How deep and wide in what lengths  do you you go Before a dip in shallow water  drowns and your lungs explode? -brr

Art of the Day Design for the poster and cover for The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe Édouard Manet  (French, Paris 1832–1883 Paris) Author: Written by Edgar Allan Poe (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1809–1849 Baltimore, Maryland) Translator: Translated by Stéphane Mallarmé (French, 1842–1898) Date: 1875 Medium: Transfer lithograph on simili-parchment Dimensions: sheet: 12 3/4 x 11 1/4 in. (32.4 x 28.6 cm) (irregular) Classification: Prints Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1924 Accession Number: 24.30.27(6) Photo via the Met.  Published in 1845 by Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven was more than rhymed stanza or macabre form by the writer and poet. How else could one be upon the brink of madness of love and repeat "nevermore" with such finality? This beautiful work of art was found via The Met, which has a great story. A lithograph, or print was made by the now famous Manet for the French translation of Poe's Raven , by Stéphane Mallar...

Day 39 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Month Two. There are a handful of magazines and literary journals I've kept on my bookshelf. All literary, of course. Poets & Writers magazine is one of them. Not only is the publication filled with literary news, articles, features, and letters-it is a go to resource for grants and awards, conferences, and residences for the writer. I have now turned to perusing the resources section more effectively via the web, but the poems and pieces inside are beyond creative. Whenever I stumble across a favorite author or poet of mine in a magazine, I may keep the copy just to pay it forward or for future use.  This is volume 34, Issue 33 from May/June 2006. Great condition, almost perfect except a crease in the back. Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka blazes the cover. -brrivera

Day 31 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. The final day in the first month of the project. Eleven more months to go. Huzzahs are in order.  I adore anthologies. I get a little smorgasbord of some of the best (and sometimes not so great) poems that I adore, and venture into new territory. This beloved copy of mine The Voice That Is Great Within Us explores the genre of American poetry of the 20th century. I'm talking some of the greatest names in the game here: Frost, Ezra Pound, Patricia Low, Robert Kelly, Eliot, Ginsberg, Marianne Moore and so much more. My mass market paperback has yellowed a bit at the edges, but is barely wrinkled. I have several book markers in for my favorites, including An Undefined Tenderness by Joel Oppenheimer, I Am Not Yours by Sara Teasdale and my favorite poem of all time:  I Like My Body When It Is With Your   by E.E. Cummings. i like my body when it is with your body.   It is so q...

Day 28 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. From the nonprofit American Poetry and Literacy Project comes 101 Great American poems . A small trade paperback, it holds 80 pages of hand selected verse spanning from the 19th and 20th century. There are classics such as Poe and The Raven , Whitman and I Hear America Singing and Frost with The Road Not Taken . Wish they had a bit more Teasdale thrown in, but this is such a small book. Only costs $1.50 too if you can believe it for such great works to thumb through. Cover design by Pete Donahue, with the the cover photo of none other than Robert Frost in 1941. ©1998 Dover introduction, half title page, acknowledgements. Soft glossy cover.  -brrivera

Day 27 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Chapbooks, by design were made to make literature available to all by making it cheap as possible; no cover, about 24 pages, and made with materials available to those surrounding them. In the 16th century (and beyond until newspapers and other mediums became available) chapbooks were crucial to getting news, entertainment and other stories which they held. On the poetry end, chapbooks are still crucial today. Most chapbooks are made up to 40 pages, and can be an important factor with marketing your existing book, seeing if you have an  audience, selling any poems at all, or building an audience. Chapbooks have come a long way since their creation and can be as cheap as or expensive as their materials, but still have the same anatomy of the book: up to 40 pages, and are bound with a saddle stitch, stapled, perfect bound, folded, or wrapped. You can use various publishing programs to create the chapboo...

Day 26 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Tears for Water is an assortment of journal collections, poems, thoughts, and observations written by classically trained musician Alicia Keys. Most notably to address is that while she commands such a strong stage presence, this book was written without the intention of ever sharing with others, not even her confidants. Some thoughts are too personal, some too sacred. It is without hesitation that we keep these memories and emotions a part from everything and everyone we know, journaling just within reach in ink and pen but not published. I am quite surprised with the finished product of the book for some go beyond basic lyric of end rhyme and catchy phrase and enter true poetry, such as Beckoning Green . Credits include Songs in A minor, and The Diary of Alicia Keys.  My copy is in excellent condition. Acid free paper, slight to none bookish smell. Red cardboard book once dust jacket is removed...

Day 23 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. "How do I feel about people who do not understand my poetry? I understand them." ~ Vera Pavlova So, every April is American poetry month. Poetry magazine goes all out in this 2012 issue and delivers a stunning copy of 100 years of poetry to celebrate. We have well known poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Clive James, and Gerald Stern---but other contemporary poets leading back from a century ago. The cover art "Pegasus" (2011) is by Milton Glaser. Poetry magazine is a monthly periodical, and this is Volume 200, Number 1. Poetry magazine, founded by Harriet Monroe in 1912 is the publication of the Poetry Foundation. The soft bound edition is printed via Cadmus Professional Communications, located in the US. Inside the copy lies a half title page, table of contents, index of contributers, promos of related books/authors, backpage(monthly feature of artifacts from the last 100 years of poetr...

Day 21  in in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf.  Poetry is my first love. Always will be. I am a poet to the heart, and the way that some words can carry more weight than others will always astonish me. Fascinate me. The way words can shift and shape you, create memories or extract from them. Move you. Disrupt the silence in you. Everything is just words until a poem is felt and then created. Langston Hughes Poems selected and edited by David Roessel is a perfect hardcover with flap jacket pocket book sized piece of literature to escape with words. T he contents are broken into two parts: poems of five decades and montage of a dream deferred. Hughes first book was published in 1926, and "hailed as the poet laureate of black America" during his time here on earth. Such classics as Mother to Son and I, Too are just a small part of the book, as it holds a couple hundred of poems easily. A jazz poet with some of the realest wo...

Praised by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hyperion is the unfinished work of John Keats that begun in 1818  pictured as the original manuscript of Keats handwriting below. This poem then began to evolve as a the preface to Endymion but was abandoned in the year of 1820. Its contents are full of allegory between Olympians and Titans, and the fall with the sorrow that accompanies it thereafter when the Olympians were defeated. The epic is a tale of the gods; Hyperion of the sun, Apollo of both the sun and the gift of poetry. The mythological nature gives its verse mysticism and even gods are knocked off their throne and given lesser or human qualities "...gray haired Saturn quiet as a stone" so one can relate to them, and invoke the feeling of powerlessness.  Keats never wanted Hyperion to be published at all; in his 1820 volume of collected works, Keats inserted the following statement:   '[I]t was printed at [the publisher's] request, and contrary to the wish of the ...

Death to the selfie. The self imposed zombies  Bumping into walls from tablets and cellies Enter belly of the beast Nuisance Technology. The one word responses  The constant scrolling tours The apps glorified open The texts with binary whores. The rate system on book of face Give me a number, Direct message me for gratification of a taste. Men posing harder than females for double taps Click here Hips here Mirrors flash. Hashtag wars in 140 Followers only Internet famous for conformity Must check the post The tag The alert The comment The response Ring a ding ding Look at my bling I can finance A brand new cell phone.  Fuck all other in MySpace This is my space Head down See the top of my crown Click  Clack Keyboard tap If I call before I text they mad. Simple "k" Is okay. Acronyms become decoder rings, we  Become secret agents in labyrinth strings  Twisted and curled in a network bound of  Google and Siri, Bing, and remember that Dial up thing? You've...

time In its most wicked state tastes of sour lemons, molded from uncare aware of its presence. life is frailty. love, it's burden. carried upon backs that once moved mountains the stones throw away, now too much effort  to give freely what shouldn't be yearned for. his smile, a memory. happiness trapped in a hourglass to the choices present. stranger, in same being joy you disallow time a ribbon of history unraveled if I known then, what I know now.  -b.r.rivera Recommended Reading

Walt Whitman spent his entire life writing Leaves of Grass , although several editions exist. Although cited as controversial because of the language used with innuendo, in today's culture versus his mid 1800's release the collection of poems is now widely accepted and seen as a classic. The pure sensuality of the poetry sets it apart from no other, and Whitman ensured that his symbolism and other devices were widely used in verse. Besides devices, Whitman brings what is needed to poetry-the willingness to be honest and open, the soul nakedness in the midst of censorship and taming ideas. Interested in reading Leaves of Grass ? Download this public domain book in the US at  Project Gutenberg . Image Details Title: Leaves of Grass. Proto-Leaf Creator: Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892 Source: Oscar Lion Collection/ Leaves of Grass Location: Stephen A. Schwarzman Building/ Rare Books Division Digital ID: 484427 Image via  the NYPL Digital Library. ...

Remember me, he said Her hair falling down in dew drops dripping across  Electric hair buzzed by emotion. She makes no  Response with words, fulfills only her fingers Into empty voids where his spaces once were. Calmly, Releasing muscled grips Slips into day old clothes under harsh moonlight Hushed feet under creaked floorboards, Closes the door.  -b.r.rivera

I am not impressed. Not impressed with the way your tongue moves, shifts vowels and constants together in a stinging way to reflect more vinegar than honey. Not impressed with bones of structure that God himself removed a rib to construct thee, but you don't fine my moves that Heavenly. Not all all moved. Captivated by goodbyes becoming more welcoming than hellos, and bitter sweets are accompanied by rum. And I'm numb. Surgically altered into slices and dices, how you expertly cared out the compassion and left the nothingness within me. Exalted. Never exalted. By pillars of upon pedastles that former lovers gave with ease, molehills become mountains from the fragment of small nonsensical things. I am not loved. Rabbits out the hat aren't your thing. Magic tricks aren't illusions so easily carved into truthful lips. He sways back and forth to falsify eyes where shadows are grasped by time instead of emotional movements. Grass is not greener. Never is. Maintenance require...

All of time and space, Compacted in Pantone 2955C Hidden corridors and secret spaces Blanketing stars and the dimension of galaxies. Take me there, my sweet wooden box Lets run among danger and fantasy Land on soils of earth and discover The language of rewritten history. I want to say hello to her. Hello, sweet girl. For you, I will pause a breath in rewind or pinpoint an area of fixed time Open the blackness that was ugly in despair Show you the future in a blue box And tell you to take care. Cause we'll run Won't we run, my ancient and new lord of time? Spark a newness in souls And see beauty redefined For all of time and space You point to the sky and say choose one And beyond all the eyes can see Supernovas explode For the journey has just begun--- My little blue box As I'm given the silver key. Geronimo.

Types of Poetry: Palindrome. This specific type of poetry is not for mere amateurs. I say this with the most respect, because the palindrome is perhaps one of the many types of poetry that is challenging to write and to make complete sense while still respecting the subject matter at hand. The palindrome derives from the Greek word palindromos: "palin"meaning again, and "dromos"meaning a running. Combining "palin" and "dromos" we have the collective term of running back again. This gives us a mirrored image which the palindrome is: a poem that is read forward is read the exact same way backwards. With in the palindrome, there is a short break in its center that denotes a specific "turning" as a reversal point which the mirrored image reflects. It's also important to note that the palindrome poem can be achieved by word (letter by letter) or by sentences in the poem. Whatever is read forwards is the exact mirrored image of what...

I remember. Time has passed though. Wrinkles are beginning to form, and grey Hairs rooted. Doesn't take away the simplicities or Mere intricacies from the amazement of you. Although its fragmented. A laugh becomes hallow. Bounces off walls Acoustic not in tune with realities dimensions. Smiles become visible only on a photograph, the unpleasant Aftermath of the only thing which now to hold. Dreams. Dreams are divine. They curve into the cerebellum, leaking false images of you Drawing naked paths on skin and arching my spine- but awakening is the sad goodbye. Your scent. I can still smell it. Soaks Into my pores and wafts my nose Tickling the this and that of spice and musky Heartbeats Through the breeze of the wind, there It blows. and I remember. Sweet God of Lord above, I remember. Do you gather sweet musings about me? Thirst the same emotion, beg to be touched by me yet again? Reverse time and become the beautiful reality? I dare not ask for the real an...

You The stealer of dreams, The thief of hope, And the merciless pilferer of truth Have stolen from Me Years upon countless years. Decades of minutes Stacked upon memories I never had with Someone who could have loved me back Someone who's mere touch had the electricity to arch my back Someone who arms could spread east to west beyond a cartographers dreams Someone who's love bursts and permeates through all the seams. You The stealer of dreams. Flying high on could haves and would haves and maybes Past lives and wrinkled times now synching Womb empty with grown child no longer a baby. Me. The fool who believed it all. The constant reassurance in slick talks under hushed acoustic walls And cheap mattress springs, wooed by promises Of mere possibilities. We could of had it all. You. The thief of hope. We could have redefined bliss. Etched it in Oxford dictionaries scribe in pencils, visualize and mime in Pictionary Become the envy of the town where gras...

Attention class: write a poem using the ababaxCabbC rhyme scheme. *Class looks around* ...what the deuce? Oh, it's possible. And a rhyme scheme is nothing but a map to show you the way on how to write a poem in fixed form. The rhyme scheme is a specific pattern (either created by the writer or a fixed form) that is established by arranging rhymes in a stanza or throughout a poem, and is described by using letters to show the recurrence and specific pattern for the lines of the poem. Now, that might seem confusing at first, but think of the rhyme scheme as a sort of "code" if you will for your poem. Each rhyme scheme deals specifically with end rhyme and both capital and lowercase letters all give you the directions needed to create the poem. 1. Capital letters create a refrain. This is a repeating line throughout the poem. 2. Lowercase letters (except x and y) just show the rhyming pattern. 3. The letters x and y remain unrhymed. 4. In all cases, the ...