Week 4 Poem

Far From The Madding Crowd

It seems to me I'd like to go
Where bells don't ring, nor whistles blow,
Nor clocks don't strike, nor gongs sound,
And I'd have stillness all around.

Not real stillness, but just the trees,
Low whispering, or the hum of bees,
Or brooks faint babbling over stones,
In strangely, softly tangled tones.

Or maybe a cricket or katydid,
Or the songs of birds in the hedges hid,
Or just come such sweet sound as these,
To fill a tired heart with ease.

If 'tweren't for sight and sound and smell,
I'd like the city pretty well,
But when it comes to getting rest,
I like the country lots the best.

Sometimes it seems to me I must
Just quit the city's din and dust,
And get out where the sky is blue,
And say, now, how does it seem to you?

Lisey's Story by Stephen King

I have been a big Stephen King fan in a long time. In fact, I pretty much swore off his work for years, and I do mean YEARS. (lol) However, whether you are a Stephen King fan, or a former fan who lost interest in his flights of fancy, and long winded (VERY long winded at times) prose, I think you will enjoy Lisey's Story. It is about a woman who's husband has died. The husband was a very famous author and the woman is dealing with the passing of her husband she loved very much. Since this is Stephen King who is doing the writing, there is of course the weird, the macabre, and the other worldlyness he is famous for. However, the story is wel written and he keeps his flights of fancy to a minimum. I would highly reccomend this book.

Week 3 Poem

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.


Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.


Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

---John Keats

Book of the Dead, pt 2

I forgot to mention a part of the book that was really exciting for me. While the character of Pendergast is in prison, he employs a technique that is familiar to music therapists. He is put in a cell in isolation next to another prisoner known as "the drummer." He is called this because he drums constantly and rarely sleeps. This constant drumming is nerve wracking to most people and even drives some insane if they listen to it long enough. However, Pendergast instead begins to imitate what the drummer is doing. Once he learns some of the rhythms he begins interacting with the drummer and following the complex rhythms. Then slowly, Pendergast begins to take the lead and moves the drummer in a new direction where he eventually is able to get the drummer to stop drumming completely. In music therapy this is known as the ISO principle, to meet a person where they are and slowly move them in the direction you want them to go. It was thrilling for it to be used in a book.