Poetry Friday

They ask me why I live in the green mountains.
I smile and don't reply; my heart's at ease.

~ Li Bai from "Question and Answer in the Mountains" (tr. Vikram Seth) ~


[Not really a poetry quote, but it is from a poem, and I think poets need to recognize their green mountains. --KK]

Portion of a scroll painting by Huang Guangwang, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Learning

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

~ Confucius ~
Photo by Elmer B. Domingo.

Remembering Pete Seeger

I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life. I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody.

~ Pete Seeger ~

Agreed!

To me, the smell of fresh-made coffee is one of the greatest inventions.

~ Hugh Jackman ~

Skiing!

Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face.

~ Dave Barry ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

We’d attribute the NRA’s favorite rock ‘n’ roller’s most recent rant to a bad case of Cat Scratch Fever, but that would be an insult to cats.

~ Janet Allon ~



Photo of Skippy having thoughts of scratching someone © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Door

The door of success is marked "push" and "pull."

~ Yiddish proverb ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Poetry Friday

It's not for me--religion. It seems like a redundancy for a poet.

~ May Swenson ~

Calories

A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart, who looks at her watch.

~ James Beard ~


Photo courtesy Oregon Blue Book.

Art

In any art, you don't know in advance what you want to say--it's revealed to you as you say it.

~ Aaron Siskind ~

The Oscar

The Oscar sits on some shelf above my desk. If there was an earthquake, I could actually be killed by my own Academy Award.

~ Helen Hunt ~

Martin Luther King Day

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~





LBJ Library photo by Yoichi Okamoto, courtesy LBJ Presidential Library.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The bird-watching bandit
on needle-point paws

~ J. Patrick Lewis from "A Tomcat Is" ~

Photo by A. Davey.

Be Alert

The world is a thing of wonder that requires no faith, but only alert senses, to appreciate.

~ Jeffrey Tayler ~
Photo © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Poetry Friday

Maybe I should write a poem
about all the people who think
they know what I should be writing poems about.

~ Billy Collins from "The Suggestion Box" ~

Graphic Novels

Graphic novels are not traditional literature, but that does not mean they are second-rate. Images are a way of writing. When you have the talent to be able to write and to draw, it seems a shame to choose one. I think it's better to do both.

~ Marjane Satrapi ~

Liberate Your Soul! (Yes, That Is a Command)

The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.

~ W. Somerset Maugham ~
"Lake Squam from Red Hill" by William Trost Richards (1874), courtesy The Athenaeum.

Ideas and Rabbits

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

~ John Steinbeck ~

Filling in Spaces

I think you just assume that your memory is just sort of a video playback of your experience, but it's nothing like that at all. It's a complete refabrication of an event and a lot of it is made up, because you're filling in spaces.

~ Charlie Kaufman ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Posted on George Takei's Facebook page.

Another Type of Fog Today

Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.

~ Daniel J. Boorstin ~



Smudge in a fog of kitty love. The image on the screen is by Patrick Girouard, one of his "Unofficial Talk Like a [fill in the blank] Day" series.

Poetry Friday

Poetry is music, and nothing but music. Words with musical emphasis.

~ Amiri Baraka ~
Rest in peace, Amiri Baraka.

Photo courtesy AmiriBaraka.com.

From a Cartoon Master

I actually find a lot of parallels in jazz and cartooning.

~ Gary Larson ~

The Snow!

January brings the snow, makes our feet and fingers glow.

~ Sara Coleridge ~

Nice to Know!

Don't you know that everybody's got a Fairyland of their own?

~ P.L. Travers from Mary Poppins ~

Flamingos

With their pink and crimson plumage, long legs and necks, and strongly hooked bills, flamingos cannot be mistaken for any other type of bird.

~ San Diego Zoo ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The steps are a blanched slope,
Up which, with feeble hope,
A black cat comes, wide-eyed and thin;
   And we take him in.

~ Thomas Hardy from "Snow in the Suburbs" ~
Photo by Thiophene Guy.

Cold

If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it.

~ Lucy Larcom ~
KK: it is very cold, today--at least in the NH part of the world!

Poetry Friday

Haiku is short and small, but is really like a deep pond.

~ Kuniharu Shimizu ~
I took the photo in Derry, NH, on a walk along the rail trail. I doubt if the pond is deep, but it sure is pretty!

Snow!

You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?

~ J. B. Priestley ~
Photo by blmiers2.

Happy New Year!

Postcard courtesy NYPL Digital Gallery.

Good Question!

What might we be doing, thinking, feeling about if we didn't think about body image, ever?

~ Caroline Knapp ~



Image courtesy openclipart.

Endangered Species Act, 40 Years Old

Nothing is more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed. It is a many-faceted treasure, of value to scholars, scientists, and nature lovers alike, and it forms a vital part of the heritage we all share as Americans.

~ Richard Nixon ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

CISCIS afflicts one in three cats.

~ Paul Klusman ~

Reading Is a Sport

Never tell your reader what your story is about. Reading is a participatory sport. People do it because they are intelligent and enjoy figuring things out for themselves.

~ George V. Higgins ~

Poetry Friday

An artwork must challenge us with questions not soothe us with simple answers. Public art must be more than mere decorative embellishment, it must have poetry.

~ Douglas Kornfeld ~
Photo courtesy Douglas Kornfeld's Google+ page.

She Spoke the Truth

Friendship with one's self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~
Photo courtesy National Archives.

Merry Christmas!

On Christmas morning when I was a child, my mother would leave a book wrapped at the foot of the bed, which was a hint that Santa had come. It was also her way of keeping us in bed a little longer before we went downstairs. So I’ve always associated books with happiness and gifts. And they are. I can’t get enough of them.

~ David McCullough ~

Cooking

If you are a chef, no matter how good a chef you are, it's not good cooking for yourself; the joy is in cooking for others--it's the same with music.

~ will.i.am ~

A Right Jolly Old Elf

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

~ Clement C. Moore ~

Illustration by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1912.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Why not share with the world the way it is and tell them my feelings about my cat, and how I played with my kids, and how addicted to Christmas time I am, and the smell of pine needles and hearing my kids laugh.

~ Steven Tyler ~
Photo by Karen Carlton.

Mine, Too!

"What day is it?"
"It's today," squeaked Piglet.
"My favorite day," said Pooh.

~ A. A. Milne ~

Ernest Shepard drawing courtesy Pindolla.

Poetry Friday

People expect to find poetry in small literary magazines and at hushed events where a few people read aloud. In fact, poetry is tucked into such small nooks and crannies that some people who might want to find poetry don't know where to begin. Help place poetry in unexpected places.

~ Vivé Griffith ~

Okaaay...

I'd like to see Paris before I die. Philadelphia will do.

~ Mae West ~





Postcard courtesy NYPL Digital Gallery.

Gotta Love the Birds

We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow, and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit.

~ Tom Brown, Jr. ~
Photo by DennyMont.

Art

Art is what remains of a civilization after it has crumbled or been sold into
history. Art is its only claim to immortality. Only art demonstrates that at that time, in that place, there was something excellent. It is art, therefore, which makes life worth living.

~ Kent Thompson ~
Photo "Karnak (Thèbes)" by Félix Teynard, circa 1858, courtesy Library of Congress.

Chocolate!

Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana. The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two but can't remember what they are.

~ Matt Lauer ~
Photo by John Loo.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The beauty of the cat is very deceptive, for under the grace of the furry exterior lie concealed steel-like muscles.

~ Carl Van Vechten ~
Photo by Dave Edmonds/Blue Horizon.

Rinse, Repeat

This is how it works. We get mad, we fight, we get tired, we get mad, we start again. Rinse, repeat. Feminism isn’t without its flaws, and it doesn’t seem able to speak with one voice or crystallize answers on the darker, stickier aspects of human nature and sexuality. But if I may get Rumsfeldian for a minute, this is the army we have. The fight comes to us whether we seek it or not, whether we want it or not, and whether we are ready or not.

~ Admin Jen ~

Poetry Friday

There's a relationship between the great poems of the world and the great screenplays: they both deal in compact images.

~ Ray Bradbury ~

Photo courtesy raybradbury.com.

Cookie Weather!

She stuck her head out and took a deep breath. If she could eat the cold air, she would. She thought cold snaps were like cookies, like gingersnaps.

~ Sarah Addison Allen from The Sugar Queen ~
Photo by picturemommy.

Paris

Living in Paris was a crash course in chic.

~ Rebecca Romijn ~
Illustration from Origin and Early History of the Fashion Plate by John L. Nevinson.

Go Exercise!

Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.

~ John F. Kennedy ~

The Power of Shopping

If you're a queen, you're powerless, so I'd probably demote myself and go shopping.

~ Helena Bonham Carter ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

How lucky to be a cat
Free to accept or--refuse
What is offered!

~ Walter Leon Hess ~

Rest in Peace

Political division, based on colour, is entirely artificial and, when it disappears, so will the domination of one colour group by another.

~ Nelson Mandela ~
Photo © The World Economic Forum, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Poetry Friday

To say, then, that the writer's lot is a lonely one is not to complain of this, but simply to make the point that to be creative is to be different from those who are not; and so, to that extent also, to be cut off from those others.

~ Mollie Hunter ~

Reindeer Talk

Hermey: Hey, what do you say we both be independent together, huh?

Rudolph: You wouldn't mind my--red nose?

Hermey: Not if you don't mind me being a dentist.

Rudolph: [shaking hands with Hermey] It's a deal.


~ from Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the tv movie ~

Books

Books are standing counselors and preachers, always at hand, and always disinterested; having this advantage over oral instructors, that they are ready to repeat their lesson as often as we please.

~ Louis Nizer ~

Interpretation

I love the movies, and when I go to see a movie that's been made from one of my books, I know that it isn't going to be exactly like my novel because a lot of other people have interpreted it.

~ Stephen King ~

Reading

Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work.

~ Khaled Hosseini ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The best reason for a knitter to marry is that you can't teach the cat to be impressed when you finish a lace scarf.

~ Stephanie Pearl-McPhee ~
Photo by Sharon G.