"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection." ~Anais Nin.
"A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving." ~ Lao-Tzu.
"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt.
"Sometimes there are sheets in a sketchbook which, although they are more or less scribbles, nevertheless have something to say." ~ Van Gogh.
"I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision." ~ Maya Angelou.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful comitted citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." ~ Margaret Mead.
"Be the change you want to see." ~ Gandhi
"Our ability to solve societal problems will be limited by our lack of imagination in seizing opportunities rather than trying to optimize solutions." ! Kevin Kelly.
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt.
"All splendid things have been achieved by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance." ~ Bruce Barton.
"Fall in love or fall in hate.
Get inspired or be depressed.
Ace a test or fail a class.
Make babies or make art.
Speak the truth or lie and cheat.
Dance on tables or sit in the corner.
Life is divine chaos. Embrace it.
Forgive yourself. Breathe.
And enjoy the ride..." ~Solbeam.
"The great opportunity is where you are.
Every place is under the stars.
Every place is the center of the universe." ~ John Burroughs.
"Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Continue to learn.
Appreciate your friends.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is." ~ Mary Anne Radmacher.
"At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want." ~ Lao-Tzu.
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.
"The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity." ~Seneca (Roman Writer, Philosopher, Statesman).
"Find the quiet centre of your own life and write from there to the world." ~ Sarah Orne Jewett.
"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well...and with no too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.
"Nothing is worth more than this day." ~ Goethe.
"Keep not standing fixed and rooted, briskly venture, briskly roam." ~ Goethe.
"Do not the most moving moments of our life reach us all without words?" ~ Marcel Marceau
As I speak the word future,
The first syllable is already entering the past.
As I speak the word silence,
I destroy it.
As I speak the word nothing,
I create something not contained
In any nothingness.
~Wislawa Szymborska, 'Three Strangest Words' from an excerpt in Exile Vol. 21:1.
Poems by Mary Oliver:
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
published by Atlantic Monthly Press
© Mary Oliver
'Desiderata' (and history): Latin for 'desired things'
Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
e.e. cummings
'i carry your heart'
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i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's
keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
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Alfred Tennyson's 'The Lady of Shallott':
Naomi Shihab Nye's 'Kindness':
Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened
broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say it is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you every where like a shadow or a friend. ================================================================================================= Found Poetry: 'A Humument' A Gallery of Found Poems or 'treated texts': ================================================================================================= |
Teens & Writing ~
Film Titles:
Finding Forrester:
"You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!"-Forrester
"Someone I once knew wrote that we walk away from our dreams afraid that we may fail or worse yet, afraid we may succeed."-Forrester
Freedom Writers:
Based on the Freedom Writers Diary.
"But to get respect you have to give it."-Gruwell
"An F? What,are ya trippin'?"-Gruwell
Freedom Writers Foundation
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For the creative writer and thinker...
HOW TO BE AN EXPLORER OF THE WORLD by Keri Smith
WRITING DOWN THE BONES: FREEING THE WRITER WITHIN by Natalie Goldberg
THE OBSERVATION DECK: A TOOLKIT FOR WRITERS by Naomi Epel
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