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hedgehog-moss · 2 years

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what are your favorite books in terms of prose? curious after you wrote about how many modern writers lack a sense for good writing, which i’ve also felt for years. so who do you think writes especially beautifully :-)

(Warning: long post ahead pondering what is perceived as beautiful prose in English vs French!)

The first books that came to my mind are the ones listed below, and it got me wondering why they were all by French authors, when I read a lot in other languages. I think even if you can read foreign literature fluently, it’s easier to detect & appreciate beautiful prose in your mother tongue, not just because you know it so intimately (so you know how many different ways there are to convey an idea and why this particular way was a great choice in this context), but also because languages develop their own criteria of what constitutes good writing, and we aren’t really taught about this—we're taught about our own language's criteria for good prose as if they were universal and objective, and it can be hard to move beyond that, especially when you're happily lost in a book and not actively trying to analyse the subtleties of the writing.

At the risk of giving the least hipster answer ever I really like Victor Hugo's writing because there are whole passages that sound so good I need to go back and re-read them to figure out what's happening in terms of plot (usually nothing, so it's ok), because I was too busy enjoying the flow of language the first time around (my favourite of his is The Man Who Laughs)

I read Pierre Assouline's 500-page book about the Book of Job even though I have little interest in biblical analysis or religious history, because there were sentences that were so pleasantly paced and balanced I just got carried by the momentum...

I love Annie Ernaux's writing in Les Années even though I'm not a fan of her other books, because the sentence construction and rhythm are so perfectly suited to the theme of the book.

I find Anatole France's books rather dull but the language is hypnotising (I talked a bit in this post about how his grammar is graceful as a dance...)

^ looking at this I realise I always come back to movement—grace, balance, flow, rhythm (not the pace of the story but of each sentence), and I know these are the criteria that French deems Terribly Important. I mentioned at the end of this post how (and why) English tends to be less interested in the motion of language and more in the imagery; in Goodreads reviews by native English speakers, beautiful writing is more likely to be described as ‘vivid’ than melodious. That's not to say English speakers can't appreciate (or prefer!) other kinds of prose, obviously, it's just, in broad strokes, what each language likes to focus on (at the present time.) There's a lot of appreciation in English for the kind of prose that you could easily make a moodboard out of—evoking sensations, colours, atmosphere—while French highly values the kind of prose that you can easily trace out in the air, with your hand rising and falling, tapping the beat, following grammatical twists and turns.

That's just my understanding, but it's something I notice a lot because I like to read French books along with their English translation (and conversely), to see how translators handle a tricky turn of phrase, or what I would have done differently. And it happens time and time again that the English translation lovingly preserves the imagery of a French sentence (even when a metaphor is difficult to translate) while coldly abandoning the rhythm and sound (even when there are easy English equivalents). Meanwhile French translators often completely ignore (or miss out on) subtle sources of mood and imagery because they are too busy picking the words and sentence structure that sound or flow best. It's really quite funny when you start to notice it.

I would have dozens of examples if I actually took the time to note them as I read, but just two recent ones off the top of my head—

French -> English

I'm currently reading Sylvain Tesson's La Panthère des neiges (The Art of Patience: Seeking the Snow Leopard in Tibet in English) (I needed a 'cold’ book during the heatwave...) At one point the author draws a comparison between religious worship and observing wild animals. For an example of what I was saying re: "tracing out sentences in the air", there's the sentence "La prière s'élève, adressée à Dieu." The two halves are 5 syllables - 5 syllables (6-6 if you read it formally.) The last word of the first half is "s'élève" — "rises". The last word of the second half goes down, since it's the end of the sentence. There's a clear rising and falling motion to it, which is also perfectly balanced in terms of syllables / rhythm; it makes a nice symmetric pattern in the air.

Now, the translation aspect—you've got the sentence "A genoux, on espère sans preuve." Then, shortly afterwards: "A l'affût, on connaît ce que l'on attend." The author is comparing the acts of kneeling (to pray) and lying in wait (to watch animals); so he chose phrasings and sentence structures that create a clear symmetry ("A genoux" / "A l'affût", 3 syllables, starting with the same sound, followed by a comma, then “on” + verb + clause.) The English translation? "To kneel is to wait in expectation without proof" [...] "Lying in a hide, the object of the wait is known."

This is bad!

Now the two sentences have different grammatical structures, they don't contain the same pronoun and don’t start with the same sound or phrasing even though the translator could have chosen to write "Kneeling" and "Lying" to preserve a tiny bit of the original intent. The translation obliterates the similarities of sound & rhythm in the grammar and word choice, which were here for a literary purpose—to link and compare two concepts.

On the other hand, every sentence in the book that's ripe with vivid imagery of wild animals is very conscientiously translated. In the next page, Tesson describes yaks as "taches de jais saupoudrant—", the English translator: "[the yaks] appeared as jade smudges scattered—" It's word for word ! The translator clearly thought visually striking phrases are essential and must be preserved as faithfully as possible, but phrases that are striking on an auditory / rhythmical level are less important (or less likely to be appreciated by an English-speaking reader.)

English -> French

I was reading The Bear and the Nightingale last year and I remember a contrast so blatant it made me laugh—the sentence "The ground was thick with snowdrops" in the original, was translated in French as "Le sol était parsemé d'une nuée de perce-neige." (The ground was scattered with a mist of snowdrops.)

In terms of French prose, this is good! In terms of faithful translation of English prose, this is bad! The translator went for the complete opposite when it comes to imagery—"thick" which evokes weight, vs. the weightlessness of "scattered" and “mist.”

But you know what? "Parsemé" and "perce-neige" have the same syllable count and nearly identical consonant sounds— [p]-[sə]-[m] / [p]-[sə]-[n]. It's pleasing to the ear and symmetrical. The “mist” bit might seem unnecessary (you could say “scattered with snowdrops”) but it was added because it contributes to this—rather than having two similar words right next to one another, they are now the last word in the first and second half of the sentence, making each half end on a similar sound, like poetry. The two halves "le sol était parsemé" and "d'une nuée de perce-neige" have 7 syllables each (with a mute e, the way most people would read it.) So the sentence sounds nice and is well-balanced, and what could be more important than musicality and balance?? Surely not imagery.

It's good writing in terms of what French deems important. It's terrible at preserving what the original English deemed important—"thick" associated with snowdrops as if the flowers were an actual blanket of snow—this evokes weight and quiet—the next sentence then opens with the trill of a bird, and the light, airy sound feels all the more vivid thanks to this clear contrast.

Which is obliterated by the French translation. But the French sentence flows nicely, and it really highlights what each language finds beautiful and essential, in terms of prose. I mentioned in this post that one of the reasons French takes up more room as a language is that it loves grammatical redundancy while English hates it—and I think it's because expanding or repeating a grammatical structure can add symmetry and balance, while it dilutes / drowns out the imagery. I don't think translators make an active choice all the time to overlook one aspect of the prose and pay more attention to another—I think as they mentally chew on the original text and try to come up with the best equivalent, they instinctively tend to fall into this pattern of favouring their language’s Good Writing criteria (probably because it’s assumed readers favour them as well.)

I should write these kinds of examples down in some Word doc, because they’re everywhere, and while there are so many writing styles and translation styles in both languages, there really is a pattern here—French being obsessed with balance and assonance, i.e. the beauty of motion & sound (which are twin concepts when it comes to language), how to make the flow of a sentence linger in your mind; English being obsessed with the beauty of imagery, the ways to make it 'pop', how to make an atmosphere linger in your mind.

Sorry for this very long answer that only briefly touched on your question, but I really love to observe the ways people use their languages so similarly yet differently!

#ask #language tag #i already made this disclaimer in one of the posts linked here but obviously there is good imagery in french writing and #musicality and rhythm in english prose #this is just a general pattern / preference that's noticeable

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the-ravening · 2 months

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20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you @zsparz and @six-demon-bag for tagging me! ❤️

1. How many works do you have on ao3? Only 12, because I am a baby writer.

2. What's your total ao3 word count? 86k

3. What fandoms do you write for? Winterbaron, or more accurately, Zemo/everyone

4. Top five fics by kudos: Let's do a top 3, since top 5 would just be like half my fics.

Something Sweet to Eat (142 kudos) Extremely underage Halloween fic, bunny boy Zemo shows up trick or treating at Bucky's house Adopt, Don’t Shop (123 kudos) Omegaverse, bratty teen Zemo is for sale at an Omega kennel and Alpha Bucky goes shopping Gift-Wrapped (113 kudos) This was the first fic I ever posted (just a few years ago) and I'm still pretty proud of it. Just a silly Winterbaron rimming PWP, but it's hot

5. Do you respond to comments? I try to, I always mean to, but I think I'm a bit behind right now. I know there are some amazing comments on Home to Me from last year that I still haven't replied to and I feel bad about it all the time.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Probably Under Lock and Key (what a mess we’ve made), the Heinrich/Helmut Zemo dadcest fic I wrote for @ex0rin where I followed her hurt/no comfort philosophy of leaving him on the floor crying.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I don't know if I really do happy endings? I have PWPs where the happy ending is they both come, if that counts. 😅 Let's say... Ink Kissed (with violent precision) where tattoo artist Bucky gives his client Zemo a dick tattoo, and Zemo ends up quite happy with the tattoo as well as the rest of the service.

8. Do you get hate on fics? I've only gotten one or two of the world's mildest hate comments. I guess my ships are sufficiently niche that no one cares about them.

9. Do you write smut? Yeah! Do I write anything other than smut? No.

10. Craziest crossover: I've only written one crossover, A Suitable Course of Treatment, Bucky Barnes/Laszlo Kreizler from The Alienist, which isn't crazy at all because as we all know, Laszlo has Zemo's face. (If it counts, I once started a Dir en grey x Sailormoon fic where the band members magically turned into Sailor Scouts, but I did not ever get far on it.)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, the aforementioned Adopt, Don’t Shop was co-written with @violenciorp and @tales-from-a-maphia-don, because Vio lovingly bullied us into it, despite me and Mel ostensibly not being into Omegaverse.

14. All time favorite ship? I've jumped ship a lot over the years, but it's gotta be Winterbaron, since this is the ship that finally got me writing and posting and getting really involved in a fandom.

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? The first serious attempt I made at writing in this fandom was this teen Zemo necrophilia thing, and I wrote the necro part but none of the plotty stuff leading up to it. I still dream of finishing it, in an abstract way where I have no motivation to ever work on it.

16. What are your writing strengths? I think I'm pretty good at rhythm and flow and making my prose sound musical? That's something I focus a lot on and I tend to read aloud while editing to make sure it sounds good to my ear.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Probably plot and dialogue, and figuring out how to include technical details of things I know nothing about. But most of all procrastination, my arch-nemesis.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language? I personally avoid it, because I find it annoying to have to look up the translations in the middle of reading. I prefer to just say they're speaking in whatever language but write the dialogue in English.

19. First fandom you wrote in? J-rock RPF in the early 2000s, but I mostly just did a bit of RP and never got far with any fics I started.

20. Favorite fic you've written? Sometimes it feels like every new thing I post is my new favourite, haha. But I thiiiink my fave has been Something Sweet to Eat since I wrote it (the Halloween fic mentioned earlier), because it's probably the most self-indulgent thing I've written to date. I am truly the main audience for that fic and I'm very happy with it.

No pressure tagging: @violenciorp, @tales-from-a-maphia-don, @thepiper0fhameln, @ex0rin, @unlikelymilliner, @evenmyhivemindisempty, and anyone else who sees this and wants to join in!

#this was fun but wow I ramble #tag game #writer asks #ravening writes

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blueheartbooks · 3 months

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"Navigating the Epic Journey: A Review of The Odyssey by Homer, Translated by Rev. W. Lucas Collins M.A."

The Odyssey, an epic poem attributed to the ancient Greek poet Homer, is a timeless tale that transcends generations with its captivating narrative and profound themes. Reverend W. Lucas Collins M.A.'s translation of this classic work breathes new life into Homer's masterpiece, offering readers a fresh perspective on the epic journey of Odysseus as he strives to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War.

At its core, The Odyssey is a story of perseverance, resilience, and the enduring power of the human spirit. Through the trials and tribulations faced by Odysseus during his ten-year voyage, Homer explores fundamental aspects of the human condition, from the complexities of identity and the importance of loyalty to the inevitability of fate and the consequences of hubris. Collins' translation expertly captures the essence of these themes, presenting them in a language that is accessible yet rich in poetic beauty.

One of the most striking aspects of Collins' translation is his ability to evoke the vivid imagery and rich symbolism present throughout The Odyssey. From the menacing Cyclops and the enchanting nymph Calypso to the treacherous whirlpool of Charybdis and the alluring song of the Sirens, each character and episode is rendered with precision and depth, transporting readers to the fantastical world of ancient Greece. Collins' mastery of language shines through in his poetic descriptions, allowing readers to immerse themselves fully in Odysseus' epic journey.

Moreover, Collins' translation preserves the rhythmic cadence and musicality of Homer's original verse, enhancing the reading experience and capturing the oral tradition from which The Odyssey emerged. The use of meter and rhythm adds a lyrical quality to the text, making it a pleasure to read aloud and further accentuating the epic nature of the tale. Whether experienced silently or recited aloud, Collins' translation ensures that the beauty and power of Homer's language are fully realized.

Beyond its literary merits, The Odyssey remains relevant today for its exploration of timeless themes and universal truths. As readers accompany Odysseus on his quest for homecoming, they are confronted with profound questions about the nature of heroism, the meaning of loyalty, and the pursuit of one's destiny. Through its enduring appeal and profound insights, The Odyssey continues to resonate with readers of all ages and backgrounds, cementing its status as one of the greatest works of world literature.

In conclusion, Reverend W. Lucas Collins M.A.'s translation of The Odyssey offers readers a masterful interpretation of Homer's epic poem, capturing the essence of the original while infusing it with new vitality and resonance. Through Collins' skillful rendering of Homer's timeless tale, readers are transported to a world of gods and monsters, heroes and villains, where the human spirit is tested and triumphs in the face of adversity. With its lyrical prose, rich imagery, and profound themes, The Odyssey remains an essential read for anyone seeking to embark on an unforgettable literary journey.

Homer's "Odyssey" is available in Amazon in paperback 12.99$ and hardcover 19.99$ editions.

Number of pages: 183

Language: English

Rating: 10/10

Link of the book!

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blueheartbookclub · 3 months

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"Navigating the Epic Journey: A Review of The Odyssey by Homer, Translated by Rev. W. Lucas Collins M.A."

Homer's "Odyssey" is available in Amazon in paperback 12.99$ and hardcover 19.99$ editions.

Number of pages: 183

Language: English

Rating: 10/10

Link of the book!

Review By: King's Cat

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landwriter · 1 year

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I have a question that has absolutely nothing to do with fic or the Sandman except for the bit where it's about a dream poem! Since you've minored in French literature, I was wondering if you've read Le Roman de la Rose? As far as medieval dream poems go, Chaucer and even Lydgate can take a back seat because the first part of Le Roman (aka the part written by Guillaume de Lorris c. 1230) is fantastic and contains some of my favourite language ever. The God of Love makes the Lover kiss his mouth which drives me crazy, but these lines are my favourite in any literature ever and honestly this entire ask is me just jumping on the chance to share them/write them out again (the English translation is by Charles Dahlberg):

lors la me toucha au costé et ferma mon cuer si souef qu'a grant poine senti la clef

then he touched my side and locked my heart so softly that I hardly felt the key

I have not - furthest back I was ever sent was late 17th c.

However, after recovering from being absolutely fucking bodied by those lines, I wanna read it. I've done a semi-cursory search and have only found it in English translations, and a French journal article about how many manuscripts there's been of Le Roman de la Rose (answer: a great deal) but I would love even the Guillaume de Lorris portion? I am hooked. thank you for this. a small digression *I* am jumping on the chance to talk abt:

This is a good example of a funky little modern French thing, which is pronouncing the vestigial -e (there's actual terms but I like vestigial) that would otherwise be silent (for the most part, regionally, asterisk asterisk etc.,) in speech, in prose - but are pronounced in poetry and song. Francophones are like 'it's for meter' (as above in poine, to make the line 8 syllables) but as usual they are being incredibly blasé about a very cool linguistic convention. Why is it cool? It's a remnant of both our language's histories! It used to be our convention too!

As anyone who has read Middle English in Dreamling fic, completely new to it, as I was, you will notice the profusion of seemingly vestigial -e's. While spelling was not standardized, there's overall more of them on words today we might recognize which have since shed them completely, like the classic myne owne hertis rote (x), my own heart's root. If you're an Anglo like me, you might read that and pronounce it something like 'mine own heart-iss wrote'. BUT! Guess the fuck what - just like in French poetry even today, these final e's were pronounced for the majority of what we call 'Middle English'. Here is someone reading some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Middle English. It's so jaunty, eh?

Unlike the French, we have obviously not kept the habit of pronouncing our now-vestigial -e's, even in spoken verse. (or, if u will, vers-uh) I think it's a crying shame. The music of it! The rhythm! The connection with your linguistic ancestors! My tinfoil hat thesis that is objectively incorrect but feels right: we doomed this gorgeous facet of English pronunciation in the rise of literacy and printing; if we still primarily transmitted stories via oral tradition they would sound prettier. The French kept it because they relied on it too much in their poetry are simply more stubborn and consistent.

On that theme, I think it's crazy how much more comprehensible Old French is relative to modern French, than even Middle English a few centuries later vs modern English?? What's up with that?

p.s. any asks that are like 'here's some ruinous language I would like to share with you' are very welcome they don't even have to be dream poems!

p.p.s. more on Middle English pronunciation from someone that might know what they're talking about because I certainly do not (x)

#asks #poetry #this can be a poetry blog on sundays #as a treat #linguistics #translation meta #middle english #old french #language i love thee so #do kids still speak pig latin to each other in school? hmm #an essay

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triposzt · 9 months

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The Dreadnoughts - Roll and Go (2022) / Green Willow (2023) double album review

For the first English post of this blog, why not make a review of my new favourite band's last two albums? It's a bit late, I know, I originally wanted to make one about "Roll and Go", but never got around to do it, so when I heard that a new album is coming out this year, I thought "hey, now is the time to combine the two reviews into one post!" And I'm still freakin' late with this again!

But anyway, let's start the story from the beginning.

At least a decade ago, the first two songs I've heard from The Dreadnoughts were "Sleep Is For The Weak" and "Randy-Dandy-Oh" - no idea whether I found them randomly or someone showed them to me, but I liked both… and then kinda forgot to listen to any of their other songs for a while 😄 Then, fast-forward to approximately early 2020, when at work I was browsing for music, listened to one of the previously mentioned two and through the "related songs" links, found "Gintlemen's Club" (unsurprisingly from the same 2011 album "Polka's Not Dead")…and BAM! Immediately I was like "This is awesome, why haven't I listened to them for ages? Let's discover more!" And I did… and that's why I was anticipating the 2022 spring release of the new album Roll and Go even more. Let's see how it turned out:

ROLL AND GO (release date: June 24, 2022)

1 - Cider Jar [7/10] Hold up, a booze-infused version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"? That's ridiculously brilliant! 😃 Cider Jar serves as a short intro to the album and the closing "arr-oh-arr" just flows right on to the next track, which…

2 - Cider Holiday [7.5/10] …was the first track released from the album and in all honesty, did not hit me in the sweet spot back then, but has grown on me since. The prose-like bridge part gives it a unique flavour, and speaking of flavour, the song itself just makes me wanna drink cider or visit the West Country. Or both, preferably.

3 - The Rodney Rocket [8/10] You never know where artists can find an inspiration for a song. Sometimes, it might be a video about an old alcoholic Canadian fella having fun with some snowy extreme sports in Rodney, Ontario 😁 The Rodney Rocket is easy to sing (mostly due to its percussion-heavy background and the L-C-B-O chant in the chorus), plus the tempo changes well along with the story - the silly-sounding words in the lyrics (dickered, hullabaloo) and a callback to "Fire Marshal Willy" are just the icing on the cake. What's not to like?

4 - Problem [10/10] Second track to come out as a single and I instantly loved it. Somehow it's just perfect: the repeating "Problem" at the end of lines, occasionally replaced by various - and hilarious! - sound effects, both the beat and the inserted Polish lyrics obviously referencing Sleep Is For the Weak, the backstory of the song, it all just culminates in this masterpiece. The music video is weird enough, although it does not reach such heights, but anyway, who the fuck cares, we are here to listen to songs, not watch them. Problem?

5 - Brisbane Harbour [8.5/10] A worthy continuation of true sea shanties like "Whup! Jamboree" and "Eliza Lee", and one which surely makes any listener's fingers and feet tap to the rhythm.

6 - Battleford 1885 [8/10] The shortest "normal" track on the album, and its title was intriguing to me when I first saw it - turns out, music can be educational (duh), because Battleford 1885 sheds some light on a tragic event of indigenous people in Canada (here's the post about the background of the song). Oh, and the ascending drum in the background of the bridge is just… *chef's kiss*

7 - The Storm [9/10] Beautiful, just beautiful, equally eerie and empowering, with an instrumental break inspired by Greek bouzouki tunes. If the previous song was about the story of oppressed people rising up against their masters, then this one puts you right in those people's mindset. Well done. And I'll be forever grateful for the Substack post about The Storm for introducing Smokey Bastard's "Baba Yaga" to me, I fell in love at first listening.

8 - Vicki's Polka [7.5/10] Judging by the title only, I thought this was going to be the obligatory instrumental track, but then again, I might have been misled by "Clavdia's Waltz". Instead, Vicki's Polka is rather a love story spanning decades, featuring references to the band's 2010 hit "Polka Never Dies" and the popular folk song "Who Stole the Keeshka?". Assisted by some top folk musicians, the bounciness of this true polka track slows down only near the end, when it's time to say goodbye to the titular Vicki, sadly taken away by the Covid-19 pandemic. Goddamnit, 2020.

9 - Scrumpy-O [8/10] You've been listening to the songs of the album in order and you're missing the amount of alcohol in the lyrics for a while? Worry not, Scrumpy-O definitely has your back. Just grab some locally made and/or rough cider (that's what "scrumpy" means), learn the words to the chorus, and raise your bottle to the sky!

10 - Tuika [7/10] Now this is the instrumental track I thought Vicki's Polka was gonna be. The frequently changing speed of the song makes you imagine dancing arm-in-arm with someone at one moment, then jumping into a mosh pit at another. (P.s.: if anyone has an idea what the title means, let me know, I could only find a politician from American Samoa by this name.)

11 - Dusty Ground [9/10] One of my favourites from the album, a very well executed song. Listen to how the tempo decelerates almost into melancholy in the third verse and then turns back up for the last chorus, just fantastic. The lyrics… likewise. If I'm not mistaken, they are meant to convey the transience of life via a clever metaphor: the ever-thirsty ground, which swallows us up like water. Well, all right, I might have taken a peek at the origin story of the track ;)

12 - Bold Reilly [5.5/10] Honestly, out of the thirteen tracks, this is the song that resonated the least with me. I wouldn't say it's bad or anything, just… Too repetitive? Too slow? I don't know. Also, being "the worst song of a Dreadnoughts album" is still a pretty high level 😁 And it has a reference to Randy Dandy-Oh, nice!

13 - Roll and Go [8.5/10] For some reason, I classified the trio of The Storm, Dusty Ground, and this closing track as giving the same vibes - no idea why I feel the similarity, at the very least Dusty Ground is notably quicker. Anyway, all three songs are unique enough for me to love each of them. Roll and Go provides a fine closure to this wonderful album: the musical background resembles a marching band (here I am giving praise to the percussion section yet again 👏), the lyrics emanate the feeling of brotherhood, and the ending slowly fades with the promise of a "fine and lucky day". Amen to that!

Overall: this was easily the release of the year for me. Usually when I listen to an entire album for the first time, the tracks don't really have their own "identity" in the beginning, and the whole thing is just a raw, big mess. Not this time! A few tracks stood out instantly and I grew to love the rest even more. Roll and Go turning out to be that awesome, given the difficulties the band had to face while recording, just proves how talented these guys are. I'll be sure to mention this album when people ask me about my favourites. Verdict: 8.5/10

GREEN WILLOW (release date: March 14, 2023)

1 - We Shepherds are the Best of Men [8/10] A proper start to the album, with a great rhythm and an even better chorus. Apparently, it's an older folk piece, which has a few versions with different lyrics, but The Dreadnoughts are the first "modern" band to cover it. And oh boy, they did it well! (One small caveat though: the grammar nazi inside me is so bothered by the "We drinks our liquor freely and pays before we go" part every time 😅)

2 - Hej Sokoły (Zal za Ukraina) [9.5/10] I see two great reasons why this track was chosen as the initial single of the album. Firstly, this song is an absolute earworm. I mean, so dangerously addictive, it can be stuck in your head for a day! Secondly, it's dedicated to the people fighting for Ukraine, and whoever has listened to The Dreadnoughts' songs knows that Eastern Europe has a special place in their pool of inpsirations. Accordingly, Hey Sokoły covers a popular old Polish-Ukrainian folk song, and frankly, I just can't ever get enough of Polish lyrics in the band's songs - no wonder the band fell in love with the suggestion of this cover. Highlight: as the last verse slows down and then builds up into the energetic last chorus… goosebumps, goosebumps every time.

3 - Rigs of the Time [7/10] It's like a good worker who does not yearn for promotion but is never in danger of getting laid off - not necessarily oustanding in his field, but someone who is trustworthy and does his job well. It has a message and a great chorus. You need tracks like this on your album. (Ironically, the song is about dishonest tradesmen, but still, that's the metaphor I chose. Also, the whole "blaming the rising prices on the war" thing is too real nowadays.)

4 - Roll the Old Chariot Along [8.5/10] This song is apparently covered by a few artists, but I don't recall hearing it before I listened to the album - only since then, but for that, the almighty Algorithm might be the one to "blame". Anyway, I remember instantly liking it upon the first listening and my opinion remains unchanged: what a fantastic and catchy tune! "And we'll all hang on behind!" (P.s.: Lads, there's a missing verse - and some other confusion - of the lyrics on the Bandcamp page.)

5 - The Foggy Dew [7/10] A classic Irish ballad, full of historical references (one of which could even be meant as a hint to "The Bay of Suvla"), so far it was only familiar to me because Dropkick Murphys used it as the opening instrumental for their shows (The Chieftains version to be exact). The lack of repeated parts and intricate rhythm of the verses makes it very difficult to sing along, but nevertheless it's a beautiful rendition.

6 - Twankidillo [7.5/10] "Half of you are going to hate it, it’s fucking weird." That's the premise I've read before I even listened to the song… and I didn't even mention the strange title. 😄 *1st listening*: They were right, what the hell is this? *2nd listening*: Okay, it IS weird, but certainly catchy… *3rd listening*: "Here's to old coal, and to young coal and to no coal at aaaaaaaaallll!" Yep, it grows on you. It's another cover of a traditional folk song (like all tracks except one), and if you haven't noticed, the lyrics also contain a reference to the album name. Yay!

7 - Spanish Ladies [7/10] Sorry guys, I have absolutely been in love with Sarah Blasko's version of this song for years, and I don't think anything can change that. To be fair though, this cover is more sea shanty-esque, if you close your eyes, you can almost visualize the crew hauling ropes or heaving the capstan around.

8 - The Unquiet Grave [8/10] Upon seeing the tracklist, this was the title that stood out the most for me - and damn, it did not disappoint, especially storywise. This tale of love beyond the grave has been sung for centuries, I haven't heard it before, but I must say that The Dreadnoughts have really managed to capture the appropriate eerie vibe which surely gives you the chills. (Bonus funfact for anyone who's familiar with the band's discography: this track was first intended for the 2017 album "Foreign Skies".)

9 - Apple Tree Wassail [8.5/10] Don't believe Google Translate saying "wassail" is an Arabic word, this catchy track is actually a blessing ritual for apple trees in hope of a good crop to make cider from… although the mental image in my head is stuck halfway between an orchard and a mosh pit due to the song's fast pace. Hell, I hope at some point I'll have the chance to hear it live and jump around like a maniac. (Please come to Hungary!) (P.s.: The "Let every man drink up his glass" line is possibly a callback to "Spanish Ladies", am I right?)

10 - Roll Northumbria (Loud Version, sometimes called "Heavy Version") [7.5/10] Green Willow features nine covers of traditional folk pieces and a reboot of one of the band's earlier songs… yep, this closing track is the reboot one. What I said previously about Spanish Ladies, can be applied here as well - I like the original so much that no newer cover can surpass that, even if it's from the same band. Also, I think the original's slow and dark vibe is more fitting to the topic of the song, but if there's one place where the heavy/loud version could be used, it's concerts. The final drum beats provide a great ending to the album.

Overall: When I first listened to the entire album, I thought "maybe Roll and Go set the bar too high", although my reception of Green Willow has improved well since then, as it can be seen in the ratings. A shorter collection of tracks than its predecessor, but it has a bit of everything from patriotic through silly to haunting, while covering well-known and lesser-known folk songs. I know an album a year would probably be too much to ask, so I'll just patiently wait for some fresh stuff from The Dreadnoughts! Verdict: 8/10

Thanks for reading! 😊

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grandhotelabyss · 1 year

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I somehow never got around to Amis* despite the overwhelming Anglophilia of the milieu that produced me: I probably should have read him in college, but I was too busy reading the Victorians and postmodernists. His love for Bellow and Nabokov is intriguing though- i’ve often thought that one of the main weaknesses of *American* literature is the opposite tendency, a predilection for periods of extended self-loathing about the fact that we can’t really produce these intricate and elegant novels of settled hierarchal society the way that the English can- so I’m curious to know what the opposite looks like. And yes, the downbeat stuff on MLIR, Parklife and The Great Escape is generally the best Blur (although I dig the upbeat stuff too!)

*father or son!

Right, the complex that starts with Henry James's book on Hawthorne, is carried through those midcentury critics I mentioned in our James-Melville conversation (as well, significantly, both Gore Vidal and Joan Didion), and extends to the late-20th-century laments over the absent social novel of both Tom Wolfe and Jonathan Franzen. The historian-journalist streak, as opposed to the poet-prophet—except that, as we established, both Melville and James are large enough to contain both.

One way to see Amis and his cohort, again with a pop music analogy, is as the literary version of the British Invasion: American "rock" with its diverse influences (mainly Jewish rather than black, in the novelistic case as opposed to the musical) reimagined through the lens of post-imperial Britain. Here they differ from the later and belated phenomenon of Britpop, with its initial nationalist riposte to America's indie-grunge turn, deliberately de-Amerifying rock.

Thomas Meaney, reviewing Inside Story when it came out, distinguished Amis's style from the English realist tradition and made the Bellow-rock connection:

The magnetism of Bellow for Amis’s generation of English writers is well attested: Hitchens, Ian McEwan, and later Will Self and James Wood, all found something in Bellow’s high-calorie sentences that they couldn’t get at home. It was perhaps, above all, the permission to dispense with the rationed intensity of good mid-century British prose – the clean, spare, simplicity of George Orwell’s diction that reached its apotheosis in VS Naipaul and has been gently ironised by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Amis ran farther than any of his peers in the opposite direction: towards a maximalism that he has never abandoned or so much as questioned. His head-swaying to American street-wise rhythms, albeit leavened by English classicism, is the literary version of Mick Jagger crooning “Hoochie Coochie Man” at the Checkerboard Lounge with Muddy Waters, or Daniel Day-Lewis, son of Cecil, shouting, “I will find you!” in deerskin breechcloths under a waterfall in The Last of the Mohicans.

Other than Austen—a genius and so above rules or considerations of taste—the English social novel doesn't interest me much either; I've never gotten anywhere with Thackeray or Trollope, mildly dislike Fielding, cheer on Woolf's polemic against Bennett. I prefer their Romantic visionary prose tradition, which, in figures as distinct as the Brontës and Dickens, as Woolf and Lawrence and Forster, turns what appear to be social novels into myths and gospels. On this basis, I've never read Kingsley either; he doesn't really seem to "export." Martin, however, loved Fielding and Austen and has a definite undertow of the traditional English satirical social novel (Meaney's "leavened by English classicism") for all the visionary coloration he borrows from inherently aclasscal Americans.

Anyway, the chapter I'm now writing in Major Arcana, one of the last, is titled "Et in Arcadia Egirl," so I should probably stop pretending I am not also in part writing a satirical social novel.

#martin amis #english literature #american literature #thomas meaney #literary criticism

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ao3feed-ineffablehusbandz · 1 year

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Ashokan Farewell

by PatheticPaprika

Aziraphale would teach Crowley the tunes he relearned from Quebec. A small offering from the time in history they went their separate ways and did not experience the world together. And after much persuasion by the demon, Crowley would occasionally teach Aziraphale simple renditions of his favorite "bebop" tunes.

They fell into a simple rhythm of their own; a "hello angel~" followed by an exchanging of tunes and a slow descent into Aziraphale's wine cabinet; the music steadily getting more haphazard and the laughter brighter the farther in they got.

Words: 2249, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Other

Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens)

Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)

Additional Tags: Fluff, Folk Music, Songfic, kind of?, They're playing the song, Quote: Ngk (Good Omens), and various other sounds orginating from the Crowley soundboard, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Self-Indulgent, Incredibly Self-Indulgent, Inspired by Music, turned into, poetic prose, Halfway through, Quote: We're On Our Own Side (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Humanity (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Humanity (Good Omens), Crowley Submits to the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known (Good Omens)

From https://ift.tt/fu2CeaO https://archiveofourown.org/works/43659142

#ao3feed ineffablehusbandz #ineffable husbands #good omens #aziraphale #crowley #anthonyjcrowl

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letters-to-rosie · 1 year

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Section Four: Delivery

How we package the tour is just about as important as everything else. This is normally where one would talk about grammar, but I find that general grammar advice can be kinda hard to give. Even in English, different kinds of English have different rules. I use American English rules (usually Chicago style), but I break the rules all the time for fun. If grammar is a concern (and it can be, since it can hinder the communication process), I’d recommend doing some practice online. I’ve recommended the Longman’s Student Grammar to a client before as well, but honestly, this is the internet, and it’s probably not that deep lol. Because I tend to think of writing as a communicative process, the questions I ask myself about delivery are often related to that: how does this come across? Is this being explained in a way that relies on patterns of my own thinking that my audience doesn’t necessarily share? Is this clear? If it’s not clear, how can I improve its clarity?

Generally, clarity is the chief concern for me. If I’m not being clear, then I’m not communicating, and if I’m not communicating, the experience of my readers is hampered. But otherwise? Go crazy.

When I work with friends to resolve issues of writing on the sentence level, many times the trouble at hand is that their vision in their heads is not making it onto the page. It’s important to remember that things that are obvious to us are not necessarily so to other people. While we don’t want to overexplain everything in a way that feels condescending, it’s good to be mindful and look for blind spots we may have. The good thing is that many other aforementioned writing tools such as perspective, narrative distance and voice, tone, and the like are helpful in this task. As are thinking of our goals. No writing delivery will ever be perfect, but we can always practice in ways that lead us closer to our goals.

Some things I like to keep in mind include:

Asking whether my descriptions impair meaning. I think a lot of people like to develop prose styles that feel rich and artistic. However, sometimes it can be hard to accomplish this and still get an intended meaning across. I often rewrite descriptions I feel like are unhelpful to make them simpler. As I improve, however, I feel like my range of options for descriptions grows along with me, and my prose becomes richer.

Rhythm. This one is a bit hard because it’s not equal for everyone; familiarity with the spoken version of the language you’re writing in and musical sensibility are big advantages here. Just like speech, written language has rhythm. This is often mentioned in the context of sentence length, but it’s also helpful for word choice. Good rhythm reduces awkwardness, and less awkward writing is easier to read. If a section of writing feels awkward, I almost always suggest reading it aloud. Reading things aloud is helpful for uncovering where things feel redundant, bulky, or confusing. I’ve read entire editing assignments aloud for this reason.

Word choice. Word choice is one of those things that improves with reading. Beyond that, it’s hard to improve at it. We need not be beholden to dictionary definitions of words, especially when writing in a creative way, but the communication aspect of writing does mean that some words might not get across what we mean. I tend to doublecheck ones I’m unsure about, just in case. If it doesn’t have to do with meaning, then go crazy! There are some words that just sound more fun than others. Trust yourself here (I make like all my word choice decisions based on rhythm and the potential for wordplay. If a pun can be made, I’m making it).

Beyond that, things like dialogue, how much description to apply, how short or long you want sentences to be, how you want the writing to feel—just about all of that is subject to your goals. Don’t be afraid to change things up if you think it’ll help your vision for your writing! Especially in “The Fire Next Time” and “revolution,” I’ve been doing a good bit of experimenting, trying things like more natural-sounding dialogue, varying the level of description, cursing, and so on. It’s really fun! It makes the projects very different from anything I’ve written before them.

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byneddiedingo · 2 years

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The Magic Flute (Ingmar Bergman, 1975)

Cast: Josef Köstlinger, Irma Urrila, Håkan Hagegård, Ulrik Cold, Birgit Nordin, Ragnar Ulfung, Britt-Marie Aruhn, Kirsten Vaupel, Birgitta Smiding, Erik Sædén. Screenplay: Ingmar Bergman, based on an opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder translated by Alf Henrikson. Cinematography: Sven Nykvist. Produ. tion design: Henny Noremark. Film editing: Siv Lundgren. Costume design: Karin Erskine, Henny Noremark. For me, Ingmar Bergman's The Magic Flute is a kind of linguistic palimpsest, with the English subtitles* superimposed on the Swedish translation of the German original. Not that I know Swedish, but I've picked up enough of the sound of the language from watching movies that I can recognize a word or two. And I do know the German libretto fairly well from following along on recordings, so that when a singer begins a familiar aria, I hear the German in my mind's ear along with the Swedish being sung and then refracted through the words on screen. You'd think this would be distracting, but it isn't -- in fact, it only helps me appreciate the care Bergman took in making the film. Opera is not designed for the movies: It has moments of tightly choreographed action after which people stand still to sing, and you want more out of a movie than starts and stops. But what Bergman does so brilliantly is to supply close-ups and cuts that give the film an energy, often following the rhythms of Mozart's music. We don't get close-ups in the opera house -- thank god, because singing opera does unfortunate things to the singers' faces -- but Bergman has wisely chosen good-looking singers and had them speak-sing along with a previously recorded version, so there's little facial distortion. The Magic Flute is a problematic opera: Emanuel Schikaneder's libretto is a mess that never quite resolves the relationship between Sarastro, the Queen of the Night, and Pamina. Bergman solves this by creating one: In his version, Pamina (Irma Urrila) is the daughter of Sarastro (Ulrik Cold) and the Queen (Birgit Nordin), and he has abducted the girl because he doesn't trust his ex to raise her right. There's no justification for this in Schikaneder's text, and even Bergman hasn't quite resolved the problem of why Sarastro lets Pamina be guarded by Monastatos (Ragnar Ulfung), whose chief aim seems to be to sleep with the young woman. Nor has Bergman solved the misogyny and racism of Schikaneder's libretto. Women come in for a good deal of disapproval in the opera, and Bergman hasn't eliminated that. Monastatos is tormented by the fact that he's black -- a Moor -- although he is given a kind of Shylockian moment of self-justification, and even Papageno (Håkan Hagegård), who is the pragmatic, commonsense type, reflects that there are black birds, so why not black people. (I'm not entirely sure that line of Papageno's even makes it into the Bergman film.) Most productions today gloss over these antique prejudices as best they can, however, turning The Magic Flute into a kind of fairy tale for the kids, with colorful sets and cute forest animals dancing to Tamino's flute. Bergman is no exception in this regard: The film is set in the theater, and he opens with a close-up of a lovely young girl** with a kind of Mona Lisa smile, and follows her eye line as she gazes at the images painted on the curtain, then scans the other faces in the audience, old and young and of various ethnicities. The film, which like his other childhood-centered classic, Fanny and Alexander (1982), was made originally for television, is certainly one of Bergman's warmest. *I don't know who did the English version, but it's a very good singing translation, not just a literal prose version of the original. **She has been identified as Helene Friberg, who had bit parts in other Bergman films.

#The Magic Flute #Ingmar Bergman

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thevalleyisjolly · 8 days

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uno reverse card for you: top five favorite things you've written! and also, top five most memorable moments you've gotten to play with your character(s) in a ttrpg?

*proceeds to draw 4* This is how you play Uno, right? XD Thank you so much, this is a lot of fun! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Favourite Things I've Written:

To date my most popular fic, in the face of death's mystery is one of those rare things I've written where I look back on it and I remain satisfied with how it turned out. It was a big passion project that started out as a crack post and then turned much more serious into an actual story with themes and arcs. After months of writing and rewriting sections, I can still remember the thrill of realizing one day that it could be finished in time for ACOC Week 2021 (all credit to Jackrabbit for putting that together!) and that really gave me the final push I needed to get it done.

My Middle English literature course did a capstone project where we performed some of the York plays, and since there were far more people interested in acting than there were roles, me and two other students formed a scriptwriting team to combine the plays and write new characters and lines. We didn't write in Middle English, but I'm still really proud how much we managed to capture the rhythm and patterns of Middle English verse in contemporary English rhyme.

The credit for this one starts with you, because I read One With The Shadows and it not only inspired me to write ACOC fic but it also specifically inspired me to write the manner of things (in the dark). Probably the most poetic prose I've ever written, and I'm still really happy with how it turned out. Writing body horror and eldritch imagery is pretty far from my usual wheelhouse, so it was really fun to experiment with a new style and dive into the characters through this lens.

Perhaps it's recency bias, but I just had a lot of fun writing Contrapuntal Calculus. I know my writing thing is very niche fics with incredibly specific scenarios, but this was particularly niche even by my standards and I'm still quite happy with it. It's also serving as a nice little reminder to myself to write the fics I want to write and not worry about how it's going to be received. Get ready y'all for more incredibly niche fic concepts once I figure out what a writing schedule is ✌️

I once took a Shakespeare class where one of the projects was to reimagine Shakespeare in another medium. Being a musical theatre kid, I rewrote and performed "Satisfied" from Hamilton for Lady Macbeth as "Safe at Night." I'm not posting the recording because I'm not a singer and it was bad, but I stand by my parody lyrics because they were fucking incredible.

Memorable TTRPG Moments

My character technically wasn't there to witness it, but we were infiltrating a temple of our cleric's god to find out whether its priests were on the side of the villainous pirate lord (not to be confused with the non-villainous pirates), and our DM narrated this absolutely incredible scene where our cleric looked into the scrying pool and saw the pirate lord's forces attacking his home town, only to be met out in the harbour by one of his oldest friends, a fellow cleric and pirate. He sailed his ship into the middle of the attacking fleet, killed one of the pirate lord's lieutenants in personal combat but suffered a deadly wound, then messaged our cleric farewell and ignited all the gunpowder in his ship. It was such an emotional and cinematic moment, beautifully narrated by our DM, and it'll stay with me forever.

That time Vyce, with a handful of HP left, leapt over a burning tar trap, jumped up onto the back of the giant undead corpse of the villainous pirate lord, stabbed out his cursed emerald eye, and then yanked his head back as he fell so that our cleric could behead him. Simply an incredible HDYWTDT, that was about the coolest Vyce has ever been and it was the coolest he'll ever get.

I played a goblin monk in a Spelljammer mini-campaign, and our DM ruled that monks could use their Deflect Missile ability on large missiles in ship-to-ship combat. Me and the other party monk (yes we had two monks, yes I apologize to the DM but hell yeah, we had two monks) spent every single battle standing on the prow of our space ship just deflecting giant ballista and boulders with our fists. At one point, I rolled a Nat 20 and the DM narrated this tiny little goblin catching a whole boulder and lobbing it back at the other ship. On the flip side, I also got one-hit KO'ed after getting hit by a Nat 20 boulder (we were playing with brutal critical rules), but that was equally awesome in a different direction and our very merciful DM allowed me to live if the ship took damage instead.

That time I played polecat!Matt Murdock, started flirting with a big beefy otter sailor, rolled so well that we became boyfriends, and then we ended up adopting a child together <3

Before we found out his backstory, Vyce's nemesis was a mysterious bard named Frode who kept appearing, dropping lore, and generally being completely insufferable. During one such encounter, Vyce attempted to intimidate him by taking a bite out of a whole lemon with the rind still on. Now, Vyce has a -2 to Charisma, but I'm sure you can already guess what he rolled on that check. The fact that Frode was just mildly amused made it all the more worse for him and all the more entertaining for me. I love my cringefail uncharismatic son so much <3

#tysm jade!!

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finishinglinepress · 4 months

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FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: Sundays and Hot Buttered Rolls: A Granddaughter of Harlem Speaks by Carla M. Cherry

On SALE now! Pre-order Price Guarantee: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/sundays-and-hot-buttered-rolls-a-granddaughter-of-harlem-speaks-by-carla-m-cherry/

Step into the captivating world of Sundays and Hot Buttered Rolls: A Granddaughter of Harlem Speaks, a poetic journey masterfully crafted by Carla M. Cherry. This chapbook unfolds like a lyrical tapestry, intricately weaving the vibrant threads of Cherry’s heritage. A celebration of her father, a Harlemite, begins a nuanced exploration of the bustling streets and cultural treasures that have shaped her identity. James Van Der Zee’s photographic brilliance, the hallowed grounds of the Schomburg Center and #Harlem School of the Arts, and the rhythmic pulse of Chicago-style stepping reverberate, becoming a metaphor for the intricate steps of the #African #diaspora’s #history in the heart of New York City and beyond. As you traverse this poetic odyssey, anticipate satisfaction akin to the lingering aroma of her paternal grandmother’s homemade biscuits on Sundays—a sensory delight that nourishes the soul.

Carla M. Cherry is a high school English teacher. Her poetry has appeared in Random Sample Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, 433, Raising Mothers and has been nominated for Best of the Net.She authored five books of poetry: Gnat Feathers and Butterfly Wings, Thirty Dollars and a Bowl of Soup, Honeysuckle Me, These Pearls Are Real, and Stardust and Skin (iiPublishing). She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the City College of New York.

PRAISE FOR Sundays and Hot Buttered Rolls: A Granddaughter of Harlem Speaks by Carla M. Cherry

This is a riveting piece of prose and poetry that can only be compared to Jean Toomer’s Cane. From her daddy’s eyes the reader is taken on a journey through Harlem. The churches, restaurants, schools, the activities, the grace, and style of Harlem residents are all mentioned here. You can taste the food, watch the dancing, appreciate the photographs of the great Van Der Zee. She doesn’t miss a beat. The journey is rich with culture and exciting with reverence to a place the world has come to know as the citadel of Black culture. She goes on to enhance the journey with the accomplishments Blacks have made despite many saying we’ve made none other than the Blues. She provides a potent history lesson of names and inventions that are used today created by Blacks. There is no book of poetry like this out there. I am personally proud of Carla and this brilliant undertaking. Whether you know Harlem or not, this is a must read.

–Abiodun Oyewole, Founding Member of The Last Poets

Carla M. Cherry’s chapbook Sundays and Hot Buttered Rolls: A Granddaughter of Harlem Speaks is a stunning celebration of family, beloved memories and is filled with rich Harlem history from start to finish. Cherry’s poems mesmerize and paint a memorable portrait. “Ode to Harlem” opens this collection with a rhythm and beat infused with the music, scenes, and art of Harlem. The author’s use of historic locations, people, politicians, and foods to celebrate, center and document Harlem’s vibrant past is inspiring. Cherry’s ekphrastic poems bring renowned Harlem photographer James Van Der Zee’s portraits to life, at times magically transporting the reader to another era. Ultimately the portraits and interior musings of Van Der Zee, an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance, anchor this collection. Just as Van Der Zee’s portraits documented Harlem’s vivid and diverse lives, so does this captivating collection.

–J.P. Howard, author of Say, Mirror and Curator of Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon, Brooklyn, NY

Carla M. Cherry’s Sundays and Hot Buttered Rolls: A Granddaughter Speaks of Harlem, makes one giddy with joy. It is a love letter to a much-admired father and to the “long ago” days of Harlem. This is a litany for dreams and lives lost prematurely and a roll call of revered ancestors. Cherry is an astute cultural historian who weaves the past into this present moment. Be prepared to learn something. This poet writes for the generations.

–Jacqueline Johnson, author of A Woman’s Season

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #chapbook #read #poems #Harlem #Blackpoets #history #AfricanDiaspora

#poetry #flp authors #preorder #flp #poets on tumblr #american poets #chapbook #chapbooks #finishing line press #small press

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fredbsmith · 5 months

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A Sermon

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God;

for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,

as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,

so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.

For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest,

until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch.

The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory;

and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.

You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

John 1:1-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

Beginnings

First Reformed Church of Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, December 31, 2023

We are so blessed by the Lectionary this morning, which has given us the prologue of John’s gospel for our meditation. This beautiful passage is one of the most familiar in the entire Bible. I suspect it has a special place in each of our hearts.

Before we begin to consider the meaning of this text, it may be worth asking why we have come to love it so much, to ask ourselves what is the source of its beauty.

First of all, it is a poem. It’s a creation in language that engages our emotions directly, as well as communicates with the thinking, reasoning parts of our brain.

It may not strike you as a poem immediately, since it seems to lack meter and rhyme. It looks like prose on the printed page; most of our Bibles don’t print it as lines of verse. We need to think a little more about the nature of the poetry we find in the scriptures to understand it in this way. Although we read John’s prologue in English translation, and although it was originally transcribed in Greek, it’s structured as if it were a poem in Hebrew. English poetry is based on the vocalized sounds of words, the patterns created by regular repetitions of words with similarly accented syllables, and with rhyming created by parallel vowels. We experience it similarly to the way we experience music. Hebrew poetry is different; it is not based on pronounced rhythm and rhyme. Its prime feature is thought and word parallelism.

Consider the beginning two couplets of the first of today’s readings, the passage from Isaiah 61:

Line 1: I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, Line 2: my whole being shall exult in my God;

Line 1: for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, Line 2: he has covered me with the robe of righteousness.

And so forth. This is an example of “synonymous parallelism”: two lines convey the same meaning but use different words. The first line states an idea and the second line rephrases the same idea in different words and imagery. Repetition of the same idea serves to emphasize, amplify, or clarify the meaning of the idea. The rhythm that is the essence of poetry is found in the regular repletion with which images are called up in our minds, rather than the repetition of sounds falling on our ears.

The prologue of John uses a somewhat different Hebrew poetic form, which scholars call “synthetic” or “staircase parallelism.” In this case, the second line of a couplet, rather than restating the first, builds upon it, expands it, and completes it. When the ideas are lined up in the format of a poem, successive lines extend progressively to the right on the printed page, giving the visual impression of a staircase.

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

and without him not one thing came into being.

What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

The end result is similar; the ideas expressed are emphasized and their meaning is sharpened in our minds. They come thereby to live in our memory.

I’m not sure this kind of discussion will appeal to everyone. Many people who enjoy listening to classical music have no interest in learning about things like the elements of sonata form or the definition of a fugue. They will simply say, “I know I like to listen to this, it affects me emotionally, but I don’t have to know anything about all that terminology to appreciate it.” And I guess they’re right. They don’t need those academic definitions—but I would suggest that the underlying musical forms structure their listening experience, whether they are conscious of it or not. And I believe it is similar with Biblical poetry. It engages us on more than one level of perception, it engages us in more than one dimension, even if we haven’t explicitly acknowledged that we are reading poetry. It makes words we are hearing more special, and their meaning more important to us.

Incidentally, I’ve read that some Bible scholars have raised the conjecture that the prologue to John’s gospel may have been composed separately from, and earlier than, the rest of the gospel’s text, since it is the only part of the text that uses the staircase parallelism type of construction. Some have speculated that it may have been sung as a hymn in the early Christian communities in which John’s gospel originated.

Can you imagine what that hymn would have sounded like? To what sort of tune or chant it would have been set?

So now let’s get to the question of what that meaning is for us, why the content of John’s prologue tells us something important for us to know.

I think there are two points we could make here. One is to consider what it tells us about the nature of Jesus, about the special and unique sort of being that was—and is—his being. The Jesus we encounter in John is different from the Jesus of the other gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the “synoptic” gospels. For one thing, only in John do we learn that Jesus, identified as the Word, had existed from the beginning of creation. Although other sections of John’s gospel also indicate his existence with the Father prior to his incarnation, this aspect of Jesus’s nature is perhaps most clearly and emphatically declared up front, here in the prologue. In this sense, John 1 is unique among biblical texts, unique in its theology and Christology.

The second point is that John’s prologue tells something important about our world, its fundamental nature and how it came into being. In this, it is not unique among Biblical texts. It is, in fact, as our friend and neighbor, Rev. Aquavella sometimes reminds us, one of as many as five places in the Bible where we are told how the world as we know it came into existence.

Of course, the very first lines of the Bible begin the story of God’s creation; it’s actually told here twice, first in Genesis 1 and then retold somewhat differently in chapter 2. Then there is a third telling of the creation story in the book of Job, a story some find more dramatic than those in Genesis, since it’s told by God himself—a first-person account of creation—when he begins his stirring declaration to Job from out of the whirlwind, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”

The creation narratives in Genesis and Job emphasize the power and majesty of God; they leave us awed and humbled. And this seems to be an appropriate way for us to regard the author of this universe of ours that we know to be so vast and so ancient, and who must therefore exist on a comparable scale.

But is it the only way? The only way to regard our creator?

Before we contrast today’s reading from John, let’s look at chapter 8 of Proverbs. This is another account of the beginning of the world, the onset of time and of human existence. The story centers on a sacred being who is Wisdom personified, present and providing guidance to God throughout the work of earth’s construction. Wisdom speaks to us in the first person:

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, when he had not yet made earth and fields or the world’s first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth,

then I was beside him, like a master worker, and I was daily his delight, playing before him always, playing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

On reading this passage from Proverbs, it is almost impossible not to be reminded of those opening lines of John, particularly because of the parallel between the characters Wisdom and the Word. The expression Word has been translated from the Greek logos, from which we get the English word logic, and which, in the original, carried the additional meanings of logic and reason. It’s not surprising to learn than many Christian scholars over the years have come to regard the character of Wisdom in Proverbs as a prefiguration of Christ.

The two stories of the beginning told in Proverbs and John strike us rather differently than those in Genesis and Job. They do not provoke awe and humility, so much as comfort with what the world holds out for us. By making reason central to the world of human existence, they seem to say that the world is a coherent place, that it runs on rules, and that we humans have some ability, our ability to reason and to understand principles of law and justice, to make sense of it and make our way within it.

This is not to deny that the world is in fact vast, unimaginably old, and ultimately beyond human comprehension. But at the same time it is also accessible to us. These two truths, which come to us in these scriptures, are opposite sides of the same coin.

The five creation stories contained within our Bible are, of course, not the only ones that various peoples have come up with over the course of human history. Creation myths have arisen within many societies around the globe. But they’re not universal. The ancient Athenians, for example, Aristotle among them, believed the world had never had a beginning, that it had existed forever. And it would continue forever into the future.

Scientists now can tell us much about the beginning of everything, in the language and concepts of astrophysics and the “hot, inflationary, big bang.” Eternal unchanging existence is not compatible with the data that has now accrued. I’m not sure whether or not we Christians ought to be patting ourselves on the back for having received scientific corroboration, for being part of a tradition that has believed all along that there was a beginning. I do believe that the eternal existence of the world does not make for a very good story. It does not resonate with what we, as individuals, come to learn about life. All that we ever know, that we ever experience, that we ever love, comes to end, including each of us. If all this took place on an infinite, timeless stage, it would seem to me to rob life of much of its meaning.

I hope that we have been cheered by reading today’s words of praise for human knowledge and reason that have been passed down to us within the scriptures. We perhaps need to acknowledge, each of us, the important role that reasoned contemplation can play in our spiritual lives. We also can’t deny that critical reasoning has played an important role in the historical development of our faith. It’s unfortunate that we are currently exposed to so many individuals in our culture whose approach to their religion and the Bible could best be described as “naïve literalism.” May all of us come, instead, to a place where we meet God with full use of the wisdom and understanding he has given us.

Amen.

#Gospel of John #Prologue of John #Biblical poetry #the logos

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danaesdesk · 2 years

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Poetry

Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. It consists largely of oral or literary works in which language is used in a manner that is felt by its user and audience to differ from ordinary prose.

It may use condensed or compressed form to convey emotion or ideas to the reader's or listener's mind or ear; it may also use devices such as assonance and repetition to achieve musical or incantatory effects. Poems frequently rely for their effect on imagery, word association, and the musical qualities of the language used. The interactive layering of all these effects to generate meaning is what marks poetry.

Because of its nature of emphasising linguistic form rather than using language purely for its content, poetry is notoriously difficult to translate from one language into another: a possible exception to this might be the Hebrew Psalms, where the beauty is found more in the balance of ideas than in specific vocabulary. In most poetry, it is the connotations and the "baggage" that words carry (the weight of words) that are most important. These shades and nuances of meaning can be difficult to interpret and can cause different readers to "hear" a particular piece of poetry differently. While there are reasonable interpretations, there can never be a definitive interpretation.

Nature of poetry

Poetry can be differentiated most of the time from prose, which is language meant to convey meaning in a more expansive and less condensed way, frequently using more complete logical or narrative structures than poetry does. This does not necessarily imply that poetry is illogical, but rather that poetry is often created from the need to escape the logical, as well as expressing feelings and other expressions in a tight, condensed manner. English Romantic poet John Keats termed this escape from logic Negative Capability. A further complication is that prose poetry combines the characteristics of poetry with the superficial appearance of prose, such as in Robert Frost's poem, "Home Burial." Other forms include narrative poetry and dramatic poetry, both of which are used to tell stories and so resemble novels and plays. However, both these forms of poetry use the specific features of verse composition to make these stories more memorable or to enhance them in some way.

What is generally accepted as "great" poetry is debatable in many cases. "Great" poetry usually follows the characteristics listed above, but it is also set apart by its complexity and sophistication. "Great" poetry generally captures images vividly and in an original, refreshing way, while weaving together an intricate combination of elements like theme tension, complex emotion, and profound reflective thought. For examples of what is considered "great" poetry, visit the Pulitzer prize and Nobel prize sections for poetry.

The Greek verb ποιεω [poiéo (= I make or create)], gave rise to three words: ποιητης [poiet?s (= the one who creates)], ποιησις [poíesis (= the act of creation)] and ποιημα [poíema (= the thing created)]. From these we get three English words: poet (the creator), poesy (the creation) and poem (the created). A poet is therefore one who creates and poetry is what the poet creates. The underlying concept of the poet as creator is not uncommon. For example, in Anglo-Saxon a poet is a scop (shaper or maker) and in Scots makar.

Sound in poetry

Perhaps the most vital element of sound in poetry is rhythm. Often the rhythm of each line is arranged in a particular meter. Different types of meter played key roles in Classical, Early European, Eastern and Modern poetry. In the case of free verse, the rhythm of lines is often organized into looser units of cadence.

Poetry in English and other modern European languages often uses rhyme. Rhyme at the end of lines is the basis of a number of common poetic forms, such as ballads, sonnets and rhyming couplets. However, the use of rhyme is not universal. Much modern poetry, for example, avoids traditional rhyme schemes. Furthermore, Classical Greek and Latin poetry did not use rhyme. In fact, rhyme did not enter European poetry at all until the High Middle Ages, when it was adopted from the Arabic language. The Arabs have always used rhymes extensively, most notably in their long, rhyming qasidas. Some classical poetry forms, such as Venpa of the Tamil language, had rigid grammars (to the point that they could be expressed as a context-free grammar), which ensured a rhythm.

Alliteration played a key role in structuring early Germanic and English forms of poetry (called alliterative verse), akin to the role of rhyme in later European poetry. The alliterative patterns of early Germanic poetry and the rhyme schemes of Modern European poetry alike both include meter as a key part of their structure, which determines when the listener expects instances of rhyme or alliteration to occur. In this sense, both alliteration and rhyme, when used in poetic structures, help to emphasise and define a rhythmic pattern. By contrast, the chief device of Biblical poetry in ancient Hebrew was parallelism, a rhetorical structure in which successive lines reflected each other in grammatical structure, sound structure, notional content, or all three; a verse form that lent itself to antiphonal or call- and-response performance.

In addition to the forms of rhyme, alliteration and rhythm that structure much poetry, sound plays a more subtle role in even free verse poetry in creating pleasing, varied patterns and emphasising or sometimes even illustrating semantic elements of the poem. Devices such as alliteration, assonance, consonance, dissonance and internal rhyme are among the ways poets use sound. Euphony refers to the musical, flowing quality of words arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way.

Poetry and form

Compared with prose, poetry depends less on the linguistic units of sentences and paragraphs, and more on units of organisation that are purely poetic. The typical structural elements are the line, couplet, strophe, stanza, and verse paragraph.

Lines may be self-contained units of sense, as in the well-known lines from William Shakespeare's Hamlet:

To be, or not to be: that is the question.

Alternatively a line may end in mid-phrase or sentence:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

this linguistic unit is completed in the next line,

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

This technique is called enjambment, and is used to create a sense of expectation in the reader and/or to add a dynamic to the movement of the verse.

In many instances, the effectiveness of a poem derives from the tension between the use of linguistic and formal units. With the advent of printing, poets gained greater control over the visual presentation of their work. As a result, the use of these formal elements, and of the white space they help create, became an important part of the poet's toolbox. Modernist poetry tends to take this to an extreme, with the placement of individual lines or groups of lines on the page forming an integral part of the poem's composition. In its most extreme form, this leads to the writing of concrete poetry.

Poetry and rhetoric

Rhetorical devices such as simile and metaphor are frequently used in poetry. Indeed, Aristotle wrote in his Poetics that "the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor". However, particularly since the rise of Modernism, some poets have opted for reduced use of these devices, preferring rather to attempt the direct presentation of things and experiences. Other 20th-century poets, however, particularly the surrealists, have pushed rhetorical devices to their limits, making frequent use of catachresis.

History of poetry

Poetry as an art form predates literacy. In preliterate societies, poetry was frequently employed as a means of recording oral history, storytelling (epic poetry), genealogy, law and other forms of expression or knowledge that modern societies might expect to be handled in prose. The Ramayana, a Sanskrit epic which includes poetry, was probably written in the 3rd century BCE in a language described by William Jones as "more perfect than Latin, more copious than Greek and more exquisitely refined than either." Poetry is also often closely identified with liturgy in these societies, as the formal nature of poetry makes it easier to remember priestly incantations or prophecies. The greater part of the world's sacred scriptures are made up of poetry rather than prose.

The use of verse to transmit cultural information continues today. Many English speaking–Americans know that "in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue". An alphabet song teaches the names and order of the letters of the alphabet; another jingle states the lengths and names of the months in the Gregorian calendar. Preliterate societies, lacking the means to write down important cultural information, use similar methods to preserve it.

Some writers believe that poetry has its origins in song. Most of the characteristics that distinguish it from other forms of utterance—rhythm, rhyme, compression, intensity of feeling, the use of refrains—appear to have come about from efforts to fit words to musical forms. However, in the European tradition the earliest surviving poems, the Homeric and Hesiodic epics, identify themselves as poems to be recited or chanted to a musical accompaniment rather than as pure song. Another interpretation, developed from 20th-century studies of living Montenegran epic reciters by Milman Parry and others, is that rhythm, refrains, and kennings are essentially paratactic devices that enable the reciter to reconstruct the poem from memory.

In preliterate societies, all these forms of poetry were composed for, and sometimes during, performance. As such, there was a certain degree of fluidity to the exact wording of poems, given this could change from one performance or performer to another. The introduction of writing tended to fix the content of a poem to the version that happened to be written down and survive. Written composition also meant that poets began to compose not for an audience that was sitting in front of them but for an absent reader. Later, the invention of printing tended to accelerate these trends. Poets were now writing more for the eye than for the ear.

The development of literacy gave rise to more personal, shorter poems intended to be sung. These are called lyrics, which derives from the Greek lura or lyre, the instrument that was used to accompany the performance of Greek lyrics from about the seventh century BCE onward. The Greek's practice of singing hymns in large choruses gave rise in the sixth century BCE to dramatic verse, and to the practice of writing poetic plays for performance in their theatres.

In more recent times, the introduction of electronic media and the rise of the poetry reading have led to a resurgence of performance poetry and have resulted in a situation where poetry for the eye and poetry for the ear coexist, sometimes in the same poem.

#wikipedia #poetry #greek #language #academic writing #writing

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idkinsertfanreferencehere · 3 years

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Hello, please tell me about Ilya Kaminsky 🌺

thank you thank you okay so

Ilya Kaminsky is a contemporary Jewish-Ukranian-American Hoh (Hard of hearing) poet, translator, and editor, and his prose is just as striking as his poetry.

He wrote Deaf Republic, a collection of poems that tell the story of a town, Vasenka, which is occupied by a military force who kill a young deaf boy for disrespecting them. In response to this, the entire town "goes deaf", and the book looks at deafness and language and silence and what they mean and what they stand for, but even amongst the poems recalling death and destruction and humiliation, he speaks of the small joys of a couple with a newborn child- the most iconic of these is While The Child Sleeps, Sonya Undresses, which ends with

Soaping together

is sacred to us.

Washing each other’s shoulders.

You can fuck

anyone — but with whom can you sit

in water?

In his notes on translating Tsvetaeva's poetry, he writes

"If translation, as most translators are eager to claim, is “a closest possible reading,” then it is not translation, it is notation, midrash: to translate is to inhabit. The meaning of the word eros is to stand outside of one’s body. This we do not claim to have achieved. (We wish we could, one day!) No, we are simply two poets who fell in love with a third and spent two years reading her together. These are fragments, notes in the margin. (Erase everything you have written, Mandelstam says, but keep the notes in the margin.)"

(emphasis mine)

He also wrote Dancing In Odessa, and Praise never fails to floor me, so much so that I memorized this part of it

I unmake these lines, dissolving in each vowel,

as Neruda said, my country

I change my blood in your direction. The evening whispers

with its childlike, pulpy lips.

On the page's soiled corners

my teacher walks, composing a voice;

he rubs each word in his palms:

"hands learn from the soil and broken glass,

you cannot think a poem," he says,

"watch the light hardening into words."

I was born in the city named after Odysseus

and I praise no nation

but the provinces of human longing: to the rhythm of snow

an immigrant's clumsy phrase falls into speech.

But also this interview https://www.pw.org/content/still_dancing_an_interview_with_ilya_kaminsky?article_page=1

is amazing and please read it if you have the chance, here's an excerpt

"What changes for you as a poet when you write in a second language? Even the shape of my face changed when I began to live inside the English language.

But I wouldn’t make a big deal out of writing in a language that is not one’s own. It’s the experience of so many people in the world; those who have left their homes because of wars, environmental disasters, and so on.

What’s important for a poet speaking another language are those little thefts between languages, those strange angles of looking at another literature, “slant” moments in speech, oddities and their music."

so tl;dr if you're looking for a poet or just something to read or someone who talks about what is language as a poet and as an immigrant please check him out

#ty kapara #ilya kaminsky

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