The KellyGram

Published by Bob Kelly

Resident Wordsmith and Quotemeister

WordCrafters, Inc.

www.wordcrafters.info

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In This Issue:

• Fun with Words
• The Quote Corner (Poetry)
• Keys to Better Writing (Part 2)
• Smile Awhile
• Odds and Ends
• The Last Word

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FUN WITH WORDS

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This popular item has been around for at least 2500 years, in countries all over the world, including China (where it may have originated), along with Greece, The Philippines and France, as well as the United States. Its been known by a variety of names, including bandalore, joujou, quiz, emigrette, and incroyable, but has a much more familiar name in the U.S.

The following clues may help you identify it:

• Its been on at least two space missions.
• President Nixon used one during an on-stage appearance at the Grand Ole Opry.
• It has a national day named after it.
• Its been used to describe someone whos considered stupid or incompetent.
• A world-famous musician can lead you right to it.

Youll find the correct answer elsewhere in this issue.

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THE QUOTE CORNER (Poetry)

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A recent issue of TIME magazine (June 18, 2007) includes an article by Lev Grossman which comes very close to being an obituary for poetry. "Chances are, you dont read much poetry," writes Grossman, "at least not the new stuff. Dont feel bad, hardly anybody does. To hit the best-seller list for verse, a book has to sell only around 30 copies."

Imagine! The once great literary form embraced by Longfellow, Milton, Byron, Tennyson, and so many other superb writers, is apparently on its deathbed. "If poetry is dead," asks Grossman, "who killed it?"

Well, from my perspective, thats a no-brainer. And Grossman himself offered this answer: "Poemsturned into the property of snobs and professors."

Two-and-a-half years ago (The KellyGram, January 2005), I suggested my own answer, which echoed this comment Id read by a woman named Laura Glover: "The difference between prose and poetry is that prose is written all the way across the page, and poetry is written only half way across."

To underscore Glovers point, I cited the following excerpt from the work of the late university professor and Nobel Prize for Literature winner Czeslaw Milocz: "Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year, I felt a door opening in me and I entered the clarity of early morning. One after another my former lives were departing, like ships, together with their sorrow. And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas assigned to my brush came closer, ready now to be described better than they were before."

He certainly uses very picturesque language and creative images to express his feelings about growing old, but does that make it poetry? Well, that seems to depend on how you arrange those words. Heres how Milocz did it:

"Not soon, as late as the approach
of my ninetieth year,

I felt a door opening in me
and I entered

the clarity of early morning.

One after another my former
lives were departing,

like ships, together with
their sorrow.

And the countries, cities, gardens,
the bays of seas

assigned to my brush came closer,

ready now to be described better
than they were before."

Voila! Suddenly, by writing halfway across the page, we have a poem, which Milocz titled "Late Ripeness." So, was Laura Glover right? Is it simply a matter of layout that determines the difference between prose and poetry?

Without denigrating Milocz in any way, I have a difficult time calling what he and many other authors of so-called free verse have written as "poetry," no matter how beautiful the ideas expressed may be, or what Grossmans "snobs and professors" may choose to call it.

Shaping language so that ideas are expressed in meter, verse and rhyme strikes me as a considerably more difficult way to write a poem than to simply start a new line once you get halfway across the page. Whether you agree or disagree with my admittedly biased view, here are some thoughts others have expressed about poetry and those who write it.

The best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can.
      Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.
    W.H. Auden (1907-1973)

The poet lights the light and fades away. But the light goes on and on.
    Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Ive given offense by saying Id as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.
    Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Modern poets add a lot of water to their ink.
      Johann von Goethe (1749-1832)

As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.
      Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859)

Publishing a volume of poetry today is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.
    Don Marquis (1878-1937)

The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and its aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
    W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

The joy and function of poetry is, and was, the celebration of man, which is also the celebration of God.
    Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking.
    John Wain (1925-1994)