masterwordsmith-unplugged

Thanks to Mr TSK who shared this list of toilet poems...I am sharing this for laughs and have no intention of offending anyone..

The first one goes:

THE 'FUTURE' IS IN YOUR HAND, HOLD IT GENTLY'

Another one...
Here I lie in stinky vapor,
Because some idiot stole the toilet paper,

Shall I lie, or shall I linger,
Or shall I be forced to use my finger.

This one by a budding poet...

Here I sit..
Broken hearted
Tried to sh*t..
But only farted

Then the next guy comes along....

You're lucky
You had your chance
I tried to fart,
And sh*t my pants!

Third guy with some inspiration.....

I came here
To sh*t and stink,
But all I do
Is sit and think.

The 4th guy....

Some come here to sit and think,
Some come here to sh*t and stink,
But I come
here to scratch my balls ,
And read the bullsh*t on the walls.....

Then this guy from Singapore Fire Dept ....... (written high upon the wall)
If you can piss above this line, the Singapore Fire Department wants you.

Since the Ministry of Environment owns the toilets they have something to say too.....
We aim to please!
You aim too! Please!

And on the inside of a toilet door:..

Patrons are requested to remain seated throughout the entire performance.
And finally a restaurant owner took this aiming issue a step further.....
The hands that clean these toilets also make your food...please aim properly.

Emily Perkins Bissell (May 31, 1861–1948) aka Priscilla Leonard was an American social worker and activist, best remembered for introducing Christmas Seals to the United States.

Born in Wilmington, Delaware, she made a name for herself at a young age as the founder of that city's first public kindergarten and for her efforts to introduce child labor laws in that state. In 1883, she founded an organization, now known as the West End Neighborhood House that originally provided social services to Wilmington's immigrant Irish and German families.

Bissel avoided politics and was closely identified with the anti-suffragist movement. She wrote "The vote is part of man's work. Ballot-box, cartridge box, jury box, sentry box all go together in his part of life. Women cannot step in and take the responsibilities and duties of voting with assuming his place very largely".

In 1896 Bissell published an essay called The Mistaken Vocation of Shakespeare's Heroines, taking the form of a report of a lecture to suffragettes. The purported speaker launches an attack on the Elizabethan playwright Shakespeare for placing his female characters in unsuitable situations, where they are not allowed to demonstrate their true abilities. For example, instead on having Ophelia as his wife, Hamlet would have been much better served by the more forceful Lady Macbeth, while Macbeth himself would have been better served by Portia.The audience greets her attack on Shakespeare with delight, ending up shouting "Down with Shakespeare". The spoof was supposed to show that is was absurd for women to seek careers.

In 1900, she testified before the United States Senate Committee on Woman's Suffrage, arguing that women had no place in politics.[citation needed] In March 1903 she addressed a packed meeting in Concord, New Hampshire speaking against a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would strike out the word "male" from the suffrage clause. The amendment failed to pass.

Several years later, in 1907, she was drawn to the cause of helping people with tuberculosis (TB). She had already heard of an idea in Denmark in which people attached a special stamp to their mail, the proceeds of which would go to fight the disease, and decided to introduce the same idea in Delaware. Her goal was to raise $300 for a local sanitarium, using a bright red stamp she designed herself, and convinced local post offices to sell them for just 1 cent. This way, she believed, even the poorest people could help in the fight against TB.

Though the idea failed at first, Bissell was able to gain enough publicity from a Philadelphia newspaper to make $3,000, ten times the amount she originally hoped to get. People were intrigued by the idea of Christmas Seals, and the following year, Howard Pyle, a notable illustrator from Wilmington, donated the design of the second stamp.

Bissel wrote under the pseudonym Priscilla Leonard.

Bissell spent the remainder of her life promoting Christmas stamps and helping to eliminate tuberculosis. She died in 1948. A public hospital outside Wilmington bears her name.

In 1980, on the 119th anniversary of her birth, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 15 cent stamp in her honor.

Source: Wikipedia

Between 1845 and 1846, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote the forty-four poems/love sonnets that became Sonnets from the Portuguese while she was being courted by Robert Browning. From then till now, the collection, especially "How Do I Love Thee?" is widely acclaimed and greatly loved by many all over the world. Many regard it as the greatest love poem of all time.

Written in her Italian days at the Casa Guidi, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was actually addressing her husband who used to call her 'My little Portuguese" as she was dark.

According to Wikipedia HERE:

The courtship and marriage between Robert Browning and Elizabeth were carried out secretly as she and her siblings were convinced their father would disapprove. Six years his elder and an invalid, she could not believe that the vigorous and worldly Robert Browning really loved her as much as he professed to. After a private marriage at St. Marylebone Parish Church, they honeymooned in Paris. Browning then imitated his hero Shelley by spiriting his wife off to Italy, in September 1846, which became her home almost continuously until her death. Elizabeth's loyal nurse, Wilson, who witnessed the marriage, accompanied the couple to Italy.

Mr. Barrett disinherited Elizabeth, as he did each of his children who married. Elizabeth had foreseen her father's anger but not expected the disgust of her brothers, who saw Browning as a lower-class gold-digger and refused to see him. As Elizabeth had some money of her own, the couple were reasonably comfortable in Italy, and their relationship together was harmonious. The Brownings were well respected in Italy, and even famous. Elizabeth grew stronger and in 1849, at the age of 43, between four miscarriages, she gave birth to a son, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, whom they called Pen. Their son later married but had no legitimate children. At her husband's insistence, the second edition of Elizabeth’s Poems included her love sonnets; as a result, her popularity increased (as well as critical regard), and her position was confirmed.

Please CLICK HERE to read more about her life and you would be thoroughly amazed to discover how precocious she was as a child. Despite the many struggles and challenges she experienced, she remained positive and productive, even as an invalid. In Italy where she and her beloved husband lived, they hobnobbed with other brilliant artists and writers such as William Makepeace Thackeray, sculptor Harriet Hosmer, Harriet Beecher Stowe,Margaret Fuller and the female French novelist George Sand. They met with Lord Tennyson in Paris, and John Forster, Samuel Rogers, and the Carlyles in London, later befriending Charles Kingsley and John Ruskin. With such an inspiring circle of friends, it is no wonder that each of them were prolific in their own right leaving a legacy of brilliant literary works for us to remember them!

Personally, I regard this poem as the ultimate epitome of love poems where the writer just pours out the emotions of her heart in every single word simply and yet sublimely! Try reading it aloud and you might have goosebumps on your skin, especially from Lines 9-12.

It is not easy to write sonnets. A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure. A Shakespearean, or English, sonnet consists of 14 lines, each line containing ten syllables and written in iambic pentameter, in which a pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable is repeated five times. The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g; the last two lines are a rhyming couplet. (Source: Wikipedia)

This post is actually a distraction because I woke up early to finish grading my essays before I hang my laundry and then I am off to college for my lecture. Yet, in between my marking, this poem came to my mind and I was inspired to write about it.

Interestingly, the love letters did not flow one way for Robert Browning also wrote beautiful mails to reciprocate her outburst of love to him. In fact, it was her 1844 volume Poems which shot her to fame that inspired Robert Browning to write to her, telling her how much he loved her work.



He had been an admirer of her poetry for a long time and wrote "I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett" praising their "fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new brave thought".

Here is the original love letter he wrote to her on 10th September, 1846:


It might be easier to read this version without straining your eyes :-).

I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett, -- and this is no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write, --whatever else, no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius and there a graceful and natural end of the thing: since the day last week when I first read your poems, I quite laugh to remember how I have been turning again in my mind what I should be able to tell you of their effect upon me -- for in the first flush of delight I though I would this once get out of my habit of purely passive enjoyment, when I do really enjoy, and thoroughly justify my admiration -- perhaps even, as a loyal fellow-craftsman should, try and find fault and do you some little good to be proud of herafter! -- but nothing comes of it all -- so into me has it gone, and part of me has it become, this great living poetry of yours, not a flower of which but took root and grew ... oh, how different that is from lying to be dried and pressed flat and prized highly and put in a book with a proper account at bottom, and shut up and put away ... and the book called a 'Flora', besides!

After all, I need not give up the thought of doing that, too, in time; because even now, talking with whoever is worthy, I can give reason for my faith in one and another excellence, the fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new brave thought -- but in this addressing myself to you, your own self, and for the first time, my feeling rises altogether. I do, as I say, love these Books with all my heart -- and I love you too: do you know I was once seeing you?

Mr. Kenyon said to me one morning "would you like to see Miss Barrett?" -- then he went to announce me, -- then he returned ... you were too unwell -- and now it is years ago -- and I feel as at some untoward passage in my travels -- as if I had been close, so close, to some world's-wonder in chapel on crypt, ... only a screen to push and I might have entered -- but there was some slight ... so it now seems ... slight and just-sufficient bar to admission, and the half-opened door shut, and I went home my thousands of miles, and the sight was never to be!

Well, these Poems were to be -- and this true thankful joy and pride with which I feel myself.


Yours ever faithfully
Robert Browning

No wonder she fell in love with him even though she was SIX years his senior and an invalid! I would swoon too if someone wrote to me that way :-). Apparently, Barrett wrote to a friend that Browning's letter 'threw her (me) into ecstasies'. Now that is romantic!!

In Love Letters: An Anthology of Passion, Michelle Lovric wrote about the letter seals used by Elizabeth and Robert. Robert used a signet ring bearing a seal of the Browning crest and motto, a lion rampant upon a shield above the word "Virtue.' Elizabeth's seal contained her 'pet' name, 'Ba.'

I know. That was in the 19th century and we are living in the 21st century. Still, there is no reason why you cannot write a love letter to the person who occupies your heart, mind and life today! :-) Such romantic gestures are rare and few in between. I remember how I used to wait everyday for the postman because my first love wrote to me EVERY single day. Mondays/Tuesdays were bonuses for there is always no mail on Sunday.

Try it, dear reader! You may not be Robert Browning but I am sure that you will touch the one you love today because you said it straight from your heart! Have a nice day! :-)

*Thanks to all friends and readers who sent me Get Well wishes. I am much better today! :-) And yes, I am running late!

The following is a poem written by reader Khoo Soo Hay to commemorate the demise of one of the well beloved Christian Brother Teachers of St. Xavier's Institution, Penang, who died on 17th September 1999. His name was Bro. Ulrick Currie who used to teach English. He became blind for many years before he passed away. This was composed on 19.09.1999. Thank you Soo Hay, for sharing this poem with us.

Penang must have been a very beautiful island for the late Bro. Ulrick Currie, who I believe came from Sri Lanka, after the War. He came, he taught, he loved and he laid down his bones on the island and the students he loved so much. Such is life, in one's life time, to be recognized and remembered. To God he gave his duty and his life. At least I remembered him.

*Khoo Soo Hay's collection of poetry has been published in his book entitled, "In Ancient Ayuthia". Please leave a comment if you wish to purchase his book. Thanks!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO ENDLESS LOVE BY LIONEL RITCHIE AND DIANA ROSS.

Born on October 27, 1932 in Massachusetts, Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. She studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer. In 1956, She married fellow poet Ted Hughes and they lived together first in the United States and then England, having two children together: Frieda and Nicholas. Following a long struggle with depression and a marital separation, Plath committed suicide in 1963 by sticking her head in the oven. She was 30. Controversy continues to surround the events of her life and death, as well as her writing and legacy.

The genre of confessional poetry is credited to Plath who is best known for her two collections The Colossus and Other Poems and Ariel. In 1982, she became the first poet to win a Pulitzer Prize posthumously, for The Collected Poems. She also wrote The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death. I have that book stashed somewhere in my study and have to read it again to fully appreciate Plath, one of my favorite poets together with Frost, Kipling, Wordsworth and Maya Angelou.

This poem, 'A Life', was written the same year she gave birth to her daughter. If you read her biography, you'll find that she was fearful of the future and old age. This is why she attempted suicide many times. She was a child prodigy, but she slid into deep depression and even attempted suicide when she got her first B in college. She finally succeeded when she put her head in that oven. Much as I find it quite painful to read her poems, there is somewhat a cathartic effect when I think about the words she uses. And then, I cannot help but be gripped by the magnitude of her pain that was brimming over - yet in silence and suffering.

I think Plath is talking about her time in a mental institution following her first suicide attempt in 'A Life'.

At the beginning of the poem, Plath is staring at the painting. She envies the life portrayed in the painting because it is so easily controlled "at their feet the waves bow in single file" and this detached way of living appeals to her - to be able to be content without thinking. Is that possible?

And then the contrast is slowly introduced. The element of loneliness and alienation creeps in slowly in stanza two with the use of onomatopoeia.

The other stanzas have a matter-of-fact tone and yet with such imagery that I do wonder about the significance of each. The diction, style and tone that she exudes is effortless, merging into one voice that can be Plath's alone.

However, by the end of the poem, we can see that the painting takes on a more dolorous tone. Slowly, the events portrayed in paint change direction and tone. The man coming out of the sea is "drowned", the seagull is "grey" and this is how she feels about her own future. Most depressing indeed. Could it be her mind was searching for the true love which has eluded her?

This stanza reeks of her deep grief and debilitating sense of loneliness:

A woman is dragging her shadow in a circle
About a bald hospital saucer.
It resembles the moon, or a sheet of blank paper
And appears to have suffered a sort of private blitzkrieg.
She lives quietly

Such resigned loneliness - almost fatalistic in nature.

And the next part reveals how she feels trapped within...The use of 'no attachments' (sans umbilical chord?) and the simile of 'like a foetus in a bottle' reeks of death...The dimensions of her pain are amplified with the 'one too many dimensions' reference and how even though exorcised, she still withers away in her loneliness.

With no attachments, like a foetus in a bottle,
The obsolete house, the sea, flattened to a picture
She has one too many dimensions to enter.
Grief and anger, exorcised,
Leave her alone now.

Many of her struggles were to do with the idea of rebirth, and in the beginning of the poem, the alternate life within the picture seems like a rebirth for her, but by the end, you can see that she realizes that the same problems that followed her in one life, will translate to the next. So much sadness, so much grief...such a deep sense of resigned hopelessness...

The last stanza implies her fear of the future.She is internalizing her own struggles and perhaps projecting them unto the characters. The painting is a mirror of her soul, her demons, her fears, her past, her future, her life.

It is heart wrenching to read Plath. :-(  As such, I am not going to do a detailed analysis of this poem. Too depressing and yet, somehow, some of her thoughts mirror how I feel...Here it is - Plath's 'A Life'. Do leave a comment to share your thoughts. Have a restful evening.


A Life by Sylvia Plath

Touch it: it won't shrink like an eyeball,
This egg-shaped bailiwick, clear as a tear.
Here's yesterday, last year ---
Palm-spear and lily distinct as flora in the vast
Windless thread work of a tapestry.

Flick the glass with your fingernail:
It will ping like a Chinese chime in the slightest air stir
Though nobody in there looks up or bothers to answer.
The inhabitants are light as cork,
Every one of them permanently busy.

At their feet, the sea waves bow in single file.
Never trespassing in bad temper:
Stalling in midair,
Short-reined, pawing like parade ground horses.
Overhead, the clouds sit tasseled and fancy

As Victorian cushions. This family
Of valentine faces might please a collector:
They ring true, like good china.

Elsewhere the landscape is more frank.
The light falls without letup, blindingly.

A woman is dragging her shadow in a circle
About a bald hospital saucer.
It resembles the moon, or a sheet of blank paper
And appears to have suffered a sort of private blitzkrieg.
She lives quietly

With no attachments, like a foetus in a bottle,
The obsolete house, the sea, flattened to a picture
She has one too many dimensions to enter.
Grief and anger, exorcised,
Leave her alone now.

The future is a grey seagull
Tattling in its cat-voice of departure.
Age and terror, like nurses, attend her,
And a drowned man, complaining of the great cold,
Crawls up out of the sea.

-written by Sylvia Plath-