Ophelia's Nun

windedsailor

Originally posted by olderman
I cannot believe what I am reading here.. this has got to be the most remarkable and intelligent forum on any band's forum.. it is especially interesting to me (once a young boy who managed a degree in English) for the writings in this thread make me realise how much I did not capture.. sure, I read it all, but I did not soak it up. I did not have the passion, only the interest.. that is my experience.. however, i was exposed to great literature through those studies and I have always desired to dive back in.. and i will.. thanks to fins and all pj poets for bringing back my passion for poetry and literature.. you guys are truly exceptional!

I did what I had to do
and if there was a reason
the reason was you..

nonetheless, i promise to write my peter's walk excersise/short story and i promise to remove the block and write another somethin or other sonnet about the sweetness i have recently experienced..

people get ready!!!

alrighty.

ruby

Originally posted by olderman
I cannot believe what I am reading here.. this has got to be the most remarkable and intelligent forum on any band's forum.. it is especially interesting to me (once a young boy who managed a degree in English) for the writings in this thread make me realise how much I did not capture.. sure, I read it all, but I did not soak it up. I did not have the passion, only the interest.. that is my experience.. however, i was exposed to great literature through those studies and I have always desired to dive back in.. and i will.. thanks to fins and all pj poets for bringing back my passion for poetry and literature.. you guys are truly exceptional!

I did what I had to do
and if there was a reason
the reason was you..

nonetheless, i promise to write my peter's walk excersise/short story and i promise to remove the block and write another somethin or other sonnet about the sweetness i have recently experienced..

people get ready!!!

olderman, I can understand your excitement. It's like re-discovering spring. Isn't it? I'm so frustrated cos I can't explain it without sounding like a pompous twat.

FinsburyParkCarrots

It's good fun. isn't it? I love writing for people.

FinsburyParkCarrots

and for those with scrollup-itis (:D), this is the current exercise:

An Exercise in Narrative time

We might all agree that in a narrative text, the component of 'story' (comprising the narrative's events, actions and happenings) follows a chronological order, but we also know that it is a common practice in narrative 'discourse' - the ways in which the story is told - that the narrative sequence of events can be manipulated using devices such as flashback (the theoretical jargon-term for which is 'analepsis') and flashforward ('prolepsis'). A popular text that plays with narrative time is Ernest Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber"; Tarrantino's "Pulp Fiction" is a perfect example of how this technique of temporal reordering is used on the screen.

I would like you all now to try the following exercise. Tell a short story of a character called Peter who goes for a walk in the city of your choice. But don't start at the beginning of the story. You could, instead, start in the middle of whatever action has occurred, then flash back to the circumstances that led to this point, returning to the middle and following chronologically to the end. Also, you could start at the end and work your way back.

There are some extra techniques you can include, such as 'external-analepsis' (which means flashing back - perhaps in the related memories of a focalized character - to events that precede the events of the story).

Let me offer some tips for "Peter's Walk".

One might find temporal displacement, say, in a story that works like this.

(A) Peter miserably peering from inside police cell bars;

(B)Peter conversing with an aggressive officer; Peter reflecting on the events that had led up to his arrest.

(C)The day's events, beginning innocuously enough with an account of him waking, dressing and breakfasting, then his eventful walk around his city, through to his arrest.

(D)Then you're back in the cell again and you trace perhaps how he is released with a warning.

So, the order goes: (A)=2, (B)=3, (C)=1, (D)=4.

Or one might even work like this:

(A)Peter walks home from the police cells after being released with a warning.

(B) He remembers a few moments ago peering miserably from his cell bars and conversing with an aggressive officer.

(C) He remembers his own reflection there and then of the day's events from waking onwards.

(D)The day's events, his day's eventful walk in the city and the arrest.

(E)Following (A), Peter stops in his walk home and pauses in reflection, noticing the scene around him.

(F)He remembers his release and ponders on the implications of his day.

So, the order here goes (A)= 5; (B)=3; (C)=1; (D)=2; (E)=6; (F)=4.

ruby

Mr Finsbury, I tried but am stumped. I keep getting stuck on the 'city of your choice' bit. I know that sounds stupid (is). I'm just no good with cities.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Originally posted by ruby
Mr Finsbury, I tried but am stumped. I keep getting stuck on the 'city of your choice' bit. I know that sounds stupid (is). I'm just no good with cities.

Okay. A local town then.

FinsburyParkCarrots

The young fight lies with anger,
Then market men say "Fine,
We'll patent their new danger
and sell it down the line.

There's something rather handsome
in their urgency and rush;
Their freedom call's our ransom:
We'll sell it to George Bush."

ISN

echoes of Wilfred Owen.....down the line....very nice

FinsburyParkCarrots

As It Was in the Beginning, Is Now and Ever Shall Be,
World Without End (On The Whitehill Road Allotment Site)

Light planes toot and parp up in the top-
heavy Cambridge sky, above fen drills
of cabbages and carrots (tops aflop,
protruding from allotment soil in spills
of leaf curls, wind-a-bob); on this site
of little sheds, ten early morning men
dig new potato furrows. Slow, a kite
flies up from Coldham's Common now and then.

But in the next-door Abbey Stadium
a ball is being booted, echoes ranging
into halls of blue sky. Here's the drum
of Saturday momentum-building, banging.
All these men will down their forks, and soon
they'll line to catch the match this afternoon.

olderman

hot grilled brats laid upon buns with mustard
spread over the tops as ice cold beers' flow,
sun baked grilling chefs, jolly, laughing hard,
young women show their beauty, don't you know?
the lot at arrowhead will jump tonite,
from grills delicious smoke will form a cloud,
colorful reds and golds, all is just right,
the din will rise, those voices will be loud-

just before kickoff, time for "start me up",
roars of approval from the well fed throng,
one more sausage, one more lager to swill,
the teams crash the scene with helmets, hold your cup
lest it spill on the pretty lady's sarong,
nice nite for football, embers glow the grill

(for those not familiar with the National Football League, the Kansas City Chiefs are playing a pre-season game tonite at Arrowhead Stadium in KC and the team's colors are red and gold)

FinsburyParkCarrots

In your roar of laughter, plumes upon
your golden battle helmet shake like death
beneath an airswung sword. And in your breath
of boasted fearlessness, your infant son
wails in his mother's arms in unison
with soldiers' bloodgasps, teeming underneath
your city battlements. You will bequeath
him feasting dogs, once Argive fleets have won.

Oh, Hector! See the flashing diadem
Andromache, your wife is wearing? How
it captures your reflection, multiplied
in rainbow spectres, you, within each gem;
Your glory? Death wan dust. How she will throw
Hope's ghosts to ground, when you, her light, have died.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Old shelves prop up concordances (outmoded,
so you hear, by new editions); fading
foolscap on your desk declares your jading
penmark. Lifelong care to have decoded
ancient stones, before new studies flooded
lecture halls and bookshops, weaves your ebbing,
cataracting sight in deskgloom webbing:
You embrace the waste your critics boded.

Now a bright young man (not college stock)
Deciphers all the symbols on the stones,
Showing up your work as poppycock:
Dust thrown wide in digging up old bones.
Blind white beckonings to aged dread
consume a broken vision none will read.

Being Enlightened

Fins & olderman, you guys are just great at sonnets!

As It Was in the Beginning, Is Now and Ever Shall Be,
World Without End (On The Whitehill Road Allotment Site)

&

tail gate bar b q (go chiefs)

Loved 'em!


WOOHOOOO, the NFL season is upon us!

GO PATS! *ducks olderman's bitchslap*

FinsburyParkCarrots

I just remembered Mrs Cronin, a huge and kindly, moonfaced Kerry woman in a blue cotton suit and bandages around her varicose legs. She lived up the street, and I suppose I must have been about four when she would come to visit my mother of a Monday morning for coffee. She'd an enormous leather bag that came up to my knees, and she'd place it on the living room carpet and extract from it, for me, a bar of Curly Wurly and a packet of ready salted Walkers crisps. And then she'd reach to her purse and give me ten new pence. I used to like the shininess of the coin and the way it had a lion on one face and a lady's head on the reverse. I could already read but I didn't know what money was for, so I presumed it was food and I swallowed it. Mum never knew this: She assumed I lost the money with monotonous regularity. But inside me must be at least a couple of pounds. If I ever pass it all eventually, I wonder if I've acquired interest?

FinsburyParkCarrots

"inst LVOE
Jsut

wnrdfeoul


wehe

lvoe
csas"

FinsburyParkCarrots

Sacristy wine?
forbidden;
divine.

The steal is the bliss.
The wine tastes like piss.

FinsburyParkCarrots

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2004/

No-one writing today can afford not to have listened to these lectures, he said somewhat dogmatically.

ruby

Originally posted by FinsburyParkCarrots
I just remembered Mrs Cronin, a huge and kindly, moonfaced Kerry woman in a blue cotton suit and bandages around her varicose legs. She lived up the street, and I suppose I must have been about four when she would come to visit my mother of a Monday morning for coffee. She'd an enormous leather bag that came up to my knees, and she'd place it on the living room carpet and extract from it, for me, a bar of Curly Wurly and a packet of ready salted Walkers crisps. And then she'd reach to her purse and give me ten new pence. I used to like the shininess of the coin and the way it had a lion on one face and a lady's head on the reverse. I could already read but I didn't know what money was for, so I presumed it was food and I swallowed it. Mum never knew this: She assumed I lost the money with monotonous regularity. But inside me must be at least a couple of pounds. If I ever pass it all eventually, I wonder if I've acquired interest?

I hope you'll not be offended, Mr Finsbury, I always appreciate reading the things you write, but this would have to be my most favourite piece ever.

FinsburyParkCarrots

I'm not offended in the least.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Three-second rushair gasps in stifling grey,
between the flitting flickerings of tall
telegraphing cable poles, hold all
the breath of England and the key
to how it was before the land was torn
by JCB red bucket teeth for roads
like this: low misted wetland broads;
miles of crowing sunnyrisen corn.

Drive on, roar on, where sky-garrotting wire
throttles mythbreath, thugging what had been
a space known only to the village spire,
Hand to Heaven, grown of people's green
and common local toil. The Centre's spread;
The City grey proclaims a country dead.