I am thankful for what God has given me in the
last six months. How he had change me from within, even when there were
storms that I had to face in my own life and having to lean on GOD for
my strength and for giving me a future, a life...This passover is my
first year at my recovery. I celebrate life to the fullest since I have
been given a second chance. God had remove people from my life and at
that stage of my life I wasn't able to understand it all, but now I do.
Because He had showed me how to love myself first when others couldn't.
To be happy & content with who I am. To realize that it depends on
me to get better to persevere and to live out my dreams that God had
placed inside my heart. I started to declare on my own life, prophesying
and believing that God has a purpose for me. A plan for my life not to
hurt me or to let me down, but to raise me up from the depths of the
pain & suffering.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith,gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Jeremiah 33:6 "'Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I
will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security.
Our everyday life is a challenge, a pursuit to get to the next level of
your spirituality, of the dimensions we travel as we go deeper within
ourselves and in finding our highest self. The true me came to the
light, from the surface of the place I have hid who I was because of
fear of being vulnerable to the world I am living in. I am still
striving to find myself and with each storm, test and obstacle life had
put on my path, I came to see who I am as a person, friend and a lover.
Who I am as a daughter, a cousin, friend even sister. I declare goodness
over my relationship, my finance and my home and my family. Finding
love after all this time and being loved back. My whole life I was
trying to fit in, but all along it took just to look up to the sky
hearing God's voice saying you are loved, needed, and above all you are
special to so many, but most importantly that I came to be secure within
my own soul, and heart and knowing I can Trust God to always show me
the right path and never to give up on myself and those I love. God is
my first love and having Him being the center of my universe I know I
can't go wrong in life.
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
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By:
Chim's World of Literature
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
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By:
Chim's World of Literature
Rain & disorientation
rain wash over me and pour my sorrow out of
me..........disorientated today...feel like i am standing in this rain
that is currently falling washing over me as i drown in the droplets
falling from heaven...remembering how we use to play in the
rain...whilst people thought we were crazy to be standing in the
rain...looking up above...the rain was our thing...it was cleansing us
from the world's waste...you were my
best friend...now I am just a girl watching through an open window from a
first story building as the water falls down the pavement onto the
parking lot... I can see all the flashbacks of moments in the
rain...playing and chasing one another......that is what we had, we had
fun together....i was always serious about life & my career, but you
came & teach me something else, something I have forgotten since
growing up and being independent was all I ever knew......I stopped
having fun years ago...but then you entered my life & you showed me
how to have fun again...how to laugh, how to be me in a world that
always want to change me.....sigh...I can just wonder with a smile on my
lips that for awhile I'll always have the fun times we had.....how the
gardens became ours...how we'd sat & talk for hours not caring about
the time...how people would stare at us weird, yet we wouldn't be
bothered...you had teach me a lot of things how to be free and finally
how to come out of my hiding & believe me it's challenging, but I
know I can do this next step of my life...last night I couldn't sleep
& I went & Google something about the universe & most of
those pages I have opened up didn't satisfy my research I am not even
sure why I actually did Google the universe, but for some reason God
works through the web sphere & I came across a very informative
piece & as I read it I saw my own situation I find myself in...Karma
& Relationships...
This topic, extracted from Farley Malorrus' shows on June 4, 1987, August 12, 1987 and September 19, 1988, covered various aspects on the subject of Karma and relationships.
Consider that the Universe is a reflection of the self. As the self is the Universe, the Universe is the self. Meaning; that whatever you are as an individual, you can really understand what you have in your life by taking a look around you. For instance, the home, city and environment you live in, your career, neighbors, friends, family, and even the bum that lives in the park across the street. Everyone in your life is literally a reflection of the self. Also, if you feel that your life is a mess, or that you're going to die, and most things in your life are negative, scary and freaking you out, then you need to do some deep Soul searching. This aspect of Metaphysics is Karma because we create that part of our own Universe which becomes immediately sensitized by us. Which means that everything in your life is a reflection of you.
I have learned to become happier when I have learned to enjoy my solitude. The love that lies within my breast and plugs into the people all over the planet, instead of having to go out and find the people, I can feel them in my own apartment or right here in the control room. If I could share that vibration with you I think you could find the true key to happiness. You could plug into that God-force inside yourself that I am talking about.
This topic, extracted from Farley Malorrus' shows on June 4, 1987, August 12, 1987 and September 19, 1988, covered various aspects on the subject of Karma and relationships.
Consider that the Universe is a reflection of the self. As the self is the Universe, the Universe is the self. Meaning; that whatever you are as an individual, you can really understand what you have in your life by taking a look around you. For instance, the home, city and environment you live in, your career, neighbors, friends, family, and even the bum that lives in the park across the street. Everyone in your life is literally a reflection of the self. Also, if you feel that your life is a mess, or that you're going to die, and most things in your life are negative, scary and freaking you out, then you need to do some deep Soul searching. This aspect of Metaphysics is Karma because we create that part of our own Universe which becomes immediately sensitized by us. Which means that everything in your life is a reflection of you.
I have learned to become happier when I have learned to enjoy my solitude. The love that lies within my breast and plugs into the people all over the planet, instead of having to go out and find the people, I can feel them in my own apartment or right here in the control room. If I could share that vibration with you I think you could find the true key to happiness. You could plug into that God-force inside yourself that I am talking about.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
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By:
Chim's World of Literature
BookReview~ Poems That Fuel Thoughts by Gert Diedericks
BOOK REVIEW
BY CHIMNESE DAVIDS
TITLE: POEMS THAT
FUEL THOUGHTS
AUTHOR/POET: GERT
DIEDERICKS
The poet and his
craft
I am a poet, because poetry gives the opportunity to express
one of my passions, namely to visualize love and freedom in a unique way. Poetry
is an art of words; a discovery of the soul, woven into thought patterns and
embodied by love, the joy of living being merely one of the paths to explore.
Poetry is furthermore a world of self- actualization, whereby the poet comes to
understand the yearning to live passionately in order to internalize the
essence of love and of exultation.
My credo is: “Life is about choices”. We do not necessarily
have a say in what happens to us in this life, though we do have a choice
regarding our reactions toward incidents in our life. I am a free spirit,
independent and only driven by the passion of my heart.
I treasure understanding; the love for wisdom, a need for learning,
respect to all humans through non-judgement and a wish to encounter truth – all
of which is a part of my journey and longing to see beyond appearances, so that
one may unveil the lack of light to bring forth the essence of love through
life. My wish is to heal the healers of this world, to mend broken lives and to
share the abundance of love through words from our Creator’s mind.
Gert Diedericks, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
KREATIV SA 2011
About the book
This book is a combination of poems, musings and pondering
seeds I’d like to share with you. All is within the form if expression we call
poetry; thus, many stories are imbedded within. Many of these stories are
draped within my own inner being.
As part of the art of telling stories, we need to delve and
have a real interest in those of whom the stories are told.
By having such an engrossed and dynamic relationship, we can
then learn the true value of the rare and unique interdependency between souls,
which one can say makes us all human.
The journey within minds of similar expression, or finding
integration between the radiant beauty of different emotions, relationships,
connections and energy, follows a fascinating path to discovery.
Poetry is not merely an art, limited to what we should
comply to; much rather it is that which we can express with unlimited
imagination, cognitive grasping and emotional flow of heart, in order to
radiate a little of the light of the most magical soul living inside.
May you enjoy reading this compilation of thoughts as much
as I have loved compiling them, by grace alone?
Gert Diedericks
November 18, 2011
Gert’s Dedication
My Creator and God,
who granted me wisdom, insight and experiences during the course of my adventurous,
yet blissful life.
All I am and can be
belong to Him alone and I’m eternally grateful for his grand, graceful Hand of
Love.
The Editor’s Words~
Myra Lochner
Poems that fuel Thoughts by Gert
Diedericks, published by KREATIV SA,
The poetry of Gert Diedericks, poet-photographer of Johannesburg, South Africa, is in the genre I
call reaction poetry: reason and emotion converged into highly philosophical
reflections. According to Gert poetry “gives the opportunity to express one of
my passions, namely to visualize love and freedom in a unique way.”
He demonstrates this statement in his compilation of
poetry, when he explores in a joyous, yet orderly manner the different layers
of being: a placement of the soul within creation and in relation to
co-travellers in the realm called life. His poetry stresses the fact that “life
is about choices”; that we do get the opportunity to direct our lives through
our responses and reactions, following our experiences.
Although Gert is a free spirit, his work shows that
he truly understands patterns of cosmic order and the way our Creator intended
it to be discovered in love and compassion. Every poem of his in this book of
155 pages, fuels intense and deeply spiritual thoughts. None can say it in
better words than the poet himself:
“I treasure understanding; the love for wisdom, a
need for learning, respect to all humans through nonjudgmental and a wish to encounter
truth, all of which is a part of my journey and longing to see beyond
appearances, so that one may unveil the lack of Light to bring forth the
essence of Love through life. My wish to heal the healers of this world, to
mend broken lives; share the abundance of love through words from our Creator’s
mind.”
The different sections of his book are illuminated by
creative, interesting photography that, as his poetry, entices the reader by
sheer perception to embark on a journey of inner discoveries, spiritual
awareness and of personal growth. Of utmost importance to get to the core of
Gert’s world and work, is allowing a connection between sight, sound, emotion
and memory. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenging moods Gert displays throughout
the book: it made me feel that he does not underestimate the intelligence of
the reader.
Gert
Diedericks writes with Light and of Light, and from a deep
gratitude to be alive, and being able to lead readers to discover and
rediscover the “enigmatic wonders of living”. His joy is almost tactile. He
writes not only from a well of wisdom and insight gained by experience, but
also as a kindred spirit, intuitively connected to the greatest of all writers,
our almighty God and Author of the Book of Life.
Myra Lochner
KREATIV SA
GEORGE SOUTH AFRICA
February 6, 2013
MYRA
LOCHNER
BESTURENDE
DIREKTEUR/MANAGING DIRECTOR: KREATIV
SUID-AFRIKA
SOUTH AFRICA
My review
It took me quite a while to give this elegant poetry book
the attention it truly needed it came to a time when I was in need of these
words to comfort my soul when I was dealing with a relationship/friendship that
meant a lot to me and with understanding my own philosophy in life it was this
book that opened my mind to the things beyond the natural. The book is based on
the spiritual realm as the poet takes the reader onto a journey of his own
inner turmoil and his own inner emotions to convey what was hidden deep within.
Within him was laying a craft, words, art, that reflects not just his own life,
but so many of us out there are sitting with life choices, regrets, what ifs, people
we could have loved and people we didn’t give much attention too, losing
someone either through passing onto the eternal life or losing someone because
there season in your life had come to an end.
When I first started with the opening poem
Aha
Sometimes
Within the complexity
Of seeing,
One stumbles upon the simplicity
Of clarity.
Myra Lochner
The anthology is written over thirteen sections of
philosophical verses that would pull you in if you have ever lost and trying to
find yourself in a world that you’ve messed up and trying to get back to the
YOU, you once been. The YOU that is the pure you and the version of who you
have been portraying to the world.
Section Freedom
Inspired
Poem – Friend
This poem I have a deep connection with how you can vision
that one friend that you can just connect with on a level beyond a friendship
more like a kindred spirit. Gert had really portrayed his emotions well in this
poem. Which is one of my favourites?
Poem – Flakes in a
dream
The dimensions we are carried through from one plane to
another, finding our very own true self in a world that can be come very
chaotic. Where our emotions needs a timeout. This is that kind of poem where
you get to journey through different dimensions to find yourself.
Dare to Dream
The title says it all dare to dream of the goals you have
once believed in, dare to dream about finding true love, dare to dream and just
maybe you can let go of everything that keeps you behind in this life.
Just dream and let go…
Spring in your step
I love this poem, it gives me hope that nothing is
impossible that there is always hope for a new love, for a new job, for
anything that you think can’t be achieved.
I love the poet’s words here:
“Follow your heart with a spring in your step.
The love you yearn for is moments ahead:
Listen carefully and choose wise;
An old owl will give you advice.
The road may be rough; the road may be long,
Your spirit and will carry you strong.”
This is only a few and there is still many of this beautiful
anthology that I have saved close to my heart because the words give me hope in
a world lost in veil, as a poet myself and the fact that I have known Gert for
quite sometime and have read most of his poetry on the website Allpoetry~ Gert Diedericks
That is where I have met this fine poet with his charming
glances and words that spreads a multitude of love for anyone of any culture of
gender. His words is inspirational, motivational his heart is pure and in doing
so he creates the most outpouring soulful verses that had been read by many
around the globe.
Gert is a South African, from Johannesburg, this was his first publication
and he outdid himself with this anthology I know for sure there is still many
publications in both his mother tongue Afrikaans and English that will be
written. Be sure to contact Gert Diedericks at gert777@gmail.com if you would like to
purchase a copy of his book.
Gert I truly came to understand what love and light and
Namaste meant since I have met you, our conversations we have shared over the
time period since we have met had always left me with new hope how you as a
person and now also trusting literally mentor and friend that had always given
my work the best reviews and this is my way of thanking you a dear poet and a
beautiful soul that you have really helped me in areas of my own writing
career, passing your knowledge of life onto me a young lady from Cape Town,
South Africa.
Thank you to Myra Lochner also trusting friend and confidant
of both Gert and myself and also our editor from KREATIV SA for the wonderful
words about Gert’s book, “Poems that fuel thoughts”.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
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By:
Chim's World of Literature
Poet Research
Poets done by Chimnese
I have been doing some intense research on several poets
Whether from past or present and there was a deep message
Of there creativity and how their lives shaped them at the
time.
Most of these poets were romantically involved and it was
A deep love of affection for the man or woman of their
affection.
I have always wondered mostly about the words they have
written
In their poetry as it stems from a deep place within
themselves,
As a poet from the 21st century which I am I have
come to
Understand myself more as well, that poets have a deep
understanding
Of love and the way they pour their souls out into there
work.
Poets such Sylvia Plath, Helen Palmer Giesel, Edgar Alan Poe,
May Sarton and several
other great poets have had a dark depression in their years
of writing.
Most of these poets were prolific writers, but never had the
fame
as they have it now in the 21st century . their
works have been studied
And researched by future poets and writers as myself.
The poet is more intone with their souls, there love for
there lover
Once they have imprinted on another heart and losing that
lover
They become enormously sad and depressed, when suicide
happens.
I wont say that all poets or depressed or have a steep dark
nature,
But as a poet and having to deal with the things these great
pots have written
Before I was born into this life, before I ever picked up
the pen and start
To write away my hearts cries…
Helen Palmer Giesel was married to Dr Suess the great poet
& children’s writer,
He had an affair with someone whilst being married to Helen.
Helen wrote this in her note to him: From WikipediaGeisel committed suicide in 1967 with an overdose of barbiturates,[3] after a series of illnesses (including cancer) spanning 13 years.[4] Despondent over her husband's adulterous relationship with the woman whom he would later marry, Helen felt unable to go on living without him (as outlined in her suicide note). Helen's last note to Ted: "Dear Ted, What has happened to us? I don't know. I feel myself in a spiral, going down down down, into a black hole from which there is no escape, no brightness. And loud in my ears from every side I hear, 'failure, failure, failure... I love you so much ... I am too old and enmeshed in everything you do and are, that I cannot conceive of life without you ... My going will leave quite a rumor but you can say I was overworked and overwrought. Your reputation with your friends and fans will not be harmed ... Sometimes think of the fun we had all thru the years ..." [5]
Ted on realizing that Helen was dead: "I didn't know whether to kill myself, burn the house down, or just go away and get lost."[5]
About Helen's death: "Whatever Helen did, she did it out of absolute love for Ted ... her death was her last and greatest gift to him.
Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes
Two of the greatest poets of all time:
Ted Hughes wrote this in his book “Dreamers’
"The dreamer in her
Had fallen in love with me and she did not know it.
That moment the dreamer in me
Fell in love with her and I knew it,"[26]
“And here you come, with a cup of tea
Wreathed in steam.
The blood jet is poetry,
There is no stopping it.
You hand me two children, two roses”
From Sylvia Plath’s Journal"To annihilate the world by annihilation of one's self is the deluded height of desperate egoism. The simple way out of all the little brick dead ends we scratch our nails against.... I want to kill myself, to escape from responsibility, to crawl back abjectly into the womb."“ If I rest, if I think inward, I go mad ” ~ From Plath's journals“If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days. ” ~ From 'The Bell Jar' ~“ Poetry of this order is a murderous art. ” ~ A. Alvarez, about 'Ariel'Plath's world had become too much for her to take. The depression had overcome. Just six months before her death she wrote of feeling
"outcast on a cold star, unable to feel anything but an awful helpless numbness. I look down into the warm, earthy world. Into a nest of lovers' beds, baby cribs, meal tables, all the solid commerce of life in this earth, and feel apart, enclosed in a wall of glass."
Lord Byron
Lord Byron
(1788 - 1824)
George Gordon Byron was born with a lame foot, and his sensitivity to it haunted his life and his works. Overhearing a girl he was infatuated with refer to him as "that lame boy" certainly must have deepened his disappointment at being born with this deformity. A fragile self-esteem made Byron extremely sensitive to criticism, of himself or of his poetry, and he tended to make enemies rather quickly. His poetry, along with his lifestyle, was considered controversial in his time and often deemed "perverted" or even "satanic,". The fact that he was often discontent and unhappy, combined with a constant desire for change meant that he created an unstable world for himself, though he never gave up his individual freedom to choose his own path and his own destiny.
“ Wild,
audacious, rebellious, ... half mad by nature; a creature made to tempt and to
be tempted, to seduce and to fall, about whom there was but one certainty, that
he was irreclaimable. ” ~ John Murray on Byron
Byron married Annabella Milbanke in early 1815, and they had a daughter named Ada. But within a year the marriage had dissolved and they were separated. Byron felt hounded by the press, who covered every gossip about his personal and financial affairs. In 1816 he left England in a voluntary exile, never to return. His bitter outlook on life at this time is reflected in the poem Darkness, which he wrote in that same year.
“ His madness
was not of the head, but heart. ” ~ Byron in 'Lara' ~
Darkness
By Lord Byron
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings--the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour
They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash--and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless--they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought--and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails--men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress--he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects--saw, and shriek'd, and died--
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless--
A lump of death--a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge--
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them--She was the Universe.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings--the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour
They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash--and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless--they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought--and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails--men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress--he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects--saw, and shriek'd, and died--
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless--
A lump of death--a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge--
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them--She was the Universe.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that content surpassing wealth
The sage in meditation found,
And walked with inward glory crowned--
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.
Others I see whom these surround--
Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
“ You were all
brutally mistaken about Shelley, who was without exception the best and least
selfish man I ever knew. ” ~ Byron, upon Shelley's death
Edgar Allan Poe
(1809 - 1849)
Personal tragedy was, unfortunately, a recurring theme throughout Edgar Allan Poe's life. Born in Boston in 1809 to actor parents, he never knew his father David Poe, who left his mother and disappeared soon after Edgar was born, then died in Virginia in 1810. His mother, who suffered from tuberculosis (then called consumption), died in Richmond, Virginia in late 1811, orphaning Edgar, his older brother William Henry, and half-sister Rosalie.
“ From
childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring. ” ~ Poe in 'Alone'
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring. ” ~ Poe in 'Alone'
Once back in Richmond,
Edgar began writing poetry regularly when he was in his early teens. He fell in
love with a girl named Elmira,
and they eventually pledged themselves to each other. In 1826 he was sent to
the University of
Virginia to study law.
His rich foster father, with whom Edgar had always had a tumultuous
relationship, gave him a mere $100 to cover yearly expenses that probably totalled
to at least $450. Under these circumstances the young man quickly fell into
debt, and began gambling in an attempt to make up his losses. On top of this, Elmira's letters to him
had been intercepted by both sets of parents and, having received no
encouraging replies from Edgar, she was persuaded to become engaged to another
man. After this, Edgar began drinking seriously, he had little resistance to
alcohol and easily became violent and irrational when he drank too much.
“ All that we
see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream. ” ~ Poe in 'A Dream within a Dream' ~
Is but a dream within a dream. ” ~ Poe in 'A Dream within a Dream' ~
“ I was never
really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched. ” ~ Poe in a
letter, 1849 ~
Watching his wife Virginia
slowly dying almost certainly stimulated Poe's self-destructiveness. His poem The
Conqueror Worm, written during this dark period, projects the image of a
destructive worm or maggot, and the decay of humankind: But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!--it writhes!--with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
In September, Poe left to visit friends and relatives and to
look after some business, travelling toward New York City
via Baltimore and Philadelphia. He never made it past Baltimore. He arrived
there drunk and disappeared for a mysterious five days. He was eventually found
in a delirium and taken to the hospital where he clung to life for a few more
days. Edgar Allan Poe died on Sunday October 7, 1849. His last words were: "Lord
help my poor soul."
Dylan Marlais Thomas
(1914 - 1953)
While Dylan Thomas possessed immense gifts and talent which made him a professional success as a writer, he was often a disappointment on a personal level. Much of this personal failure could have stemmed from an inability to deal with the extreme demands that came with sudden fame. Some explanation must also lie in the various ways his personalities have been described: alternately as humble, shy, confused and insecure on the inside, but outwardly neglectful, selfish, and egotistical -- yet always, and extremely, charming.His father exposed him to poetry as early as the age of two, and by four Dylan was reciting verses from Shakespeare. He was always fascinated by words, as he wrote many years later to an American admirer:
The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes, and before I could read them for myself I had come to love just the words of them, the words alone. What the words stood for, symbolised, or meant was of very secondary importance -- what mattered was the very sound of them as I heard them for the first time on the lips of the remote and quite incomprehensible grown-ups who seemed, for some reason, to be living in my world. And those words were, to me, as the notes of bells, the sounds of musical instruments, the noises of wind, sea, and rain, the rattle of milk carts, the clapping of hooves on cobbles, the fingering of branches on a window pane, might be to someone deaf from birth, who has miraculously found his hearing.
“... an
overgrown baby who'll destroy every last thing he can get his hands on,
including himself. ” ~ Truman Capote, of Dylan Thomas ~
Dylan Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara in the Spring of 1936 in
the London pub The
Wheatsheaf. Caitlin's previous experiences with men led her to believe
that "all men were bastards," yet from the moment she met him she
felt Dylan was somehow different. Within hours of their first meeting Dylan,
his head in her lap, kept drunkenly insisting that she was the most beautiful
woman he had ever met and that he was going to marry her -- to which she
offered no objections. The slightly older Caitlin, a physically strong, trained
dancer with a fiery and unpredictable temper found the impoverished poet
vulnerable and sweet, if a bit needy. They spent the next five days and nights
together, going from pub to pub and hardly eating at all. Later that summer
when he and Caitlin met again in Wales, Dylan had a run-in with
Augustus John, a painter and friend of her parents with whom Caitlin had been
having an affair. Caitlin and Dylan eventually started living together near the
end of 1936.
“... Dylan Thomas made poetry come
alive. Listening to his beautiful voice, I was touched deep in my heart by
poetry, not in my head ... ”
~ An American student after a Thomas lecture. ~
““ ... he can best be described as suffering from a character
neurosis, with increasing depression, dangerous alcoholic acting out,
tormenting worry, progressive creative inhibition, indicating a sense of
neurotic helplessness ... ” ~ Dr. B. W. Murphy on Dylan Thomas ~
There are many things said and written about Dylan Thomas,
and it is difficult to know what is really true and what is not. There is
perhaps some small grain of truth found in each story or assessment. Though he
was witty, charming, and a great writer and performer, he was at the same time
insecure, neglectful and irresponsible. Thanks to his talents with the spoken
and written word, however, his works are sure outlive his reputation.
Emmerson describes the
poets soul
The Poet's Soul as
Described in Emerson's The Poet
Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, entitled " The Poet", takes the reader into a new awareness concerning an artistic writer. This essay created new insight about a writer's handicraft. Emerson shows us how a poet uses his gift to connect a non-artist of words to feelings that he is unable to express. A poet uses his God-given ingredient, the soul, to describe the things that engulf our lives. We, that do not have this talent, are given this connection by the writings in "The Poet".
Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, entitled " The Poet", takes the reader into a new awareness concerning an artistic writer. This essay created new insight about a writer's handicraft. Emerson shows us how a poet uses his gift to connect a non-artist of words to feelings that he is unable to express. A poet uses his God-given ingredient, the soul, to describe the things that engulf our lives. We, that do not have this talent, are given this connection by the writings in "The Poet".
Emerson resigned
his position as a minister to concentrate his life work as a writer. His
education and upbringing was rich in matters relating to theology. He describes
the poet in terms of religion. He points out the theological term called
Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and then equates a poet to this using
triple increments. Emerson calls the poet the Knower, the Doer and the Sayer. A
poet's soul knows what is going on around us. He expresses himself by picking
up a pen and saying what's going on. Most people know what senses they are experiencing
in their world We are unable to write and/or say in words these experiences.
The poet has this unexplainable talent or gift to share with the world.
Emerson describes the
poet as having scientific knowledge. He takes language and creates the words to
enlighten us about our surroundings. He uses his God-given imagination to
create thoughts in the reader's mind that were not present there before. These
thoughts activate ideas in a non-poetic person. The reader then produces
questions and inventions in areas that he shows expertise.
Emerson shows the reader how a person without this knowledge of writing is omitted from expressing the beauty of nature. He tells us that the poet has the incredible ability to create images by his words to illustrate the things that we observe. Emerson believes that the poet uses his words to represent beauty (1648). The world is beautiful and it is the poet's job to paint his view of this in his words. "... but it is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but beauty is the creator of the universe..." (1648). Emerson's description of beauty is connected to things associatiated with God and nature.
Emerson explains that nature is things that we all are able to experience but aren't necessary able to identify with our vocabulary. A poet is able to announce to the reader the descriptions of the sun, stars, moon and water, and how these substances cause reactions with us. The poet uses his thoughts and formulates his ideas into words. The reader is then able to agree or disagree with his veiwpoint. The reader may be enlightened by the poet's ideas put to words. Emerson's view of nature directs me to think that he feels that the world of nature was created by God and a poet was appointed by God to observe with his senses the sensations of his creation and put this nature to words. Nature offers all her creatures to him, (the poet) as a picture-language.(1650)
He, also, details to the reader about another presence in the world. This is the presence of evil. "The Poet" makes reference to this force throughout the essay. Emerson states that nature is used as a symbol rather than a God created force. He says that "....the vocabulary of an omniscient man would embrace words and images excluded from a polite conversation...."(1652) . This man chooses to use his words that omit the divine creator as the maker of the things in his nature. This essay was written in 1844, 1847. Today, we can listen to words put to poetry and songs and make judgments if there is an evilness or goodness about the composure of the words.
Another factor that Emerson points out about a poet is that his work may".... lead to a life of pleasure and indulgence.; all but the few who received the true nectar......they were punished for that advantaged that they won, by dissipation and deterioration.... the great presence of the world comes not forth to the sorceries of opium or of wine...... (1656). Emerson goes on to say that the poets in the early nineteenth century were more effective if their inspiration came from God's wine than the 'Devil's wine'. This indicated to me that a poets word's were worth more to the reader if they were not derived from intoxicating substances such as liquor, cocaine or downers. I know from experience that the only people that can relate to this kind of expression are people who have problems of their own.
I know personally famous writers that were given the inspiration to write Grammy-winning words and took their money and indulged in narcotics and "Devil wine'. These writers, or poets, lost every materialistic thing that they owned. One friend died drunk. Some would sober-up through a program implemented an Indian symbol that was used to represent their organization of help. This Indian symbol stood for three things (mind, body, spirit) just as the Trinity and Emerson's description of a poet is represented by three aspects. This organization incorporates God as the inspirational power to aid the people. Some of the poets that allowed God to help them once again wrote inspirational #1 words. Emerson's essay is based on a poet's soul being inspired by a force that called God to motivate the poet to record words. These words cause the reader to find feelings that they could not verbalize. These feelings will then be quickly learned by the intellectual man that he capable of providing himself with new energy beyond the energy of his possessed and conscious intellect.
Emerson shows the reader how a person without this knowledge of writing is omitted from expressing the beauty of nature. He tells us that the poet has the incredible ability to create images by his words to illustrate the things that we observe. Emerson believes that the poet uses his words to represent beauty (1648). The world is beautiful and it is the poet's job to paint his view of this in his words. "... but it is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but beauty is the creator of the universe..." (1648). Emerson's description of beauty is connected to things associatiated with God and nature.
Emerson explains that nature is things that we all are able to experience but aren't necessary able to identify with our vocabulary. A poet is able to announce to the reader the descriptions of the sun, stars, moon and water, and how these substances cause reactions with us. The poet uses his thoughts and formulates his ideas into words. The reader is then able to agree or disagree with his veiwpoint. The reader may be enlightened by the poet's ideas put to words. Emerson's view of nature directs me to think that he feels that the world of nature was created by God and a poet was appointed by God to observe with his senses the sensations of his creation and put this nature to words. Nature offers all her creatures to him, (the poet) as a picture-language.(1650)
He, also, details to the reader about another presence in the world. This is the presence of evil. "The Poet" makes reference to this force throughout the essay. Emerson states that nature is used as a symbol rather than a God created force. He says that "....the vocabulary of an omniscient man would embrace words and images excluded from a polite conversation...."(1652) . This man chooses to use his words that omit the divine creator as the maker of the things in his nature. This essay was written in 1844, 1847. Today, we can listen to words put to poetry and songs and make judgments if there is an evilness or goodness about the composure of the words.
Another factor that Emerson points out about a poet is that his work may".... lead to a life of pleasure and indulgence.; all but the few who received the true nectar......they were punished for that advantaged that they won, by dissipation and deterioration.... the great presence of the world comes not forth to the sorceries of opium or of wine...... (1656). Emerson goes on to say that the poets in the early nineteenth century were more effective if their inspiration came from God's wine than the 'Devil's wine'. This indicated to me that a poets word's were worth more to the reader if they were not derived from intoxicating substances such as liquor, cocaine or downers. I know from experience that the only people that can relate to this kind of expression are people who have problems of their own.
I know personally famous writers that were given the inspiration to write Grammy-winning words and took their money and indulged in narcotics and "Devil wine'. These writers, or poets, lost every materialistic thing that they owned. One friend died drunk. Some would sober-up through a program implemented an Indian symbol that was used to represent their organization of help. This Indian symbol stood for three things (mind, body, spirit) just as the Trinity and Emerson's description of a poet is represented by three aspects. This organization incorporates God as the inspirational power to aid the people. Some of the poets that allowed God to help them once again wrote inspirational #1 words. Emerson's essay is based on a poet's soul being inspired by a force that called God to motivate the poet to record words. These words cause the reader to find feelings that they could not verbalize. These feelings will then be quickly learned by the intellectual man that he capable of providing himself with new energy beyond the energy of his possessed and conscious intellect.
Research websites
Emerson on The Poet Soul http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=18865
Helen Palmer Giesel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Palmer_Geisel
Neurotic Poets
Sylvia Plath http://www.neuroticpoets.com/plath/
Lord Byron http://www.neuroticpoets.com/byron/
Edgar Alan Poe http://www.neuroticpoets.com/poe/
Dylan Thomas http://www.neuroticpoets.com/thomas/
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