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Brian Miller, Dead Poets, header contest, PubTalk, we'll make you famous - ok not really but we will love your art, what's your verse?
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering — these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love — these are what we stay alive for.
To quote from Whitman,
“O me, O life of the questions of these recurring.
Of the endless trains of the faithless. Of cities filled with the foolish. What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer: that you are here. That life exists and identity. That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”
“That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”
What will your verse be?” ~Robin Williams (Dead Poets Society)
Perhaps you’ve seen the new iPad Air commercial that incorporates Robin William’s speech to his students from Dead Poets Society—maybe you like it, maybe you hate it—there seems to be some debate about it. I get pretty excited and inspired every time I hear that first paragraph…”this is why we stay alive.”
“What will be your verse” is such a great question as well—that not only are we invited to contribute a verse, but we get to choose as well—in life.
So today, I want you to answer it—what is your verse?
You can answer it in the comments below or use it to inspire your poetry for OpenLinkNIght tomorrow. Either way, I look forward to hearing what your verse is.
~~~~~
On another note, we are wanting to refurbish a bit and thought we would involve you in spicing things up with a fresh coat of paint. If you are an artist, photographer, or happen to know someone that is—we would like you to submit original art or photography to be our new header.
It is important that it convey the feel of our pub or a pub. Other than that, submit as often as you want to dversepoets@gmail.com.
The chosen artist will have their photo or art appear as the header with their name/attribution listed in our sidebar with a direct link to their website.
Have at it.
Oh, yeah—so what is your verse? ~Brian
dVerse 
pubs open
Dead Poets Society is a fav movie… haven’t seen the ipad commercial yet but that is clever use of that verse…. also cool that each of us can contribute a verse to make this earth a bit a warmer and friendlier place… have to think about mine…smiles
good afternoon c….dead poets is def cool…i just rewatched it before christmas…def captures some of the fragility of this life….and the poetry of it as well…i kinda relate to the rebel teacher a bit too…smiles
I feel like I need to check this movie out now… ha
most def…i think you would appreciate robin williams character and his approach to poetry…
I love that movie… 🙂
I think my verse is unknown to me… and may remain so just like that but it is also true that I will keep looking for it as long as I have that breath on my side. I will find it or I will find it not… it doesn’t matter because searching for it means everything to me.
or it may find you when you least expect it–but that will def only happen if you are searching….smiles.
That is true. 🙂
Oops, did it again. Connected to a non-linky dVerse. Will fix it when next one comes around. My verse appears (maybe always has been) what was my life. Writing before my amnesia broke was clues to the mind control. Writing now still bleeds my past. I’ve had such a short time to make new happy memories. Maybe 10 years from now I will have a new verse.
i’m sure that there will be many wonderful new verses…smiles
smiles…you can link it tomorrow for OLN…the one from yesterday?today about the click was pretty tough maggie
Too much to post, Brian?
not at all…it def stuck with me and brought it to mind immediately when you commented…i think it is real…and works perfectly….
Thank you. My mind started writing it too late for the verb dVerse link. Processing still going on.
I cannot imagine the heartbreak of your situation. May your life provide you with many verses.
Thank you, Viv. Yes, I hope one day the old stuff stops flowing. Although I can write about Italy and France and happiness in that context very easily. New lovely memories. Two of them so vivid.
Brian,
Very interesting and thought provoking question – I may have written something before but have to rework on that.
To submit photographs for banner – is there any measurement/aspect ratio to be considered?
it should be 960 x 258 so that it fits into the header space without too much cutting
Great – thanks for the details.
glad she knew that….smiles.
What is my verse? My verse is eager, insistent, compulsive.
It forces its way through background
sound and vision, pain or anger.
My verse demands to be written.
New look: Would I be rocking lots of boats if I asked for a light background and dark type? I am a devotee of dVerse, but have to force myself to read the comments, to the detriment of my eyes.
oy, now you are asking for serious change…smiles…will give it some thought….
i like the energy in your verse viv…mine feels much the same when it comes…it will whether i want it to or not…smiles.
Love the verse on your verse — and heartily endorse the request for dark print on light ground.
my verse is a rebellious soul who’s witnessed the low of the low,
the voice in the back of one’s head that most would be eager to aim for,
it is the anti-religion to a street preacher.
“I don’t believe in tame poetry…Poetry busts guts.”
– Frank Stanford
I live/write by those words… hmmm, I’ve never watched Dead Poet’s Society nor have I seen the ipad ad either…
the anti religeon of the street preacher…ha…i like…smiles..
the movie is good…the ad is good in that it uses the quote…i would hav linked to it but might have broken some kind of copyright if i did so…i am sure if you google it you can find it…
yep… found it! gotta love the internet. hahah
Interesting question you pose there Brian, like many I think my verse has yet to be written. I think it lingers in the silence there somewhere. Excited to see what the new look will be.
lingers in the silence…maybe we get a hint of it in each verse…maybe it becomes our big themes…the heart within the words…our voice even….
My verse?
It’s a beginning, a life of love, tragedy, forgiveness, more love, and thankfulness, and an ending, somewhere in the misty future, with all that I have kept from the beginning, winnowed to carry me away in the way I wish it to be. It is my life.
dkirkstokes
Best regards,
wow…pretty complex…but like a good soup, rather layered..
been nice to get to know you a bit the last couple weeks don…
Thanks Brian, it’s a pleasure to be here. Wish you could edit out that automatic ending for me…
Slow learner. : )
i can…and will…
and did…
and thanks.
Hmm, tough question, Brian. I don’t know. Sometimes I think my verse is not gutsy enough. But maybe we need to hear all kinds of voices–the dark, the light, the angst, the hope? My writing definitely tends to be more on the optimistic side–though lately I’m trying to explore harsher realities. Writing is hard, Brian. Smiles 🙂
its good to explore both sides…when i first started writing i would say my verse tended to reflect the light more and over time i became comfortable dabbling in the dark…and now go back and forth without even recognizing it…
oh, mine is the reverse … when I first started writing, it was darker but then again I wasn’t putting it on a blog. I think there is more vulnerability when you put yourself out there, open up … I do like reading and writing verses that are uplifting and now the dark sometimes gets me down. But yes, it’s good to explore both sides.
I did see the ipad commercial and actually I’m saddened that they’re using a quote from the movie to sell a tech product. Yes, technology is great. But I think creativity comes from the heart and soul. It’s not the tool that you’re using, but what’s inside you. Same for photography, you could have the best camera in the world, but if you don’t have a good eye, you’re still not going to take great photos. Smiles 🙂
i hear you…and that is some of the rub on the commercial or the debate…will it get me to buy a computer…no…is the exposure for poetry good…i think so…poetry in general gets a bad rub…and its great to see it acknowledged…and there are several commercials recently that have used spoken word poetry—i think it opens the conversation to a larger audience…
is it good for that?
I see your point, Brian. Yes, I do think it’s good exposure to open up poetry to a larger audience. Sometimes I fear though that “the masses” don’t have an understanding or appreciation of poetry. Or the attention span. It takes a poet to really get another poet … maybe poetry is just for the few and brave? I do hope more people would get it. Smiles 🙂
Just ONE verse? Aw, c’mon, I’m a woman: I multi-task. There’s the verse on motherhood, the one on loving, the one on healing (those last two follow each other naturally of course) the one on poetry, the one on magick (those two also fit together) and perhaps a few as yet unwritten (I very much hope!).
ha. you gave me a chuckle with that opening remark…you are a diamond and we can appreciate each facet rosemary…smiles.
I posted several replies in the past, but they never make it. Do I offend or automatically go to spam ?
my verse: may love be ever like the spam filter and snag everything
usually your first time you automatically go to spam until we approve you…its the same with everyone…i will keep an eye out for it…i have seen some that if you change your ip address it will send you to spam again…
thanks, I’d like to be a regular at the bar if I don’t offend.
ah you dont offend…as i said i will try to keep an eye on it…and hey that last one went straight thru so maybe we are good…
thanks –
my verse is written by another poet, Stanley Kunitz in his poem “The Layers”…it is the verse I turn to when all else fails…
mmm nice verse…i have walked through many lives….
i can relate to this as well…thanks for sharing it….
love this clip–thank you for sharing it!
Wonderful to hear him reading this – one of my favourite poems, as well.
The poet does not write and read, non-plussed,
For mere applause. His rhythms and his notes
Might give you pause: for him it’s true relief.
Approval is not the cause, nor the end
Of his efforts. He writes because he must:
An unformed phrase, a clause not spoken
Is like an Albatross that gives him grief
Until he edits out its flaws and sends
It to a waiting world of laws and dust.
He draws the strength from deep within: a lust
That gnaws his soul and never grants respite,
Nor takes flight, nor withdraws to sleep at night.
ah its a good thing NOT to write for approval but of the heart…
cool little verse….nice nod to teh albatross as well…smiles…
you ever read terry jacobus’ ‘so edgar allen poe was in a car’?
Thanks, Brian. I will have to look up Terry Jacobus as I am a HUGE Poe fan. A devotee. Albatross fit with an internal line rhyme I was working on, but I won’t spoil it for you. Anyway, thanks.
cool. https://www.spokenwordredux.com/index.php?option=com_poem&task=detail&id=1281&Itemid=69
it is…
glad you looked it up….
…my verse ain’t written yet… but it is there waiting to be written… i don’t feel like the 21st century me is the righteous one to write about it… someday, sometime a part of me will come to write about the verse that long been kept—our verse…. & when that happens, my fathers & i—we will all live again…. smiles… good morning poets… on the way to work… 🙂
ah you add bit of mysticism to it kelvin…we will all live again…i hope to be around when it is written….
I love this post, that movie, and the spark you offer for OLN.
why thank you v…
Is this like asking for us to write an epitaph? Quakers ask themselves “what can you say?” which means “Speak of God from your own experience” not just from the Biblical stance. God didn’t stop speaking @2000 years ago. (Maybe I should check out the movie again.)
In someone else’s verse, I like Shakespeare in “The Tempest” Act V, scene 1:
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
what can you say…
an interesting question as well…i like the translation as well…
and no, god did not….
smiles.
Whoops! “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” IV, v.
Love this post & the great convo it’s generated. I have a verse that has been mine since I was about 14 years old.it’s an entire poem actually, but it’s short, and it is in Spanish, but ill translate.itsby Spanish poet Gustavo Adolfo Becquer:
¿Qué es poesía?, dices mientras clavas
en mi pupila tu pupila azul.
¿Qué es poesía? ¿Y tú me lo preguntas?
Poesía… eres tú.
What is poetry?, you say, while you pierce my pupil, with your pupil, blue.
What is poetry? And you ask me? Why poetry … Is you.
ha. cool little verse lupita…quite vivid as well in the piercing of pupil….
I LOVE this!!!!!!! SO much!!!!! “poetry is you”…..this is a great topic and conversation, kids. Brian, you sure keep things Happening in here. Yay! I’m like Rosemary….only one verse? You know how wordy I am!!!! Will think on it!
ha. def hard to try to constrain ourselves to one verse….
Well you’ve certainly gotten poetic wheels turning. I’m focusing on what verse I contribute. What has been/is my life. Maybe I’ll come up with a poem on this. Thanks for the depth of your writing.
its def a deep thought to go down…to encapsulate a life in a verse….look forward to reading what you come up with myrna….
What a wonderful post, Brian – and great question. I love Whitman – and you remind me of him in your amplitude. k.
well that about gobsmacks me…smiles.
Rosemary thank you! I am a whole song/poem of many verses. And I have to say every time I read all these poets my verses shift 🙂 though sunshine always seem to figure in somewhere, like “walking on sunshine”… Most I of the time…
sunshine is a great thing to sift into…
it is interesting the shift that happens in reading others as well..
some is good in that we learn…the hard part is maintaining our own voice as well…
Hi Brian! I really meant that when I read new verses my favorite verse shifts, however keeping hold of your voice is an excellent point, I have found if I read a lot of a certain poet, that flavor will get into my head/voice. A writer once said (I’m paraphrasing). We all write in the light of the writers before us–or something like that 🙂
My verse seems goes to experimental, haiku, inspiring,or science-fiction. I I hope describe my verse s correctly. I am interested in helping with the pub, however, my art tend the experimental and abstract. What type of art are you are looking for the dverse pub?
interesting….sci fi…we did a sci fi poetry prompt a bit back…it was interesting…
open to interpretation…something that engenders the pub feel…let yourself go with it, submit it…once we have some we will probably pose it to everyone to get some opinions….
Ah Brian, this is such a general and open-ended question–what is our verse? Do you mean our favorite form of our writing? Or something that defines how we write? Is it our “mantra?” Is it a quote or line from our favorite author? Or perhaps a line or two to define ourselves? Wow, this is way too c-o-m-p-l-i-c-a-t-e-d!!! And I just wrote 3 brief pieces trying to capture “my verse.” Guess I’d have to say my verse is always in the state of flux! 😉
ha…flux is not bad…nor are questions that are hard to answer…smiles…
to me, the verse is what we contribute to life…its interesting that earlier someone parcelled out their life a bit and said there was a verse for each…
I think then, that “my verse” would be something like this (and yeah, it sounds cliche’ and it kind of reads like one of those plaques) but these are the things I try to follow:
Find your strength. Find your voice. Find your passion
Be honest. Work well. Keep your heart open.
Remember to find joy in the simple things, the small things.
Don’t compare yourself or your life to others; you are “unique.”
Remember that true happiness comes from within.
Be yourself, and be the best “yourself” that you can be.
this sounds like good advice to tape to teh mirror and be re-read as a mantra when needed….smiles.
Well, after all that, I still will be thinking more about this..love the movie, quote, ;the references to other works provided here, and the idea is wonderful…a good way to keep
in gear after the new year…am so curious about possibilities, not only what people have
to write (say) , but what the cool result will be for the makeover of the pub 😉
yeah i am looking forward to it…maybe we will play a bit and get radical in the fresh paint…oy…i try to hold on…smiles.
Hope is the spirit of life! – I have juggled around it so many times, in and ou, roundabout! and if you could acknowledge this there is a seamless integration of everything around and the path opens on its own. I love Robin Williams but havent seen the movie, ll check it out! 🙂
hope is….so true…on the path as well…
do, i think you will enjoy it…
I love that ad (Whitman on TV–major fist pump!), that movie, this post and this discussion–a remark that echoes somebody else, but is no less true for it. I don’t know what “my” verse is; it’s a process of discovery. I never know what I’m going to write until it’s been written…but there are lots of inspirations (some of them have authored or commented on this post). Discovered a new one above in Mr. Kunitz, an old one was cited earlier,snippets clogging walls everywhere (don’t we all have those), and this, from Virginia Woolf’s diary: “writing is a species of mediumship.”
How else to explain it?
Thank you.
a species of mediumship…well now you have added to the wall something i can think on today….smiles….
I was always excited about vision but never really excited about words..until i lost effective use of my vision..and all became words..
i even dreamed in paragraphs..as all i could see was the faint impression of words on a computer screen turned.. with bright all the way down….
Well..i still have not watched the movie..The Dead Poet’s Society..but the official movie trailer..i can certainly relate to..as i crumpled up the rules and threw them all all away…including Microsoft Word..long ago…..
I personally think poetry is best spoken from the heart..even with typographical errors and all of that…
As with the mystery of WH@IS in general anyway..
The errors in life often become the epiphany…
of knowing..
TRUTH
God is funny.. that way…
i think..at least my heart….
tells me so…:)
NOW
!
ah i agree on it being from the heart…its easy to tell when it is not….and when it is an outflow of what we have there is so much energy in it…
you have such an interesting story man…
Sadly .. Moreover .. I see .. In .. Words .. A place .. Not often visited as much .. So the Mr. Keatings of the world … I see as the true prophets .. To literAlly save the dam human .. Race .. To use words .. From .. Charlton Heston and the Planet of the Apes .. But alas or a lad .. I err on the side of adventure .. And am off to generate something new:. dance walking in wherever .. I land my flight … Of life …. and LOVe! In reverse…..
Re – Verse
The key
To IT
No
W
V
—
I heArthink s…2
what is your verse?
we have breath
we have life
we have shelter
we are here
we are blessed
Mostly Andrew Bienkowski
and in two words…
we are
I love that movie. Robin Williams reminds me of my dad who is a teacher and has a passion for poetry. My verse… Hmmm…as recovering addict my verse is 2Cor 5:17. That about sums it up 🙂
a new creation…
and i came close to that road…and have carried many a person to meetings….smiles.
Meetings are a great thing! I’ve been meaning to ask you how your father-in-law is doing?
he is recovering well…he is actually the topic of my OLN today…
was a bit scary…
I’m so glad to hear that he is recovering :-). I am looking forward to reading about him in you OLN.
I don’t watch tv so I have no idea what commercial you’re talking about! LOL
Anywho…what is my verse? I never thought about it before. Actually, I’m still trying to figure out what that question means to me. …smiles…
ah that is ok…i have been through times where i did not even have a tv…
after being shut up in the house for 4 days with my boys either with sick or now with snow i am happy for it…ha
take your time…it will surely be an interesting journey…
“Love and be loved” is always my life ……….
I love to have people
Who love me for what i am
I love to hear people
For which I will always stand……
Its a beautiful word in my whole life I always loved to love some one very near and dear and it so happens that i dont get most of what i have given….. Anyway its nice to give love and share them………………..
i think we will find in life there are times we give more than we are given…i find that a lot actually…but keep loving…and i imagine you will be loved…smiles.
Yes It so happens that we dont mind love without expecting back….. and what ever small we receive we will be happy about it
Hey Brian.. I love the movie.. and had never thought of the idea of me having a verse.. but now that i think of it.. here it is:
“Let Love be the motivation for all your actions, and you wouldn’t have to constantly think about what’s the right thing to do.”
love is the best motivation…now if we could just define love clearly we might be alright….smiles….
My verse reveals inexorably,
the landscape of my mind,
words like blossoms scattered;
collect what you can find.
and when my pockets get full i give a bit away…smiles.
Poetry is just my way of viewing the world. Or perhaps poetry helps me to translate the world into something I can digest, although never quite fully understand.
Great discussions here, am taking notes and quotes!
i would agree on translating the world…putting it in a box i can understand a bit more…for better or worse..
my verse has heart and soul; breaths nature and stirs the imagination at unexpected times…
thats what i like to hear…smiles.
Great post Brian, and a very interesting, thoughtful discussion. But how can we know our verse when we’re still writing it? Lots of food for thought here.
still writing it…yes… i like…
claudia I hope you are one of those who is painting an offering for the pub’s new page…seems appropriate and fitting..can’t imagine anyone not liking it!
I would say my verse is to follow my joy…however that shows up in my life. To do those things and surround myself with people who inspire, uplift and support that joy. Of course, my verse could change…as I do…smiles.
Thanks for an intriguing question, Brian…I had to give it some thought and what that meant to me.
P.S. Loved that movie with Robin Williams…haven’t seen the commercial.
nice…following your joy is not a bad call at all…and so true on how we…and our verse change over time….