Istoryan Writers

[diem]

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Thanks Oracle! Heheh though as a dedicated writer, I often strive to provide the GENUINE article.

Here's a little something on poetry on how to develop and use metaphor to strengthen the psychological impact of your poems.

It's often observed in works of Spanish poets like Pablo Neruda and Cesar Vallejo that their lyrics would head through one direction then LEAP into seemingly unrelated imaginary material but only seemingly.

These images somehow stimulates our subconscious and we are moved by the sheer emotional weight of the realization that nothing seems as it seems at first, everything has a meaning, even what seems to be a senseless poem if one probes deep one's self for the connection.


Here's a poem by Pablo Neruda, an Ode to Wine. Please read if you can see where the poem leaps off from reality to explore the imaginary in order to arrive at that balance we know as truth.

Ode To Wine

Day-colored wine,
night-colored wine,
wine with purple feet
or wine with topaz blood,
wine,
starry child
of earth,
wine, smooth
as a golden sword,
soft
as lascivious velvet,
wine, spiral-seashelled
and full of wonder,
amorous,
marine;
never has one goblet contained you,
one song, one man,
you are choral, gregarious,
at the least, you must be shared.
At times
you feed on mortal
memories;
your wave carries us
from tomb to tomb,
stonecutter of icy sepulchers,
and we weep
transitory tears;
your
glorious
spring dress
is different,
blood rises through the shoots,
wind incites the day,
nothing is left
of your immutable soul.
Wine
stirs the spring, happiness
bursts through the earth like a plant,
walls crumble,
and rocky cliffs,
chasms close,
as song is born.
A jug of wine, and thou beside me
in the wilderness,
sang the ancient poet.
Let the wine pitcher
add to the kiss of love its own.

My darling, suddenly
the line of your hip
becomes the brimming curve
of the wine goblet,
your breast is the grape cluster,
your nipples are the grapes,
the gleam of spirits lights your hair,
and your navel is a chaste seal
stamped on the vessel of your belly,
your love an inexhaustible
cascade of wine,
light that illuminates my senses,
the earthly splendor of life.

But you are more than love,
the fiery kiss,
the heat of fire,
more than the wine of life;
you are
the community of man,
translucency,
chorus of discipline,
abundance of flowers.
I like on the table,
when we're speaking,
the light of a bottle
of intelligent wine.
Drink it,
and remember in every
drop of gold,
in every topaz glass,
in every purple ladle,
that autumn labored
to fill the vessel with wine;
and in the ritual of his office,
let the simple man remember
to think of the soil and of his duty,
to propagate the canticle of the wine.

Here's an exercise from Writer's Digest that you can try to practice using metaphors in your poetry.

Write an imaginative poem wherein you ask a theoretical question and extend it for as many lines as you can.

Choose your examples from different areas of life so that you look at the question from a variety of angles or viewpoints.

You could also tell a brief story taken from everyday life wherein you describe many of the various physical particulars and touch on one or two emotional moments.

From one of these two foundations, allow yourself to leap into metaphor; find an image or a series of images that can contain and expand your extended ruminations.

This exercise can also be used to resolve and revise an existing poem you feel hasn’t yet attained its fullness and power. It may not be easy to find your metaphor at first.

Another approach might be to begin with the metaphor and find the context for it later.

Please don't be too discouraged if in writing that leap into metaphor doesn't work for your poetry.

Like in the movie The Matrix where Neo has to make that first long leap of faith, nobody gets it right the first try but you've got to believe and keep trying.

Doors can be open for you but you've got to make the conscious choice of walking through it.

Why choose?

Because you can

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Special Section on Filipina Writers : Wompherence 2008 (The Wom-Po List)

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
Please send all information as single-spaced text in font no larger than 12 points,on one (1) Word document (saved as .doc, NOT .docx) attachment; OR as cut-and-paste text on the body of an email with the subject heading "Filipina Poets Section," send to me at thepoetslizard@gmail.com
1. Complete name of author
2. Email and postal mail addresses
3. up to three (3) poems - these may be new and unpublished, or published; if the latter, please include all publication information and permissions to reproduce
4. If poems are in a different language from English, please include English translation and translation credits
5. Author bio
6. Translator bio (if translator is different from author)
7. Author photo (clear resolution digital file, please not too large)


Please feel free to forward this link to interested writers in your networks.


The curated sections will be posted on the FEST site and be made visible to the public for the whole of November 2008.


Deadline is September 15, 2008.

[panganod]

Below is what I wrote for this challenge:

She wanted to see me.

It’s been ten years since I last saw Anna. She’s this girl I thought who would be young in fun forever.

We became close friends from the first day in high school, natural as the sun in the sky. Graduation came and passed, I had to move away. We promised to keep in touch. Anna always asked when I could come ‘home’; something always came up as my excuse. Excuses I regretted when I heard she married. Heart bruised, I felt I had no reason to come home.

The last message I received was ever so Anna, “If you won’t come to then I’ll come to you, promise!”

She would have kept her promise had not her untimely death gave her the ultimate excuse. Haunted by shame and guilt, I thought of visiting but the sight of her inside that casket would mar my memories.

Last night, I dreamed of her. I’m back in the classroom during lunch break. Anna comes in. She’s on the spotlight today, the first girl of our grade to wear lipstick, a glossy rose. “Sister Mary said I’m too young to use lipstick. The other girls said I look old.”

“They’re wrong. You look wonderful, Anna.”

Anna coos when pleased. She wraps her arms around me, presses her face against my cheek. The scent of her warmth burns. She laughs, seeing the lipstick mark.

In real memory, she wiped the mark off. In my dream, I stopped her hand, the mark and the feeling of her kiss remained.

Awake, I touched a warm place on my face. I stood up, turned on the lights, and faced the mirror. There it was, a deep rosy outline of Anna’s kiss on my cheek.

She came, like she said she would.


.

hi diem! this is a good example of connecting ideas and even of chronological order of events i do suggest, however, won't you give us a picture of anne? give us an idea of what she looks like so we can better connect to her. to the speaker as well.

[panganod]

metaphor---it requires, demands a different way of looking at ordinary objects; a mind shift. the ability to view everyday objects and situations in different ways is what is needed to develop your own metaphor, i think. i feel this strongly because someone i know, myke obenieta, a local poet, has a different way of looking at the world. and it is usually amusing and funny

[diem]

hi diem! this is a good example of connecting ideas and even of chronological order of events i do suggest, however, won't you give us a picture of anne? give us an idea of what she looks like so we can better connect to her. to the speaker as well.

@panganod, thank you for your appreciation, also for the suggestion. I would have added more if I could but the challenge instructions required that a certain number of words to be met (200-300 words only), then again there could be other ways to go about it to include Anne's description. I might be able to explore that when I have time.


I might want to take this short piece and make it longer, maybe when I have time.

[tagaparian]

Family history is an important aspect that needs to be studied in order to fully understand the role of a family vis-à-vis the society. It is also a key in knowing who one's ancestors are and helps one understand his/her bloodline and other interesting information that could help unlock mysteries that have long been forgotten in the collective memory of a family.



Learn the secrets in doing a research about your family's history through a seminar-workshop to be facilitated by Dr. Michael Cullinane and Dr. Resil Mojares. The facilitators are both respected scholars in Cebuano history and society.



The facilitators will teach participants about the sources where to cull information about one's family and how to do a genealogy or a systematized recording of data about one's family which is vital in understanding the role of our family in society and ourselves.



This seminar-workshop, organized by the heritage-advocacy group Hamiling Binilin (Hambin), which is based at the Cebuano Studies Center, University of San Carlos, is slated on Saturday, 16 August 2008, from 8 am to 5 pm at the Cathedral Museum of Cebu.



Workshop fee of Two Thousand Five Hundred Pesos (P2,500) is inclusive of kit, lunch and snacks. There are limited seats available. An early registration of Two Thousand Pesos (Php2,000) is acceptable until August 8, 2008. Please contact the USC History Department for details at phone no. 253-1000 local 161 and look for the undersigned.



We look forward to your presence in this workshop.

[diem]

The Doreen Gamboa Fernandez Food Writing Award announces that it is accepting entries to this year's food writing contest.

The theme for Award 2008 is MERIENDA, the in-between meals taken mid-afternoon.

The essay must be in English, not less than 4,500 characters nor more than 5,000 characters or 800 words, printed on two pages of bond paper, double-spaced.

All entries must use a pen name. Accompany the essay with a separate envelope containing the Author's Information Sheet revealing your (1) name; (2) pen name; (3) residential address and telephone number; (4) business address and telephone number, if you work; (5) cell phone number.

Deadline for submission is August 31, 2008.

Submit the printed entry together with a digital copy (Word file or rtf-rich text format on a CD) and the Author's Information Sheet to:

DOREEN GAMBOA FERNANDEZ FOOD WRITING AWARD 2008
Gastronomy Group, 14/F ELJ Communications Center
ABS-CBN
Mother Ignacia cor. Eugenio Lopez Jr. Ave.
Quezon City 1103

For more information, e-mail dgfawards@yahoo. com.ph or call 412-8507.

The first prize winner gets P10,000. The runner up gets P5,000. Expect gift certificates as well from bookstores, publishing houses and restaurants.

Announcement of winners will be in September 2008.

[diem]

By the way, Professor and columnist Butch Dalisay wrote an interesting article on the Philippine Daily Inquirer this Monday on the thoughts and experiences on other Filipino authors writing their novels. I was able to locate a copy on Professor Dalisay's blog-site here.

Makes good reading and good learning.

[kittymint]

im also still an amateur writer ^^ lol hope i can learn from the pros here.

[diem]

Hello kittymint! We hope that this thread is a helpful guide in your pursuit in writing. If there is any other way for us to help you, let us know.

Volume Three Issue Four of Inscribed ~ A Magazine For Writers is now available for free download.

Please visit www.inscribed. org to download, or if you prefer to receive our publications in your favourite RSS reader, simply add www.inscribed. org/files/ inscribed. rss or search for us on iTunes.

The next deadline for poetry, fiction, essays and artwork to be included in Inscribed ~ A Magazine For Writers (Volume Three Issue Five) is September 25th, 2008.

In September, rtso will feature Ellen Peckham, an artist from New York.

Inscribed ~ A Magazine For Writers' sister publication Stuff My Ear will be debuting in September 2008. We are still accepting submissions. Please visit www.inscribed. org for full guidelines on
all publications.

To keep in touch with the various contributors and readers of Inscribed ~ A Magazine For Writers, find us on Facebook at: http://www.facebook .com/group. php?gid=21980681 552

[diem]

PDI columnist and Professor Butch Dalisay continues on with his interview of local authors and their experiences in novel-writing in his blog here.