My Favorite Foreword

The Thorn Birds is a 1977 best-selling novel by Colleen McCullough, an Australian author. This is the foreword of the novel:

Long Ago, there was a bird who sang just once in its life.

From the moment it left its nest, it searched for a thorn tree.

and it never rested until it found one.

Then it began to sing more sweetly

than any other creature on the face of the earth.

And singing, it impaled its breast on the longest, sharpest thorn.

But as it was dying, it rose above its own agony

to out-sing the lark and the nightingale.

The thorn bird pays its life for that one song

and the whole world stills to listen

and God, in His heaven ~smiles.

As its best was bought only at the cost of great pain.

Driven to the thorn, with no knowledge of the dying to come.

But when we press the thorn to our breast,

We know........

We understand.....

And still......we do it.

Elements of the Gothic Novel

The gothic novel was invented almost single-handedly by Horace Walpole, whose The Castle of Otranto (1764) contains essentially all the elements that constitute the genre. Walpole's novel was imitated not only in the eighteenth century and not only in the novel form, but it has influenced writing, poetry, and even film making up to the present day.

Gothic elements include the following:

1. Setting in a castle. The action takes place in and around an old castle, sometimes seemingly abandoned, sometimes occupied. The castle often contains secret passages, trap doors, secret rooms, dark or hidden staircases, and possibly ruined sections. The castle may be near or connected to caves, which lend their own haunting flavor with their branchings, claustrophobia, and mystery. (Translated into modern filmmaking, the setting might be in an old house or mansion--or even a new house--where unusual camera angles, sustained close ups during movement, and darkness or shadows create the same sense of claustrophobia and entrapment.)

2. An atmosphere of mystery and suspense. The work is pervaded by a threatening feeling, a fear enhanced by the unknown. Often the plot itself is built around a mystery, such as unknown parentage, a disappearance, or some other inexplicable event. Elements 3, 4, and 5 below contribute to this atmosphere. (Again, in modern filmmaking, the inexplicable events are often murders.)

3. An ancient prophecy is connected with the castle or its inhabitants (either former or present). The prophecy is usually obscure, partial, or confusing. "What could it mean?" In more watered down modern examples, this may amount to merely a legend: "It's said that the ghost of old man Krebs still wanders these halls."

4. Omens, portents, visions. A character may have a disturbing dream vision, or some phenomenon may be seen as a portent of coming events. For example, if the statue of the lord of the manor falls over, it may portend his death. In modern fiction, a character might see something (a shadowy figure stabbing another shadowy figure) and think that it was a dream. This might be thought of as an "imitation vision."

5. Supernatural or otherwise inexplicable events. Dramatic, amazing events occur, such as ghosts or giants walking, or inanimate objects (such as a suit of armor or painting) coming to life. In some works, the events are ultimately given a natural explanation, while in others the events are truly supernatural.

6. High, even overwrought emotion. The narration may be highly sentimental, and the characters are often overcome by anger, sorrow, surprise, and especially, terror. Characters suffer from raw nerves and a feeling of impending doom. Crying and emotional speeches are frequent. Breathlessness and panic are common. In the filmed gothic, screaming is common.

7. Women in distress. As an appeal to the pathos and sympathy of the reader, the female characters often face events that leave them fainting, terrified, screaming, and/or sobbing. A lonely, pensive, and oppressed heroine is often the central figure of the novel, so her sufferings are even more pronounced and the focus of attention. The women suffer all the more because they are often abandoned, left alone (either on purpose or by accident), and have no protector at times.

8. Women threatened by a powerful, impulsive, tyrannical male. One or more male characters has the power, as king, lord of the manor, father, or guardian, to demand that one or more of the female characters do something intolerable. The woman may be commanded to marry someone she does not love (it may even be the powerful male himself), or commit a crime.

9. The metonymy of gloom and horror. Metonymy is a subtype of metaphor, in which something (like rain) is used to stand for something else (like sorrow). For example, the film industry likes to use metonymy as a quick shorthand, so we often notice that it is raining in funeral scenes. Note that the following metonymies for "doom and gloom" all suggest some element of mystery, danger, or the supernatural.

wind, especially howling	rain, especially blowing
doors grating on rusty hinges	sighs, moans, howls, eerie sounds
footsteps approaching	clanking chains
lights in abandoned rooms	gusts of wind blowing out lights
characters trapped in a room	doors suddenly slamming shut
ruins of buildings	baying of distant dogs (or wolves?)
thunder and lightning	crazed laughter

10. The vocabulary of the gothic. The constant use of the appropriate vocabulary set creates the atmosphere of the gothic. Here as an example are some of the words (in several categories) that help make up the vocabulary of the gothic in The Castle of Otranto:

Mystery	diabolical, enchantment, ghost, goblins, haunted, infernal, magic, magician, miracle, necromancer, omens, ominous, portent, preternatural, prodigy, prophecy, secret, sorcerer, spectre, spirits, strangeness, talisman, vision
Fear, Terror, or Sorrow	afflicted, affliction, agony, anguish, apprehensions, apprehensive, commiseration, concern, despair, dismal, dismay, dread, dreaded, dreading, fearing, frantic, fright, frightened, grief, hopeless, horrid, horror, lamentable, melancholy, miserable, mournfully, panic, sadly, scared, shrieks, sorrow, sympathy, tears, terrible, terrified, terror, unhappy, wretched
Surprise	alarm, amazement, astonished, astonishment, shocking, staring, surprise, surprised, thunderstruck, wonder
Haste	anxious, breathless, flight, frantic, hastened, hastily, impatience, impatient, impatiently, impetuosity, precipitately, running, sudden, suddenly
Anger	anger, angrily, choler, enraged, furious, fury, incense, incensed, provoked, rage, raving, resentment, temper, wrath, wrathful, wrathfully
Largeness	enormous, gigantic, giant, large, tremendous, vast

Elements of Romance

In addition to the standard gothic machinery above, many gothic novels contain elements of romance as well. Elements of romance include these:

1. Powerful love. Heart stirring, often sudden, emotions create a life or death commitment. Many times this love is the first the character has felt with this overwhelming power.

2. Uncertainty of reciprocation. What is the beloved thinking? Is the lover's love returned or not?

3. Unreturned love. Someone loves in vain (at least temporarily). Later, the love may be returned.

4. Tension between true love and father's control, disapproval, or choice. Most often, the father of the woman disapproves of the man she loves.

5. Lovers parted. Some obstacle arises and separates the lovers, geographically or in some other way. One of the lovers is banished, arrested, forced to flee, locked in a dungeon, or sometimes, disappears without explanation. Or, an explanation may be given (by the person opposing the lovers' being together) that later turns out to be false.

6. Illicit love or lust threatens the virtuous one. The young woman becomes a target of some evil man's desires and schemes.

7. Rival lovers or multiple suitors. One of the lovers (or even both) can have more than one person vying for affection.

By Robert Harris Retrieved at http://www.virtualsalt.com

Leonard Cohen and Things about Poetry

The other day, I got an email message from a friend. It was about Leonard Cohen's words I quoted to my blog. I didn't know Leonard Cohen until I heard his songs " Dance me to the end of love" and " Famous blue raincoat". I liked his lyrics first and then his deep magnetic voice. He became one of my favorite singers ever since then. That was last year. Cohen's works deal with love, religion, and complex interpersonal relationships. I spent many nights listening to " Famous blue raincoat" as if I were Leonard himself sitting on the balcony of an apartment deep into the night , totally trapped in these two typical human emotions: love and hatred. " What can I tell you, my brother, my killer, what can I possibly say? " The lyric shows the complicated feelings a man has when he finds out that his best buddy has stolen his woman. It takes human sensitiveness ---- the inner oracle of of a man's heart, where there is courage , to forgive . I think this song is typical of L. Cohen's works.

I am always into poetry, but I seldom follow a specific poet. It is bits and pieces of the language in the poems that fascinate me. Poetry surely has its effects on our society, and personally speaking, it has made me sensitive and emotional as a woman. However, I don't have theoretical views on poetry, and reading poems is merely a way of entertaining myself. I very much like what my friend says about Leonard and poetry in the email.

Here it is:

"Just a note to let you know you I check your blog daily for new entries. I very much like your poets’ thumbnail corner. Of course, it helps that L. Cohen is one of my favorite poets/songwriters/singers. I hope you continue or expand this feature of your blog and hope again that my review, as one, soon echo with the support of millions. But, one is enough for a writer when a reader, by existential accident, stumbles upon their words-enthralled: mysterious to behold, that out of all possibilities, that for a short section of time, the writer lived in climaxed transcendental copulation with a reader.

Poetry forms a noble equilibrium between the conceptually paradoxical such as; ‘money talks’ on one end of a mythical scale to the perceptually obvious; ‘a dog with a tin can tied to its tail is no philosopher’ on the other end. It is for this reason, we are blessed by poets who took the time, they no longer have, but were glad to take when they were rich with a vocabulary, to make into rhyme, what they itched to scribble, those words they now have forgotten. Poetry helps our intellect and spirit form a polished, intricately coherent and supportive proof for the reasons of our existence in a terminally chaotic world and the biological inevitability of death. Poems are truth, the simple essence of life, and when written in the language of forgiveness and compassion gives gladness when we find ourselves in them: asking for and taking nothing. Poetry guides our search for our truth, as we share our stories and slip a little nearer to understanding the sorrows of common failure of human motives and as we fumble toward the language of empathy. Those choice tidbits of gossip, impetuous enthusiasms, scraps of prejudice, semantic twists of persuasion, favored theories; all the transient junk in our lives is flushed from our souls to give a glimpse of what life’s crisp and sparkling perfection could be."

My special thanks go to my friend who sent me the email. I appreciate his consent for posting these words here, and I respect his insightful mind and erudition. He is my teacher and my friend

My notes: This article used to stay at another blog site of mine which is meant for private stuff. I am releasing this in Michelle's scrapbook today, since quite a few of my friends like L. Cohen. Am I a private person? Haha... I don't mind sharing anyway. After I embedded the youtube video, it has become a bit noisy --- in a nice way, but it doesn't fit into " Fish in the water" anymore.

The Darkest Winter

The Darkest Winter ( Lyrics)

---- Sonata Nocturna

I can feel the silence of the wind
like a nightingale that never sings
Widows of the the light is all I see
the darkest winter memory remains

Lonely, afraid them, the voices of wood
calling me through the window...silent night.
Darkness, tenderness, the sadness of hope,
in my heart I can feel the cold...

I can feel the silence of the wind
like a nightingale that never sings
Widows of the the light is all I see
the darkest winter memory remains

Dying, the rainbow will never appear
with the snow in my hands, I scream in tears.
Blindly, I tremble like a lonely wolf
lost in dark paradise of night.

I can feel the silence of the wind
like a nightingale that never sings;
signs of sorrow flow from within.
My heart is dying, the flame suffocates,
the snow is falling down and I am breaking down,
from this valley of tears to the eternity.
And there is no sun...my world becoming black
The beauty is dark, like feelings of my heart;
I feel alone...

Poetry is Immortal

"In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs, in spite of things silently gone out of mind and things violently destroyed, the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time. The objects of the Poet's thoughts are everywhere; though the eyes and senses of man are, it is true, his favorite guides, yet he will follow wheresoever he can find an atmosphere of sensation in which to move his wings. Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge--it is as immortal as the heart of man." --William Wordsworth, "Preface to Lyrical Ballads"

" Wolf in my eyes"

This is a poem written by a little known Tibetan poet.It always makes me think that loneliness can be a good thing. In today's society , it seems to me that more and more people are seeking the meaning of life from material things, and people seldom look inside their hearts and know happiness and contentment come from within.

Wolf in My Eyes

The power of being alone can be measured
By how well I sit by myself.
Can I sit in a circle and watch my mind
Surrounded by a ring of mirrors that reflect
Me upon me,
Self upon self,
Thought upon thought,
Hope upon hope,
Self-reflection upon self-reflection?

When I sit in this space,
Am I sitting alone with myself?
How alone is this sense of desolation?
Why is it that I feel surrounded,
When I am alone?
I do not see these mirrors that reflect
The perplexed face of a lonesome self.

When I look at myself,
I see a mountain rich in snow and timber.
Gleaming in sunlight,
Wearing clouds like a cape,
Gazing in a clear blue mountain lake.
This mountain—pristine, desolate—
Is happy to watch its own reflection.
Mesmerized by solitude day and night,
Among stars' galaxy of light,
It knows its place as a single mountain.
It knows itself by what it sees.

Crystal is what I see when I sit on my own.
I am by myself,
Surrounded by a world of mirrors.
Among reflections,
Who is alone?
Within perpetual insistence
On independence
Which reflection is independent?
Which lake can separate itself
From the mountain it reflects?

In this play of perception
Lies reality.
What is the lake?
Who is the mountain?
Who am I to sit here by myself,
Thinking I am alone?
Without the lake's pristine reflection,
I would not know I am alone,
Nor what loneliness is.
As summer winds blow, grass bends.
The golden wheat field shimmers.
The sun reflects and sees its brightness.

The world, life,
Is born from its own reflection.
Move,
Eat,
Laugh,
Hug—
Express a simple being
Dancing with its own reflections.
Being alone
Is the beginning
Of loving another.