Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Word Garden Word List--Amy Lowell

 

Hello everyone and welcome to another Word Garden Word List. Last week's poems were marvelous, I must say! What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new poem on any subject and in any form. 

This time our list comes from the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Amy Lowell! When i was in high school, one day I was snooping around in the poetry section and found a volume of her poems. I loved it instantly. One line has stayed with me all of these years: "Fate lays many springes for those with imagination." Well, I had to look up "springes", which turned out to be traps. I felt as if I were being spoken to directly.


Amy Lowell was an outcast as a schoolgirl, not being conventionally pretty and into the bargain being "outspoken and opinionated." She later wrote that "the stigma of oddness is the price a myopic world always exacts of genius."

Amy Lowell did not begin her career as an imagist poet until age 30 and only lived to age 51, so her window of creativity was brief, but intense. She was a New England spinster from a prominent Boston family, but she was no bore. Heywood Broun wrote of her, "Given one more gram of emotion, Amy Lowell would have burst into flame and been consumed to cinders."

Your list is taken from a volume I have entitled "Selected Poems of Amy Lowell" published in 1928, making my book nearly a century old! It is filled with references to nature, romantic longing, and other cultures. Sometimes she wrote in dialect or vernacular, and I have not included words from those poems. I will include, however, some music to further inspire you. I think this piece says in music what Amy Lowell often said in poetry.




And now your list.

absurd
astigmatism
bizarre
ecstasies
expectation
feeble
fingers
fox
gingerbread
islands
letters
lilacs
peonies
rare
shiver
springes
symbol
tickets
tiles
various



9 comments:

  1. Super great!! Will have to hie off and read some Amy Lowell!

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  2. I love this Shay!!! A wonderful feature and dig into her life. It is sad that she passed so young. I too would like to read some of her poetry. I hope to be back with something by Friday or so. Thank you so much for keeping this amazing prompt going my friend!

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    1. I hope you enjoy her--I think you will.

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    2. Yes I did! I am going to buy one of her books or at least get one at the library.

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  3. Love this! I will read Amy Lowell and try my best to create something worth reading from your word list!

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  4. The fox called to me. Amy Lowell is a very fine poet. Thanks for introducing her to us.

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