SciFi Books Recos for my Fellow Nerds!

Check out NPR's latest list of top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy books! So many of my favs made the list :) How many of these have you guys read?

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien

2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert

5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin

6. 1984, by George Orwell

7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov

9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

MORE Literary fun :)

Levis pulls riot ad and classic poetry used to sell jeans

I love when poetry take center stage. I love when words written many years ago still ring true, generations later. I love when a poetic classic is made relevant again, even if it's for commercial purposes...but I cant say that I loved this new Levis ad. There is just so much wrong with it...

And just as past campaigns have relied on the words of phttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifoets such as Walt Whitman, “Legacy” enlists the Charles Bukowski poem “The Laughing Heart” as a call to arms. Read by a narrator with a grizzled voice (not unlike Tom Waits), Bukowski’s words are instantly transformed into ad copy, becoming a lyrical ode to the art of jeans selection, boiling away the author’s artful intent and recontextualizing it as a sales pitch.

“Legacy” marries protest imagery, emotive music, and the words of a literary underdog in an attempt to realize Wieden + Kennedy’s vision of high commercial art.

- source Forbes.com



the laughing heart
BY Charles Bukowski

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

The Psalms

The Psalms
BY Thomas Merton

When psalms surprise me with their music
And antiphons turn to rum
The Spirit sings: the bottom drops out of my soul.

And from the center of my cellar, Love, louder than thunder
Opens a heaven of naked air.

New eyes awaken.
I send Love's name into the world with wings
And songs grow up around me like a jungle.
Choirs of all creatures sing the tunes
Your Spirit played in Eden.
Zebras and antelopes and birds of paradise
Shine on the face of the abyss
And I am drunk with the great wilderness
Of the sixth day in Genesis.

But sound is never half so fair
As when that music turns to air
And the universe dies of excellence.

Sun, moon and stars
Fall from their heavenly towers.
Joys walk no longer down the blue world's shore.

Though fires loiter, lights still fly on the air of the gulf,
All fear another wind, another thunder:
Then one more voice
Snuffs all their flares in one gust.

And I go forth with no more wine and no more stars
And no more buds and no more Eden
And no more animals and no more sea:

While God sings by himself in acres of night
And walls fall down, that guarded Paradise.

The Weakness in Me

This uber short piece was wholly inspired by Joan Armitrading. I even borrowed the title from her oh-so-popular hit of the same name. Thanks Joan :) Hope you like it!

The Weakness in Me
BY Susan Baba

There is a mountain of evidence to condemn you
The jury has spoken
The judge has ruled
But I, your executioner and victim in one
When I am faced with the choice between loneliness and retribution
Would choose to pardon you
Again and again
If only to have something to hold on to tonight

"to write your memories on my heart too"

Memory
BY Susan Baba

Tell me the places you’ve been.
I want to write your memories on my heart too.
I want to see that starry and faraway look
And travel to that place with you.

The first sunset –
You were so tiny beside the vastness of that Arabian coast
But you never would have known it from the power in your voice.
You were not scared.
You stared down the sun
Made it quiver in its boots
And, when you were finished,
You coaxed the moon out to play with the tapping of two sticks.
Your baby sister did not understand
But I promise I will.

Take us back there.

To the first day you learned that you were invincible –
You swung higher and higher
Everything below looking liked patchwork and pebbles
You leaned forward,
Let go,
And jumped regally off of the swing set.
No cape, but you were just as majestic.
No parents and their cautious hands below to catch you
Just you and air and courage.

Take us back to that place.

Where the timbre of her voice rang even in your dreams
She was a flawless first love.
Her hair smelled like Magnolia blossoms and her smile made it all make sense.
You wanted to kiss her forever
But she turned her face too quickly
Took a step away from you and never looked back again.
Tell me how it pained you to let her walk away, without so much as “I love you” or “goodbye.”
How you vowed to keep walking too,
In the path of your own choosing, this time.
You must have thought the world was ending then.

So, tell me how it ended.
How many “hallelujahs” it took to lead you back to yourself and onto my doorstep.
I want to know.

You are a man.
A brave and collected soul.
You come to me worthy of much admiration
But, I know your path was not always straight
That you fought your way through thick forests
That made you look around for your father’s arms
Let's travel back there.
Feel the intensity of those things already past.
When you go back to those memories,
Take me with you.

Welcome Back Susan!

I am back!!

But only a little bit :)

I will be posting sporadically, but I'll be posting. Promise...at least once weekly. Missed you too much to stay away for a second longer.

smooches!
sb

To Be Known

A quick howdy, after a long absence. Hope you likey :) My bf sent it to me and I just had to share with all of you beautiful people! Ah to know and to be known. Isn't that every heart's desire?

enjoy!

The Eye of Soul
BY Oliver O. Mbamara

I judge you not by what you wear,
Whether your garment is of rag or riches,
Or your skin is of a color white or black,
Whether you wear some gold or trinkets,
Or decorate yourself with stones and diamonds,
I see you with the eye of Soul.

I know you, for who you are inside of you,
Not for your smiles, for smiles could be false,
Not for your looks, for looks could deceive,
Not for your appearance, for that won't last,
And not for your clothes, for that only covers.
I see you with the eye of Soul.

I am a friend to that you inside of you,
Indifferent to your dose of limitations,
Forgiving to your human flaws of character
Unyielding to rumors and gossips about you
For the eye within sees even more,
I see you with the eye of Soul.

Say What?? New Spoken Word Site!!

Ah Google. It's pretty darn awesome what you can find by simply typing "spoken word" into your search engine :) This week, I discovered Poetryspeaks.com. This one stop shop let's you check out poet bios, videos, and order mp3s of poets reading their work!!

The site's search capability lets you find what you need by searching the poet's name or the name of the piece. If you create your own account (which I did, pronto!!), you can customize your page, show love to your fav poets, and post why you think poetry rocks, as part of their "Why Poetry" project.

An all around awesome place to explore!

Discover new poems and old favorites on PS·Voices.
Experience slam and spoken word poetry on SpokenWord.
Want an audience for your poetry? Upload now to YourMic.

Hymns are Poetry Too!

So many songs have the smooth and beautiful quality of a poem. This is for sure one of those. The lovely piece "Come thy Fount" was written in 1757 by Robert Robinson, when he was only 22 years old!

Whether read or sung, the words have an undeniable quality that always makes me feel God's presence.

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

Say Yes!

BY Andrea Gibson

when two violins are placed in a room
if a chord on one violin is struck
the other violin will sound the note
if this is your definition of hope

this is for you
the ones who know how powerful we are
who know we can sound the music in the people around us
simply by playing our own strings

for the ones who sing life into broken wings
open their chests and offer their breath
as wind on a still day when nothing seems to be moving

spare those intent on proving God is dead
for you when your fingers are red
from clutching your heart
so it will beat faster
for the time you mastered the art of giving yourself for the sake of someone else
for the ones who have felt what it is to crush the lies
and lift truth so high the steeples bow to the sky
this is for you

this is also for the people who wake early to watch flowers bloom
who notice the moon at noon on a day when the world
has slapped them in the face with its lack of light
for the mothers who feed their children first
and thirst for nothing when they’re full...

Happy Birthday (Haiku) to You!

In the spirit of being haiku-literate, by boo and I wrote this fantastic poem inside a friend's birthday card. Ok...maybe fantastic is a bit overboard. lol...but it is a poem...by the loosest definition possible.

These haikus are not as easy as you think..

:)

Birthday Greetings
BY SB and MD

Hey, pretty lady
It's your birthday, O-M-G
Hoping your day rocks!

Haiku for Dummies

I have been seriously slacking on my poetry game. Besides the fact that I haven't really written in a month, I feel like my style has gotten more than a little stale. This month, I'm going to challenge myself by trying a few different poetic techniques. First haiku, then tankas :) Haven't written these since elementary school, at least, so I decided to google "haiku's for dummies"...and look what I found!!

From Dummies.com

Traditional Forms of Poetry: Tankas and Haiku
The Japanese tanka is a verse form from classical Japanese poetry. Even older than its better-known poetic cousin the haiku, the tanka is a quiet, meditative form that focuses on the natural world and the poet's emotions. A tanka is essentially a haiku (three lines consisting of 5, 7, and 5 syllables each), except it has two additional lines of 7 syllables each.

Traditionally, the tanka begins with an observation of a natural scene:

Invisible hands
caress my face; have I walked
through a spider's web
woven this morning to catch
flies writhing with my surprise

Many poets find that the tanka falls naturally into a haiku followed by a couplet. The haiku tends to focus more on observation, the couplet on reflection. But you don't have to observe this movement in your own writing. The tanka is a syllabic form, so just follow these simple rules:

•Avoid end-rhyming the lines.

•Vary the rhythms from line to line.

•Use enjambment to keep sentences and clauses twisting around the ends of the lines.

•Avoid ending too many lines in a row with a one-syllable word.

Pink is the New Black. Mantra's are the New Resolution

My 2011 Mantra...in case you were curious :) found this on Tumblr and decided to adopt it as my own. Love it!! Hope this provides a little bit of inspiration this week!

Oh yeah...Happy Black History Month!

Am I the only one who totally forgot that this was Black History Month? Do kids even still learn about it in school? I haven't heard a peep about it from my 7th grade brother and I sure as heck haven't heard much of anything in the news. Oh well, black people rock!! AND our contributions in government, science, arts, sports, etc. have made America what it is today.

You're welcome. Feel free to write your thank you check directly to me:)

In honor of the awesomeness that is black America, check out the HuffPost's list of Great Poems for Black History Month. The list includes some of my absolute favs like Lucille Clifton, Rita Dove, Paul Laurence Dunbar and many more!!

Enjoy!

ps...Happy Birthday Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005)

Origami

Origami
BY Sarah McKinstry-Brown

They say you’ve got a thing for heroin.
They tell me things have changed,
that I wouldn’t recognize you.

They say you’re an origami girl,
guided by men’s strange hands.
Yesterday you were a fish,
today you resemble a rose. Tomorrow
your mother will knock on the bathroom door
to find you blue
in the face.
With your legs askew,
your arms outstretched,
your clothes not on,

the medic will mistake you for a swan.
Though you’re swimming in some ocean

I don’t want to know,
I won’t tell you to pull yourself together.
I remember our small chests rising and falling
as we chased each other around the yard,
in girl-time,

I hold you
and unfold your lungs,
untie your tongue,
take the needle out of your arm,
pick your dreams up off the ground,
dust them off on my jeans,
and pin them back on your dress.

I'm back :)

I know I said I would be back in January, but meh...February is practically January...if you move around a few letters :) I hope you're all having a fabtabulous new year! Excited to see where this year takes us.