of the Wild

Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncles Tom's Cabin

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Valley of Fear

Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist
Great Expectations
A Tale of Two Cities by

Herman Melville
Moby Dick

J.F. Cooper
The Last of the Mohicans

Alexandre Dumas
The Count of Monte Cristo
Three Three Musketeers

Stephen Crane
The Red Badge of Courage

Jonathan Swift
Gulliver's Travels

I found that middle school students aren't ready for the content of many of these great works, but they are able to read, understand and appreciate the book's opening paragraphs.

We also read and discussed some short creative essays since each student was required to produce an essay of publishable quality. I selected the essays for brevity, humor, insight and as samples from a range of centuries. Here are some of the essays we discussed:

G. K. Chestertown (1874-1936)
"A Defense of Penny Dreadfuls"

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
"A Meditation Upon a Broom-Stick"

Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)
"Of Charity, or the Love of God"

Before discussing the essays, we identified the main ideas. We then evaluated how the writer was able to take what may be mundane and explore it's glorious side. Or how something as glorious as the love of God can be brought down to earth and yet remain untarnished.

I had forgotten how much fun it is to teach middle school students! They are eager to explore ideas and they want to please. That made it possible for me to accomplish a great deal with them. All five of the students had at least 2 published works by the end of the eight weeks.