Weekly/Fortnightly Poetry Suggestions

[msfry]

Please tell me again what search term to use to get to the list of Fortnightly Poems and Weekly Poems.

Is there some way to post to the immediately past poems an invitation to participate in the next poem with a link to the new project? I'd love to be reminded that way, (in addition to searching on the Readers Wanted Short Works). I suspect that when one visits a project, one is then subscribed to that project unless you don't respond for a certain length of time, which I believe the MC can set.

[Carolin]

Another suggestion
https://archive.org/details/pleasebuymyverse00unse
Please buy my verses : price: what you please
Publication date 1869

[Carolin]

And this one sort of similar
https://archive.org/details/merrychristmastw00mail
A Merry Christmas : two early birds
by Mail and Empire (Toronto, Ont.)

Publication date 1890

[aradlaw]

Please tell me again what search term to use to get to the list of Fortnightly Poems and Weekly Poems.

Catalog Search > Genre/Subject (tab) > scroll down for Poetry > Multi-version (Weekly and Fortnightly poetry)

Is there some way to post to the immediately past poems an invitation to participate in the next poem with a link to the new project? I'd love to be reminded that way, (in addition to searching on the Readers Wanted Short Works). I suspect that when one visits a project, one is then subscribed to that project unless you don't respond for a certain length of time, which I believe the MC can set.

Michele, it's a memory thing Most of the W / F Poetry sits in the Launch Pad until the first post or so entries come in, but I will try your idea. I think I did post links at one point, but stopped for one reason or another.

[msfry]

Is 12-14 minutes too long for a fortnightly poem? If not here, where? I'd love to BC this sometime. It's only been recorded for LV once, back in 2008, in a whole book of poems by the same name. I think others might like having a go at it. The last stanza of this poem is quite famous, very uplifting.

Renascence - by Edna St. Vincent Millay
ALL I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line 5
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I’d started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood. 10

Over these things I could not see:
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
And all at once things seemed so small 15
My breath came short, and scarce at all.
But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
Miles and miles above my head;
So here upon my back I’ll lie
And look my fill into the sky. 20

And so I looked, and, after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
And—sure enough!—I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand; 25
I ’most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky.
I screamed, and—lo!—Infinity
Came down and settled over me; 30

Forced back my scream into my chest,
Bent back my arm upon my breast,
And, pressing of the Undefined
The definition on my mind,
Held up before my eyes a glass 35
Through which my shrinking sight did pass
Until it seemed I must behold
Immensity made manifold;
Whispered to me a word whose sound
Deafened the air for worlds around, 40
And brought unmuffled to my ears
The gossiping of friendly spheres,
The creaking of the tented sky,
The ticking of Eternity.
I saw and heard and knew at last 45
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense
That, sick’ning, I would fain pluck thence 50
But could not,—nay! But needs must suck
At the great wound, and could not pluck
My lips away till I had drawn
All venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn!

For my omniscience paid I toll 55
In infinite remorse of soul.
All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate 60
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire,— 65
Craved all in vain! And felt
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each,—then mourned for all!

A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me; 70
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote; 75
And every scream tore through my throat.
No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I. 80

All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God.
Ah, awful weight! Infinity
Pressed down upon the finite Me!
My anguished spirit, like a bird, 85
Beating against my lips I heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about
There was no room for it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death, but could not die. 90

Long had I lain thus, craving death,
When quietly the earth beneath
Gave way, and inch by inch, so great
At last had grown the crushing weight,
Into the earth I sank till I 95
Full six feet under ground did lie,
And sank no more,—there is no weight
Can follow here, however great.
From off my breast I felt it roll,
And as it went my tortured soul 100
Burst forth and fled in such a gust
That all about me swirled the dust.

Deep in the earth I rested now;
Cool is its hand upon the brow
And soft its breast beneath the head 105
Of one who is so gladly dead.
And all at once, and over all
The pitying rain began to fall;
I lay and heard each pattering hoof
Upon my lowly, thatchèd roof, 110
And seemed to love the sound far more
Than ever I had done before.
For rain it hath a friendly sound
To one who’s six feet under ground;
And scarce the friendly voice or face: 115
A grave is such a quiet place.

The rain, I said, is kind to come
And speak to me in my new home.
I would I were alive again
To kiss the fingers of the rain, 120
To drink into my eyes the shine
Of every slanting silver line,
To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze
From drenched and dripping apple-trees.
For soon the shower will be done, 125
And then the broad face of the sun
Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth
Until the world with answering mirth
Shakes joyously, and each round drop
Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top. 130
How can I bear it; buried here,
While overhead the sky grows clear
And blue again after the storm?
O, multi-colored, multiform,
Beloved beauty over me, 135
That I shall never, never see
Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
That I shall never more behold!
Sleeping your myriad magics through,
Close-sepulchred away from you! 140
O God, I cried, give me new birth,
And put me back upon the earth!
Upset each cloud’s gigantic gourd
And let the heavy rain, down-poured
In one big torrent, set me free, 145
Washing my grave away from me!

I ceased; and through the breathless hush
That answered me, the far-off rush
Of herald wings came whispering
Like music down the vibrant string 150
Of my ascending prayer, and—crash!
Before the wild wind’s whistling lash
The startled storm-clouds reared on high
And plunged in terror down the sky,
And the big rain in one black wave 155
Fell from the sky and struck my grave.
I know not how such things can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never clings
To aught save happy living things; 160
A sound as of some joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself,
And, through and over everything,
A sense of glad awakening.
The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear, 165
Whispering to me I could hear;
I felt the rain’s cool finger-tips
Brushed tenderly across my lips,
Laid gently on my sealèd sight,
And all at once the heavy night 170
Fell from my eyes and I could see,—
A drenched and dripping apple-tree,
A last long line of silver rain,
A sky grown clear and blue again.
And as I looked a quickening gust 175
Of wind blew up to me and thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,—
I know not how such things can be!—
I breathed my soul back into me. 180
Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound; 185
Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into the sky,
Till at my throat a strangling sob
Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb 190
Sent instant tears into my eyes;
O God, I cried, no dark disguise
Can e’er hereafter hide from me
Thy radiant identity!
Thou canst not move across the grass 195
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day; 200
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,— 205
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through. 210
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

[annise]

Yes it would be too long I would think.
Other alternatives
If you wanted to read it you could put it in the poetry collection
If as I read it you want to hear multiple readings you could set up a group project for it - I'm not sure it's ever been done before but "nothing ventured, nothing gained" as they say. I couldn't say how many people you would get to read it or how long it would take, maybe it would flop, maybe it would be an overnight success.
Personal opinion - I'd probably wait till after the Christmas collections were out of the way

Anne

[Carolin]

This would be interesting too
https://archive.org/details/santaclauskrissk00unse/page/n11
The whole book is one not too long poem.

[addyianson]

Yes it would be too long I would think.
Other alternatives
If you wanted to read it you could put it in the poetry collection
If as I read it you want to hear multiple readings you could set up a group project for it - I'm not sure it's ever been done before but "nothing ventured, nothing gained" as they say. I couldn't say how many people you would get to read it or how long it would take, maybe it would flop, maybe it would be an overnight success.
Personal opinion - I'd probably wait till after the Christmas collections were out of the way

Anne

I'm in!

[TriciaG]

"Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost will be PD for all but Life+70 countries in January.

Could we make it the fortnightly poem sometime in January?

[aradlaw]

Tricia, I cannot find a source for 'Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening' would you have one?

[msfry]

"Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost will be PD for all but Life+70 countries in January.

Could we make it the fortnightly poem sometime in January?

I would love to BC this poem. As to a PD source, how about this one?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/01/01/robert-frost-wrote-this-masterpiece-about-minutes-it-belongs-all-us-now/?utm_term=.58f6ca8c589a&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

[TriciaG]

It's in this PD source: https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20180949

[aradlaw]

Sorry Michele. I missed this earlier,

I would love to BC this poem. As to a PD source, how about this one?

Feel free to set it up this Sunday (tomorrow) if you wish)
*Please use the PD source provided by TriciaG.

[TriciaG]

Shouldn't it be fortnightly rather than weekly, though, since it's not PD for everyone? Just checkin'.

[msfry]

Feel free to set it up this Sunday (tomorrow) if you wish)
*Please use the PD source provided by TriciaG.

I set this up as soon as I know fortnightly or weekly.