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how to tell someone
1 min read
John Green's The Fault In Our Stars:
"I'm in love with you," he said quietly.
"Augustus," I said.
"I am," he said. He was staring at me and I could see the corner of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you."
"I'm in love with you," he said quietly.
"Augustus," I said.
"I am," he said. He was staring at me and I could see the corner of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you."
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bought a new book of poems
3 min read
"You can't get pregnant
if it's your first time.
You can't get pregnant
if you do it standing up,
if you don't French kiss,
if you pretend
you won't let him
but just can't stop.
You can't get pregnant
if you go to the bathroom
right after,
if you ride a horse
bareback, if you jump
up and down on one leg,
if you lie in the snow
til your bum feels numb,
if you do it in the shower,
if you eat garlic,
if you wear a girdle,
if it's only your second time.
You can't get pregnant
if he keeps his socks on,
if he's captain of the football team,
if he says he loves you,
if he comes quickly,
if you don't come at all,
if it's only your third time.
You can't get pregnant
if he tells you
you won't."
- Getting Pregnant ~ Lorna Crozier from Inventing The Hawk
About Getting Feedback:
I want feedback!!! (Doesn't everyone?) "Mean feedback" does not exist in my opinion as long as it's coming from a helpful/respectful/honest etc. etc. place.
Most people who view someone's work, unless they immediately exit out of it without sparing a glance, have an opinion of it, and usually I find this opinion never makes its way to the work's maker who could really benefit and grow from it. So when I ask for a critique, I'm not asking for a bunch of paragraphs from an expert on the subject or even a compliment. I'm asking for a word or a sentence or maybe a few paragraphs which will tell me how my very amateur work affects you.
Ex) This is too amateurish for my tastes. I didn't like ___, I liked___. For the future try changing ____.
When I see that so many # people have viewed my work, I have absolutely no idea how they felt about it. If they clicked on it by mistake, if they found too many grammar errors for comfort, or if they just plain didn't like it, and I want to know! I really do. So please do comment.
Favorites are nice but they don't really contribute to any sense of an art community wherein we are actually communicating, learning and growing with each other.
If you're the type of person who is more likely to exit out of something than write a comment explaining why it's not to your tastes or what you think should be changed because you fear offending someone- if you're willing to take the time to write feedback, I'm more than willing to take the time to appreciate you.
Frankly, sometimes posting on DA can get very lonely.
if it's your first time.
You can't get pregnant
if you do it standing up,
if you don't French kiss,
if you pretend
you won't let him
but just can't stop.
You can't get pregnant
if you go to the bathroom
right after,
if you ride a horse
bareback, if you jump
up and down on one leg,
if you lie in the snow
til your bum feels numb,
if you do it in the shower,
if you eat garlic,
if you wear a girdle,
if it's only your second time.
You can't get pregnant
if he keeps his socks on,
if he's captain of the football team,
if he says he loves you,
if he comes quickly,
if you don't come at all,
if it's only your third time.
You can't get pregnant
if he tells you
you won't."
- Getting Pregnant ~ Lorna Crozier from Inventing The Hawk
About Getting Feedback:
I want feedback!!! (Doesn't everyone?) "Mean feedback" does not exist in my opinion as long as it's coming from a helpful/respectful/honest etc. etc. place.
Most people who view someone's work, unless they immediately exit out of it without sparing a glance, have an opinion of it, and usually I find this opinion never makes its way to the work's maker who could really benefit and grow from it. So when I ask for a critique, I'm not asking for a bunch of paragraphs from an expert on the subject or even a compliment. I'm asking for a word or a sentence or maybe a few paragraphs which will tell me how my very amateur work affects you.
Ex) This is too amateurish for my tastes. I didn't like ___, I liked___. For the future try changing ____.
When I see that so many # people have viewed my work, I have absolutely no idea how they felt about it. If they clicked on it by mistake, if they found too many grammar errors for comfort, or if they just plain didn't like it, and I want to know! I really do. So please do comment.
Favorites are nice but they don't really contribute to any sense of an art community wherein we are actually communicating, learning and growing with each other.
If you're the type of person who is more likely to exit out of something than write a comment explaining why it's not to your tastes or what you think should be changed because you fear offending someone- if you're willing to take the time to write feedback, I'm more than willing to take the time to appreciate you.
Frankly, sometimes posting on DA can get very lonely.
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Poem
3 min read
Without Hands by Lorna Crozier
All the machines in the world
stop. The textile machines, the paper machines,
the machines in the mines turning stones to fire.
Without hands to touch them, spoons, forks and knives
forget their names and uses, the baby is not bathed,
bread rises on the stove, overflows the bowl.
Without hands, the looms
stop. The music
stops.
The plums turn sweet and sticky and gather flies.
Without hands
without those beautiful conjunctions
those translators of skin, bone, hair
two eyes go blind
two pale hounds sniffing ahead and doubling back
to tell us
of hot and cold or the silk of roses after rain
are lost
two terns feeling the air in every feather
are shot down.
Without hands my father doesn't plant potatoes
row on row, build a house for wrens,
or carry me
from the car to bed
when I pretend I'm sleeping.
On wash-days my mother doesn't hang clothes
on the line, she doesn't turn the pages of a book
and read out loud,
or teach me how to lace my shoes.
Without hands my small grandmother
doesn't pluck the chicken for our Sunday meal
or every evening, before she goes to sleep,
brush and brush her long white hair.
Cosmic Spite by Grace Nichols
We, the people, 'third in the world'
Feet courting the sands and mud
Of natural disasters.
After the hurricane, the floods, the famines,
The drought and foreign debts
We chew the biblical philosophy wonderingly-
To they that hath hath even more will be given
To they that hath not...
But we keep on stirring rich dreams
Into the groundy porridge for our children
We keep on-the rhythm of our hard sweet lives
Despite the cosmic spite.
ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY
If dead, we cease to be; if total gloom
Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,
Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But _are_ their _whole_ of being! If the breath
Be Life itself, and not its task and tent,
If even a soul like Milton's can know death;
O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes!
Surplus of Nature's dread activity,
Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
She formed with restless hands unconsciously.
Blank accident! nothing's anomaly!
If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,
Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears,
The counter-weights!--Thy laughter and thy tears
Mean but themselves, each fittest to create
And to repay each other! Why rejoices
Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good?
Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood,
Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices,
Image of Image, Ghost of Ghostly Elf,
That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold?
Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold
These costless shadows of thy shadowy self?
Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!
Thou hast no reason why! Thou canst have none;
Thy being's being is contradiction.
All the machines in the world
stop. The textile machines, the paper machines,
the machines in the mines turning stones to fire.
Without hands to touch them, spoons, forks and knives
forget their names and uses, the baby is not bathed,
bread rises on the stove, overflows the bowl.
Without hands, the looms
stop. The music
stops.
The plums turn sweet and sticky and gather flies.
Without hands
without those beautiful conjunctions
those translators of skin, bone, hair
two eyes go blind
two pale hounds sniffing ahead and doubling back
to tell us
of hot and cold or the silk of roses after rain
are lost
two terns feeling the air in every feather
are shot down.
Without hands my father doesn't plant potatoes
row on row, build a house for wrens,
or carry me
from the car to bed
when I pretend I'm sleeping.
On wash-days my mother doesn't hang clothes
on the line, she doesn't turn the pages of a book
and read out loud,
or teach me how to lace my shoes.
Without hands my small grandmother
doesn't pluck the chicken for our Sunday meal
or every evening, before she goes to sleep,
brush and brush her long white hair.
Cosmic Spite by Grace Nichols
We, the people, 'third in the world'
Feet courting the sands and mud
Of natural disasters.
After the hurricane, the floods, the famines,
The drought and foreign debts
We chew the biblical philosophy wonderingly-
To they that hath hath even more will be given
To they that hath not...
But we keep on stirring rich dreams
Into the groundy porridge for our children
We keep on-the rhythm of our hard sweet lives
Despite the cosmic spite.
ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY
If dead, we cease to be; if total gloom
Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,
Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But _are_ their _whole_ of being! If the breath
Be Life itself, and not its task and tent,
If even a soul like Milton's can know death;
O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes!
Surplus of Nature's dread activity,
Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
She formed with restless hands unconsciously.
Blank accident! nothing's anomaly!
If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,
Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears,
The counter-weights!--Thy laughter and thy tears
Mean but themselves, each fittest to create
And to repay each other! Why rejoices
Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good?
Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood,
Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices,
Image of Image, Ghost of Ghostly Elf,
That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold?
Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold
These costless shadows of thy shadowy self?
Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!
Thou hast no reason why! Thou canst have none;
Thy being's being is contradiction.
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my new favourite poem
1 min read
Miriam Waddington
"Thou Didst Say Me"
Late as last summer
Thou didst say me, love
I choose you, you, only you.
oh the delicate delicate
serpent of your lips
the golden lie bedazzled
me with wish and flash
of joy and I was fool.
I was fool, bemused
bedazed by summer, still
bewitched and wandering
in murmur hush in greenly
sketched-in fields
I was, I was, so sweet
I was, so honied with
your gold of love and love
and still again more love.
late as last autumn
thou didst say me, dear
my doxy, I choose you and
always you, thou didst pledge
me love and through the redplumed
weeks soberly
I danced upon your words
and garlanded these
tender dangers.
year curves to ending now
and thou dost say me, wife
I choose another love, and oh
the delicate delicate
serpent of your mouth
stings deep, and bitter
iron cuts and shapes
my death, I was so fool.
"Thou Didst Say Me"
Late as last summer
Thou didst say me, love
I choose you, you, only you.
oh the delicate delicate
serpent of your lips
the golden lie bedazzled
me with wish and flash
of joy and I was fool.
I was fool, bemused
bedazed by summer, still
bewitched and wandering
in murmur hush in greenly
sketched-in fields
I was, I was, so sweet
I was, so honied with
your gold of love and love
and still again more love.
late as last autumn
thou didst say me, dear
my doxy, I choose you and
always you, thou didst pledge
me love and through the redplumed
weeks soberly
I danced upon your words
and garlanded these
tender dangers.
year curves to ending now
and thou dost say me, wife
I choose another love, and oh
the delicate delicate
serpent of your mouth
stings deep, and bitter
iron cuts and shapes
my death, I was so fool.
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Because I need a new journal
2 min read
hush, little baby, don't say a word
papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird
and if that mockingbird don't mock real well then
papa's gonna buy you a freedom bell
oh, and if that freedom bell don't ring
papa's gonna buy you a cubic zirconia ring
oh, and if that cubic zirconia ring don't shine
you're gonna give your papa a real hard time
now ain't you...?
and if that real hard time don't pass
papa's gonna get wrinkles all upon his face
and then he'll blend in with all the other papas then
screw the whole mockingbird situation, we can't even afford a medical plan
now can we...?
this song won't do, let's start this over...
hush, little baby, here comes the sandman
papa's gonna buy you a medical plan
oh, and if that medical plan don't cover your ass
papa's gonna buy you a pregnancy test
oh, and if that pregnancy test comes out positive
well then, girl, I don't know how the hell we're gonna live
maybe on your bright ideas
maybe on cigarette butts
maybe on bubblegum wrappers
maybe on penalty shots
hush, little baby, don't you cry
you know to you your papa would never ever lie
oh, hush while I sing to you this crude little lullaby
and I'll get you all that shit one day by and by
but in the meanwhile
in the mean, mean, mean, mean while
hush, little baby, don't say a word
papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird
oh, and if that mockingbird don't sing
papa's gonna buy you a diamond ring
a real diamond, no cubic nothing
like in the movies with that...what's her name...Monroe...Marilyn...
Marilyn, a real diamond, hush, hush
A real, a real diamond
hush...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCwDOA…
papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird
and if that mockingbird don't mock real well then
papa's gonna buy you a freedom bell
oh, and if that freedom bell don't ring
papa's gonna buy you a cubic zirconia ring
oh, and if that cubic zirconia ring don't shine
you're gonna give your papa a real hard time
now ain't you...?
and if that real hard time don't pass
papa's gonna get wrinkles all upon his face
and then he'll blend in with all the other papas then
screw the whole mockingbird situation, we can't even afford a medical plan
now can we...?
this song won't do, let's start this over...
hush, little baby, here comes the sandman
papa's gonna buy you a medical plan
oh, and if that medical plan don't cover your ass
papa's gonna buy you a pregnancy test
oh, and if that pregnancy test comes out positive
well then, girl, I don't know how the hell we're gonna live
maybe on your bright ideas
maybe on cigarette butts
maybe on bubblegum wrappers
maybe on penalty shots
hush, little baby, don't you cry
you know to you your papa would never ever lie
oh, hush while I sing to you this crude little lullaby
and I'll get you all that shit one day by and by
but in the meanwhile
in the mean, mean, mean, mean while
hush, little baby, don't say a word
papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird
oh, and if that mockingbird don't sing
papa's gonna buy you a diamond ring
a real diamond, no cubic nothing
like in the movies with that...what's her name...Monroe...Marilyn...
Marilyn, a real diamond, hush, hush
A real, a real diamond
hush...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCwDOA…
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