Friday 27 March 2015

Happy Ram Navami :-)



On this auspicious occasion of Ram Navami, let me present to you a new playlist.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAP2Wr4O1JakoXLhGCk20sN5ZsQv82wYR

All songs in this playlist are themed on the word / name / persona / god - Ram

God willing :-) I'll keep on adding more and more songs in the coming years....

Also, don't miss this :-)

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/q94xNyYATAEkdpqiyqIYWw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTYyNztpbD1wbGFuZTtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz0xMjAw/https://s.yimg.com/av/moneyball/ads/1424890843545-6134.jpg


A very calming picture of Norway that came my way :-)

And now, as always, before I take leave of you, here are some nice, inspiring quotes for you.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. - Joseph Addison

Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment. - Oprah Winfrey

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer. - George S. Patton

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. - T.S. Eliot

If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened. - George S. Patton

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book. - Ronald Reagan

We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way. - George S. Patton

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. - Ronald Reagan

You will never be the best at anything, if you never do your best at something. - Auliq Ice

If there is a heaven and hell, then I wonder, are the people in heaven asking God to forgive and stop the suffering of those burning in hell? And if not, what does that say about the people in heaven? - Jason Bourke

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking. - George S. Patton

You are just as attached to what you hate as what you love. - Domo Geshe

Just sitting here thinking about life; it really is too short to waste it on nonsense and things that aren't gonna matter to you 10 years from now. We all should be working towards leaving a legacy and leaving stuff for our kids and grandkids, and being remembered years after we're gone. If you died right now, would you be happy with the life you lived? - Evan Stark

From death springs life and from the graves of great patriots springs a great nation. - Patrick Henry Pearse


Happy Sharing :-)
L and R, Aparna


--
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YouTube Playlists - Happy Playing :-)

https://www.youtube.com/user/playingplaylists/playlists

I love all religions and I believe there are good and bad people in every religion, just as there are good and bad days in our life of joys and sorrows. - Aparna Chatterjee


Ram Ji's image sourced from Festivals Advices dot Com

Thursday 19 March 2015

Cold


Uncomfortably
Cold, here it is

Winter in the
Garb of spring

Yes, sure it is


(even though the days are getting longer and blossoms are seen everywhere, but the biting cold is still there)

Poetry & Photography by Aparna Chatterjee

You can read more poems here

Click to read my poems

Sunday 15 March 2015

For

For me,
Every day
Is Mother's Day
For I get to be
A mother to you
In every way :-)


(dedicated to my Moma - Kochi)

Today is Mothering Sunday in UK

Poem © Aparna Chatterjee 2015

You can read more poems here

Click to read my poems

Monday 9 March 2015

I Wear

You want
To know
How close
I feel ~
Towards
You...??

Every day
You wear
Your glasses

Every day
I wear you

Just the way
You can't do
Without your
Glasses,
I can't do
Without you

'Cause
Just the way
You need
Your glasses

I need you :-)







Sometimes

Sometimes
I feel like
Writing to
You, all
Day, all
Night :-)

As if
Writing
Comes to
Me naturally
All day, all
Night :-)






If

If you
See him
Smiling
For no
Reason

Don't assume
There's no
Reason

The reason
Could be
Love :-)






Mother - Daughter

Daughter is posing
Mother is clicking,
In this age of Selfie
It's all about 'Me' ;-)


(written after seeing my neighbours taking selfies)





Some People

Some people
Are way too
Busy to give you
Time

But when
They are
Free
They want
All your time

Doesn't matter
To them - that
If and when
You need them
They don't have time







That

That
Last
Line
Of his
Poem
Stayed
With me
For a long
Time...

As if
Somebody
Had brought
Back to me
A long-lost
Memory...
After a
Long time







She

She
May be
Feeling
Lonely
Out there

So she's
Sharing
Her blog
Everywhere


(Theme: Filler)




















School

Beginning
School
And
Ending
School

The school
Remains the
Same

The influx
And outflux
Goes on

Just like
We do
On
Earth


(in this poem, the earth is perceived as a school which we join when we are born and leave when we die and so the steady flow of births and deaths represents the influx and outflux)






He's

He's died
Peacefully
In his sleep.
At least,
Now he'll
Not be
Plagued
By the
Aches
And
Pains
Of his
Diurnal
Ablutions
That didn't
Let him sleep


(dedicated to aged, disabled or chronically ill people for whom life is so much of a burden that even doing their everyday little chores seems to be so painful. Death releases them from their diurnal struggle)






Pack

Pack a
Punch
In your
Poems
So that
People
Who
Read you
Consider
You to be
The Mary

Kom of
Prolific
Poetry


(addressed to all women poets)


All the above Poems are © Aparna Chatterjee 2015

School image © Getty Images dot Com (Courtesy: Boloji)

You can read more poems here

Tuesday 3 March 2015

The A to E of Poetry :-)

As the Title of this Blog goes, I'll be enlisting some major types of poetry arranged alphabetically from A to E.

Of course, time permitting, I'll continue with some more types of poetry starting from F right up to Z in my future blogs.

I didn't want to load you with too much of info in one single blog. Hence, I plan to do it in parts :-)

Till then, please go thru this Blog and I wish you happy reading and happy learning :-)

I'll begin with the letter A and will end with the letter E :-)

Hope you enjoy all that I've written for you to see :-)

An Abecederian Poem is also known as an Alphabet Poem. Its each line or verse begins with a successive/sequential letter of the alphabet.

Here's an example of an Abecederian Poem

http://www.poetrydances.com/abecedarian.php


An Acrostic is a poem where certain letters in each line spell out a word or a phrase. A single acrostic is formed by the initial letters of the lines, a double acrostic by the initial and final letters, and a triple acrostic by the initial, middle and final letters.

Here is a simple example of an Acrostic

http://www.kidzone.ws/poetry/acrostic.htm


Here is an example of a Double Acrostic

https://ramblingsfromamum.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/acrostic-double/


And here you can see a Triple Acrostic

http://poetry.wrr.ng/love-me-a-triple-acrostic/

Anaphora also known as Epanaphora is a poem in which words or phrases are repeated in the beginning of two or more successive lines or verses.

You can see this pattern in this poem by Anne Porter - A List of Praises

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/list-praises

A Ballad is a narrative poem of short stanzas usually set to music for singing.

Here is an example

https://www.youngwriters.co.uk/types-ballad


A Ballade is a poem of 3 stanzas of 7, 8 or 10 lines sharing the same rhyme pattern followed by an envoy/envoi, all ending with the same line.

Here is how you write a Ballade

https://www.youngwriters.co.uk/types-ballade


A Blank Verse Poem has no line limit (can be written in any number of lines), it has regular metrical but unrhymed lines. This form of poetry has been used in writing Epics and Dramatic Monologues. It usually has Iambic Pentameter of a rhythmic pattern of unstressed/stressed syllables but can also be written in Trochee form of stressed/unstressed syllables, Anapest form of unstressed/unstressed/stressed syllables and Dactyl form of stressed/unstressed/unstressed syllables. If all these forms are stressing you, you can go googling to read and learn more about the various types of Blank Verse poems just so that your concepts are clear :-)

Here is how Shakespeare used Blank Verses in his Plays

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/cliffsnotes/literature/what-is-blank-verse-and-how-does-shakespeare-use-it

http://www.poeticterminology.net/07-blank-verse.htm


Now, don't confuse a Blank Verse with a Free Verse which is another category of poetry. Though both these types of poetry have unrhymed lines, a Blank Verse is consistently metrical whereas a Free Verse is free from both rhyme and meter.

Blues Poem originates from the African American oral tradition and the musical tradition of the Blues. It is themed on life's struggles, despair, grief, pain, loss and sex.

Here are some examples

http://ta.thet.net:16080/~Chapin/WebPage/docs/BluesPoem.PDF


The Bop poetic form is written in 3 stanzas, each followed by a refrain (repeated part of a poem). The first stanza has 6 lines and presents a problem. The second stanza has 8 lines and explores or expands the problem. The third stanza is again of 6 lines, presenting a solution to the problem or documenting the failure to resolve the problem.

Here are 2 e.g.s of how you write a Bop Poem

http://youthvoices.net/discussion/divided-bop

https://caraholman.wordpress.com/tag/the-bop-poetry-form/


A Cento is a patchwork or collage poem consisting of lines, quotations, verses or passages taken from the works of other authors.

Here is an example of a Cento

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poetic-form-cento

A Cinquain also known as a Quintain or Quintet is made of 5 unrhymed lines. Lines 1 and 5 have 2 syllables each, Line 2 has 4 syllables, Line 3 has 6 syllables and Line 4 has 8 syllables. In all, there are 22 syllables in this type of poem.

Here is where you can sample an example and also create your own Cinquain :-)

http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/cinquain.htm


A word cinquain is based on words instead of syllables. Lines 1 and 5 have 1 word each, Line 2 has two words, Line 3 - three words, and Line 4 - four words. Hence, a word cinquain will have a total of 11 words.

Example of a word cinquain is here

http://teams.lacoe.edu/documentation/classrooms/amy/algebra/5-6/activities/poetry/cinquain.html

If you research the web, you'll find many other types of Cinquain - Butterfly, Reverse, Mirror, Crown, Garland, Didactic, Lanterne, Cinqku, Tanka, etc

Diamante Poem - well, as the name goes, a poem written in the shape of a diamond is known as a Diamante Poem :-) It consists of 7 unrhymed lines having a set structure of nouns, adjectives and verbs themed on either one topic or two contrasting topics like Winter/Summer, Day/Night, Happiness/Sadness, Life/Death, etc. The 1st and 7th line are the shortest having just 1 word each and the ones in the middle are longer, thus giving the poem its characteristic diamond shape. The word count is: 1,2,3,4,3,2,1. Lines 1, 4 and 7 have nouns. Lines 2 and 6 have adjectives. Lines 3 and 5 have verbs. Thus the pattern is: noun, adjectives, verbs, nouns, verbs, adjectives, noun. In a Synonym diamante, the 1st and last nouns mean the same whereas in an Antonym diamante, the 1st and last nouns mean the opposite.

Here you can create your own Diamante Poem

http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/diamondpoem.htm


http://www.eduplace.com/activity/pdf/diamante_poetry.pdf


Dramatic Monologue or a Persona Poem uses the technique of Theatrics in which the poem is narrated by a solo speaker impersonating a character. It's a monologue and so the performer seems to talk to the audience but is actually talking to some fictitious characters as if he's venting out his thoughts and feelings or responding to their comments and queries (which are inaudible) as there are no dialogues or auditory responses in this type of performance.

Here is an Example

http://www.monologuearchive.com/b/byron_005.html

An Echo Verse is a type of verse in which the final word/syllable of each line is 'echoed back' as a response i.e. repeated as an 'echo' in the line below. A good example would be the poem Heaven written by the Welsh-born English poet, orator and priest George Herbert (1593-1633)

Here it is for you to see :-)

https://www.forwardpoetry.co.uk/post/how-to-write-echo-verse.html


An Ekphrastic Poem offers a vivid description of an artistic creation which could be a scene or a visual piece of work through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the "action" of a painting, photograph, picture, pottery or a sculpture by amplifying and expanding its meaning. The poet tries to convey the deeper, inner, hidden or latent meaning of the artwork esp. what it may symbolise for e.g. a photo of a barren land can convey desolation, loneliness, neglect, isolation or loss. We must bear in mind that it is entirely the poet's perception, reaction or interpretation of that artwork and so a piece of art can be seen very differently by two different persons and hence, the artwork can inspire two different poets to write two entirely different poems having no shared sense of perception.

Here are 2 Examples of Ekphrastic Poetry

http://www.english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/classicscene.html


http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/painting


An Elegy is a mournful poem written to lament the death of a person or a group of people who've died due to natural causes or due to tragic circumstances for e.g. illness / epidemic / fire / riots / accidents / wars / acts of terrorism or any other natural disasters like Tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, landslides, volcanoes, etc. Traditionally, elegies have been written in 3 stages: the 1st stage of the poem expressing the poet's grief and sorrow over the death of the person/group, the 2nd stage expressing the poet's praise and admiration of the deceased person/group and the 3rd or the last stage of the poem offering some consolation and solace to deal with the tragic loss and bereavement.

Here is an Example of an Elegy

http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Poem&PoemID=12234&ThemeID=357


Emoticon Poetry - this new category has been introduced by me. If you want to check how to write such poetry, this is the Link you need to see

http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Blogs&sd=Blog&BlogID=1626


An Epic Poem is a long, narrative poem written on a grand scale to highlight some major events or heroic feats and adventures of historical culture pertaining to a country or nation. For e.g. our ancient Indian Ramayana or Mahabharata

Paradise Lost by John Milton is also a good example of an Epic Poem

http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/Classic%20Poems/Milton/paradise_lost.htm


Here you can read more details about Epic Poetry

http://web.cn.edu/Kwheeler/documents/What_is_an_Epic.pdf


An Epigram is a short, witty poem expressing an idea, thought or observation in a clever and amusing way. It could be a couplet (having 2 lines), quatrain (having 4 lines) or a one-liner like Oscar Wilde's

"I can resist everything except temptation"

Here is a wonderful example of an Epigram :-)

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/what-epigram

Here is another one :-)

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/underwoods-epigram

An Epistle is a type of poem you would love writing if you love letter-writing :-) Epistle is essentially a poem in a letter form; it could be a single letter poem or a series of letters written in a poem. It could be full of rhyming and metrical stanzas or without a meter / rhyme, it could be several words and pages long or a very short or medium-sized poem, it could be having a personal/casual/intimate tone or an impersonal (formal) one, it could be written to a real or an imaginary person/group of people, it could be the views of the poet or the poet can take on the character of a different writer while writing the letter. Hence, an epistle offers a lot of choice in how you write the poem. Traditionally, epistles were written to express one's thoughts and views on love, religion, philosophy and morality. The New Testament of the Bible has many epistles.

Here is an Example of an Epistle

https://poewar.atlassian.net/wiki/display/POEWAR/Day+18+-+Write+a+poem+in+the+form+of+a+letter+-+epistle

You can also see this one

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/29974

Thus, ends my Blog here for today.

See you again another time, another day :-)

Cheers
Aparna


--
The AC Daily - Please See

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Google Posting - Happy Perusing :-)

https://plus.google.com/117466581567846877904/posts

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. - Benjamin Franklin