More on modern Poetry

My attention was drawnrecently to an article about poetry. Two poets were mentioned, Goldsmith and Prynne and I looked them up.  These poets were apparently considered very important and influential. Examples of their poems were supplied by Google. One of the poems (I think the author was Goldsmith) was made up of of every sentence in a particular issue of a newspaper written down one below the other. Apparently this is some kind of experimental writing and, I think, is known as unoriginality.  Prynne's poems did look more like poems. They were written in stanzas. The lines were fairly even. They sounded pleasant when read aloud. But I after reading one of them several times carefully, I still had not the faintest idea what it was about.

Now, I am quite ready to accept that my lack of appreciation is due to inadequacies in my knowledge or my understanding, but I am sure that the average reader (not very many of them these days) who chooses to read poetry would feel the same. What is the audience for this sort of modern poetry. Obviously academics teaching and studying modern literature must read them, but who else enjoys them?

Nearly all my friends and acquaintances, when I mention Poetry will immediately tell me that they never read poetry and that poetry is something that they don't understand. I think all this obscure kind of modern poetry is to blame Most people these days  view poems as though they are not to be read for enjoyment, but are like cryptic crossword puzzle clues that have to be dissected and pulled apart. This is the usual attitude in this country towards written poetry. And it is a pity.

Performance poetry, on the other hand is becoming very popular. There are more and more events for Praise Poets and Slam Poets. Hopefully this popularity will spill over to poems that can be read as well as listened to.

Stars

I am studying a short online course on Astronomy. It  is called "In the night Sky Orion" and I assumed that it would be only about that constellation, but it goes much deeper and wider than that.
We are introduced to the classification of different kinds of stars as well as different kinds of galaxies. We are told about black holes, dark matter and dark energy, We find out about the Big Bang Theory and the possible end of the Universe.

Learning about the Universe is both stimulating and daunting.  Although it is intended to be a very basic course, a lot of the more technical stuff is not all that easy to grasp and the huge size of the enormous distances and the length of the time involved is almost impossible for me to get my mind around.

I am enjoying the whole course, but one of the best parts is going out at the same time each night and observing Orion. We are supposed to take a photo of Orion once a week, but this is beyond me. Either my camera is not good enough or I am not using it properly, but all I get is a black space. So I just stand and stare at this group of stars in the sky and it is very beautiful. Although I haven't been able to get pictures of Orion  have been able to see that Orion has moved (relative to the earth, not the other stars) and is further overhead than when I started observations three weeks ago.

My Poem about Orion

LEARNING ABOUT ORION

In the constellation of Orion

somewhere halfway between

Red giant Betelgeuse

and White giant Rigel, lies

Orion Nebula, a fuzzy place, a womb

where stars are born.

As Orion sweeps across the sky,

his hunting dogs beside him,

chasing the Pleiedes, bow at the ready,

he carries below his belt the seeds

of suns. They swirl in multi-coloured clouds

of purple, yellow, green and blue.

In the wide disc which gathers round

a sphere that will become a new young sun,

are bits of debris, which, with dust

and ashes from celestial conflagrations

might form, after a million years

another Earth like ours

Name a constellation

Here is a drawing of the constellation The Aardvark.  I downloaded the picture of the stars, made a tracing and then did the not very artistic drawing.

THE STORY OF THE AARDVARK

Kalulu the rabbit was speaking to King Lion. "O Great King," he said. "All the kings on this earth have beautiful palaces to live in, but you, one of the greatest of them all, still sleep under a scrubby thorn tree.  Why don't you have a palace built to show your subjects how great you are?"
"Who can I get to build me a palace?" asked King Lion.

"The ants are the best builders, " said Kalulu. "Just look at that big ant hill they have built. Shall I ask them to build a palace for you."
"Yes," said the king. "Tell them to build a palace fit for the King of all the Beasts." and he shook his black mane and gave a roar to show what a great king he was.
So Kalulu the rabbit ran off and informed the ants that  King Lion had ordered them to build him a new home and the ants called all their friends and relations together and  started to build at once.
 Aardvark heard King Loin roaring. He went to see what was going on.  When he saw lines and lines of ants streaming to the place where the palace was to be built, he drooled with joy. He unrolled his long tongue and gobbled up all the ants. When King Lion came to inspect the site of his palace, he saw no building at all.
"What is the meaning of this, " he asked Kalulu.
""Please, O Great King," said Kalulu. " It is the aardvark's fault.. He has eaten all the ants that were going to build your palace."
King Lion was very angry. He grabbed  Aardvark by his tail and flung him high up into the sky. And there Aardvark is still. you can see him at night trying to gobble up the stars.

The Best of the Christmas Season

Such a busy week! But so great to have friends that want my company. I am so blessed!
There was:
A braai with Joy on Saturday, lunch with Sindiwe at Steenberg on Tuesday. Tea with Leslie and Maggie on Thursday and Christmas dinner with my darlings Luke and Danielle( and also Tyler and Sindiwe) on Christmas day. And then there was the Carol service we had at Evergreen. Just a few readings and our choir leading the residents in "Away in a Manger" etc.  But I think the best was the carol singing on Christmas Eve.
Our imitation of the "waits" had its ridiculous side--  the straggling procession of us geriatrics battling with our sticks and walkers to keep up with Viv tHart in her motorised wheelchair and the occasional false start when we got off on the wrong note(literally) But the residents enjoyed it( all except one scrooge who slammed his window shut on us) and the choir enjoyed it too. The sweetest moment was when dear Eleanor who doesn't know who or where she is most of the time, burst into song when she heard us sing "Silent Night' and she and Allen gave us "Stille Nacht" as a duet.

Second attempt

Is this one going to work? I think it is a video  of  Yolande and Zoe.

vidoes

I am having another shot at downloading videos.

This is the first jumping trial on Saturday. Elisabeth and Halo on the course.

Kommetjie

The U3A Fynbos Ramble yesterday was at Kommetjie, Of the slow group of walkers only Anne and I were there. The main group went up Rubbi Road. We drove down to the parking lot by the beach at Kommetjie and then walked along the board walk to the light house. I was a little envious of the others. I knew there were lots of interesting flowers to be seen on the hillside, but, probably because were walked so slowly, we did find quite few  plants in flower even though it was so late in the year. And of course it was a very pleasant walk as it always is with beautiful views of the sea and the mountains.