My Favorite Couplet

The Comfort of Nite

The day was beautiful, the twilight is long
off in the distance, I hear a bird's song.

He's saying goodnight as the light passes by,
and darkness approaches to cover the sky.

But the cover of night is no reason for woe,
for it filters out trouble from the world down below.

Night seems to bring comfort and peace,
and turmoil and tension just seem to cease.

Away from the world, in the comfort of home,
our problems drift off, our minds free to roam.

You close your eyes and relax just a bit,
all at once the puzzles seem to fit.

The answers to problems that once were not found
are dancing like asters in the air all around,

for darkness slips by and a new day is here,
promising hope and a day of new cheer.

So darkness you see has a mystical power-
from a troubled seed it brings a bright flower.

So don't look to twilight with fright or despair,
for night plus the dawn brings love, hope and care.
~Bob Cray

The words of this couplet, in the order they follow one another, invokes a swell of emotions. The way the words rhyme at the end of each stanza flow together effortlessly. A clear message is conveyed, and punctuation is used as a subtle guide, not a glaring map. I feel if the lines were combined, it would lose most of its message; it would look to simple and feel too complex. While this poem certainly will not appeal to many readers, the use of form is clearly, undeniably, well done. Bob Cray intentionally put his "best words in their best order."

Basho's Haiku

Evening darkens. Hunched
On a withered bough, a crow.
Autumn in the air.

It amazes me how in thirteen words, everything that needs saying is, simply, said. As a young and inexperienced writer, it seems difficult to stop at a specific point, and it seems impossible to put the content into words that fit a specific pattern. This poem contains images that don't need an explanation of colors or textures. All is embodied in the chosen words. The words and lines work together as a team to create one magnificent piece. After reading this I am left with an image of a wooded skyline with a hint of red lingering in the blackness, and a bird resting on a ceder branch surrounded by hundreds of other tree's orange leaves.

Coincidence? Who knows?

"Is it still bad luck if a black cat crosses your path, but you hit it with a car? Don't you think hitting it would negate the bad?"* I was asked these questions in a tone that demanded serious attention. I was in absolute disbelief when I found myself pondering them. Even if one isn't superstitious, s/he still knows the rhymes and sayings. To name a few: step on a crack, you'll break your mother's back, find a penny, pick it up, and all day you'll have good luck, and break a mirror, and you'll suffer seven years of bad luck. Some people seem to find legitimate truth to these sayings, based on their personal experiences. Another topic from that category I ponder frequently is karma. Fortunately, I am at a point in my life where I do "good" things because I want to. Unfortunately, this a recent development. Previously, it seemed as though every time I went out of my way to be kind, I found myself in a positive situation. If I chose to do nothing, nothing ever happened. To this day, no matter how I've been wronged, I find myself punished for seeking revenge. These events could be complete coincidence. My question is, could statistical probability be considered proof of a fact? Either way, the thought keeps me from keying my ex's car.

*This same person wants to know, "If a turtle loses it's shell, is it naked or homeless?" A dear friend of mine called him an idiot for it, and supplied the answer "niether. It's dead."

They

I know I am not the first person to question this particular anomaly in the English language, and it very nearly pains me to know I will not be the last. All the same, I spend many nights awake in bed contemplating the fact that no, I do not know what they say. I want to know who the heck they are, where they came from, and what they want. What if "They" was once a legitimate name? What if this "They" was so influential, his/her name forever embedded itself into our language? Maybe the law enforcement was once referred to as the "they." It could have been a slang term for royal or religious leaders. Regardless of where the phrase and the word itself originated, it has come to represent a positive and negative entity. Most people, very nearly all people use the phrase "you know what they say" without even realizing they said it! They is a collective term so internalized, we do not even care who these things are. What if they are not human or plant? And how would we know?

A Little Humor (Free Entry)

While talking to my mother, I came to a wild realization. Relationships are like bus rides. We ride them to the end of the line, and then we get off and wait for the next one. One can easily become frustrated while waiting. Equally as easily, one might long for a repetition of the previous rout. Some routs are longer and bumpier than others. Greyhounds are like rebounds. Some are cleaner, quieter, and run smoother than the rest, and some run all the way to your final destination. My aunt rode the Chinatown bus from Boston to New York once. It sounded similar to a one night stand, and similarly, the faint heart should not participate. A ten dollar ticket takes you across the east coast. Depending on who is driving, you are not guaranteed to make it out alive. In fact, during the ride, one might regret their decision to board and long to be in a New York cab. Lastly, there is the party bus. Usually a nice time and sometimes ridden with those one actually cares for, the passengers tend to feel relief and comfort upon returning home. Most people eventually tire of riding the bus, especially if they take the same road to the same disappointing destination daily. After careful consideration, test driving, and self evaluation, they purchase and care for a car of their own.

History

In my practical criticism class, we discussed the concept of "New Criticism." Although it is hardly new anymore, it emerged in the thirties, the methods are still practiced. Even though I (as nearly all people) was trained to read in that fashion, two points boggle me. One: everything the reader needs to know about the content of the text is already in the text, whether the author intended it to be or not. Two: historical context may be considered, but should not effect the way the reader interprets the literature. I had a hard time finding these two elements possible, and I am thoroughly impressed by the reasoning behind this science. New critics believe that a text must be strictly read for content and that any moral to the story is irrelevant. They wanted the reader to be wary of history due to the fact that history tends to be distorted through individual perception, and texts possess the ability to actually alter the way events are perceived. Over time entire occurrences can be morphed into something else entirely. The entire concept baffles me, even though I see it all the time. It is the seemingly simple matter of people seeing what they want to see, and projecting that image onto and into something else.

How I Rate Creativity

First of all, I would like to state that I find creativity to be an extremely personal thing. Studying poetry is an opportunity to gauge how people have changed their perception of creativity over the centuries. One thing I find important is how many questions a person asks. Curious people tend to display a wider range of intellect, and tend to be more "creative." If you like knowing how things work, or stop your class, even if there is two hundred of you, to demand clarification, you are creative. If you desire to work with color through sculpting, painting, or describing, you are creative. If you wish to discover alternatives to a particular problem, or cannot seem to receive the help you desire and develop your own methods, congratulations! You are creative. If you have a passion for life, art, imitation, even understanding death, well, you know what you are. If you are capable of loving, and have a willingness to share that emotion, or any emotion, you are most certainty creative. My point is that in twenty short years, I have found that one needs not have a knack for words to be creative. All you need to do is live, breathe, feel, and realize "it is such a simple thing to look beyond the immediate present." Winnifred Gies stated perfectly in her poem, the title of which slips my mind, "that all she really needed was simply just to be." I think THAT is what it means to be creative.