The Intellectual Mosquito

Do You Have What It Takes To Write Good Poetry?

As you read this, there are probably 100,000 aspiring poets scattered about the country chewing on pencils, staring at computer screens or scribbling in notebooks, all waiting for the magic of inspiration to cause words to leap out of their brains and come to order in the lines of a poem any of them would be elated to say, “I wrote that!”

Too bad there isn’t a test similar to the SAT, LSAT or MCAT to measure your potential for writing good poetry. By “good poetry” I mean poetry that won’t embarrass you if it falls into the hands of some jerk.  Poetry you’ll write that will stand a chance of seeing the light of day in a respected writers magazine. We’re talking about poetry that will hold you in joyful anticipation of the evening you are scheduled to read it to an audience. If only you knew whether or not you have “it”, then you could . . .  .

Here’s a chance to find out whether or not you have what it takes. Remember, this is a first for me, so don’t expect perfection. What you can count on though, is knowing if you’re lost in the forest or headed in the right direction. Also, I have studied and written poetry for a few years, so neither you or I are flying blind.

What follows is a twenty question self-scoring test.  You may wonder what relevance some of them have to measuring a talent for poetry. You'll need 45-minutes to an hour to finish. Afterwards, take an hour or so to enjoy a cup of coffee or a cold beer and discuss the test with others who have taken it.  You will find that every question you’re about to see is directly related to the question you want answered.

     1. How many books have you studiously read on the art of poetry writing?

     2. Do you have a specific time and place set aside for writing every day?

     3. Do keep a daily notebook or journal to preserve your ideas and experiences as "grist for the mill"?

     4. When taking a walk or driving, do you sometimes write a poem or part of one in your head?

     5. In this age of free verse, do you see any value in studying traditional poetic forms such as the sonnet, ballad, villanelle or pantoum?

     6. Do you occasionally read a dictionary for the fun of learning new words or using words you know in a different manner?

     7. Do you know the difference between a metaphor and a simile and can you write one of each right now?

     8. Do you buy one or more poetry books a months just for your reading pleasure?

     9. Can you compose a poem using repetitive or similar sounds within its lines that contribute to its meaning or create an effect or mood without resorting to rhyme?

    10. Do you avoid reading poetry from the 17th, 18th or 19th centuries because you find them dense, the language archaic or because your believe they lack relevancy in today's world?

    11. Have you taken any high school or college classes on poetry what weren't required?

    12. Would you look forward to attending a four or five day poetry workshop even if you had to pay the costs of tuition, meals and lodging yourself?

    13. Have you, from time to time, read the poetry of writers from other parts of the world such as Poland, Spain, Italy, France, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, etc.?

    14. When reading novels, history or biography do you occasionally pause to study how the author uses meter, color, sound, shape and images to relate a message, create a mood or reveal a character's personality?      

    15. Do you browse through art and photography books, go to arts and crafts shows or spend time to closely observe other art forms to expand your poetic vision?

    16. Do you like being alone -- indoors or out -- to take the time to quietly mull over life's big issues, to study other forms of life and ways of living to sharpen your perception or to teach you to see and hear like a poet?

    17. When you write, do you devote no less than two hours a day to it, five days a week?

    18. When you go on vacation or away for four or five days, do you always take books with you? What kinds of books?

    19. Do you belong to a poetry club that urges its members to have a new poem to read and discuss at the next meeting? Is the group a social gathering or is it one where the various aspects of poetry writing are discussed?

    20. When you read someone else's poetry, can you tell if it's good or bad and why?

     This being my first go at putting together an exercise of this kind, I can't argue that it's comprehensive or authoritative. I did give it considerable thought and, among other things, brooded over several other questions that could rightfully be included. But I'm satisfied that the twenty we have here are sufficient to let anyone who dreams of becoming a poet-in-fact enough of a basis to know whether or not they are lost in the forest or doing enough of what it's going to take to give their dream life.

 

 

Creature of the Night

 

MUSIC YOU CAN MAKE: In the olden days I played sax in a number of rock bands. I never stopped listening to or collecting the music as it evolved over the years, so I haven’t “lost touch” – meaning my musical persona did not die in the sixties, seventies, eighties, etc. – a death too many people quietly accept. I think this happens because they are afraid of being seen as goofy oldies who are trying to hold on to their former youth. Too bad. Because they have passed up rocking out on the terrific singers, song writers and bands that have come and gone over the past forty years. They’ve passed up the most vital music of a lifetime to conform to what they think others felt they should look like and behave.

     What I’m looking forward to is posting an iMix now and then. My mixes tend to be eclectic, but they work for me. You can review each playlist then click through our player above and sample the songs at the iTunes site. Mix the music your way, with your mixes or other tunes you prefer. Give our playlist  your own twist. That’s what we mean by “Music you can make.”

Creature Of The Night - playlist notes:

New rock. Old rock. A blend of different periods maybe, but with cuts that work together with no respect

shown to time or style. This mix is great for a late night session at home with good noise canceling headphones. Or just cruising the streets Chuck Berry style -- "With no particular place to go." It's all from someone who's been listening to rock longer than you need to know -- your friendly Rock 'n Roll Lawyer.

Smart Crooks Wear Armani

    I am not a communist or a socialist. I’m an idealist -- a Populist -- one of the hardcore believers who thinks the first responsibility of government is to look after the interests of all the people. Commitment to their welfare is the sole factor that legitimizes the right to govern.

     After eight years of Republican in-your-face lying and breathtaking incompetence, we learn once again that all men are not created equal. How equal we are depends on who controls the Whitehouse and Congress.  

      The Republicans have shown us they don’t buy into the concept of “One for all, and all for one.”  Their passion is money and their creed is, “If you have money – real money - it’s the super rich for all the super rich.”

     No matter how some smooth talker tries to slide it by, when I hear the phrase “trickle down economics”, it sounds like unacceptable class distinctions are being made. When I remember that one-percent of Americans own more than fifty-percent of the stocks on Wall Street, and I put that together with  “trickle down economics,” I see an image of loose change being brushed off a table and on to a carpet where the help can gather it up for themselves.

     The Wall Street meltdown and housing collapse of 2008 pulled the curtain back on how lavishly corporate and banking businesses unjustifiably reward their executives and enrich their CEO’s. The AFL-CIO has released the facts on its web site www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch where the annual salary of the 100 highest paid CEO’s are printed. The top money maker is Bruce Wasserstein of Lazard Ltd for 2008: $133,708,650.; Lawrence J. Ellison, Oracle Corporation, 2008: $84,598,700; Mario J. Gabelli, 2007, GAMCO Investors, Inc.: $70,931,633; Richard C. Adkerson, 2007, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, Inc.: $67,817,112; Leslie Moonves, 2007 CBS Corporation, $67,734,016.

    The next ten CEO’s received a low of $41 million to a high of $57 million. The next ten rose from a low of $30 million to $38 million. The following forty-seven ranged from $21 million to $29 million.  The last twenty-four went from $20 million down to $17 million.

         You have to wonder what supreme knowledge and set of super skills these CEO’s have that make them worthy of such massive compensation. Given the many mysteries of the IRS code, how much in real tax dollars is paid on their income? After the amount paid to executive level management is added to that of its CEO’s, what percentage of the company’s gross profit is it? Net profit?

      The comeback argument is that what CEO’s are paid is no one’s business except theirs and that of the stockholders. But should this rebuttal be passively accepted when the country is so strapped that it can’t afford the goods and services it needs right now? And why should workers’ wages and benefits continue to erode while corporate management is having their pay delivered in armored cars?

     Is it reasonable that the stock market should be the money machine of a select few when needed public works projects get shelved?  Schools, roads and bridges go on lacking maintenance? That environmental concerns get back-burnered while the medical and drug needs of the low income elderly and homeless are left unaddressed?  With the national debt about to pass $11 trillion, why isn’t there a call for an economic public duty and sense of nationalism that goes beyond thinking that paying the minimum income tax due is our only responsibility to our country at this time?

      If those of us who could afford it contributed more, would the government be willing to find creative ways to use future tax credits or new tax incentives to offset future taxes paid today?

      The gap between former middle class Americans who can no longer meet basic needs and the wealthy ones inhabiting the top tiers of society is widening faster than before. In 2004, the average family income, adjusted for inflation was $70,700. The median income level was $43,200.  Half the families earned more than $43,200 and the other half made less. How long will those standing on the lower rungs of society forego their needs and comforts while the rich get richer?  [Note: The above figures are from an MSNBC.com story by the Associated Press, “Average American Income Declines”, February 23, 2006. The accuracy of the Associated Press numbers are supported by the U.S. Bureau of the Census which reported the median annual income for a four-person family in 2005 was $67,019. The Associated Press did not indicate the size of the family in its 2004 story.]

     When CEO compensation is compared to the amount of TARP received through the government bailout, the AFL-CIO report referred to above, makes the numbers astounding. Citigroup Inc. CEO Vikram S. Pandit received $38,327,437 for 2008 ; the company received $50 billion in TARP; Bank of America CEO Kenneth D. Lewis was paid $9,857,723 in 2008 and the company got $45 billion TARP; American International Group, Inc. paid CEO Martin J,. Sullivan $13,960.382 and the company was given $40 billion Tarp money; James Dimon CEO at JP Morgan Chase & Co. received $28,887,532 and the company $25 billion; Wells Fargo & Company gave CEO John Stumpf $8,768,935 and the company received $25 billion in TARP funds; Richard G. Wagoner, General Motors Corp. CEO was paid $19,761,874 and TARP handed the company $14,284,024,131; Lloyd C. Blankfein, CEO at Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. was paid $53,966,198 while the firm received $10 billion TARP money; Kenneth I. Chenault , American Express CEO was paid $43,393,172  while the company got $3,388,890 from TARP.

    The AFL-CIO’s input is contained in three tiny print 8/12x11 pages filled with more names and numbers than are worth reproducing here. However, you can go to the web site and see for yourself just how far apart performance and compensation looked to be when these businesses were receiving truck loads of TARP money. One has to wonder: What was the financial health of these companies before the government stepped in? And if these businesses appeared  so mismanaged and destined for disaster, why were their CEO’s still being paid huge amounts of money that had to have vastly outdistanced the value their performances?

      “I am a gentleman: I live by robbing

        the poor.”

                             George Bernard Shaw

                

Money Saving Tax Tips From Big Business: Dress Well and Cheat

Image via Wikipedia

      

     Corporations enjoy looking like the jolly uncle who hands out $30 bucks to the kids for mowing his yard and another $15 for washing his Cadillac. These companies look like good citizens because they employ a lot of the hometown folks, give what appears to be large amounts of money to charity and sponsor community events.

         But their generosity isn’t genuine. It’s part of what they call “smart business” or public relations. Often it’s a smoke screen for corporate slight of hand.

           In his article, “Where Have You Gone, Gordon Gekko? Oh Right, You’re Still Here,” (www.StateofNature.org) Summer,2008 writer Paul Buchheit makes several revealing points most Americans have missed because they’ve been too busy running up their credit cards and borrowing off the equity in their homes. Easy access to money created a false sense of affluence that proved to be a distraction while the following was happening:

   1) For the past 30 years, income has dropped for 90 percent of American households. (But credit was much easier to get.)

  2) While productivity was on the rise since 1980, compensation for workers has almost been at a standstill. (But people hardly noticed because credit cards they didn’t even apply for were flowing into their  mail boxes.

   3) Amazingly, over 60-percent of US companies reported no tax liability from 1996 to 2000.

  4) During the 2000 Presidential Election, corporations complained they were unfairly disadvantaged  by having to compete with foreign business and couldn't make money without shipping jobs overseas. Then, during the first three years of the Bush administration, eighty-two of the country’s largest corporations enjoyed at least one year where they paid no taxes at all.

For thirty years big business has kept the lid on meaningful pay raises, learned how to use less material while making more product to sell, benefited from hefty reductions in tax liability and cut employees loose on a sea of unemployment while shipping their jobs overseas. They tell us they had to take these actions or they could not compete in the world of globalization and turn a profit.

“Greed is good,” said Gordon Gekko in the 1987 movie Wall Street. But what moviegoers took for comic hyperbole, was an accusation of what the real motivating force behind our  Captains of Industry was.

 If this strikes you as liberal-over-the-top exaggeration, return to Paul Buchheit’s piece,“Where Have You Gone, Gordon Gekko?” (www.StateofNature.org) Summer, 2008. There Buchheit tells us how many corporations have dodged taxes by moving their headquarters to tax-free paradises suchas Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. American oil and gas companies have almost 900 subsidiaries, similarly located overseas to evade taxation. Merck, Pfizer, Microsoft and Google are among others who report profits as "offshore earnings", thus out foxing  the taxman. The worst group is Halliburton, Ingersoll-Rand, Accenture and Tyco who have left the country to escape taxation even though they benefit from hundreds of millions in U.S. government contracts. Because of their legal status, they   do not see themselves as citizens, unless it comes to seeking the use of American military power and influence to fatten their wallets and otherwise protect their interests. Not being citizens but business entities, they say they owe no loyalty to anyone other than their shareholders. Moreover, they have been sticking it to workers while using public utilities and other facilities to lessen their costs of doing business.

Big business has moved out of the country to avoid taxes and escape government regulation. It has no interest in giving back to the country nor has it shown any care for the welfare of the people. Taking a responsible role in improving the common good, it maintains, is not a business obligation. The shareholders are the only people who count. And their corporate executives, for the most part, are the shareholders.