Poem of the Week

 
This week's poem is What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand? by Walt Whitman.  I thought it was the perfect poem to represent my return to writing because it truly represents what this blog is all about.  I do not write about big things or dramatic things, there are plenty of novelists, playwrights and screenwriters to do that.  I do not write for fame or popularity or glory. I simply write to pay homage to the simple things, the daily things, the oft-overlooked things that all come together to make something beautiful.  I want to chronicle the everyday loves and loses, joys and sorrows, blessings trivialities, quirks and simple things that accidentally collide and collaborate into the poem of that thing we call life. 

What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand? 

What think you I take my pen in hand to record? 
The battle-ship, perfect-model'd, majestic, that I saw pass the 
offing to-day under full sail? 
The splendors of the past day? or the splendor of the night that  
envelops me? 
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me? —no; 
But merely of two simple men I saw to-day on the pier in the midst 
of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends, 
The one to remain hung on the other's neck and passionately kiss'd him, 
While the one to depart tightly prest the one to remain in his arms.
  
Love,
-H 

Good to be Back...

Hi!

Sooo.... hemmm....ugh... yea, I sort of disappeared for a loooong time.

About that, well I sort of fell into a bottomless pit of despair and it took a while to claw myself out. More on that at a later date...

The point is, I am back and things here should be back to running smoothly.  I've missed blogging and I can't wait to start up again.  The Poem of the Week will be back on Sunday and I have a bunch of half finished posts from March and April that I hope to finish up.  I'm also hoping to make a few updates to the blog, but my tech skills leave much to be desired so we'll see how that goes.

It's good to be back!

Love,

-H

Poem of the Week

Alas, winter has ended, and so in honour of the changing seasons which often mark the changes in our own lives, this week's poem is After the Winter by Claude McKay.  Nature has such a profound impact on our moods and outlook, and I like to pay homage to that.  Winter is a contemplative time - assessing our progress over the past year, trying to figure out what comes next and where we go.  Spring, on the other hand, is such a hopeful time - everything feels fresh and new; life is full of sunshine and possibilities. I always love the arrival of spring and feeling like absolutely anything wonderful can happen.  Happy spring and happy reading!
 

After the Winter

Some day, when trees have shed their leaves

And against the morning’s white

The shivering birds beneath the eaves

Have sheltered for the night,

We’ll turn our faces southward, love,

Toward the summer isle

Where bamboos spire the shafted grove

And wide-mouthed orchids smile.
 

And we will seek the quiet hill

Where towers the cotton tree,

And leaps the laughing crystal rill,

And works the droning bee.

And we will build a cottage there

Beside an open glade,

With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,

And ferns that never fade.

 

- H

Poem of the Week

This week's poem is Magic by Shel Silverstein. I absolutely adored Shel Silverstein as a child, so in a fit of nostalgia I thought I'd share a little dose of those happy memories with you. I've always been fascinated with magic - both the wild, fantasy type belonging to books and dramatizations, as well as the everyday type found in a perfect sunset, a summer garden, a rainbow, a mother's love. There is magic all around us if we chose to see it, if we chose to participate in its creation. I hope you all find a bit of magic in your lives. Happy St. Patrick's Day! Top 'o the mornin' to ya!

Magic

Sandra's seen a leprechaun,
Eddie touched a troll,
Laurie danced with witches once,
Charlie found some goblins' gold.
Donald heard a mermaid sing,
Susy spied an elf,
But all the magic I have known
I've had to make myself.

- H

Poem of the Week

This week's poem is hollow places by Erin Morgenstern.  Sometimes I have bad days/weeks and I don't really know how to describe it except for with the poem - this is one of those times... 

hollow places

Sometimes I forget who I am and what I’m supposed to be doing.

All the me-ness slips away and I feel hollow and confused.

Dizzy and light, like my feet aren’t on the ground.

I can’t even cry, because I don’t know what to cry about.

I don’t know why it happens.

I can’t even tell how long it lasts.

It is an always feeling once I’m in it, never-ending, never-begun.

All I can do is stay very still and press my fingers to my lips to keep the thoughts or secrets or cries or lies or truths or whatever else is left from slipping out.

So they can stay inside and fill the hollow spaces.

While I wait to feel like myself again.

- H

P.S. Bear with me if my posts aren't up to snuff this week...

[Edit - March, 24th]  I highly recommend that you visit Erin's website and read her incredible "Flax-Golden Tales" that she posts each Friday (accompanied by some equally amazing photography).  Also, if you have not yet read Erin's stunning debut novel, The Night Circus, then please, please, please pick up a copy and prepare to be amazed.  It is a beautiful, tragic, poignant, magical, romantic, mysterious, utterly fantastic story and one of the best books I have read in years, maybe ever...

Poem of the Week

This week's poem is The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.  Maybe it's just me, but I have always found something dangerously romantic about pirates, highwaymen and other rakes from eras long past, so this poem has long been one of my favourites.  Even a little liked high-school English teacher with a knack for butchering any and all works of literature was unable to ruin this poem for me.  I'm going to be stuck on a long road trip today and that got me thinking roads...highway...highwayman... Anyway, since I have about 8 hours on the road ahead of me, I figured it would be only fair to post a bit of a lengthy poem.  I hope your day is more exciting than mine and you enjoy the read!

The Highwayman 
Part One
I

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

II

He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

III

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

IV

And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—

V

'One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.'

VI

He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonliglt, and galloped away to the West.
Part Two

I

He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching—
Marching—marching—
King George's men came matching, up to the old inn-door.

II

They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

III

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
'Now, keep good watch!' and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say—
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

IV

She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

V

The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain .

VI

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!

VII

Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.

VIII

He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

IX

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

X

And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—
Riding—riding—
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

XI

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair. 

Isn't is just so tragically romantic?
-H

Under Review | Secret Daughter

I just finished reading Shilpi Somaya Gowda's gorgeous debut novel Secret Daughter, and I am completely awed.  I've had the book sitting on my shelf for about 2 years, and I've picked it up many times, but I wasn't in the right 'headspace' to read the book then.  My mom recently was given a copy of the book by one of her friends and started to read it, which reminded me of my own copy and I decided to give it a try.  I wasn't really sure what to expect but it completely blew me away.  

The book was nuanced, poignant and heart-achingly honest.  The intricacies, trials and triumphs of mother-daughter relationships were navigated with deep insight and careful realism; nothing was over-dramatized or depicted with fictitious perfection.  The realities of struggling mothers, children and families in India was portrayed with a subtlety that  evoked more of an emotional response from the reader than overtly graphic descriptions would have.  I came to love the characters - their faults, their strengths, their hopes, their regrets, their passion.  Writing from various perspectives and having a plot that extends several decades can often be a challenge, but Shilpi Somaya Gowda managed to strengthen her narrative by allowing the reader to see through the eyes of six pivotal characters, and seamlessly carrying the thread of the story through many years so the growth and development of the three main female characters can be clearly expressed.  It was a brilliant tale about family, love, loss, faith, culture, the disparities between genders, classes and nations, and self discovery.

The story certainly wasn't a chapter out of Pleasantville, but it was real.  I'm a big supporter of 'truth' in writing - maybe the plot of a novel has never actually taken place in the 'real world', but the essence of the tale, the personalities and actions of the characters, the likeliness of certain events can all be true to the human experience and the world in which we live.  Reading should challenge you to think, expand your horizons, lay your emotions bare and allow yourself to be vulnerable.  Only then are we truly receptive to a story and able to learn/grow from it.  Secret Daughter certainly facilitates such an experience.

I hope you will consider reading Secret Daughter; I'm giving it five golden-stars and a massive recommendation.  Happy Reading!

- H

Overview

SECRET DAUGHTER is a NY Times, USA Today, IndieBound and #1 International Bestseller. Foreign rights have sold in 23 countries.

Somer's life is everything she imagined it would be — she's newly married and has started her career as a physician in San Francisco — until she makes the devastating discovery she never will be able to have children.

The same year in India, a poor mother makes the heartbreaking choice to save her newborn daughter's life by giving her away. It is a decision that will haunt Kavita for the rest of her life, and cause a ripple effect that travels across the world and back again.

Asha, adopted out of a Mumbai orphanage, is the child that binds the destinies of these two women. We follow both families, invisibly connected until Asha's journey of self-discovery leads her back to India.

Compulsively readable and deeply touching, SECRET DAUGHTER is a story of the unforeseen ways in which our choices and families affect our lives, and the indelible power of love in all its many forms.