For the NaPoWriMo prompt.
When we write a thing
of joy or grief
a falling leaf
an absence beneath
the roof
the way the light plays
on still water and water rippling
insect-stippling
or the slashed
cross-hatched rain
across the window again
when we write the words of you and me
we
the cat lying in the sun
an unknown whose life is done
when we write the song of birds
and lamentations near and far
they are
poems.
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Jane Dougherty Writes 
Lovely descriptions. They are poems, but still real.
Thank you. I’m pleased with this one in the end. I wasn’t going to do this prompt; I have a million things to do today, but this popped out quickly and painlessly ๐
It’s great when that happens. Mine popped out quickly, too.
๐
Beautiful response to the prompt!
Thank you! I almost didn’t do this one.
Lovely.
Thank you!
They are! I knew you would get this one right. (K)
I didn’t know that I was going to write a response to the prompt, just wrote this with my eyes half-closed if you see what I mean. It worked, surprisingly enough!
And yours bring the scene to life.
Thank you ๐
That’s a creative way of describing the experience of writing poetry. I’ve been doing that more often with the Ospreyshire blog since that was one of the main purposes of it to begin with. Now comes the spoken word recording parts…
You’re brave speaking your poems. I hear them in my head but I’d hate to put my voice to them, if that makes sense.
Thank you. I have recorded some and even did a year-long video series called Katauta 52.
I understand if you don’t want to put your voice to your poems.
I know a lot of people who do it and it doesn’t bother them, but I’m a bit of a cringing violet.
Really. Have you ever tried it before?
No. I used to do voice overs for publicity and information films. It paid well but I hated doing it.
You did voice overs? That actually sounds great. If you hated doing voice overs, then I understand. A bunch of people told me I should give voice acting a try, but I never had the chance to do so.
I translated a lot of in-house films for big French companies, either publicity for their clients or health and safety for employees. I was asked by the company that did the filming if I’d be willing to do the spoken part. It was okay in that I was the one who had written the translation so I the phrases were ones I was happy with speaking. It’s a nerve-wracking experience though.
Okay. That’s great how you did translations, too. Sorry to hear about you being nervous at the time when you worked there. I’ve been doing my best to go back to learning other languages. I took Japanese classes a long time ago, but I lost most of it (especially the writing aspect).
I admire anyone who attempts Asian languages. They are just so different. I enjoy translating. It’s like working out a puzzle.
Arigato, Jane-san. Haha!
In all seriousness, Japanese isn’t that hard of a language to speak from what I remember. Learning and writing the 3 alphabets is much tougher. I’ve definitely noticed that when learning new languages and that puzzle comparison is apt. Even when I randomly dabbled in Yoruba and Welsh for a day for kicks, it was so interesting.
Yoruba and Welsh???? What motivated that? The Welsh, I mean. I imagine some of your ancestors spoke Yoruba.
Funny random choices, right? Haha! There were many more choices I looked up when it comes to African and European languages. Welsh came up in my DNA sample (on my Dad’s side in addition to English), so I looked at some words for fun. Some of my friends from the UK said I can do a legit Welsh accent when I joked around one time.
You’d be right about Yoruba even though I’m not of Nigerian descent, but two other countries I got in my DNA results do have Yoruba representation in West Africa and have official language statuses. I’ve seen a couple of films that feature that language such as Green White Green even though most of the dialogue is in English with some Hausa and Igbo here and there. The other one is a short film called Plaything which had one line of dialogue in that respective language.
Besides that, I want to be efficient in multiple languages. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of this joke, but it’s an interesting one: What do you call someone who knows 3 or more languages? A polyglot. What do you call someone who knows 2 languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who only knows 1 language? American.
Welsh must be as difficult to learn as any African language. They say that the older the language the more complex it is. Modern languages have lightened up.
The joke figures ๐
Granted, I’ve just been starting out and mainly focused on another foreign language, but I do agree that Welsh was trickier with the pronunciations like how LL sounds like a C in some words (imagine the name Lloyd sounding like Cloyd there). Yoruba hasn’t been that bad, but I had to get used to some of the accent marks. Last year, I dabbled in Amhara and Tigrinya and those were more difficult to pronounce for me and they use the Ge’ez alphabet which is certainly different from ours. Those last two are from Ethiopia and Eritrea and I do believe they are two of the oldest languages that are still active (I do know the Ge’ez script predates Arabic for example).
Yes, the joke is all too true.
How do you pronounce words with no vowels? I spent a year at college learning Irish and I could say barely how are you by the end of it. Too complicated grammatically and the pronunciation!
That’s a good question. Haha! Was Irish that tough of a language? Wow. I remember being thrown off as a kid when I heard of the Irish singer Maire (Moya) Brennan. Even when I watched two Irish animated films The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, there were characters with names that did not look like how I thought they were pronounced. There’s a main character in the former named Aisling, but I thought her name was Ashlyn. The latter had two characters named Saoirse and her mother Bronagh. I thought they were spelled Seersha and Brona until I looked at the credits.
Irish is murder. The words (even given names) change in the way they’re written and pronounced according to which part of the sentence they are. Like the name Sรฉamus (Shay mus) changes to A Shรฉamais ( A Hay mish) if you’re say calling out to him across the road. Mad.
Oh, wow. I wasn’t aware of those facts about that language. I didn’t know that the names change depending on the sentence structure or proximity. None of the languages I’ve learned and/or learning right now don’t do that. The closest thing is Japanese with honorifics, but even then the rules are straightforward and easy while name itself is still spelled the same.
And we wonder why there are such things as dead languages ๐
Exactly. Although one thing I could say is that learning languages is certainly important. T
Sorry, it cut off my comment. Learning languages is good and if thereโs a cultural tie to oneโs home country or ancestry, it could have an efficient use there even if one isnโt fluent in it.
All Irish people know some Irish, but not everyone is fluent. English is such a powerful steamroller of a language that it dominates everywhere it’s spoken. Shame, but a fact of life thanks to the British Empire and most of all the US.
I see. I’ve noticed how most Irish media I’ve experienced like movies and music is in English as opposed to Irish/Gaelic. What I wasn’t aware of was how fluent people are in that language. That’s true about English taking over so many countries in both as an official language, business language and a lingua franca. You could go to America, Ireland, Australia, Guyana, or even Zambia, and you’ll be able to have English conversations with several people.
It has its advantages but it means that countries that are heavily tied to an anglophone country through trade and culture find their own language is so devalued they stop speaking it.
It certainly does with one common tongue and some countries do devalue their own languages, there are certainly some exceptions. With Nigeria for example, there are plenty of English speakers, but the local languages such as Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa are still actively used to this day.
I suppose in a country with so many tribal languages you need to have a lingua franca that is neutral.
That could be true with the aftereffects of colonialism aside with the example I gave. There are some languages that can work as neutral lingua franca for certain locations like Swahili in Africa, Quechua in South America, or Azerbaijiani/Azeri in parts of the Middle East.
Reblogged this on The Reluctant Poet.
Thank you ๐
This is beautiful Jane. Each scene so vivid. Nicely done
Thanks Pat. I was pleased with this one ๐
Beautiful depiction of they are poems from the heart
Thank you!
A great description of what a poem is…Beautiful!
Thank you!
My pleasure, Jane.
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This is really nice! I genuinely find this quite provoking! Great postโค๏ธ
Thank you!