Poetry Friday

...my definition of magic in the human personality, in fiction and in poetry, is the ultimate level of attentiveness.

~ Jim Harrison ~

The Great War

And all this madness, all this rage, all this flaming death of our civilization and our hopes, has been brought about because a set of official gentlemen, living luxurious lives, mostly stupid, and all without imagination or heart, have chosen that it should occur rather than that any one of them should suffer some infinitesimal rebuff to his country`s pride.

~ Bertrand Russell ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Dating

Portraits

The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson ~

He's Got the Right Attitude!

...if we failed, we failed together and to me that's not failing at all.

~ Kermit the Frog ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Kittens will meow to their mothers, but as they mature, they typically quit using this sound to communicate with other cats. Often, adult domestic cats that meow do so only in the presence of humans. This is likely an extension of the way kittens use their plaintive meows as a signal.

~ Laura Moss ~
In other words, a cat owner is being played for a fool! --KK

Photo by dasu_.

The Big Question

Listen, even if 97% of scientists turned out to be wrong, where is the harm in cleaning up our environment? What could it hurt to conserve energy? This shouldn’t have ever become an issue between right/left, liberal/conservative, Democrat/Republican.

~ T. Steelman ~
Map courtesy U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Poetry Friday

In a funny way, poems are suited to modern life. They're short, they're intense. Nobody has time to read a 700-page book. People read magazines, and a poem takes less time than an article.

~ Caroline Kennedy ~

Plod Along

...in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.

~ Harper Lee ~

In Art

Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.

~ Michelangelo ~

Presidents

Presidents quickly realize that while a single act might destroy the world they live in, no one single decision can make life suddenly better or can turn history around for the good.

~ Lyndon B. Johnson ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Lick your whiskers,
Smooth your fur,
Prick up your ears
And purr, purr, purr.

~ Eve Merriam from "Cat's Tongue" ~

Go Out and Play!

The point of play is that it has no point.

~ Alfie Kohn ~

Poetry Friday

...I just sit there under the floor lamp early in the morning and work and see what happens. Nine days out of 10, nothing good comes of it at all. Maybe on the tenth day, if I'm lucky, some little thing will start a poem.

~ Ted Kooser ~


Image courtesy openclipart.

Celebrate Black History Month!

Won't it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.

~ Maya Angelou ~

Sparkle On, Shirley!

A NH Farm

The countryside and the farm itself are so important to me; I can't even visualize being a poet without living here, even though I was a poet before.

~ Maxine Kumin ~

Ice

Ice is the one thing in our world that went from an agricultural product to being manufactured.

~ Alton Brown ~
Photo by Social_Stratification.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Our cat treads my bed,
Pushing my spread to a heap for his sleep,
Punching sheets, stretching his tailbone up tall--
That it's me underneath doesn't matter at all--

~ X. J. Kennedy from "Catsnest" ~

Photo by jordansmall.

A Part of Life

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt ~

Poetry Friday

Then drive to-day’s sorrow away till to-morrow,
And then put it off till the next one.

~ Charles Dickens from "Squire Norton’s Song" ~

[I love this! --KK]

Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

So Easy!

There is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure--it is, after all, what everybody does all the time.

~ Susanna Clarke from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell ~

A Rare Book

Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.

~ John Green from The Fault in Our Stars ~

So Sad...

I think you should be serious about what you do because this is it. This is the only life you've got.

~ Philip Seymour Hoffman ~

Start Planning Now!

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.

~ George Eliot ~
Photo by audreyjm529.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

...sometimes a drastic accident is required...

~ Henri Le Chat Noir ~

It's Saturday!

Every man has a right to a Saturday night bath.

~ Lyndon B. Johnson ~