Tag: Art

Sunday Poetry

To Wahilla Enhotulle

Alexander Posey 1873 โ€“1908

(To the South Wind)

O Wind, hast thou a sigh
ย  ย Robbed from her lips divine
Upon this sunbright dayโ€”
ย  ย A token or a sign?

Oh, take me, Wind, into
ย  ย Thy confidence, and tell
Me, whispering soft and low,
ย  ย The secrets of the dell.

Oh, teach me what it is
ย  ย The meadow flowers say
As to and fro they nod
ย  ย Throโ€™ all the golden day.

Oh, hear, Wind of the South,
ย  ย And whispering softer yet,
Unfold the story of
ย  ย The lone pine treeโ€™s regret.

Oh, waft me echoes sweet
ย  ย That haunt the meadow glenโ€”
The scent of new-mown hay,
ย  ย And songs of harvest men;

The coolness of the sea
ย  ย And forest dark and deepโ€”
The soft reed notes of Pan,
ย  ย And bleat of straying sheep.

Oh, make me, Wind, to know
ย  ย The language of the beeโ€”
The burden of the wild
ย  ย Birdโ€™s rapturous melody;

The password of the leaves
ย  ย Upon the cottonwood;
And let me join them in
ย  ย Their mystic brotherhood.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 16, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

More about this poem, and this poet here.

Poem-a-Day: Miscarriage

Christine Stewart-Nuรฑez

Gauzy film between
evergreens is a web

of loss. Get closer. Reach
to touch the shimmering

gossamer and your finger
pushes through. Remember

filling that space with desire?
Someone else might grieve

the spider who abandoned
this home; others grow anxious

waiting for a deerโ€™s walk
to wreck it. But youโ€”

you grieve the net of thought
spun inside your own womb:

intricate and glossy and strong.

Copyright ยฉ 2024 by Christine Stewart-Nuรฑez. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 14, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

More about this poet and this poem here.

Legacy

Ted Kooser 1939 โ€“

I have spent seventy years trying to persuade you,
to manipulate you with the poems Iโ€™ve written,
to remember my people as if theyโ€™d been yoursโ€”
to flesh out in evocative detail my parents,
my grandparents, cousins, uncles and auntsโ€”
knowing that one day Iโ€™ll be gone, and without me
to remember them, the poems Iโ€™ve written
will have to go it alone. I owe my people
so much, and I want them to enjoyโ€”if not
immortalityโ€”a few more good years in the light,
my grandfather patching a tire for a quarter,
his brother weaving a rag rug on his sun porch,
my mother at her humming sewing machine,
my father un-thumping a bolt of brocade,
measuring for new draperies. Perhaps they were
for you, to draw open and see on your lawn
Cousin Eunice Morarend playing her accordion.

Copyright ยฉ 2024 by Ted Kooser. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 13, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

More from this poet here

The Warriorโ€™s Plume

Bertrand N. O. Walker 1870 โ€“ 1927

On the plains and in the vales of Oklahoma,
     Grew a flower of the Tyrian hue,
The color that is loved by the Redman,
      That tells him light and life,
               And love are true.

Long ago it flamed in beauty on the prairies,
      Lighting reaching vistas with its glow;
Ere advent of the whiteman and his fences,
      Told the care-free, roving hunter
               He must go.

The throng, the herd, and greed have madly trampled
      Prairie, woodland, valley, and the height;
Crushed the feathโ€™ry flower and rudely blighted
      Its pride and life and beauty,
              And its light.

Today โ€™tis found in silent glades and meadows
      Where by twos and threes it greets the May.
Like the scattered braves who loved its color,
      It has passed, been trodden out
               Along the way.

As the oriflamme it flaunted through past ages
      Went to gladden the fairness of the earth;
So the greatness of the Indian will linger
      In the land that loves them both
               And gave them birth.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 10, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

More from and about this poet on the page.

Peace & Justice History 11/13:

November 13, 1933
The first recorded “sit-down” strike in the U.S. was staged by workers at the Hormel Packing Company in Austin, Minnesota. When the Independent Union of All Workers (IUAW) went on strike, the company tried to bring in scab (strike-breaking) workers.

โ€œ Four hundred men, many of them armed with clubs, sticks and rocks, crashed through the plant entrance, shattering the glass doors and sweeping the guards before them. The strikers quickly ran throughout the plant to chase out non-union workers. One . . . group crashed through the doors of a conference room where Jay Hormel and five company executives were meeting and declared “We’re taking possession. So move out!” (Larry Engelmann, “We Were the Poor — The Hormel Strike of 1933,” Labor History, Fall, 1974.)

The tactic worked: within four days Hormel agreed to submit wage demands to binding arbitration. The success of this strike reinvigorated the labor movement, which had been in decline throughout the 1920s.
November 13, 1956
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation unconstitutional in public transportation. The case, Browder v. Gayle, was brought by four women, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith, who had refused to surrender their bus seats to whites in Montgomery (months before Rosa Parks had done so), and had been arrested for violating Alabama law which required segregation on public buses.They challenged the law and the Court agreed, finding the law under which they were arrested in violation of the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Aurelia Browder

A roadside monument was dedicated in 2004 to the four plantiffs in the Browder v. Gayle case.
Colvin, a 15-year-old student at Booker T. Washington High School, boarded a bus in 1955 and refused to give up her seat to a white man. She was handcuffed, arrested and forcibly removed from the bus, as she screamed that her constitutional rights were being violated.ย 
More on Browder v. Gayleย 
November 13, 1960

Over 1000 Quakers (members of the Society of Friends) surrounded the Pentagon for a silent vigil to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the first Quaker Peace Testimony issued to King Charles II in 1660.
From the original Peace Testimony:ย “We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever.
And this is our testimony to the whole world….”
The complete text of the 1660 Declaration
November 13, 1974

Karen Silkwood, a technician and union activist (Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers’ Union) at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium fuels production plant near Crescent, Oklahoma, was killed in a one-car crash.
Read more about her storyย ย 
November 13, 1982
Maya Ying Lin
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C. Carved into black granite are the 58,260 names of those Americans who died in Vietnam. The designer, Maya Ying Lin of Athens, Ohio, a 21-year-old architecture student at Yale University, was the winner of the competition that drew 1,421 design entries: “. . . this memorial is for those who have died, and for us to remember them.” Eventually, the Memorial included three elements, the Wall of names, the Three Servicemen Statue and Flagpole, and the Vietnam Women’s Memorial.

The Wall of Names, the Three Servicemen Statue and Flagpole, and the Vietnam Women’s Memorial

Read more about the memorial

Stunning photo gallery of the Memorial including interactive panoramic images

Interview with Maya Lin and filmmaker Freida Lee Mock, who made the Academy-Award-winning documentary, โ€œMaya Lin: A Strong Clear Visionโ€ (My apologies about Charlie Rose; it’s PeaceButton’s link, and it’s good info, Rose notwithstanding. -A)

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorynovember.htm#november13

๐“ท๐“˜๐“ป๐“˜๐“ป๐“Ÿ/Wahzhazhe/Osage

Elise Paschen

Wa-zhaโ€™-zhe, name of the Osage tribe . . . who came from the stars.
โ€”โ€œThe Osage and the Invisible World: From the Works of Francis LaFlescheโ€


                                                   The first language

๐“ท๐“˜๐“ป๐“˜๐“ป๐“Ÿ which Eliza,

                                                                              her grandmother, spoke.

                                           I try to learn

              the words ๐“ฃ๐“Ÿ

                                                     from a book, a dictionary.

What was my mother taught

                                                                              as a young girl sitting

                                          on the front stoop

              of her grandmaโ€™s house

                                                      inhabited by half-brothers

she revered. Her favorite,

                                                                             Hunky, hand outstretched,

                                           showed her how to catch

             the wild horse

                                                       ๐“ค๐“˜๐“ท๐“˜ ๐“ท๐“˜๐“ฒ๐“Ÿ๐“ธ๐“ฃ

unbridled in the pasture.

                                                                              She knotted a paisley

                                            bandana around her

             neck. This language

                                                    for throat ๐“ฐ๐“ช๐“ฒ๐“Ÿ

and tongue ๐“ต๐“Ÿ๐“บ๐“Ÿ โ€“

                                                                                words she learns

                                            to speak but then

               forgets. She loosens

                                                     ๐“ท๐“Ÿ๐“ต๐“ฃอ˜ the rope

from the horseโ€™s crest. 


 

The Osage orthography

๐“๐’ฐ๐““๐’ฐ๐““๐’ท Osage
๐’ป๐’ท words
๐’ผ๐’ฐ๐“๐’ฐ ๐“๐’ฐ๐“Š๐’ท๐“๐’ป wild horse
๐“ˆ๐“‚๐“Š๐’ท throat
๐“๐’ท๐“’๐’ท tongue
๐“๐’ท๐“๐’ปอ˜ rope

Copyright ยฉ 2024 by Elise Paschen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 12, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

More about this poet on the page at https://poets.org/poem/wahzhazheosag

Cover Snark: Yet Another Terrible Wolf Placement

byย Amandaย ยท Nov 11, 2024 at 3:00 am

Welcome back to Cover Snark!

Welcome back to Cover Snark!

One Kiss by Traci Hall. A brunette man and woman are lying on a striped towel on a beach. Their proportions look off with big heads and tiny shoulders and arms. A scraggly terrier that also looks both too big and too small is looking at us the reader while the two people go in for a kiss.

From Mabry: This guy is suffering from sliding bicep syndrome, plus his forearm seems to be stolen from a 7 foot tall basketball player. And then thereโ€™s the nipple thatโ€™s trying to leave the scene altogether.

He also looks like one of the Property Brothers.

Sarah: Ok the proportions and perspective here are really weird to the point I feel like I should give everyone a warning. Like, uncanny valley vaguely nauseous proportions.

The ARM. the size of the head! his neck! Iโ€™m queasy now.

Lara: They must have used a funhouse mirror filter of some kind.

Sarah: Did he get stung by something?

Wolf Instinct by S.R. Griffith. A shirtless man is putting on a camo colored baseball camp. A white wolf his howling at his crotch while full moon rises in the background.

From Jen: Awkward wolf placement. Is he a wolf shifter? Or is he banging this wolf? The wolf appears to be complaining about the dude behind him.

Lara: Oh that is some champion poor placement! Worst/best Iโ€™ve seen!

Sarah: Please stop making covers where it looks like some indifferent dude is about to hump an animal.

Amanda: Isnโ€™t the saying, โ€œIn this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes and bad animal placement on shifter romance coversโ€?

Jacked by Dixie Painter. Two headless figures of a man and woman are most of the cover. He is shirtless and she has on a blank tank and leather jacket. A jaguar prowls between them, but the bottom third of the cover is just a stack of logs.

From Susan: Blow it up for best effect. Lots here to play with.

Sarah: Wood.

Elyse: WHAT COULD ALL THE WOOD REPRESENT.

Sarah: Honestly I have no idea. What could it be?

Burning for Love by Evangeline Anderson. A shirtless bearded man is surrounded by a lot of lens flare. His arms are crossed. His right arm is made of metal and he appears to have a metal lens around his right eye.

From lils: Well โ€œsomethingโ€ is burning! Is it love or an effect of the mess hall?

Sarah: This is a visual representation of what some of my headaches feel like!

Amanda: What in the J.J. Abrams is with all the lens flare?

It’s Fall!

Autumn

And I might get a doggy in a little bit. I hope we all enjoy the day!

Have Some Friday Comics

Also, a question. On Kids Baking Championship, one of the items required is a chocolate-dipped item. One young baker decided to use butterscotch instead of chocolate. They tempered it, they dipped their item, and presented it. When asked about it, since it wasn’t chocolate, they stated that their technique was the same, and the item was dipped; also, that the butterscotch right there among the chocolate in the same area of the pantry.

So. While chocolate is not butterscotch and vice-versa, does this item count as a chocolate-dipped item? Discuss in comments.

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for November 08, 2024

Calvin and Hobbes Comic Strip for November 08, 2024

ย https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2024/11/08

Frazz by Jef Mallett for November 08, 2024

Frazz Comic Strip for November 08, 2024

https://www.gocomics.com/frazz/2024/11/08

FurBabies by Nancy Beiman for November 08, 2024

FurBabies Comic Strip for November 08, 2024

https://www.gocomics.com/furbabies/2024/11/08

Jim Benton Cartoons by Jim Benton for November 08, 2024

Jim Benton Cartoons Comic Strip for November 08, 2024

https://www.gocomics.com/jim-benton-cartoons/2024/11/08

Monty by Jim Meddick for November 08, 2024

Monty Comic Strip for November 08, 2024

https://www.gocomics.com/monty/2024/11/08

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for November 08, 2024

Non Sequitur Comic Strip for November 08, 2024

https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2024/11/08

More Thursday Poetry+Hope

When All Seems Lost….Hope Does Not Go away… (a post from an earlier time)

My friend Mayvella used to say, “If you woke up, put your feet on the floor, the lights turned on, and the toilet flushed, the day will be OK.” I wish more than that for each of us, but seriously, my friend Mayvella was correct. She was a woman of color, very wise when I met her. I’m fortunate to have had her for a friend. She got up, got around, and went and volunteered at the food bank every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and brightened lots of days for many people just by being herself. When she passed, it was suggested we close for a day in observance of love and respect. I’m glad we decided she would have taken that as disrespect, and that she would have gone in and worked if one of the rest of us had passed away. So, rest a bit, and hope. (Then, we organize again.)