NPM

Hemingway’s Beloved (A Poem & A Picture by Me & of Me)

/ Janna Hill / 2 Comments

Okay, I might have been wrong in yesterdays post. We received [well] over 13 downloads of Getting Me Back. Thanks y’all. It wouldn’t matter if we got 13 million – we are sticking to the plan. We bought the ticket – we’ll take the ride. That’s my spin on a Hunter S. Thompson quote. JANNA HEMINGWAY DRUNK & DISHEVELED (731x800)

This photo was taken in front of Hemingway’s house in Key West, Florida. Of course it is now a museum. I look like I am either drunk or crying. I think it was both. Talking to ghosts sometimes has that effect on me.

Hemingway’s Beloved

Did you shake his hand –?

the hand of a man’s man?

Did you see how his eyes searched the space around him as the world grew smaller?

Did you learn the secrets of Africa or discuss his tomes over drinks?

Of course not.

You could not for we were mere children –

our wedding day marking the twenty second anniversary of his exodus… his rise to immortality.

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature the year you were born – did you know that?

I was but two months in the womb when he placed the beloved twelve-gauge inside his mouth and obliterated the ciphering pheasants once and for all.

Did you see how he caressed her?

How her cold, soft metal against his finger was as pacifying as the perfect daiquiri… how she (his beloved) alas cured him of the demons.

In a flash she rooted them loose one by one from their hiding place – a place liquor nor currents could mole; a cavern so deep no joule or watt could grasp. Ahh, but she did.

She exorcized them, set them to flight riding on soft grey tissue laden with hemochromatosis and fragments of bone.

Christ might have offered the fiends a swine but not her or better yet not him…

A sacrifice for the Bay of Pigs?

It was all such folly — such unholy madness for a simple man and a literary saint.

~o~o~o~

*Hemingway’s Beloved was first published in the HWA (Horror Writers Association) Poetry Showcase Volume I.

So Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) will still be FREE April 18th through the 21st while we do this A Poem & A Picture by Me & of Me.

What else can I say about Ernest Hemingway that has not already been [acceptably] said? 

A Scene Worth Sharing (A Poem & A Picture)

/ Janna Hill / 2 Comments

Welcome to week three of NPM (A Poem & A Picture)

PRIVATE PROPERTY A Poem & A Picture

I chose this photograph for the sign and the turkey looking past the sign. This in no way implies that I think Sue is a turkey; on the contrary, she is a talented poet and photographer. That’s why I chose her SCENIC OVERLOOK to start week three of National Poetry Month.

SCENIC OVERLOOK by Sue

Some would say life has brought me backward.

I grew up poor in a rich town

where I had to hide my dark hair

beneath a golden hat, which only

made me feel hot and awkward.

Now I live poor in a poor town,

a place most of my old classmates

wouldn’t get caught dead in,

but at least I blend in:

another gray wisp of a cloud

on a sunless day,

another brown leaf on the ground

of a winter wood full of leafless trees

in muddy March

when spring’s new hope

feels like a crazy dream…

But I digress.

 

Yesterday I drove through some rich towns —

just looking —

not like an open-mouthed tourist

but like a coroner searching for clues to a death.

I examined the details as I saw them:

the handsome man with the perfect haircut

jogging on my side of the road

wearing clothes that I recognized

cost more than two week’s of my groceries,

(he forced me to the wrong side on a curve).

Then I pulled over to gaze at a view,

and to avoid the impatient BMW surging

at my back bumper, like the rough waves

against at the rocks at the beach

with the “No Trespassing” signs, whose beauty

I had to observe from afar.

But I will keep my scientist stance

because I don’t like the flavor

of bitterness.

I theorize the owners of these million dollar mansions

with empty yards would naturally

look like the jogging man because their parents

looked the same, and because beauty and wealth

go together like cut glass and cognac.

Why would hothouse plants live among weeds

that may choke them

to death?

Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) released this month and is now available in digital or paperback. AND to show my appreciation for your support there will be a gift of random books by ‘moi’ each weekend in April. Check in, check them out and follow my Author Page at Amazon for future updates.

NaPoWriMo & Nell (A Poem & A Picture)

/ Janna Hill / Leave a comment

Do you all remember the 1994 movie about a strange girl named Nell who seems to speak her own language? Liam Neeson finds her (Jodi Foster) living alone in a cabin somewhere in the beautiful backwoods of North Carolina. He is amused by her, befriends her and through his study we learn the reason for Nell’s unique dialect.

(Get/watch the movie here if you’re interested.) NELL

Nell was a good movie and NaPoWriMo is a good way of assuring us that poetry [the good, bad and the ugly] will live on – at least for a few more years.

So what does one topic have to do with the other? A couple of things. One, poetry (or NaPoWriMo) is like the movie Nell – most people love it or hate it and two, when I say NaPoWriMo I think of Nell. Sometimes I start waving like a tree in the wind with my arms extended as if they were branches; dancing uninhibited and speaking in Nellish, Tay ina win… inna t’ee inna way… T’ee an me an t’ee an me, Reesa, reesa, reesa me. Chicka, chicka, chickabee.

And then some killjoy disrupts me with a reality check:

This is Janna card

Janna is not Nell, she is not a tree... and she has no rhythm.

 Oh well: doana kee chickabee, NaPoWriMo mos owe stee tie. Two we main.

Translation: don’t cry chickadee baby, National Poetry Writing Month is almost over  – or you still have time. Two weeks remain.

* Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) released this month and is available in digital or paperback. AND as a small token of my appreciation I have arranged for Clan Destiny Book I and Book II to be available without charge via Kindle April 14th and 15th.  An honest review would not hurt my feelings. 😉

Tune in next week for more #NPM.

For Jessica (A Poem & A Picture)

/ Janna Hill / Leave a comment

This is my daughter (Jessica’s) favorite poem by Shel Silverstein. I cannot count the number of times we read Where the Sidewalk Ends as she was growing up.

As I was readying to take a shot of the book nestled among jasmine a caterpillar dropped from the sky and pooped! Can you believe it? Hmph! What does he know about poetry?! Gee-sh… and I had just scraped twenty years of boogers off!

Shel Silverstein Where the Sidewalk Ends

SARAH CYNTHIA SYLVIA STOUT WOULD NOT TAKE THE GARBAGE OUT

By Shel Silverstein

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout

Would not take the garbage out.

She’d wash the dishes and scrub the pans

Cook the yams and spice the hams,

And though her parents would scream and shout,

She simply would not take the garbage out.

And so it piled up to the ceiling:

Coffee grounds, potato peelings,

Brown bananas and rotten peas,

Chunks of sour cottage cheese,

It filled the can, it covered the floor,

It cracked the windows and blocked the door,

With bacon rinds and chicken bones,

Drippy ends of ice cream cones,

Prune pits, peach pits, orange peels,

Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,

Pizza crusts and withered greens,

Soggy beans, and tangerines,

Crusts of black burned buttered toast,

Grisly bits of beefy roast…

The garbage rolled on down the hall,

It raised the roof, it broke the wall…

Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,

Globs of gooey bubble gum,

Cellophane from green baloney,

Rubbery, blubbery macaroni,

Peanut butter, caked and dry,

Curdled milk, and crusts of pie,

Rotting melons, dried-up mustard,

Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,

Cold French fries and rancid meat,

Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.

At last the garbage reached so high

That finally it touched the sky,

And all the neighbors moved away,

And none of her friends would come to play,

And finally, Sarah Cynthia Stout said,

“OKAY, I’ll take the garbage out!”

But then, of course it was too late…

The garbage reached across the state,

From New York to the Golden Gate,

And there in the garbage she did hate,

Poor Sarah met an awful fate

That I cannot right now relate

Because the hour is much too late

But children, remember Sarah Stout,

And always take the garbage out!

For JESS A Poem & A Picture

It comes as no surprise Jessica grew up to be a goofball. I thank God every day for allowing me to be her mom.

Reminder:  Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) released this month…

Write Your Own II (A Poem & A Picture)

/ Janna Hill / Leave a comment

Write Your Own A Poem & A Picture

This post was intended as part of Wordless Wednesday but I have to say this. I do not/did not expect a public response but in last weeks Write Your Own (A Poem & A Picture) Sarah replied with a beautiful piece blending the poem and the picture. I must say it was a very pleasant surprise. I understand many of us are timid about publicizing our words/thoughts; potentially exposing ourselves to ridicule but if any of you would like to make your take of the photo in the reply section I would love to read it.

Spring by Edna St. Vincent Millay (A Poem & A Picture)

/ Janna Hill / 2 Comments

 

SPRING FLOWERS A Poem & A Picture Spring

From Second April (Courtesy of everypoet.com Classic Archives)

SPRING

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

To what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots,

Life in itself

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Don’t you love the last line(s)? They do strike a chord with me — maybe because I am just living out loud and flinging cake against the wall, right?!

Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) released this month and is now available in digital or paperback. AND to show my appreciation for your support there will be a gift of random books by ‘moi’ each weekend in April. Check in, check them out and follow my Author Page at Amazon for future updates.

P.S. A little history on Edna St. Vincent Millay: After her husband’s death from a stroke in 1949 following the removal of a lung, Millay suffered a great deal; she drank recklessly, and had to be hospitalized. A month later she was back at her farm (Steepletop) where she  passed a lonely year working on a new book of poems. She died in 1950 of a heart attack. For more about her works and life visit Poetry Foundation.

 

As rust falls from the anchor (A Poem & A Picture)

/ Janna Hill / Leave a comment

And on we roll..

Week two of NPM (A Poem & I Picture) where I share a photo taken by me and a poem by some awesome poet. I hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Anchor for A Poem & A Picture

 

 

By Chris Green (Poetry Soup)

Where do sandcastles go

when the tide engulfs the view and

lonely shorelines crest in tear drops

beneath white capped dream chasers,

foam laced erasers combing sanded wishes,

taking towers in the water’s rage

as moats become minor indentations

on a beach bathed in the moon light,

moving gleams in metronome tickling

as our hearts wash out to sea

drowning in the depths of forbidden love

and with my final breath,

salt water drenched I profess

that forbidden or not, I love you

and the lighthouse shines its orbiting light

as I go under for the last time

happy in my declaration

as rust falls from the anchor

and I wait until we meet again,

on the island of meant to be

 

Psst, if you want to read some of my poetry Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) released this month and is now available in digital or paperback.

We Got Goals – It’s National Poetry Month Baby!

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Is that a lame title? I can’t help help it, it made me laugh. If you could hear the fella in my head you’d laugh too — or not.

Anywho…

It was a lovely long weekend but now I am back. You wanna see some pictures? Okay.

Pardon my wipers…
Raindrops aren’t falling on my head…
She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain…

Starting tomorrow I will be posting A Poem & Picture. I can’t guarantee you that I will post daily throughout April but I will earnestly try for two or three a week. There, I’ve set a goal.

The goals of National Poetry Month are to:

  • highlight the extraordinary legacy and ongoing achievement of American poets
  • encourage the reading of poems
  • assist teachers in bringing poetry into their classrooms
  • increase the attention paid to poetry by national and local media
  • encourage increased publication and distribution of poetry books, and
  • encourage support for poets and poetry.

It is NPM, that stands for National Poetry Month baby! Ahhh, I crack me up.

And in case I haven’t told you 1000 times  Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) released this month and is now available in digital or paperback. I will be saying it again, and again… and again in case you missed it. 😉

Ohh That Milton & Writing Sentences as Punishment

/ Janna Hill / 3 Comments

I left off in the last post asking who the heck was Milton and I start this one with the imagined sting of Mrs. Johnson’s ruler. You see I’ve always been a daydreamer and Mrs. Johnson was a nightmare.

I’m sure we have all had one or two (or fifteen) teachers who fed on tender brains we didn’t absolutely love. And who left us with more questions than answers such as:
Does writing sentences as a punishment really improve academic outcomes? To that I answer, NO Mrs. Johnson. No it does not. Writing I’m sorry I daydreamed through Paradise Lost did not improve my retention.

Is John Milton still relevant today? I say sure he is and I would go so far as to recommend we all take the time to study him again. Minus the rulers and redundant sentences.

And lastly, How do literature teachers live to be one thousand years old?ugly old woman Because they are brain eating zombies! I don’t have a clue.

We’re not going to delve into Paradise Lost but you can get a free e-pub download from Gutenberg and read it at your leisure. Or try the online searchable version with modernized spelling.

Since May is less than a week away I chose this one. Don’t critique the spelling – all I did was copy and paste. Hey I did learn something from writing sentences as punishment.

Song On May Morning

by John Milton

Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The Flowry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose.
Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
Mirth and youth, and warm desire,
Woods and Groves, are of thy dressing,
Hill and Dale, doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
And welcom thee, and wish thee long.

 

 

It’s Okay to Die Poor (But Who the Heck Was Milton?)

/ Janna Hill / 1 Comment

 

Don’t you just love an ancient oracle with history and mystery served up in rhyming little stanzas?

Say, “Yes Janna. Indeed I do love such wonderful things.”

Thank you. Now say “Yay NPM!!” and let’s get started.

The following is an excerpt from William Blake’s epic poem titled Milton. I like Blake for several reasons. The main two being that he was a nonconformist and that he believed poetry could be understood by common people.

Allow me to share his sentiment right quick.

Listen up folks!

Poetry can be understood [and enjoyed] by common people!!!

Those are also [probably] the main two reasons he died poor. But you know what? It’s okay to die poor; I’m sure I will. After all a casket can only hold so much. Me and ole Billy can agree on that but who the heck was Milton?

 Martindale Lake District Cumbria England Free Images

Jerusalem

by William Blake

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Now off to find out more about this John Milton character…