[Last in a 4-Part series]
Last Friday I was at work—even though it was a paid holiday. What an employee! Actually, I was working on my blogs.
At the beginning of each month I map out roughly what topics (about 30) I want to write about—figure out which blog category each topic fits into—and then assign each one to one the days of the month (minus Sundays). I don’t like the insecurity of arriving at a new day and having no idea what to write about. Keeps me awake at night. I prefer a monthly outline. Because I start thinking about the blog for a day or two, makes it easier to write.
That’s how it works for me. My monthly schedule of blog topics stays on track about 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time something happens: I read about something in the news; I listen to an NPR program; or somebody tells me about something that happened to him/her. As a result I get whole new idea for a blog and boot out the old idea (saving it for later on).
Back to last Friday: Since April is National Poetry Month, I was plotting the “poetic” topics to write about. I decided on a three-part series. Then the phone rings.
It’s a business associate named Ron who wants to speak to the company president about an environmental project they’re working on. I tell Ron I’m the only one “working” that day. He tells me his message and then says, “Do you like poetry?” OUT OF THE BLUE. Just like that.
The Police call it Synchronicity. I call it a New Blog. (Which is why the Poetry series is now four parts instead of three!)
I answer Ron. “Yes, and I was just thinking about poetry because April is National Poetry Month.”
Ron asks, “Do you like Robert W. Service?”
Since I told Ron I had never heard of him, he proceeded to tell me about him and his poems.
British poet, writer, journalist Robert W. Service
Here’s a brief bio: Robert W. Service was born in England in 1874 and schooled in Scotland. At the age of twenty-one he moved to Canada and worked in the banking industry. In 1904 he wound up in the Yukon Territory and began writing about what he saw. He became known as the “Canadian Kipling,” “The Bard of Yukon,” and “The People’s Poet.” He married a French woman, moved to France, and died there in 1958.
Ron recommended two poems: “Yellow,” about a man and his dog (sad and brutal) and “Virginity,” a poem about a woman who hates her elderly mother (deservedly so!). It’s a hoot.
I found this reading of a wonderful Service poem on YouTube. It’s called“The Men Who Won’t Fit In.” It applies to women, too. I can relate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovlLTLpnqRs
That night I looked through some of my poetry books and found one of those Dover Thrift Edition books ($1.50 price tag—quite a bargain). The title is: Songs for the Open Road: Poems of Travel and Adventure. I remember buying the book from amazon.com because it contained some of my favorite poems by Whitman, Dickinson, and Frost. I do not remember reading or even seeing the four Robert W. Service poems printed in the book. (Oh brother.)
I corrected that error. I really enjoyed this one, which is a two-stanza excerpt from “A Rolling Stone.”
To pitch my tent with no prosy plan,
To range and to change at will;
To mock at the mastership of man,
To seek Adventure’s thrill.
Carefree to be, as a bird that sings;
To go my own sweet way;
To reck not at all what may befall,
But to live and to love each day.
To scorn all strife, and to view all life
With the curious eyes of a child;
From the plangent sea to the prairie,
From the slum to the heart of the Wild.
From the red-rimmed star to the speck of sand,
From the vast to the greatly small;
For I know that the whole for good is planned,
And I want to see it all.
It’s so fun to discover a new (old) writer. Like finding buried treasure! Hey Ron, thanks for the heads-up!
What poetry would you recommend? I love treasures!
