a friend of mine sent me a link to taylor mali's website early last summer, and i found my newest favorite poem, Silverlined Heart. i love his disposition in this poem (and in the rest of them, of course), but i chose this one for this stanza:
I’m for crushes not acted upon, for admiration from afar,
for the delicate and the resilient and the fragile human heart,
may it always heal stronger than it was before.
For walks in the woods, and for the woods themselves,
by which I mean the trees. Definitely for the trees.
Window seats, and locally brewed beer,
and love letters written by hand with fountain pens:
I’m for all of these.
i printed up this poem and posted it on the wall in my office cube, and it's always put a smile on my face. when i feel like the world is spinning too quickly, i look over my left shoulder to read the poem, to take a deep breath, and realize (yet again) that everything is going to be fine. : )
i'm sharing this poem (and image of said poem) here today as a result of a chain of cause-and-effect events during my morning commute to work....1)npr's "all songs considered" podcast and blog. on my way to work this morning, i plugged into my i-pizzle (ipod) and listened to npr's valentine's day podcast, "lesser known love songs". i'm not exactly excited about love songs, but i do enjoy the podcast and trudged through it. i enjoyed a few of their picks, but didn't really care for most of them, but as i said before, i'm not really listening to love songs right now.
2) when i arrived at work, i logged onto my google reader, scanned through "all songs considered" posts, and saw a new post to the page titled, "morrissey, lily allen, sufjan steves, more". i enjoy lily allen and sufjan stevens, so, of course, i clicked on the link and found myself listening to "blood pt. 2" by buck 65 featuring sufjan stevens and serengeti from Dark Was The Night, a compilation cd, that, according to its website, "will benefit the Red Hot Organization – an international charity dedicated to raising money and awareness for HIV and AIDS through popular culture." i enjoyed the song (and plan to listen to it over and over again for a while), and recognized a few other artists on the compilation: andrew bird, arcade fire, beirut, cat power and dirty delta blues, the decemberists, feist, iron & wine, my morning jacket, the national, and spoon (there are more, of course). most important, the cd is being released in the u.s. today. : )
which leads me to 3) my weekly newbury comics e-mail. i don't consider myself a music buff. rather, i have an eclectic taste in music driven first by sound and followed much (much much) later by actually listening to the lyrics. anywho, i like music, and that's all that matters. where was i....okay, so i am excited about the cd and discovered that it is being released in the states today. i shouldn't purchase music right now, but, well, as i discussed this weekend, there are times when music trumps food. and for the last week, music has trumped food. the newbury comics e-mail informs me that Dark Was The Night is on sale for $9.99, and i immediately put it on my list of "things to purchase". definitely picking it up sometime this week. hooray. : ) i will also pick up beirut's new ep, march of the zapotec ($7.99).
okay, okay. so i've got my coupons and my list of cds....why do i have this wordle image at the top of my post? ah. yes. so, after all of this, i return to the all songs considered website and click through to its blog. i see bob boilen's post about lily allen's new cd, it's not me, it's you. and, he's taken the lyrics to her entire album to wordle and created a word cloud. i thought it was pretty cool, and i wanted to give it a try....which leads me to:
4) silverlined heart by taylor mali. the image above was created using just that poem, while the image below was created from all of his published poem texts on www.taylormali.com:
you can play with colors, fonts, vertical/horizontal orientation, and pretty much everything else. however, once you publish it to the gallery, it's for all the world to see....and wordle reminds you to be sure that you've reviewed what you created before you publish.
i think this most recent word cloud looks like a fish. the head is at the left, and the tail is at the right. "make" is the lower fin, and the little words at the top of the frame create the shape of the top fin. fun stuff. : )
so, now, i've re-posted part of taylor mali's poem, silverlined heart, and if you want to read it in its entirety, visit his website, click on "poem texts", and enjoy! as i sign off for this post, i leave you with the last two stanzas of this poem:
I’m for the courage it takes to volunteer, to say “yes,” “I believe,” and “I will.”
For the bright side, the glass half full, the silver lining,
and the optimists who consider darkness just a different kind of shining.
So don’t waste my time and your curses on verses
about what you are against, despise, and abhor.
Tell me what inspires you, what fulfills and fires you,
put your precious pen to paper and tell me what you’re for!
