I dwell in Possibility
By EMILY DICKINSON
I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –
Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –
Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –
Art – Charles Courtney Curran
Shortly after he received the Nobel Prize, Albert Camus sent this heartwarming letter of gratitude to his childhood teacher.
19 November 1957
Dear Monsieur Germain,
I let the commotion around me these days subside a bit before speaking to you from the bottom of my heart. I have just been given far too great an honor, one I neither sought nor solicited. But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching and example, none of all this would have happened. I don’t make too much of this sort of honor. But at least it gives me the opportunity to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart.
Albert Camus
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1957 was awarded to Albert Camus “for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times.”
I have answered this at Quora.com.
Mr Ondaatje is not necessarily a love poetry writer, but for me, everything he writes is poetry and he is a poet, singing “unknowingly the message and the promise from the lotus-gardens beyond the sunset”.
This is a poem that I love:
Speaking To You
by Michael Ondaatje
Speaking to you
this hour
these days when
I have lost the feather of poetry
and the rains
of separation
surround us tock
tock like Go tablets
Everyone has learned
to move carefully
‘Dancing’ ‘laughing’ ‘bad taste’
is a memory
a tableau behind trees of law
In the midst of love for you
my wife’s suffering
anger in every direction
and the children wise
as tough shrubs
but they are not tough
–so I fear
how anything can grow from this
all the wise blood
poured from little cuts
down into the sink
this hour it is not
your body I want
but your quiet company.
No wasted days, no regrets, just an endless party until the last breath…
medium.com/blueinsight/blue-insights-cultural-prompts-july-2020-b26f92e50eed
As always, I am proud to be a witer for the Medium publications.
Art – Ingo Swann
Curfew
by Paul Eluard
What else could we do, for the doors were guarded,
What else could we do, for they had imprisoned us,
What else could we do, for the streets were forbidden us,
What else could we do, for the town was asleep?
What else could we do, for she hungered and thirsted,
What else could we do, for we were defenceless,
What else could we do, for night had descended,
What else could we do, for we were in love?
Art – Mario Reviglione – Metaphysical Nocturne (Alassio), 1912.
I have written and answer at Quora.
I do believe there are many wonderful digital marketing websites, but everything I know about marketing and digital marketing I have got it from Seth Godin: Seth’s Blog
Also I particularly enjoyed his Icarus Deception:
“Author James Elkins writes of the three components necessary for someone to become an artist: seeing, making and the tabula rasa.
First, students need to learn to see. They have to see the world as it is without labels, without knowing the name of what is seen.
Second, they are taught how to make. How to use hands or voice or body to take what they see and reflect it back to the world.
And third, and most difficult, the artist starts with a blank slate. Art must be done for the first time, not repeated, and that first stroke, those first words – this is the source of our fear.”
–Seth Godin – The Icarus Deception
“A great story is true. Not necessarily because it’s factual, but because it’s consistent and authentic.” – This has become my guideline in everything I write.
Art – Jennifer Diehl.
The World Is Too Much With Us
By WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
I have answered this question at Quora.com.
Art – Emil Nolde.
I have answered this at Quora.
I teach a Creative (business) Writing course online, so, when I started, my first step was to build a website and adorn it with all the details with a view to my courses. Nevertheless, I first started writing on my blog in 2014, which prompted me to start teaching about it, along with my other business, finance and legal courses.
But building up a website, optimizing it, networking, writing blog posts every day takes a lot of time and tremendous amounts of work, also because search engine optimization is a life style for a website, as one can never say, “I have just finished optimizing your website, my work is done”.
Other tips (borrowed from the great Seth Godin) are concerned with developing your reputation, your Body of work, and your cohort.
In doing so, I advise you to join a teaching platform, for the beginning, such as
Online Teaching Jobs | Teach Away
I do hope these have been helpful for you, and I wish you an enduring and wonderful career in teaching.
Art – Henrik Nordenberg
“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves”.
– Kahlil Gibran
YAJURO TAKASHIMA -Coquelicots,1925
“You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads… may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”
― Ray Bradbury
Art – Henrik Nordenberg
Also published at Quora.