HAPPY NEW YEATS DAY
I hereby declare January 1st "NEW YEATS DAY"
New Yeats Day is, of course, the day on which we create new Yeats poems. You can re-write ( aka mangle, spindle, mutilate ) an existing poem...or write a new one in his style. Lapsing into Hemingway-ese or Shatner-speak might be a fun mixture.
WHY, you might ask, do we have this new holiday? Because my friend invited me to a new year's day party and had a typo in the subject line that's how. I thought "ok, she probably means new years day...but she's somewhat literary...maybe she's being really deep and intellectual".....and thus New Yeats Day was born.
I only listed 3 links for Yeats...but I'm sure you don't need my help to google "Yeats" if you want to see more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/... ( basic overview...this is where the short snippets came from )
http://www.poetry-archive.com/... ( nice list of poems )
http://www.poets.org/... (bio & list of poems )
For example:
Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman, pass by!
could become this:
Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Gingrich, pass by!
( or would that be Bachmann? )
or perhaps:
We rode in sorrow, with strong hounds three,
Mitt, Ron, and Newt,
On a morning misty and mild and fair.
The mist-drops hung on the fragrant cornfields,
And in the teapots hung the votes.
We rode in sadness above Cedar Rapids,
For our best were dead on Mitt's green
and even:
The hour of the waning of campaigning has beset us,
And weary and worn are our sad souls now;
Let us part, ere the season of primaries forget us,
With a smear and a tear on thy drooping brow.
Obviously there's no need to write something political...this is just what pops into my head right now...
SO...without further ado...here are a few poems and snippets of poems to play with.
We rode in sorrow, with strong hounds three,
Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,
On a morning misty and mild and fair.
The mist-drops hung on the fragrant trees,
And in the blossoms hung the bees.
We rode in sadness above Lough Lean,
For our best were dead on Gavra's green
=
My arms are like the twisted thorn
And yet there beauty lay;
The first of all the tribe lay there
And did such pleasure take;
She who had brought great Hector down
And put all Troy to wreck.
=
Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman, pass by!
=
Now that my ladder's gone
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.
=
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
=
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
=
THE CAT AND THE MOON
by: W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)
HE cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.
=
THE FALLING OF THE LEAVES
by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
AUTUMN is over the long leaves that love us,
And over the mice in the barley sheaves;
Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,
And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.
=
The hour of the waning of love has beset us,
And weary and worn are our sad souls now;
Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us,
With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.
HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh yeah, happy new year too.