A Few Reasons Why Time Travel Wouldn’t Work

Often times I think to myself, “I wish I could have seen Anne Boleyn’s coronation,” or “Wouldn’t it be grand to go back in time and attend an Inkling meeting?” or “I yearn to see the Allahakberries play cricket!”

It is times like these when I wish I had a time machine. Things in the past often seem brighter and more glamorous than the present, and experiencing iconic history is something I’ve dreamed of for … ever.

Knowing that I can’t will sometimes make me a bit blue, and to counter these bouts of born-in-the-wrong-century-depression I’ve come up with a list as to why time travel would not be a good thing:

Traditionally, the time machine only transports the user back in time, but doesn’t alter their location (for this to happen it would have to be a dual time travel and teleporter.) Even if I could get my hands on a time machine, I’d have to travel to England first, and take it with me… And I really, really doubt a time machine would get through customs easily.

Time travel would come with the power of altering history. What if I accidentally destroyed Lewis and Tolkien’s friendship with a stupid comment from the future? Would The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia still be written? Would Lewis still broadcast hope to the world during WWII? What if, at Anne’s coronation, Henry caught my eye and made me become his mistress, and I was responsible for Anne’s execution by replacing her and Jane Seymour? What if I cheered so loud for little J.M. Barrie that he didn’t pay attention and the cricket ball hit him in the head and he died? These are not good things.

What if I died? Going back in time, especially to Tudor England, would have its health disadvantages. Plague, sweating sickness, lack of antibiotics, heads rolling everywhere… If I died during my time travel, what would happen? Would I die in this world, too? Would I never be born? Would my death just result in being thrown back into the present?

[What is Libby going on about?]

Taken from the FB page ’Living to Read Fantasy.’

History could be different from what I thought. Maybe Anne Boleyn really was a home wrecker instead of the independent woman I’ve come to know and love. Maybe Tolkien was rude and pompous. Maybe Christopher Robin hated his father, A.A. Milne, for basing a lovable children’s character off of him. Maybe Cromwell had nothing to do with Anne’s execution. Would these ruin my perceptions of these people? Would I hate myself for allowing this to happen?

How could I get back? Logically, you have to be with the time machine to use it. It can’t be remotely operated, so you’d have to bring the machine with you back in time, plus keep it a secret. Can you imagine if Henry VIII was accidentally transported to my home? Or worse, 1970s New York? 

[That's it. She's having eternal tea time with the Mad Hatter.]

The government. If they found out, they’d probably lock me up and use the time machine to stop awful national tragedies from occurring. Which, don’t get me wrong, is not a bad thing. But remember what I said about changing history? WWI and II are now part of our very identities as North Americans. Who would we be without it?

Money. Again with the secret thing. You could make big bucks from this machine. Do you know how many people would want to go back in time to go to an Elvis concert or shake Kennedy’s hand? Or kill Bush? Or stop rap music from happening? Or to prevent the heartbreak of a high school sweetheart? Millions. Billions. You cannot have that many people zipping back and forth in time.

Alternate realities. If you changed something in history, would that just be creating an alternate reality? A dimension where you were married to a man you didn’t love, and a dimension where you were married to your true love? You wouldn’t be aware of the you that was happily wed. As far as you’re concerned, your life would still suck. Granted, you would be happy in some reality… Would you be aware of your attempt to fix your life? Would you just think you failed, or are you fixing the dimension you’re in and sending another you into the world that’s less than daisies and roses?

Now my head is just starting to hurt. Time for some turkey. And gravy. Lots and lots of gravy.

[If you read this whole post in all its ridiculousness, you and I must be kindred spirits or you must have nothing better to do on Thanksgiving weekend. I'm thankful for you!]

Photo taken from aliendescendant.blogspot.ca

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Poetry Prompts for Precariously Placed Poets

I find that poetry is much easier when I have a prompt. I can still sit down and write a poem without one, but it takes longer and produces a more strained result, as well as a more emtionally-based piece rather than visual.

My prompts are usually things I come up with on my own, something I see and store away for later writing. As it is the beginning of October, in the heart of autumn, there are a plethora of stunning visual prompts from Mother Nature. I have so many ideas I can’t write them all at once, so I thought it might be a good idea to list them all in one area.

And then I thought Hey, I can’t be the only one who struggles with subject matter for poetry. Maybe they need prompts, too!

So, for any of you uncertain poets, poets-to-be, or entirely confident poets, I’ve created a page where you can go for ideas for poems. Sometimes it’s just fun to see where one word can take you.

For now I’m starting with seasonal prompts, but as time passes I’ll add other categories like emotions, colours, fairy tales, and quotes.

“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”
― Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky and Other Poems

#nationalpoetryday

I don’t really get hashtags (I don’t Tweet, except during charades when I’m impersonating a bird), but I thought it looked nice, so here it is again:

#nationalpoetryday

It’s been a couple weeks since I left behind my second draft for a world of eloquent language, descriptive phrases, and rhythmic syllables; a dimension of emotional release, creative wonder, and nonsensical metaphors (can green be nightly?).

While I miss being surrounded by my characters, the break has been therapeutic. Instead of worrying about dialogue and plot holes I’m just breathing. That’s what poetry is to me. A deep breath of fresh autumn air. It calms and invigorates me, teases and comforts me, cleanses me and takes away the stresses of modern day society.

When I write poetry I have no face. I become a disembodied voice with no name, a pen moving across creamy paper without a hand to guide it. Because poetry just is. It doesn’t have to make sense. It can be meaningful. It can be pointless.

But it’s beautiful.

As National Poetry Day (with the theme of stars), I thought it would be fitting to contribute with my own poem, written entirely for this purpose and in one, short sitting. I hope you like it!

Breathing, murmuring

Silver in the blood purple glass of the ceiling

Dancing on white crests of sleeping ocean waves

Nestled in icy mountain peaks, shrouded with mists

And outshone in the reflection of snow

Gathering in rivulets of frigid earth nectar

Collecting below in moon-shafted glades

A pool of fey, shimmering serenity

Edged with shadow-grass blades

And fleeting wondrous glimpse of

Barefoot goddesses

Playing with their Mother, the Silver One

Gathering handfuls of them, like diamonds

Tossing showers of laughter and wisdom

Over each other’s ink-night hair and pale skin

Washing courage and deepness into pores

Glimmering in iridescent joy and sorrowful grief

Distance and time rubbed into immortal youth

And never-ending beauty

The stars, in the blood-purple glass sky

Watch their sisters on the earth

Mourning them, envying them

For to be alive on living soil

In moon-shafted glades and gently lapping waters

Is warmer, cool, compared to the far-year

Distance and icy starkness of the heavens

They wait to be chosen

Reflected in man’s eye as beautiful

Loved by the goddesses

Subject to a poet’s loving, yearning, grieving pen

The stars watch

Waiting

As they are watched by mortals

Who yearn to be among them.

~*~

‘The Starry Night’ by Van Gogh, 1889

Did you do anything to celebrate National Poetry Day?

WordPress is still being picky and is being difficult about links (and tags), so here are the long forms for links of interest:

• National Poetry Day website: http://www.nationalpoetryday.co.uk/
• Robert Parry’s NPD post (where I heard about NPD)  http://robertparry.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/sonnet/
• Anthologies – the page where I’m recording where my poetry/short stories are published/to-be-published: http://www.letthemgrumble.wordpress.com/writing/anthologies
• Vanilla – a poem I wrote last week: http://www.letthemgrumble.wordpress.com/writing/vanilla-a-poem
• The Starry Night Wikipedia Page to learn more about the painting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starry_Night

That Old Book Smell

Taken from the FB Page ‘Living to Read Fantasy’

This explains everything.

My passion for books, pages off white, dust-creamed,

Time-loved, hardly touched,

And desire for 

Vanilla

Come together to make a scent that drives me wild

For knowledge,

Understanding,

Belonging,

Memories.

Let me be, in this room of magical motes

Placing my nose in rarely cracked spines

Breathing in the tang of the air that can only mean one thing:

I’m home.

Do you sniff books unashamedly? Have you ever been caught in the act? If there a more magical scent?

[WordPress still isn't cooperating 100%, and it's not letting me link to websites indirectly, so here's the expanded link to my poem "Vanilla" -- http://www.letthemgrumble.wordpress.com/writing/vanilla ]

May I Have Your Attention, Please, Before I Kill My Computer

Okay, technology hates me. I just wrote a lovely blog post, then went to add a link, and it vanished.

Poof.

Gone.

Sucker-punched off the cliff of Internet-reality into the oblivion of “The Realm of Lost Information Due to Computer Malfunctions.”

My anger and frustration with computers is something I’m sure you can relate to and don’t want to read about, so I’ll get to the point.

I’ve updated, added, and rearranged content to my site. Look to the top of your screen and you might notice the changes. Or you might not. That’s okay, too.

Go! Explore! Be free! Leave comments in your wake! Don’t smash your computer, however much you want to! Eat chocolate! Write poetry! Read! Take up tap dancing! Make a sock puppet! Watch massive amounts of Whose Line is it, Anyway? episodes! Did I say leave comments and eat chocolate?

Monday got his butt kicked

Like most of you, I hate Mondays. It brings the dreaded return of work/school and the halt to those too-short moments of freedom squeezed from Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday.

Sunday was glorious. I’m no longer a Word on the Street virgin. I’ve been, I saw, I heard, I did.  WOTS offered opportunities to talk with authors, writers, publishers, and just fantastic people in general. I walked away with a sore shoulder beneath the strap of my book-and-brochure-filled bag, a head full of harbour air and new knowledge, and a heart skipping lightly in the joy of knowing that there are people out there like me. Okay, maybe not exactly like me, but in the sense that they too are bombarded with words and phrases by invisible beings that sometimes call them rude names.

Anyway, I got to chat with the cool cats at Fierce Ink Press, collect free swag, and had a quick visit with my old friends from the Elizabeth Bishop Festival.

Under one of the WOTS tents these adorable dolls were seen cuddlng together. Edgar Allen Poe and Elizabeth I were not to be left alone, however, and Blackbeard can be seen lurking in the background. Beside them sat a basket of finger puppets, comprising of historical celebrities such as Shakespeare, Darwin, Jane Austen, Nelson Mandela, Virgina Woolf, and the Queen of Hearts.

Of course, leaving behind a spectacular weekend such as this only makes Monday that much more horrible. I was perfectly content to sit at home sifting through my newly acquired knickknacks and maybe write a poem or two, but alas, the days of the week are too well-disciplined, whipped into shape by that dirty jerk in the uniform who goes by “Time.” I mean, Time, SIR!

At the end of this unfortunate, terrible, uneventful Monday, I was greeted by the victorious red flag of the mailbox, standing high and erect and becoming closer by the hour to blending in with the colours of the changing trees in the background.

If ever I had a premonition, it was this.

My Hogwarts letter had finally arrived.

Kidding. It sort of felt like it, though.

No, instead it was two letters in one envelope, along with several other pieces of paper and a couple bookmarks. The letters were identical, with only a few key words changed. Turns out that I made the final round for the fifth annual Polar Expressions National Poetry and Short Story Contests, as well as placing at least among the top 33% — which means my poem Haying will be published in Harvest: New Canadian Poetry in December; as will my short story My Time in Setting the Scene: New Canadian Short Stories.

Did you hear that, Monday? Yes, I believe that was the sound of my boot landing firmly in your behind.

Oh, you don’t think that hurts? Here, let me try the other foot, which has “My prose piece This Place Where I Belong is being published in June 2013 as part of an anthology consisting of the winners of the 2011 Elizabeth Bishop Festival” written alll over it. Yes, I know it’s a big boot to have all that fit on it, but I managed.

So while we can hear Monday groaning and holding onto his buttocks in agony, I want to ask: Have you ever kicked Monday’s butt? Have you received any letters that just brightened your day?

I’d like to thank Ryan for all his love and support on all those difficult Mondays. He’s rooting for you, too!

Harvest and Setting the Scene are available for preorder, so if you’re interested in poetry and short stories by Canadians, add it to your cart.  

“My heart shall never be put under their microscope.”

“Harry,” he [Basil Hallward] said, “Dorian Gray is to me simply a motive in art. You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him. He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is there. He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner. I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the lovliness and subtleties of certain colours. That is all.”

“Then why won’t you exhibit his portrait?” asked Lord Henry.

“Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression of all this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have never cared to speak to him. He knows nothing about it. He shall never know anything about it. But the world might guess it, and I will not bare my soul to their shallow prying eyes.

“My heart shall never be put under their microscope. There is too much of myself in the thing, Harry — too much of myself!”

“Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions.”

“I hate them for it,” cried Hallward. “An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing into of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray.”

~ Chapter One, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, 1890

Basil Hallward, the tragic artist in Oscar Wilde’s single and scandalous novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, brings up an excellent point. Everyone always says that for an artist (painter, poet, singer) to achieve the highest form of beauty and authenticity, they must pour their heart and soul into their craft. And it makes sense. After all, can a songwriter be believable in crooning the lyrics to a melody of an abusive relationship just as well as someone who had experienced it? To give your art that something extra, that je ne sais quoi, you have to sacrifice something very private and very personal.

But how personal?

Basil’s dilemma is that he’s worried Dorian Gray and the public will see in his portrait the entirely inappropriate infatuation he has with the cherubic boy. As he says, his “heart shall never be put under their microscope.” The picture simply means too much to him, and can’t bear the thought of anyone beholding it — for to do so would place him naked under scrutiny, and the magical quality that makes made him produce beautiful pieces of art would be taken for nothing but the public’s idea of muse, inspiration, and beauty. And to Basil, Dorian’s picture means so much more than that.

After picking up my poetry again, I can say I’ve shared in Basil’s worry. Have I put too much of myself into this poem? Does it say too much about me? Will it make me vulnerable if I let others read it? 

Lord Henry Wotton points out, in persuasion for Basil to exhibit this picture, that: “Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is for publication.”

 Touché, Harry, touché. People love reading about other people’s innermost thoughts, worries, and problems, especially the romantic poetry format. They might be so absorbed in relation to their own issues that they only appreciate what the poet has written, not what’s in the poet’s heart.

Or maybe there’s a difference between letting strangers read your work, as opposed to people you know, love, and care about. A stranger has no idea who you are, what your life might be like, and can appreciate the poetry for what it is — an emotional release, an experiment with words and feelings. Someone who knows you might immediately begin to show concern at your mental well being. Maybe you actually have a personal issue. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you think you do. How can you explain that?

So I suppose it depends on how confident you are in yourself, and if you’re looking to get your poems published or not. Do you want people to see/hear your words, even if it means baring yourself to them? Would you rather keep the private poems hidden in a shoebox, only to see the world again on nostalgic, rainy days? Or do you keep your deepest emotions out of your work, to avoid the terrifying task of sharing at all costs? If you chose this route, aren’t you A) missing out on releasing those pent-up emotions? and B) being disloyal to yourself and your potential readers by producing poems that don’t mean anything to you?

Qu’est-ce que tu pense? What do you think?