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I don't normally do memes, but

akiko just posted "When you see this post, post your own favorite poem." I'm jumping on the bandwagon for two reasons. First, I really don't know a lot of poetry, so I'm taking this as an excuse to ask for recommendations. (Anyone? Anyone?) And second, I happen to have recently tracked down a poem I read years ago that I've really liked; I don't know enough poetry to judge it objectively, but I figured I'd share. (Also, I'd wager that almost none of you have seen it before.)

WOODCUT, by Roy Scheele
(From Accompanied, (c) 1974, The Best Cellar Press, Crete, NE)

For the good honest giving of the block of wood
he works, the grain drawn off in shavings to disclose
whatever it is his eye goes out to greet,
the artisan is grateful. The smell of wood delights him,
and the array of tools, the heavy-handed gouges,
the chisel and the knife; and even more than these,
some dim capacity that lies at hand beyond him,
like a figure fallen asleep inside the wood--
a little curling leaf, perhaps, or a budding girl
whom the right tough (oh, that he had it in him!) might summon forth
a woman, carved to the very life
from his deliberation. She would be his Eve,
his made-from-him, his own, the two of them alone,
at last, together! That would be worth a lifetime's
waiting for, the calling out of his entire skill,
till now aslumber in the unmade bed of detail.
The thought travels through him, trembling, and his hand
gropes wildly in the grain to get the lines down.

(One of the things that always struck me about this poem is how the word choice and sentence structure follow the emotions they express: the poem starts out slow and deliberative and then leaps ahead. I'm sure that's not uncommon, but as I said, I'm a novice here.)

I've just wrapped up the crucial bits of an insanely busy week: grading lots of homework, writing an exam, and several other things all converging at once. So I can finally look back at this meme apparently about regional dialects that's been floating around my friends for a while. (I usually avoid the meme thing, but my fondness for linguistics related topics has overcome my usual resistance this time.) For the record, my relevant regional background is almost certainly "from a 'big' city in Nebraska": I was born in Montana, and I went to college in Los Angeles and grad school in Chicago (and I've been living in LA a couple of years now), but almost all of my formative years were in Lincoln (or Omaha). So what do I call all these things? Answers behind a cut.

1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks.
2. What the thing you push around the grocery store is called.
3. A metal container to carry a meal in.
4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in.
5. The piece of furniture that seats three people.
6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof.
7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening.
8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages.
9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup.
10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself.
11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach.
12. Shoes worn for sports.
13. Putting a room in order.
14. A flying insect that glows in the dark.
15. The little insect that curls up into a ball.
16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down.
17. How do you eat your pizza?
18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?
19. What's the evening meal?
20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?
21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places?
22. The object in which a woman carries her keys and money.

( My responses... )

Strings, Rings, and Other Things

January 2017

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Favorite poem meme, sort of

Dialect meme (belated)