A review was published in Nature, very scathing, essentially calling me incompetent, though they didn't use that word. I am putting a reply on my Web site in a few days, where I go through their arguments, paragraph by paragraph.
quote by Bjorn Lomborg
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Purple Cast
A breath is not a word
A whisper is not a sentence
Pain is not a paragraph
But Pride and Prejudice do make a book
What is a word?
Where is a sentence?
Who is paragraph?
When is a book?
All these question race through our minds
The universal quest for understanding
Flat on our backs, we contemplate
While the ambulance siren sounds
poem by Cornelia Ceilings
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Studying
Paragraph after paragraph
Books piled up high
Attempting seemingly in vain
to force feed my brain
as time zips on by.
Vast information
consumed all in one go
only to be forgotten soon as the clock
strikes 'time up' tomorrow.
poem by Shaqueena Celestin
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Responsibility
Its not my responsibility
If you say you love me
(ooooooh)
(repeat paragraph)
I know for sometime
One day I would see you
(? ) what you say
Did I get it right
Is it you and me tonight ?
And you looked at me
And I knew wed be together
(be together)
You feel it too
What can we do
(feel, what can you do)
Come on, move up to me
I wanna whisper in your ear now
(do you want me)
When I get you home
Were gonna be alone
Disconnect the phone
When we wake up
You know the room is full of sunshine
We close our eyes and make a wish
Its not my responsibility
If you say you love me
(listen to what I say)
(ooooooh)
Its not my responsibility
If you say you love me
(its true)
(ooooooh)
Hey ! you call me back
cause Im not there when you want me
(do you want me)
The job on the phone
Every night and day
Ive got to get away
And on that we kiss
But I never said I loved you
(I love you)
Lets take it slow
Youve got to, got to let it go
Its not my responsibility
If you say you love me
(ooooooh)
(repeat paragraph)
(want you back, I need you back)
(ooooooh)
(repeat paragraph 5 times)
(want you back)
(I know I do)
(I need you back)
(I feel you do)
(want you back)
(I see you do)
(I need you back)
(I know you do)
(repeat paragraph)
What do you see
When youre looking straight at me
When I look at you
I tell you what I see
You dont belong to me
Sometimes its true
Youre gonna leave it when its over
(its over)
I close my eyes and make a wish
Its not my responsibility
If you say you love me
(ooooooh)
(repeat paragraph 5 times until fade)
song performed by by Heaven 17
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What I have in advance are people I want to write about and a problem or problems that I see those people encountering and that I want to explore - it all proceeds sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and scene by scene.
quote by Chaim Potok
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Masterpiece
A thought starts a sentence
A sentence forms a train of thought
From that train of thought comes a paragraph
A paragraph starts a work
A work sets a mood and fills the mind
Warms the heart or chills the soul
A work is finished and a masterpiece is made
poem by Matthew Wardell Petersen
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Bad Writing
the sentence & the paragraph had agreed upon meeting at dawn
out in the middle of the page
as the reflection off the fine silver pen being lifted by the human hand in the sky
shone off the bright white recycled paper
there stood one strong paragraph,
which
was armed with clever words, quirky verbs & quiet frankly,
a whole slew of other sentences
who may or may not be brought into the fray
with this
vigilante,
who stood a good distance away from the paragraph
with its shadow blotting out part of the page-
the sentence was tight
knit
&
written in a language that the paragraph had never heard of
before-
the paragraph tilted it’s font a bit, to stave off the human shifting the paper,
causing a bit of a breeze across the soft plane,
but the sentence hadn’t come here today
to waste its time flashing its
fashion sense, and in
standard
new times roman,
it spoke out in italics
“we gonna do this or not? ”
& the paragraph,
without a moment’s hesitation,
nodded, saying, in some bold n’ fancy variation of
book antiqua,
“i been ready since i saw the punctuation at the end of your
babbling jumble of foreign words”-
at that point,
the title of the page & the
header
walked in tandem to the place in between both the paragraph
and the sentence-
now equidistant apart from both,
they talked of what had brought both these forms of writing
to the page
this brisk & early morning in
june-
to make a story short,
the foreign language sentence & the
english (current language of commerce) paragraph
had come to this duel over a
beautiful
metaphor-
and while both the title & the header could understand,
having fallen for beautiful metaphors once or twice in their own
multiple drafts, themselves,
it was still a sad sight to see two
strong forms of writing,
battling over one
metaphor,
when there were so many
phrases in the
sea of literature-
the title & the header opened up the utterance
& from that utterance, they pulled two perfect
pistols full of wit
(the weapon of choice for both the paragraph & the sentence) ,
and after handing both of the forms of writing their
prospective pistol,
they stood back and off to the side of the page,
frightened of what was to happen next-
back to back,
the paragraph & the sentence marched away from each other
space by space by space,
to the traditional margins,
and when they both reached them
they turned round quick,
firing their wit at will-
the paragraph,
hefty & edited well,
was able to fire its wit faster,
as it had already gone through so many drafts, and had
honed its skill
whereby each word within it, had its own place
(it was a “ripped” paragraph, if you can picture it-lean & not very wordy at all) ,
however,
though the sentence wasn’t as well formed as the paragraph,
it was sleek & stealthy-
its words rolled off a human’s tongue when they read it
aloud,
and in this, the sentence was able to
wiggle itself around,
missing the mass spray of wit that had been fired by the
paragraph’s pistol-
as in every fight,
there is a winner & a loser,
this one was no different,
and the hefty, well edited paragraph,
had too much to move
and too little time to do so,
when the sentence wielded its wit towards it-
the sentence, relentlessly, kept firing,
not satisfied & not feeling safe,
until the paragraph, with all of its fellow sentences within,
crumbled to the page,
now,
a mere pile of
sentence fragments & misplaced
words & punctuation.
the sentence,
victorious,
nodded to the title & the header, who nodded back,
and walked out of the lamplight & into the shadow
to embrace the sweet warmth of its
beautiful metaphor
which had been watching the wit-fight
behind the margin.
poem by Andrew Delapruch
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I Hate Anon
Anon
sends poems
and they are published
everywhere
I submit poems
and am lucky
to receive
a scathing
reply.
poem by Vince Gullaci
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Dear Lorca
Dear Lorca,
These letters are to be as temporary as our poetry is to be permanent. They will establish the bulk, the wastage that my sour-stomached contemporaries demand to help them swallow and digest the pure word. We will use up our rhetoric here so that it will not appear in our poems. Let it be consumed paragraph by paragraph, day by day, until nothing of it is left in our poetry and nothing of our poetry is left in it. It is precisely because these letters are unnecessary that they must be written.
In my last letter I spoke of the tradition. The fools that read these letters will think by this we mean what tradition seems to have meant lately—an historical patchwork (whether made up of Elizabethan quotations, guide books of the poet’s home town, or obscure bits of magic published by Pantheon) which is used to cover up the nakedness of the bare word. Tradition means much more than that. It means generations of different poets in different countries patiently telling the same story, writing the same poem, gaining and losing something with each transformation—but, of course, never really losing anything. This has nothing to do with calmness, classicism, temperament, or anything else. Invention is merely the enemy of poetry.
See how weak prose is. I invent a word like invention. These paragraphs could be translated, transformed by a chain of fifty poets in fifty languages, and they still would be temporary, untrue, unable to yield the substance of a single image. Prose invents—poetry discloses.
A mad man is talking to himself in the room next to mine. He speaks in prose. Presently I shall go to a bar and there one or two poets will speak to me and I to them and we will try to destroy each other or attract each other or even listen to each other and nothing will happen because we will be speaking in prose. I will go home, drunken and dissatisfied, and sleep—and my dreams will be prose. Even the subconscious is not patient enough for poetry.
You are dead and the dead are very patient.
Love,
Jack
poem by Jack Spicer
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My Editing Has Been Done
To eliminate a sentence,
To make a paragraph more accepting...
Or censor a comment to make an issue less
Affecting...
May for some
Be what is needed to overcome
What is regarded as a topic
Not accepted or approved by those
Who review comments said by one!
But my editing has been done,
To accomplish what I have begun.
If what I say has been rejected...
I'll find my own exit when I've been shunned!
I'm here to enlighten not seek applause,
From everyone!
And if it has been decided
That my comments have divided,
I'm sure that something said...
Will enter the ears to stay in one's head!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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~April Fool~
April flipped herself in
Like a brand new paragraph
For i'd left off in March
And winter 'twas still the subject matter
The frost all but got me
Hypothermia of feelings
Once felt
Like coming into a heated June
My feelings they began to melt
But April flipped me in
Much like an April Fool
Vunerable and needy
Forgetful of what i had
Learned in school
And so another paragraph
Was formed
Along with the rain you did bring
Remind me-Mother Earth-
If you will
That not all flowers bloom
In the Spring
Aware that the showers
Are supposed to bring
Some Flowers that bloom in May
But ne'er prepared for
Story-tellers with eloquent words
That ne'er mean what they say
The flowers that later bloom
With brillance-aroma and Light
Take out the chill and hold on me still
During a most troubling dark of night
poem by Theodora Onken
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The last paragraph, in which you tell what the story is about, is almost always best left out.
quote by Irwin Shaw
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I never leave a sentence or a paragraph until I'm satisfied with it.
quote by Clifford Geertz
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Last Seven Days
You dont wake up
You (? ) wake up
Theres someone hiding in the dark
Who is pulling his country apart
Ive had seven days
And we want forget
The last seven days
And then its over
One week in chains
And then we are free
Seven days alone
And then were going home
Who wants a war ?
Who wants a firestorm ?
In the brightest day
Or the blackest night
Who are the ones who will fight ?
Ive had seven days
And we want forget
The last seven days
And then its over
(chorus) (? )
When will you learn
Youve had your turn
Watch the go rush round and round
Watching them burning he town
Ive had seven days
And we want forget
The last seven days
And then its over
One week in chains
And then we are free
Seven days alone
And then were going home
(repeat paragraph)
song performed by by Heaven 17
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Can You Hear Me ?
So you send them back
And I began to cry
But I can let you know
That I will let you go
You cover up your smile
And Im afraid to move
This time I get it right
Ill get somebody new
Youve got to sound that you mean it
(ooooh, ooooh)
(can you hear me)
Youve got to mean that you want it
(ooooh, ooooh)
(can you hear me)
(repeat paragraph)
Hey, when did this all start
Your (? ) stuff is your heart
And I have a night
When everything goes right
(? )
Too late to carry on
If I have a day
When everything goes wrong
Youve got to sound that you mean it
(ooooh, ooooh)
(can you hear me)
Youve got to mean that you want it
(ooooh, ooooh)
(can you hear me)
(repeat paragraph)
(? ) on your door step every night
Until I get to see you
I spend my weekends on the phone
Ill make you listen
Ill write a letter every single day
Until I get an answer
Im gonna try every single way
I know, Im gonna find you
Youve got to sound that you mean it
(ooooh, ooooh)
(can you hear me)
Youve got to mean that you want it
(ooooh, ooooh)
(can you hear me)
(repeat until fade)
song performed by by Heaven 17
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I pay—in Satin Cash
402
I pay—in Satin Cash—
You did not state—your price—
A Petal, for a Paragraph
It near as I can guess—
poem by Emily Dickinson
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Having imagination it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that if you were unimaginative would take you only a minute.
quote by Franklin P. Adams
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I do small cameos here and there but nothing that requires more than a paragraph of talking, because I'm just an amateur. The movie is a whole different reality.
quote by Richard Price
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I think my prose reads as if English were my second language. By the time I get to the end of a paragraph, I'm dodging bullets and gasping for breath.
quote by Lynn Abbey
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There would be a paragraph about some veteran digging tunnels for the Germans in a slave labor camp, or something like that. Finally I decided to look it up and go further into it.
quote by Charles Guggenheim
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And before I'd got to the end of the first paragraph, I'd come up slap bang against a fundamental problem that still troubles me today whenever I begin a story, and it's this: where am I telling it from?
quote by Philip Pullman
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