Blogs
#NaPoWriMo 7: A Digital Aborigine
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 04/08/2016 - 06:36At times I feel like a digital aborigine
showing the digital immigrants
and their offspring,
the new digital natives,
the paths of cyberspace.
At times we come across a fence
one of the digital immigrants has built
obstructing the way
or a new bridge
over a difficult stream
that one of the new digital natives
has put up.
The digital immigrants
long for their analog homeland
distrustful of the ways
of this new world
and their digital offspring
are puzzled
by the nostalgia
for the old
analog ways
of their parents.
I cherish my digital world
as I lovingly show
my newbie friends
the beauties of this place.
I show the digital colonialists
the ways of my world
knowing full well
what happens
to aborigines.
#NaPoWriMo Further Reflections
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 04/07/2016 - 19:28It is Thursday, April 7th. I continue on pace for writing a poem a day in April. I’m a few posts behind averaging a post a day for the year. Last night I was out late and didn’t get a chance to post yesterday’s poem until this morning, and I may come back to it and work on it more later.
I have today’s poem mostly composed. I just need to do some editing, but I thought I’d stop to write some reflections this evening and post the today’s poem tomorrow morning.
My computer was acting up today. In part, I believe, because I had too many windows open. I close the windows, saving the links to various pages I had open, and some of them seem to fit together.
MOOCs: There are two MOOCs that I’m looking at participating in. One is MODERN GENIUS: ART AND CULTURE IN THE 19TH CENTURY. I believe it is set up using the Kannu learning management system. It is a good chance for me to see how that system works. The course already started, so I have to decide if I want to spend time on it and maybe try to catch up.
The other MOOC, which is starting tomorrow, is Poetry in America: Modernism. I’ve participated in a few of the other classes in this series, sometimes having time to complete them, other times not.
During my devotions, I ended up on John Donne’s page, particularly reading Annunciation. This led me to search Librivox to wee what is available. I found
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. I am listening to this in the car during my commute.
I also watched a little of Why is modern poetry difficult? Talk by Professor Geoff Ward.
All of this links together with an article that caught my attention today, Study: Poor Writing Skills Are Costing Businesses Billions. It pointed to the study, Are They Really Ready To Work?
Kim and Fiona are elsewhere, so I have a quiet evening at home. I’ll work a little more on today’s poem, maybe read a little more online, and then head off to bed soon.
#NaPoWriMo 6: Digital Diabetes
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 04/07/2016 - 06:26She had developed a case of digital diabetes;
too many sweets online
and not enough meet, not enough substance.
Sure, there a little spice in her diet
the occasional political disagreement,
but she had already unfriended
most of the people who disagreed with her
except for those relatives she couldn’t unfriend
and had to just ignore.
Her digital footprint was virtually indistinguishable,
for any twenty first century teen popstar,
like the characters in sitcom
about teenage life
aimed at preteens
or in the carefully constructed
personae
of teen aged music idols.
It was hard to differentiate between her
and everyone else
like her
who was suffering
from digital diabetes.
#NaPoWriMo 5: Ananias restoring the Sight of St. Paul
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 04/05/2016 - 19:58What was it like when Saul set out for Damascus?
Did the Christians there talk anxiously amongst themselves,
“What will help to us?”
Did the zealot proudly proclaim,
“Let me be first, bound, carried to Jerusalem
to tortured, die, and gain the martyr’s crown?”
Did the mystic quietly predict
“God’s purpose will be achieved in an unexpected way?”
And when The Lord spoke to Ananias,
what was his reaction,
his first thoughts, his fears?
What went through his mind
as he entered the house
looking for Saul?
Now, in a twenty-first century home,
what does The Lord ask of us
that seems equally unexpected?
#NaPoWriMo – Overview
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 04/05/2016 - 06:03So, it is National Poetry Writing Month, and many people are talking about writing a poem a day for the month of April. I did something similar back in Lent 2015, so I figure I’ll give it a shot this April.
I decided to participate a few days into April, but I already had my first poems underway. I wrote The Incomplete Garden in response to a prompt from a poetry group I’m part of.
The view from your favorite or least favorite window.
I started the poem on the first and edited it on the second, sending it to the group, since had to miss the get together.
On the second, I drove up to and unconference in Western Mass. I had been listening to some podcasts on creativity and in one of them there was a suggestion to the effect of “look for three things that you don’t see every day on your way to work”. This idea was the starting point for Road Poem 1. As I drove, I noted things along the way and remembered others and wove them into a pieces of a poem which I recorded on my cell phone as I was driving. The next morning I edited the pieces together.
I hesitated about naming it Road Poem 1, because that implies that there should be a Road Poem 2. I will be keeping my eyes open for subsequent road poems. We’ll see.
It was around the time that I was editing Road Poem 1, that I looked out the window described in The Incomplete Garden, and I saw the April Snow which I started working on Sunday morning and edited and posted Monday morning.
On my way to work on Monday, I was listening to a poetry podcast, and the podcast is what made me think of The China Tea Cup. Like with Road Poem 1, I composed the first draft in my mind, then recorded it on my cellphone. In the evening I edited and posted it.
