Poet William Carlos Williams

This week I've been reading Stephen King's book On Writing.  In the book he talks about writing simply and not using basically big fancy words and description to describe something when simple words will do.  For the first time, I learned about a poet named William Carlos Williams.  I didn't realize it, but when I was taking my poetry writing class, my instructor had read to us his poem titled This is Just to Say.  I don't think I'm violating any copyright laws here since this poem is readily available for reading on the Internet, so here it is in its entirety.

This is Just to Say

by 

William Carlos Williams

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which 

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

I love this poem because it is so simple, yet so descriptive.  So much is said in just a few words.  I aspire to be able to write poetry like this.  Just short and simple.

I did some research on Amazon and found a free book for Kindle titled Sour Grapes.  There are also several other collections of his poetry for Kindle for about .99 cents.  It is a very reasonable price for me to be introduced to more of his poetry.  I also found a children's book in my local public library titled A River of Words: the Story of William Carlos Williams.  It's illustrated and it's just wonderful.  I have some pictures of it here:

You can see my cat's paw in the photo in the middle.  He was lying in my lap and just placed his paw on the book when I took the picture.  He is such a rascal and always has to have his hand ... oops ... paw in everything!

Listening to My Heart Beat

This morning I was lying in bed, listening to my heartbeat, and thinking about the new year. Thinking about things I could start this year. Someone on Facebook posted the following picture with the idea that beginning Jan. 1, you write something down every day and put it in a Mason jar.

It sounds like a great idea, but I'm wondering if I start it, will I keep it up?  That's a pretty big commitment.  I do this so often, especially in the new year. I start doing things and then eventually just give it up because I either lose interest or circumstances change and I'm not doing it anymore for whatever reason.

One thing I did do and I hope I can keep it up, is I started a blog for a 365 Photo Challenge. The idea is that you take one photo every day of the year and post it on the blog. I guess you could say I cheated a little. I went through some of my photos and picked about 4 or 5 to post in the next few days. Well, nothing I've seen says you have to actually take the photos on the same day you post them. I think the main idea is to document in some way photos that you take of things you think are interesting and just post something every day so that you have a daily account. At the end of the year, you would have 365 photos. I also started a folder on my computer and called it "365 Photo Challenge". I think I'll add 2014 to the title so I know what year it is. Who knows? If I'm still living next year, I might decide to do again then, or maybe do something different like that writing notes and putting them in jars thing.

Earlier I said that I was lying in bed listening to my heart beat. Well, it's kind of hard not to listen to my heart beat. I can feel and hear it beating in my right ear. I think it causes me great anxiety because I can hear every little blip, skip and everything. I have afib and I can feel that more than hear it, but with the skips and things, I feel like I can hear every one of them. It sure doesn't make for getting any sleep at night, lying awake being able to hear any abnormalities and getting anxious when they come. I wish I couldn't hear my heartbeat at all or feel it either. I think most people can't.

Anyway, as I was lying there I was thinking about writing and I thought about the names of my favorite movies. I came up with a little found poem using the names of the movies.

Calendar girls
flash dancing
under the Tuscan sun.

Hope floats
while
romancing the stone.

Something like that. I may add more to it later when I can think of some more movies that I really like.