Joe Jackson - Good Bad Boy

Good Bad Boy by Joe Jackson (c) 2008 Rykodisc, Inc. All rights reserved. Warning: Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws. Manufactured in the USA. Rykodisc, Inc., 30 Irving Place, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10003-2303.

Poetry: Nature

This is actually my english homework. Write a sonnet. So I decided, after my hard work, that I would record myself, once again, reciting poetry. My copy on actual paper isn't too neat so that's why I was instead looking at my computer screen. Hope you enjoy.

Sonnets - Open Your Heart With 140 Syllables and Fill it and Someone Else's With Love

The English Sonnet is just one of many variations of what started out as the word for "little song." Hence, it is called sonnet, or a truncated form of sonnetto. In form, it is not difficult. The content is presented in fourteen lines, which is more flexible than the 17 syllables of haiku but far more restrictive than the three thousand line epics of historical predecessors like Homer and Virgil.

Condition I: 14 lines

Each of the fourteen lines consists of five units of measure with a specific pattern of rhythm.

Rhythm itself is a pattern of syllables that are stressed or unstressed, i.e., they have a pattern of accents or non-accents. The vocabulary of languages consists of multiple-syllable words as well as one-syllable words, the combination of which forms a recognizable pattern of speech This pattern can undulate (flow like a wave) according to its arrangement in a linear format.

Example: Poe's "The Raven" has a relatively consistent trochaic pattern of stressed-unstressed syllables. It begins, Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary... a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that is almost melodic.

Another example: The Christmas piece with a well-know lyrical pattern is, "T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse... "

Note the anapestic pattern of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed throughout the line. To make the process consistent with historical applications, the rhythmic patterns use the names that were available at the time of their formal inception into classical literature. Their nomenclature included reference not only to their QUANTITY (number of syllables per line but also their QUALITY (the specific kind of named pattern per line). The characteristics of the syllable were likewise classified as LONG (stressed) or SHORT (unstressed).

These are as follows:

1. the IAMB: a pattern two syllables the first of which is Unstressed followed by a Stressed

2. the reciprocal of the iamb is the TROCHEE which is the reverse: two syllable, the first being Stressed while the second is Unstressed

3. a third pattern is the DACTYL, which consists of three syllables with the first one stressed and the next two unstressed

4. the reciprocal of the dactyl is the ANAPEST which has a pattern of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed

5. two forms which are often used as filler between or among the others are the SPONDEE, two consecutive stressed syllables and the PYRRHIC which is a combination of two Unstressed syllables.

How does this apply to the five-foot line? Consider that each of the iambs, dactyls, trochees, anapests, spondees, and pyrrhic combinations is a measure (from METER, the Greek word for measure), not so different from a measure of music. But, it seems that the word FOOT became an essential, universally acceptable measurement for each of the syllabic combinations. Again, the Greek influence prevailed and the number of metrical (measurable) units (feet) required a numerical value to show how many of these units were in a line. Consider the following:

One foot per line = MONOMETER two feet per line = DIMETER three feet per line = TRIMETER four feet per line = TETRAMETER five feet per line = PENTAMETER six feet per line = HEXAMETER seven feet per line = HEPTAMETER eight feet per line = OCTAMETER nine feet per line = NONAMETER (a rarity) ten feet per line = DECAMETER [Hence, the ten-foot line.]

By extension, the following labels would apply.

A line of poetry that consists of four metrical feet of dactyls = dactylic tetrameter.

A line that consists of ten measures of anapests = anapestic decameter.

By definition the, the sonnet is a poem that utilizes 14 lines of iambic pentameter.

Condition II: Iambic pentameter(The Shakespearean or English Sonnet)

How do the string of words in a line, whether poetic or not, fit the pattern? The answer to that lies with the artistry, talent, genius of the writer. Sometimes it happens by luck, by chance, or on purpose. Look at the following examples:

A truck spilled its cargo of bananas. [7 words totaling 10 syllables of no set pattern] The highway was covered with yellow peels. [Again, 7 words and 10 syllables with no set patter]

A truck banana-laden spilled its load [9 words and 10 syllables in an iambic pattern] the concrete path attired with yellow peels. [7 words, 10 iambic measures]

See? Now we have two lines of iambic pentameter.

Condition III The string of words must be arranged to form the iambic pentameter flow.

Condition IV involves a variable, rhyme scheme. The English (Shakespearean) form takes on the rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. (End rhyme simply means the sound at the end of the line.)

Summary: The sonnet consists of 14 lines of iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme to be determined by a specific type determined by the writer, whether it follows Spenserian, Shakespearean, or Petrarchan.

The content of the sonnet has some strictly listed conditions that are imposed only by the purists. The first three quatrains should state the problem while the couplet at the end should resolve it; but these are limitations I choose to modify to my own liking for the sake of getting a point across. Call it poetic license.

Clashes of Self and Identity in Sylvia Plath's Ariel Through Deconstructive Lens

Clashes of Self and Identity in Sylvia Plath's Ariel through Deconstructive Lens

Self and Identity as two separate but interconnected Phenomenon in deconstructive approach, have been typified outstandingly in Plath's Ariel. The derision of poetess toward the external factors, namely in social and political contexts appears to be pertinent to her latest poems. The duality of Sylvia Plath as self and Plath as daughter, as her mother and others expected her to be is a crucial point in reciting her poetry. The schizoid character of postmodern identity has no option but to experience the uncanny (Brain, 65) and to face the double(Ibid).

The attitude towards the intrinsic malady woven into poems in fact paves the way for deconstruction. Since deconstructing acts like a surgical operation applied to texts and works, thus analyzing human's psyche opens a good scope in this field. The fact that every man is born with a double, the entire human's struggle is to protect this spontaneous creation of double in order to preserve life. When "I" is repeated, the self and its replica are called to question.

There is obvious ambivalence between the persona's identity and individuality in most of Plath's poems in Ariel. The despondent chant that even the most grotesque and comic poems conceal beneath their profound layer is not dissimilar to Hemingway's Iceberg principal. Although every text might have an icy and solid surface, this does not merely imply that accessing to the heart of the work is not feasible.

Identity in question, Motifs of Double and Duality

To discuss the self, one should recollect nd summon up the challenging notion of Identity and its play of doubleness and duality. The whole life of an artist is summarized in one quest that is the process through which could find Identity. Almost inevitable, all of Plath's poems intentionally allude to indefiniteness of gender to remove all identities feasible from the narrator individuality.

To quote Tracy Brain in her blockbuster book, The Other Sylvia Plath that was one of literary breakthroughs of twenty century would be conceptualization of Identity concept regarding Sylvia Plath's own identity. Brain provides the reader with Plathian Doubleness (Brain, 121) with the amazing hint to Sylvia Plath's thesis on Dostoyevsky's use of double in her mastering masterpiece, M.A project. Therefore, she was not only unfamiliar with this sort of literature, focusing on characters and their doubles, but also a qualified and specialized enthusiastic about the so-called subject matter. Taking into account the doubling of her own self, the genderless speaker of Plath's Ariel with no specific nationality and gender colored a new cubism in the canvas of her poetry.

In "Tulips", taken from The collected poems of Sylvia Plath edited by Ted Hughes, the persona's loss of self during her hospital experience is portrayed via these lines, she weightlessly feels free from all earthly belongings that they "catch onto her skin"(Line 25,P.161) like "little smiling hooks" (Ibid):

I am nobody

I have nothing to do with explosions.

I have given my name and my day-clothes up to nurses

And my history to the anesthetist And my body to surgeons
...........................................................................................................

Now I have lost myself (Lines 6-11)

Watching her identity recede, she sees the tulips and everything like the marriage affixed ring as a kind of entrapment. The petulance of speaker's voice here has been mixed with artistic frenzy of its creator's mind.

Entrapment of "I" in Ariel poems

The conceptual interpretation of "I" has been reiterated in Ariel poems. One's being is shaped around this pronoun and left the modern criticism unjustified and unwarranted in superfluous understanding and perception of this mystified entity. The fact behind these repetitions affirms the unity of "I", but at the same time casts it into doubt and ambiguity as well. As in Derrida's Critique cited in Porritt, (328) "Surpassing Derrida's Deconstructed Self" "...sense of self almost perishes."(328), when the unity of signified/signifier would be ruptured and ripped apart through the extension of repeated "I am I, I..."In another word, articulation of "I" is masking the absence of self, or to use Derrida's terms, the voice masks an "always already absent presence".

Considering the fact that "I" could play the external and emphatic stress for the very sign of self, nonetheless this intruding pronoun poses the legitimacy of self into question. As a matter of fact, "I" deceives one into fallaciously impression of a singular Self.To broaden Derrida's philosophy further, "I am I am I", is as if the "I" is trapped between two opposing mirrors. Consequently, the origin appears to be unattainable since "the reflection, the image, the double splits what it doubles."(325). self-identity is multiplied within the frame within frame of infinite range and as a result there is no self entity of "I" who claims "I am I".

The lack of self-identity emerges in one of Plath's illustrious poem titled "Daddy", in which the origin of character is irretrievably lost. The poem is a notable parody of distorted identity, where the language itself has come to facilitate the narrator's schizophrenic psyche in achieving a verbal that is true to its fragmentation and inconsistence. The instability of Daddy's gender and masculinity implicitly diminish and cheapen the patriarchal supremacy and power. To identify the foot and the root of one's origin, in the daughter, duality of two racial heritages neutralize each other in a grotesque way. This degeneration of identity tyrannizes harshly with applying the verbal language true to this atmosphere.

Despite all doubtfulness and improbability which govern the identity in various shapes, In "Lady Lazarus", Plath refers to her I-affirmation that is inevitable:

Yes, yes Herr Professor

It is I

Can you deny? (Collected Poems p.246, Line 79)

These paradoxes of self-affirmation along with self-rejection in contradictory way have extravagantly contributed to unsteadiness of identity itself.

The fragile position of both identity and language that the poem shapes and figures around it can be observed through the repeated words, putting the idea of assurance and as well uncertainty forward. As if the speaker seeks to draw the spectator's approval and permission via repeating and rephrasing. Since replicating implies that the speaker is not confident about conveying her ideas properly. "I" as the most significant of Self- Identity has been rendered to "Ich", the German equivalence for the pronoun "I". Applying "Ich" could be deemed as a reference to Plath's double racial identity and at the same time regarded as a closure that the pronoun "Ich" connotes with its disarticulation and suffocation, due to consonant ending.

As a result, it frustrates any self-definition and this selflessness has occupied most of Plath's Ariel poems.

In contrast to "I" that is free and at least carries liberation in its articulation, however there are some obstacles and shortcomings in its clarity and restriction of defined range, "ich" seems to be timid and unpronounced.

The tarnished individuality presides over the poems and the disturbing paralysis of this realization would lead the character to a sort of passivity and subjectlessness. The impossibility of any self definition makes the narrator come terrifyingly close to depersonalization and dehumanization, that means equating people and object to indicate devaluation of human life and relations. As "Applicant" depersonalizes human's relationships and affiliations in this way:

I noticed you are stark naked.

How about this suit-Black and stiff,

but not a bad fit.

Will you marry it? (Collected Poems p.221, Lines19-22)

Marrying to black and stiff suit is the death of all conjugal matrimony. Personification is used to undermine the integration of human being's individuality. Ariel poems are the exact mirror to question identity and everything relevant to do so. The "I" is trapped, dismembered and equated to be taken for granted like commodity. This is the culpability and blameworthiness that the modern human has to pay for price of industrialized machinery world. "Cut" is looked upon as one of brilliant cases in point:

What a thrill--

My thumb instead of an onion
....................................

Of skin,

A flap like a hat,

Dead white.

Then that red plush (Collected Poems, P235, Lines 1-8)

To personify the injured finger here as a result of dismemberment, the poetess attempts to incarnate the solo finger by addressing it:

O my

Homunculus, I am ill.

I have taken a pill to kill

The thin

Papery feeling (P235, Lines 22-26)

Undoubtedfully it must be the thumb that the speaker is talking to, since it is the shortest finger, like a homunculus and dwarf.Taking the medicine as narcotic and sedative to soothe and alleviate the pain of injured finger is in fact to heal the separated and dehumanized self and accordingly to kill the depersonalization that is like a papery feeling. Paper can be regarded as a white board in which the identity would define itself. But "Papery feeling" is flimsy and frail. Feeling like a paper is an absolute acceptance of depersonalization and devaluation of human life. Also one may assume that paper is associated with formal atmosphere and any social ritual issues. As it is previously declared here that depersonalization and fragmentation is a distinguishable trait in Ariel poems, the researcher would have a preference to end this part of discussion with Sylvia Plath's apparent personification of dominant images in her poem "Elm", the 24th line, she fabulously writes:

"The moon, also, is merciless". (Collected Poems, 192)

Assuming the moon to be merciless like a living creature is the grotesque image of demanding and reification of human's characteristics.

The objectification of self that has been atrophied and emaciated in socioeconomic atmosphere in consequence of World War II would be a justification to move toward scrutinizing the phenomenon of self.

Phenomenon of Self

They stuck me together with glue (Collected Poems222)

To unravel the complex network of self entity would look to be unfeasible. Notwithstanding the sense of self per se could be determined by what one perceives from the atmosphere. The psyche is trapped within the body frame. As discussed in previous section, the external representative of self, the so called "I" can not substantiate and prove the entity of self. In another word the inability of "i"in self-confirmation has cast the credibility of self into doubt and suspicion. If "I"is signifier, the self as a reflector might be the signified. But vice versa is potentially probable, self as signifier and "I" as signified. As this interchangeable transaction exists, subsequently the correspondence between "I" and self is like orbiting a circle, infinite, repeatable and substitutive. This incorporeal and abstract splitting up of self is perverted symbiosis of persona. Although this falsification of self makes the sustainability of human's life possible, otherwise there would not be any incentives to live upon it.

Derrida's notion of self, cited in Porritt (323), argues that "Derrida dismantles the concept of "self" as a unified, identifiable presence or entity. Derrida specifically views the self as "split", the self is therefore unable to provide a solid foundation for meaning". In proportion to Derrida's contribution to deconstruction of self (ibid), self is not a unified, singular and identifiable entity, but only a phenomenon created by human language.

The aesthetic self of artist is so susceptible and perceptive that when the quest for its definition and discovery fails, this feeling of gloom and frustration would lead the character to mental breakdown and psychological disorder. One should not ignore the fact that accessing to the resources of profound feelings often occurs in mental breakdown mood. Knowing the fact that Plath was a psychopath suffering from psychic collapse sporadically, that is why Plath's hospital writing is full of delicate and passionate description and sketch. The tangible fluctuation between self-loathing and self-recognition would lead the persona to a sort of schizophrenic disposition along with experiencing polarities of a self that has been divided and fragmented in this ill at ease situation of mind.

Importance of Graduation Rhymes

Graduation is one of the most momentous events in the lives of students and their families. Graduation poems can bring life to any kind of graduation invitations, announcements, and thank you cards. It will also give added drama to any kind of graduation speeches. There are lots of graduation rhymes on the internet which you can seek if you need them on this special day. A graduation rhyme fills a lot of purpose during graduation time. Just like any caps and gowns they are also important on this very special day. They can be copied on the web and they can also be your own composition. Graduating students are very busy during this time but they deserve special attention because their achievement is priceless and worth celebrating.

Composing a special rhyme may need some special words of light point throughout the speech; possibly, your hardships can be the biggest part of your speech. They can also help you with your graduation announcements to let everyone know about your achievements. Your message will depend on the purpose you are trying to imply to your readers. As you prepare for your graduation caps, you shouldn't forget to prepare your fascinating lines for this special day. There are huge range of poems, sonnets, and rhymes available which you can probably depend in finding the right lines you deserves. If you are a book reader, you'd probably know where to find the right lines for your special day. You are free to use some of them just don't reproduce them and use them for nothing.

Graduation rhymes also works for kindergarten and preschool graduates. They will be able to truly understand its meaning when they grow up. Don't you think it's perfect for parents to write a caption for their young ones since they deserve all the regard on this special day? Aside from preparing their kindergarten graduation gowns you also need to prepare them a special line. You can post it on their graduation announcements, graduation banner, cake, and many others. It will be best to choose a line that will represent your love to your kid. This is one of the most special day to celebrate it with the whole family, your kid will surely be happy with how you prepare their special day. Messages of love and wishes are very common during this time; it will surely represent how proud you are for having them. No matter how you struggle in raising them and giving them the best education, you just want them to have the best things in life that is why graduation day is very important not just to him but for the whole family.

Every memory you give will depend on the area you use for the graduation rhyme. There are lots of sources online if you don't know much about poem books where you can get the lines you need for your graduation favours. All you need to do is to find the best site that offers you with a lot of options. You need to do this ahead of time so you will have more time to look for other resources.

Affiliate Marketing For Beginners - Writing With a Plan

How to Create an Outline for Your Article

Article Writing

Pick a Plan and Stick to It

Writing of an any sort requires some forethought and a plan. The plan varies according to what you are going to write and who your intended audience is. For example if you are writing to your loved one, you will let the thoughts and words flow from the heart. In that case, stream of feeling or consciousness frames your plan.

If you are writing a sonnet, you will need to respect the rules of sonnet writing; iambic pentameter and fourteen lines of rhyme.

When you are going to write an article for your blog or website, then a more accepted form to use is the Cartesian formula. It is what I remember being taught in school and it has worked for me ever since because it makes sense.

Here is how it works:

Headline

A bold statement announcing about the issue, problem or idea you are going to write about.

Introduction

This is where you present the idea or issue outlined in the headline. It is the place where you are telling your audience what you are going to do. If you have done your research, you are going to cover a problem or offer a solution you know your reader would like to read about.

Paragraph One -The Problem

This is where you lay out the issue and problem that is of concern to your reader. In the case of a product or service, this is where you introduce the information from the point of view of the reader. You demonstrate that you know how the reader feels and thinks about a problem or life experience and you establish a rapport with your reader.

Paragraph Two-The Solution

With the problem well defined and articulated, you can now move to offer some ideas about how to find the solution and make things better. A list of remedies that take care of each concern, one by one, is what is needed here. This gives your audience the chance to process the information and think about the outcome and what it means to them.

Paragraph Three-Proof

In this section you offer proof. This is where testimonials, reports with data, and corroborating information is presented. Testimonials are living proof and often are instrumental in helping your reader overcome any doubts they may have. If they identify with the people in the testimonials, then they are more likely to build a sense of trust.

Reports and any information with data are also important. They can be verified to make sure that the information is reliable. They can also be checked out to test for any bias or slanting of the data. They can legitimize the stated testimonial and benefits offered. They are ways your readers can overcome objections they are feeling.

Conclusion

The conclusion is a restatement of your introduction. In the introduction you tell your reader what your are going to do. In the conclusion, you tell the reader what you have just done. You can also add a call to action if the article calls for one. Generally you want to recap the benefits of the information you have just offered and move the reader to internalize what they have just read. If you have connected you have achieved the ultimate goal.

With this structure, you should be able to write articles for your product or service with ease and confidence.

May Your Travels Be Prosperous

From There to the Future

In the beginning - as we all know - was the Word. But it was not in the form of a church newsletter. That came much later.

What constitutes a 'church newsletter' or a 'church magazine'?

Some people might argue that Paul was writing church newsletters when he writing about the regular activities that went on in various churches. After all, chronicling a church's regular activities is one of the key purposes of a church newsletter.

Indeed, the first things that are actually called 'church newsletters' are rather more like Paul's letters than the newsletters we know today. Two fairly recently published books are: 'Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead' (Camden Fifth Series) (Hardcover), published by Cambridge University Press, 1998, and 'Newsletters from the Caroline Court, 16311638: Volume 26: Catholicism and the Politics of the Personal Rule: 26' (Camden Fifth Series) (Hardcover), Edited by Michael C Questier and published by Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Birkhead's book contains a series of Jacobean newsletters written, between 1609 and 1614, by members of one of the most important Catholic clerical factions of the period.

These newsletters shed light primarily on matters which most immediately affected the English Catholic community:

* the strife between different Catholic factions;

* the conflict between Catholics and the State (especially over the Jacobean oath of allegiance), and

* the possibility of obtaining some form of toleration.

The newsletters also give us Catholic 'glosses' on other news which could be taken to have a bearing on the prospects of English Catholics, such as Court politics, the conduct of Jacobean foreign policy towards European Catholic states and controversies within the Church of England.

The newsletters printed in Questier's book were written by Catholics who had access to the Court of Charles I and Henrietta Maria during the 1630s. The letters' principal concern was the factional strife among English Catholics, particularly over the issue of whether they should be subject to the authority of a Catholic bishop appointed by the papacy to live and rule over them in England.

But these letters also contain Court news and gossip, information about foreign policy issues, and comment on the contemporary Church of England controversies over theology and clerical conformity. They are an important source for the study of the ideological tone of the Caroline Court, and of the ambition of certain sections of the Catholic community to secure a form of legal tolerance from the crown.

What we would begin to recognise as 'modern' church newsletters and magazines started to appear after about 1860.

According to Suffolk's official website, the earliest parish magazines that exist for Anglican churches in Suffolk date from the 19th century. The site states that these record events connected with churches, including changes in the fabric.

Other churches - from St John's and St Peter's Church with Ladywood ARC, Birmingham, to Tabernacle Congregational Church, in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, record having church magazines from around 1889.

The earliest surviving edition of the church magazine for St Mark's Church, Gillingham, in Kent, is dated 'December 1866'. This edition advised that 'a banner of less startling character is in preparation for Christmas and the lion will not leave the guardianship of the vestry on that festival'. (Apparently, many people had been distressed that the Lion of St Mark 'has not a more amiable countenance').

The magazine of St Paul's Church, Wood Green, Wednesbury, was published regularly between 1876, the year after the formation of the parish, and 2006, when the publication went 'digital' - being published only on the church's website.

So 'parish magazines' as we now know them have been around for some 140 to 150 years.

The impetus for them came from the movement towards mass education - and mass literacy - that characterised the mid-Victorian era. As more people could read, so more things were produced for them to read - including church newsletters.

My personal involvement with church magazines is, of course, much more recent than the mid-Victorian era! My father was a Baptist minister and, as a boy in the 1960s, I remember going with him, more than once, to an office - it happened to be in Hemel Hempstead's Bank Court block of offices. There, my father handed in an envelope containing typed stencils of our church's newsletter for the women there to put on something called a 'Gestetner' machine, which would then produce the 200 or so copies of our newsletter. It began as a quarterly publication but soon became monthly.

That was almost the sum total of my experience with church newsletters until the cusp of the 21st century.

In the intervening years, I'd grown up and become a freelance journalist and an editor of trade publications. Latterly - in 1990 - I'd started a public relations agency (Bob Little Press & PR). I'd written some articles for various church newsletters but I'd never become involved with editing one.

Then, in 2000, the church where I am in membership - Marshalswick Baptist Free Church, in St Albans - was looking for an editor for its monthly magazine. My wife and I took on joint responsibility for editing it and we've been doing so ever since - so we've just (this month) produced our 100th edition.

The content of church newsletters may not have changed a great deal over the years.

There are always lists and rotas; people to pray for; points to ponder, and so on. But the way these newsletters are produced has changed out of all recognition in the last 40 years or so.

In the 1960s, we had special typewriters that cut letter spaces out of stencils. Those stencils were then put on a machine with a drum which rotated and produced often imperfectly inked pages - which could be a bit difficult to read. There was no opportunity for using different fonts or sizes of type. Pictures were only available on the cover - perhaps because the covers were printed in bulk and wrapped around each edition. The result was a publication that looked like a letter - albeit a long one.

Nothing much changed but, by the end of the 1980s 'new technology' was beginning to have an impact of church newsletter design. Pictures and other illustrations were beginning to appear throughout an edition. This was not just because of improvements in production - the growth of photocopying on plain (not chemically treated) paper - but also because of developing skills with the art of 'cutting and pasting'.

You could now subscribe to church news services which produced articles and devotional 'snippets'. You could cut these out, paste them on a piece of paper and then 'Tippex' around the edges, so that, when the page was photocopied, the dark edges disappeared. You could now fill pages in the way of 'real' magazines and newspapers, rather than leaving gaps on the page if an article fell short. It was the beginnings of 'page make-up' for church newsletters.

By the mid-1990s, the personal computer was beginning to make its presence felt within the church newsletter editing community. This allowed not only for some variation in font and type size (perhaps following the Guardian's style of headlines in one font and body copy in another) but also - in theory - it reduced the number of 'typos' because a page could be read as a whole on computer screen before being printed.

The spread of computers was followed by a plethora of 'desk top publishing' software packages. These allowed newsletter editors to include pictures - not just grainy photocopies but actually 'scanned' pictures - in their publications. Today, in their desktop computers, church editors have all the production capabilities of a specialist typesetting house and printers of the 1980s at their disposal.

Whether they have the skills to use these capabilities is another matter but, in theory, today's church newsletter could - in production terms if not content - be compared with any magazine found on a newsagent's shelf. We've come a long way in terms of the technology available to us to produce our newsletters.

Production technology changed little from the days of Paul, through the church newsletters of the 17th century, until the middle of the 19th century. Demand for more reading matter for more people from the 1860s saw more pressure put upon the existing production technology. Even so, nothing much happened in technology terms until after the Second World War - with the advent of duplication technology which had a lower unit cost than that associated with 'traditional' sheet fed printing.

It is only really in the last ten years that production technology has accelerated at an astonishing rate. While we're still catching our breath after the amazing technological breakthroughs of the last ten years, we need to give some thought to the future of the church newsletter.

We need to be clear about what the church newsletter is, what purpose it serves - and what it competes with for its readers' attention. As production techniques have developed, and technology advanced, so the audience for any kind of 'produced material' has become more sophisticated in its tastes. We wouldn't dare to give our readers a church newsletter that looks like a newsletter of the 1970s - regardless of its content. They would laugh at us! And the purpose of the newsletter would be completely negated.

So:

* Will the future for newsletters be purely online, as St Paul's Church, Wood Green, Wednesbury, has decided?

* Will it be a combination of hard copy (for church members or parishioners) and online (for those further afield - including people living thousands of miles from that church)?

* Should the newsletter's content be 'pushed' to readers' mobile phones, PDAs and BlackBerrys?

Your decision will determine the content of your newsletter and the way that you structure and present that content.

My view - as a career journalist and editor who has tried to apply many of the lessons of that career to producing a church newsletter - is that, whatever you decide about the production and distribution technology for your newsletter, it is vital that your newsletter's structure is appealing and its contents are relevant to its readers. It must be able to compete: visually; in terms of content, and in terms presentation with anything else that your readers' read, whether that be in hard copy form or online.

People don't read church newsletters because they have to. They read them because they want to. That argues for church editors who are skilled in journalistic, sub-editing, editing, picture editing and, perhaps, advertising sales skills.

Just as people judge organisations, products and services by the quality of their marketing material, the church is also being judged by these criteria. To be effective, it needs not only to make its time-honoured point on an interpersonal level but also via the (relatively) mass communication medium of its newsletters.

Church newsletters are a vital part of the church's 'marketing mix' or, if you prefer more 'theological language', they're a vital part of its outreach and witness activities. They have been around for 2,000, or 400 or 150 years - depending on your definition of a church newsletter - and should be around for many more. To misquote Shakespeare's Sonnet number 18: 'So long as men can read and eyes can see, So long lives news to, Lord, illumine Thee.'

The Art Of The Short Story

The short story is the perfect form for the Age of the Short Attention Span. If you're thinking of writing a short story yourself, keep this in mind (before you move on and start thinking about something else): Keep it short.

A short story running amok will before long turn into a novel, something nobody wants to read unless it has plenty of sex and violence -- which is beyond the scope of this essay.

Before you sit down to write your short story, sharpen one pencil - just one - and when it wears down and will no longer write, you're finished. If you run out of paper before that - even better. The best thing, without a doubt, would be for the pencil point to break, so that you can't write any more.

Always keep in mind: Brevity is the soul of wit. (This piece of advice, ironically, was written by Shakespeare, who went on and on in hundreds of plays and sonnets but never wrote a single short story.)

Now that you're prepared to keep things SHORT, you can choose a subject for your story. With blessed brevity in mind, zero in on a subject that would lend itself to the form. The Napoleonic Wars? - no. How about - an orange? An orange in a bowl. No, an orange lying on a table.

How did the orange get on the table? Maybe someone took it out of the bowl and put it there. Why? Maybe so that someone could easily reach it. Maybe someone - some kind-hearted person - took the orange out of the bowl that it was in so that someone else - maybe a dwarf - could reach it. Maybe a Russian dwarf. And maybe the kind-hearted person - who could be a tattooed lady with a lisp, for instance - is in love with the dwarf.

Sex and violence, no, but romance and colorful characters - by all means.

Okay, assuming the lead has not run out on your pencil, you'll want to come up with a compelling ending, something to leave people laughing or weeping or thinking. "The tattooed lady and the dwarf lived happily ever after" has been done before and is a cop-out anyway, but on the other hand you don't want to be TOO colorful and end up jarring the reader's sensibilities with something like "Griselda the Fat Lady, who had loved the dwarf in secret for years, covered Lavinia's mouth with one enormous paw as she slept."

How about: "Lavinia carefully placed the orange and her paramour, Sergei, in the trunk, and, summoning the porter, she left the hotel." This is an ending suitably conclusive yet tinged with mystery.

To sum up, story length, subject matter, and an ending are three of the most important elements to keep in mind when writing a short story. There's another element, however, more important than all the others. I'd tell you what it is, but my pencil point's about to run out.

"And Anal Abrasions I'll Leave With Each Lay!"

Here Rostov presents the bilious sonnet that won him fourth place in the 'Write A Love Poem To Margaret Thatcher, Praising Her Fascistic Tendencies' competition, sponsored by New Labour. Unfortunately he was beaten to the top spot by Shakespeare's 'She Was A Tough Bitch But Had A Wonderful Taste In Shoulder Pads.' Whilst watching this video, be sure to look out for Rostov's amazing ability to rhyme 'geriatric dribbler' with 'Harrison Ford'.

My Sonnet Presentation (for LA)

PLEASE READ!! this is a video that i had to make for language arts. i think it turned out SOOO cool, that i will keep it on YT! in my LA class, we all had to write sonnets and think of a creative way to present them. =so i decided to make a video of it! the sonnet is called "someone special" and its about one of my best friends, Kira. enjoy! rate and comment plz! i worked really hard non-stop on this!

Two Poems: "Boyhood," and "Old Age" [with a note on style]

Boyhood

Oh me! Thy glorious days have flown!

I mealy noticed, now they're gone,

How quickly passed the flowers!

Time does not stop youth's bells;

It was like I was in a spell,

And my face now shows the hours!

Ah yes! My youthful past days,

Still lively in my golden age,

When all was quick and new

Now wrapped in pictures and books,

And friends and family were all I knew

And love was shown by friendly looks!

#741 6/26/05

Old Age

They stop by to see me now

To find what's old and new,

They peer into my--everything,

And criticize my views;

They tell me what I should like,

And that I should be grieved--

These are my fragile friends

That takes the strongest liberties...

I mean to take the buzzer off;

And put the phone outside the door;

In vain I speak to tell them why

--I shan't live here anymore!

#742 6/26/05

A note on Style: some people ask, "What style of poetry to you like the best?" I can never answer that question; it is open-ended to me. If I feel like breaking free from tradition as in the poem of: "Old Age," so be it; and if I feel traditional verse, a stricter formal pattern should be used, as in "Boyhood," and can contribute richly to the poem, so it is. I guess a poem--my way of thinking anyhow--is meant, for man, not man for the poem. In a similar manner, like a Sunday, which is meant for man to rest, but not to be used as a tool for such a rigid life, that you leave the goat in the well and wait until Monday to get it out; you got to do what you got to do.

The 9 Circles of Resume Purgatory

Dante, in his famous "Inferno," described the 9 circles of the netherworld in great detail. But there were no résumés in Dante's time. Had there been, he undoubtedly would have reserved a special version of Hades, as follows:

Like Dante's Inferno, Résumé Purgatory is a funnel-shaped structure that extends down, down, down to the very center of the earth. The funnel is like a winding staircase of circles, each getting smaller and smaller until we reach the very bottom, where we find Résumé Devil (who has actually been guiding us all the way down).

1st Circle: The Self-Reliant. This outer level is reserved for those who do not know what to do, but who have been convinced by the Résumé Devil that they have to do it all by themselves. They have never had to look for a job before. Or, sometimes, they haven't had to write a résumé in 10 years. They are bewildered about how to go about it. If you in the 1st Circle, you truly believe that writing a résumé should be easy. You think it is a sign of weakness to ask for help. How can you escape this level of Résumé Purgatory? Read everything you can get your hands on, and ask for help.

2nd Circle: The Misinformed. At this level, the Résumé Devil has convinced you that there is only one way to write a résumé, and this was given in a certain book. So you simply follow the guidelines and sample résumés in the book. You are totally unaware that writing a résumé is like writing a sonnet, in that it is an incredibly constricted format in which you have to make clear your uniqueness as an individual. How to escape this level of Purgatory? Read more than one book.

3rd Circle: The Protégés. This next level is reserved for those who realize that they answer is not in a book. The Résumé Devil tells you to ask your friend, Fred, who works in a Human Resources department and who has read 5,000 résumés. Fred critiques your résumé, but of course reads it differently than the 5,000 he has taken only seconds to skim, and has no idea how to write a résumé for a skimmer. Fred takes a half hour and goes over your résumé with a level of detail he has never done for anyone else. You end up with a complicated mess that a skimmer would throw away. How to escape this level of purgatory? Ask Fred to take only 30 seconds to scan your résumé, and tell you what he has learned about you from that brief glimpse. THEN let him attack it with his red pencil.

4th Circle: The Copiers. At this level of Résumé Purgatory, the Résumé Devil puts a model résumé in front of you, and you are convinced that all you need to do is copy the wording and the format. So that is what you do. Your résumé is a model that the author of the book you read would be proud to include. There's only one problem: You can't figure out how to word the things about your experience and skills that are the most important. And, your résumé looks just like everyone else's. How to escape this level of purgatory? Copy what fits who you are and what makes sense to you. But do not follow the model exactly.

5th Circle: The Verbed. This is a special level of Résumé Purgatory reserved specifically for those who believe that verbs - action words - are impressive and highly desirable to a résumé reader, and are therefore a prime necessity as the beginning word for each descriptive item in your job list. This is such a strong belief, that the Résumé Devil tells you about the lists that are published of the best "action words" and "strongest verbs" to use in a résumé. However, there is no company on earth that concludes, "We've simply GOT to hire the person with the best verbs." And, if all that is visible as your reader skims his or her way through your résumé is one verb after another, all they'll read is "developed, initiated, worked on, assisted, managed, served as, planned," etc. It's like reading a thesaurus, and it says little about you. How to escape this level of purgatory? Think 'key words,' NOT 'verbs.' You want your reader to see the key words that really paint a picture of you. If it's a verb, fine; but it doesn't have to be.

6th Circle: The Readers. Here we have that special Circle of Résumé Purgatory reserved for those who hope that any potential employer is actually going to read every word of their résumé. Oh, sure, everyone knows that most résumé readers don't really read, they skim or scan your résumé for a few seconds. But when it comes to actually writing a résumé, the Résumé Devil tells you to emphasize this, emphasize that, and of course emphasize these ten other things. Your résumé ends up with a dozen different fonts, unsystematic underlining and bold-facing, columns in some places and not in others, and in general a disorganized mess. You now have NO control over a skimmer's eye. How to escape this level of purgatory? You have to set ruthless priorities: What is your reader going to want to see FIRST? What do you want your reader to find FIRST? That's what should be emphasized, and in a graphical way that your reader's skimming eye will not be drawn away to somewhere else on the page.

7th Circle: The Internetted: This level is reserved for those who have finally constructed a résumé they have faith in and are ready to launch into the job search world. And how, pray tell, do they do that? If you are like most people, you will rely primarily on the Internet, and send off hundreds (if not thousands) of résumés to the many wonderful job search websites that are getting bigger and more important every day. The Résumé Devil tells you that it is not only a great strategy, it is the ONLY strategy. So, at the 7th Circle of Résumé Purgatory, this is the ONLY job search method you rely on. Yet the Internet accounts for a very small percentage (perhaps lower than 10%) of the jobs people obtain. Guess what accounts for about 70%? Some form of personal contact (personal networking, recruiters, referrals, and the like). Why spend 95% of your time on the Internet (which has a 10% yield) and less than 5% on personal networking (which has a 70% yield)? It's a lot easier and less stressful. How to escape this level of purgatory? Learn to network. Take a course on networking, read books, get advice from others. And there are other strategies (looking up old want-ads, job fairs, and cold-calling, for example).

8th Circle: The Inactive: We're almost at the lowest level of Résumé Purgatory. You have now sent off your résumé like the proverbial note in the bottle that is tossed into the ocean. At this level, you wait for something to happen. And you wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. Usually, not much happens. No one calls you back. The Résumé Devil whispers in your ear that it must be a problem with your résumé. In reality, no company is in a hurry to hire. They can wait; it's you who is in a hurry. How to escape this level of purgatory? Two words: FOLLOW UP. Call, send an email, write a letter, but do SOMETHING. But, the Inactive do not follow up, figuring that they do not want to make a "pest" out of themselves. The reality is, if you do not follow up, it is a sure thing that the company will conclude that you are not interested in the job. So, follow up.

9th Circle: The Discouraged. Now you are face-to-face with the Résumé Devil. You are at the bottom of Résumé Purgatory, the last stop before oblivion. Nothing has happened, and you have become totally discouraged. You no longer have any faith in your abilities. You dwell on your weaknesses. You become convinced that nobody wants you and that you have no value to anyone. You stop doing anything about your situation and sit and watch cable TV all day. The Résumé Devil has you in his clutches. You now believe that the only way out is to cleanse yourself of your weaknesses. Then, maybe, you will be acceptable in the eyes of others. How to escape this level of purgatory? You have to make a concerted effort to focus on your strengths, get a good job counselor, an expert résumé writer, and professional guidance in all phases of job search, give it maximum effort, and surround yourself with people who are in your corner and who give you nothing but support and practical advice.

Oh, and one more thing: Tell the Résumé Devil to go jump in the lake.

Kanye and 50 cent write a birthday poem

Well Hellos There Youtubers, This is a sweet love sonnet, I made for my good friend. She sing's and doesn't listen to dirty rap. So naturally, I made her this video. I worked hard so every artist is credited and I highly recommend you check out her music. She's actually good! Go figure! See what the hoot n' hollarn is all about: www.youtube.com

Madeline Reads Shakespeare's 85th Sonnet

#85 My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise richly compil'd, Reserve their character with golden quill, And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd. I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words, And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen, To every hymn that able spirit affords, In polish'd form of well refined pen. Hearing you prais'd, I say 'tis so, 'tis true, And to the most of praise add something more, But that is in my thought, whose love to you (Though words come hind-most) holds his rank before, Then others, for the breath of words respect, Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect. I have pronounced "clerk" as it was originally written, "clarke," as I think that gets across the origin word - "cleric" - best. I'm in the process of reading all Shakespeare's sonnets aloud. My interpretation is drawn from the 1609 quarto, as emended by CD Atkins.

Abyss of the Moon-RHPeat

The Poetry of RH Peat - Ronald H Peat www.originalpoetry.com Working toward the sonnet/starting as the novice poet www.originalpoetry.com created at animoto.com

Sonnet no 38: By William Shakespeare

Sonnet no 38: By William Shakespeare Read by: Bertram Selwyn (Bernard Shakespeare) "How can my muse want subject to invent, While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse Thine own sweet argument, too excellent For every vulgar paper to rehearse? O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me Worthy perusal stand against thy sight; For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee, When thou thy self dost give invention light? Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth Than those old nine which rhymers invocate; And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth Eternal numbers to outlive long date. If my slight muse do please these curious days, The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise." (For Full Chronological order of William Shakespeare's sonnets, check the PLAYLIST entitled "The Sonnets of William Shakespeare")

Payday Loans Usage and How it Can Affect You

Payday Loans Usage and How it Can Affect You

Poetry in a Speech Class

When I was younger, I tried to make my own dialogues, and expressing myself I wrote a child's poem about creation. I remember I pleased and surprised my English teacher in high school when I delivered my own poem during a speech exam. My classmates got poems they read from books and other reference texts, while I read my own composition. I was the only student in the class with a thick face to impose on everyone, "Please listen, I've got a poem for all!"

Around the world, poets will not stop writing poems and sing their hymns because poetry is made out of life. According to Eliot and Wordsworth it is something recollected in tranquility. I knew poetry should magnify things. Truly, it should make things bigger and vivid and tangible in words.

Here are lines from Ars Poetica by Archibald Machleish

A poem should be equal to:
Not true

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea -

A poem should not mean
But be.

II. Check out the following poetry words:

1. metrical literature - A metrical literature is having a regular arrangement of accents.

A= metrical literature
B= imaginative literature
A+B=Poetry

2. prosaic means ordinary, like prose (plain language). It is the language of reason.

"The definition of a good prose is proper words in their proper places." (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

3. imagination - Imagination is a creation of the mind. It is thinking to create or forming pictures in the mind; the imagination of a writer

4. Scrooge- Scrooge is any dingy or stingy person. The old miser in Charles Dickens story, "A Christmas Carol."

5. succor - Succor means assistance or any person or thing that relieves (especially British, succor).

6.epic - An epic is a long narrative poem which is communal in character (...race), rather than those of individual. The style is marked by dignity and sublimity. The same meter is used throughout, and the theme is the same action of unusual interest.

In an epic unity is achieved by concentration on the main character.

7. sonnet - A sonnet can be an Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet with an octave ( 8 lines), a sestet (6 lines).

English or Shakespearean sonnet is divided into 3 quatrains, with a rhyming couplet.

In both types the normal measure is iambic pentameter (14 lines).

8. octave - An octave is a group of eight; first eight lines of a sonnet; a group of 8 lines of poetry; in music the series of tones GABCDEFG

9. elegy - An elegy is a poem of lamentation. As a rule an elegy is less spontaneous than the true lyric. Like the ode, is often elaborate in style and death is sometimes the sole theme.

10. lyric - This can apply to all classes of poetry. Its chief characteristic is its emotional quality or intensity.

The lyric says that the poetic way of the heart follows powerful feelings of brief duration. The lyric as an artistic expression of emotion is short. According to Paul Landis "It has been called the quintessence of momentary mood into words".

"Think not I am Faithful" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (poetry reading)

Edna, who sometimes preferred to be called Vincent, was enamoured with the concept of "free love". Free Love is a misnomer because the term usually means the most costly kind of love: costly because it inflicts the most harm and provides the least valuable returns. The idea of being in love with love where you can find it rather than entering into a mutually committed exclusive relationship is more attractive to the young, who can easily find a new relationship when they've ruined the old one by being selfish and unfaithful. She is right that vows are worthless (unless they relate to a code of morality, such as wedding vows, but even then they are only as strong as that code.) You can't trust a lover's promises because as soon as they get annoyed with you they will deliberately break them. The only person you can trust is one who has high standards of integrity. You can guess what their standards are from how they have behaved in the past. Whatever happened with their last lover will probably happen with you. This sonnet expresses the idea that she won't need other lovers because she had found a lover who is so changeable and fickle thay they supply her need for variety. Of course, like most love poetry, it's not much more than spurious advertising for pretty falsehood. When poets promise undying fidelity or say that, "love is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is not shaken", they are more concerned about their lover straying - which motivates them to write a ...

Hold Me Well

You may have many desires
You may come and admire
You have all way you can
You may prove as my man

To love me you got to perform
You should be fully prepared and informed
You can be hot the sun or like quiet poet
The stage is ready and quietly set

I can't think of unreasonable man
He should be desirous of having good woman
I can't think of staying as mere slave
He should prove and nicely behave

Neither have I had instrument to test his sincerity
Nor any brilliance to prove his ability
I shall think of only proven integrity
If I fail in it then it will be great pity

Many women may be falling to falsehood
They might have experienced it in neighborhood
It is natural to gain boyhood or womanhood
It must be met with and fully understood

What do I think of complete man?
He must take me to whatever position he can?
Once I have fallen with him to go ahead
He may have full freedom to lead

I had dreamed of hot blazing sun
In his light I wanted to have easy run
In his warmth I could feel quite fun
H should have been there as only one

Did I not deserve or expect a partner?
Who can care of me as very good Gardner?
I should have full freedom to blossom
He may come and hold me in full wisdom

The ideal person as he may be
I shall be in no dilemma and very free
He will be my idol and right man
I shall remain his better half and lovely fan