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SunWinks! January 18, 2015: Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

SunWinksLogoDearest SunWinkers:

Back at Week 8 of the old Gather column, the poetics topic was the symbol. I am as qualified to discuss this topic today as I was then, which is to say, pretty darn little. Somewhere on the level of, “I don’t know much about symbols, but I know what I like.” Symbolism is a complex subject, the scope of which is on the order of “mythology” or “imagery.” Thousands of books have been written on the subject.

This discussion will be free-wheeling, personal, selective, and shamelessly borrowing from the syntheses of more-qualified thinkers. For the purpose of our discussion, the symbol is an image which signifies the theme of a poem (in our case) in some way. By “signifies” we mean: the symbol is a visual image which represents an idea in an abstract way, like a hieroglyph or a heraldic symbol on a coat of arms. We know what the symbol means because it’s a widely understood element of our culture. Continue reading →

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SunWinks January 11, 2015: Theme: Writing and Spirituality

https://madaboutpoetry.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/c5c9b-bobble-head-jesus1.jpg

I need a new God. I need somebody to pray to. For a few years now, I’ve been working on emancipating myself from my poisonous Catholic upbringing (a ridiculously belated enterprise which I only undertook in my fifties) and building a new kind of personal integrity, one that allows me, among other things, to be a poet with courage.

But being a human being, I share the religious impulse, the sense of the numinous. I want to avail myself of the benefits of meditation and centering prayer. But who do I pray to?

Continue reading →

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SunWinks! January 5, 2015: Giving It 110%

SunWinksLogoDearest SunWinkers:

Sometimes as a writer you have to reach back for something extra. So, as a selfless public service for the betterment of all mankind, our topic this week is hyperbole. Hyperbole is, very simply, exaggeration. It’s an essential tool in the comedian or comic writer’s belt, but it can make any genre of writing more lively. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times: don’t exaggerate!” is a hyperbole. So is “If I had a nickel for every time you exaggerate, I could retire.” The thing exaggerated might be a quantity or size or some such, but it can also be the absurdity or the banality of something:

“I am two with nature.” Woody Allen

“I went to the Board of Health and asked for two thousand cockroaches. I promised my landlord I would leave my apartment the way I found it.” Anon.

“The scarecrow scared the crows so badly that they brought back the corn they had stolen two years before.” Fred Allen

“You might be a redneck if you’ve ever paid for a six-pack of beer with pennies.” Jeff Foxworthy

“I woke up the next day on a bench in a bus station. My shoes were gone. So was my wallet. So were my kidneys. I’m just kidding. That’s an urban legend. I still had my shoes.” DW, “The Depressed Detective and the Case of Boston Baked Beans”

Woody Allen

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying.” Woody Allen

When you make something exaggeratedly large, that’s called overstatement. But don’t forget understatement (or meiosis). Making something exaggeratedly small or inconsequential can be equally, if not more, effective.

“I’m not shooting for a successful relationship at this point. I am just looking for something that will prevent me from throwing myself in front of a bus. I’m keeping my expectations very, very low. Basically, I’m looking for a mammal.” Janeane Garofalo.

“As I told the tribunal at Nuremberg, I did not know that Hitler was a Nazi. The truth is that for years I thought he worked for the phone company.” Woody Allen

Continue reading →

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My Son, Folks… (ba-dum ching)

Here’s another Christmas story from this year: my son Nevada got me good!

First, he texted me a few days before:

I don’t football a lot. Do you have any strong feelings either way on the 49ers?

Wanting to be helpful without being completely indiscreet, I replied:

I don’t know how to answer that. There’s Seahawks and there’s everyone else in no particular order. I was a big 49er fan in the glory years. If we’re talking about a windbreaker, I don’t care if it’s FC Barcelona.

Then on Christmas Day, I opened a present from Nevada and there was a beautiful, hooded, lined, LaCoste windbreaker. The only graphic was a tiny LaCoste alligator. He also gave me a bendable Ichiro doll. After thanking him profusely, I asked, “There’s one thing I don’t understand: what’s the 49er connection?”

And he grinned and said, “Exactly!”

Well done, son!

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SunWinks! December 28, 2014: The Spirit of Christmas Present

SunWinksLogoDearest SunWinkers:

A perfect Christmas. Somehow that always seemed to elude me as I was growing up. My parents giving me a fondue pot instead of a guitar.  Dad telling me I’d better not shoot my new rocket with a certain one of the space capsules, doing it anyway, and breaking it as he had predicted. Bringing the tureen of mashed potatoes in from the kitchen, pausing in the doorway, all eyes upon me as the tureen slips through my fingers, hits the floor, and cracks in half.

This week I experienced the perfect Christmas, bathed in it, drank it in. Shandra was the most perfect tree I can remember (they always tell Carol their name). All my children (and three partners) were there all afternoon and evening. All the presents we gave the kids seemed to be perfect and go over like gangbusters. Eli took a page from Daddy’s playbook and gave out a book she wrote. Santa heard our microwave had died and brought one just in time.

The turkey and ham came out beautifully. Everybody brought side dishes and everybody pitched in. Three friends, my mother, and my brother’s family joined us for dinner. One of the friends remarked that he had never experienced a family that had so much acceptance and love and so little friction. Wow…

Tree1Xmas Couch 1

Carol n Tree 2

20141225_202456 Portrait w Rich et al

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The evening was full of laughter and music. I sang “O Holy Night” and butchered the high note just like that horrible Christmas morning at Church of the Resurrection circa 1999. It got a big laugh, so it wasn’t a total loss. Donna contributed an original Christmas novelty song, Aaron played Irish jigs on the violin, and ten-year-old niece Haley on recorder and I improvised a duet on “Linus and Lucy.” For a  blessing, I read from A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

Carol requested “the magic” this year, so she left a letter to Santa and went to sleep with nothing under the tree. In the morning, the presents were under the tree, the angel was on top, and there was a letter from Santa with cookie crumbs on it. Here is what it said:

Give of your treasure and you will never be poor.

Love from the fullness of your heart and you will never be unhappy.

Treat the world with kindness and welcome and you will never be lonely.

Do not live each day as if it were your last–

Live each day as if you will live forever as the person you are today.

 

Dear Cuffy:*

I may be Santa Claus (and let me tell you, that chimney was no picnic) but you bring Christmas to your world every day. God love you for it!

Yours,

Kris

 

*[“Cuffy” is Carol’s family-of-origin nickname. I have never called her “Cuffy.” Ooooh…]

The Prompt

Write a letter from Santa. Don’t use the one above as an exemplar, just write your own,  your style, your concept.

Love,

Doug and Carol

Instructions for submitting your response to SunWinks!

SunWinks! Index

Carol Holden Cancer Fundraiser

© 2014 Douglas J. Westberg. All Rights Reserved. Please share, reblog, link to, but do not copy or alter.

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SunWinks! December 21, 2014: On A Motto Pay Ya

SunWinksLogoDear SunWinkers:

Going through my old Gather columns, I next run into the topic of onomatopoeia.

Onomatopoeia is a word which sounds like the object (i.e. a sound or something noisy) it describes. They’re everywhere you look! Hundreds have become imbedded in the language, so much so we hardly hear them as such. Some examples of onomatopoeia words:

Whippoorwill

Chirp
Moo
Screech
Chug
Gulp
Belch
Clatter
Sputter
Caw
Clank
Pop
Snap
Crackle
Bark
Yip

The list is endless.

Continue reading →

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Poem: Procrastination

Random Thot:
You know when there’s a word on the tip of your tongue and you just can’t think of it? Turns out there’s a name for it:

* * *

https://madaboutpoetry.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/395f0-butterinpan.jpgWith superb irony, I am posting this in anticipation of the SunWinks! column that should have appeared last Sunday. I know I said it would appear later in the week, but I only got it written yesterday and I am loath to step on Sharon’s and Len’s toes by posting it today or tomorrow. So it will appear on Sunday the 21st, Carol’s birthday.Poem: Procrastination

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SunWinks! December 7, 2014: Grand Allusion

SunWinksLogoDear SunWinkers:

Going through my old Gather columns, I next run into the topic of allusion. Allusion is a reference to a commonly known work of literature or piece of history or culture. As with personification, allusion lets the reader relate to your poem on a deeper, more visceral level. Namely, the reader reacts with the feeling or value judgment which he or she associates with the event or piece of literature being alluded to.

A classic example is “The Second Coming” by Y.B. Yeats.

And what rough beast, its hours come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Continue reading →

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SunWinks! November 30, 2014: Poetry Personified

When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table

T.S. Eliot “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves
And repeats words without meaning.

Wallace Stevens “The Motive for Metaphor”

SunWinksLogoDear SunWinkers:

Two years ago, my third column for Gather was on the topic of personification. So far, going back to my old columns isn’t giving me much of a head start. Oh, well! I must have had a lot to learn back then.

Personification is the assignment of human qualities to an animal, an inanimate object, even an abstract concept. To wit, Emily Dickinson’s

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.

We slowly drove—he knew no haste…

http://www.newforestcentre.info/gothic-poetry.htmlAssigning human qualities to an object tells us something poetically about that object. In our example, Dickinson’s poem tells us something about death. She could have just said, “Death is patient.” Giving us the image of Death as a kindly carriage driver lets us to relate to her thesis on a personal level and experience it in a visceral, sensuous way. Death didn’t show up at the door in a black hoodie holding a scythe. Death didn’t throw a bag over her head and toss her into the back seat. Death opened the carriage door, smiled kindly, and invited her in. What does that say about death? Continue reading →

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