Poetry Magic 1

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Rhythm in poetry comes from the stressed words or syllables which sound longer and unstressed words or syllables that sound shorter. Combining different variations of stressed and unstressed syllables, gives you ‘feet’, which are arranged within a line or sentence to form meters. The most popular meter is iambic pentameter. Used a lot by Shakespeare, this is a ten-syllable line, consisting of five feet, each with one stressed and one unstressed syllable. Poetry is creative and can be as serious or as fun as the writer wishes. In its simplest form, poetry is composed of verses or stanzas. The number of lines in a stanza will decide the type of poem that has been written. Modernist poetry

The word Tantra in this context literally means “scripture,” thought it is most often used to refer broadly to a group of texts and traditions. But he was referring to the use of a specific variety of text – one that allows the practitioner to attain magical or supernatural powers. In fact, when I lived amongst the Shaivite Sadhus of Varanasi, I most commonly heard the word “Tantra” used to mean, essentially, “Magic.” None of that is easily accomplished, given the pressures of everyday life. Nor is there wide agreement on what sort of apprenticeship should be served. Schools of poetry are often hostile to, if not contemptuous of, other movements, and what is prized in one may be anathema to another. The beginning poet should read widely, join many groups, take any criticism seriously, but perhaps remember these points:Astrology, one of the most prevalent forms of divination, at least in post-Classical times, enters the discourse of magic in different ways. While the marginal status of its performer might taint an astrological reading with the label of magic, it is the claims to extraordinary efficacy, bolstered by the extreme systematicity of its methods, that characterize more of the astrological writings as part of the discourse of magic. Pliny ( NH 30.1.1–2) sums up this characteristic attitude: “to complete its universal sway, magic has incorporated with itself the astrological art,” but the same idea appears less explicitly in many astrological manuals in Greek. The precise calculations that can determine the exact influences of the celestial powers upon the lot of mortals surpass the efficacy of any other form of divination, and a practitioner who can master all the extreme complexities thus distinguishes himself as an extraordinary performer, abnormal in a positive sense as a learned magician who can learn things beyond the ken of normal mortals. 14 What words mean something to you? What words speak to your memories and personal power? Are there words that speak to your identity, your resistance, your body, your journey? Choose five of these words and write a 5-stanza poem using each of them, or write five poems (as a set to be read aloud together) utilizing each.When you speak them aloud, you can call on these qualities. Dream poetry

The deadline for entries is Friday 27 October 2023; poems must be unpublished as of our spring Poetry News issue publication date at end December 2023.

Near the end of his life, Dante settled in Ravenna, Italy under the patronage of Guido da Polenta, where he died September 13 or 14, 1321. Although The Divine Comedy caused an immediate sensation during his life, Dante’s fame waned during the Italian Renaissance and was later revived in the 19th and 20th centuries. Many scholars have examined the structural unity of the poem, discussing the relationship between medieval symbolism and allegory within the poem’s three sections and exploring Dante’s narrative strategy. Others have marveled at the seemingly inexhaustible formal and semantic richness of Dante’s text. With its various enigmatic layers of philological and philosophical complexities, The Divine Comedy has received scrutiny by critics, literary theorists, linguists, and philosophers, who have cherished the immortal work precisely because it translates the harsh truth about the human condition into a poetics of timeless beauty. Poetry definitions are difficult, as is aesthetics generally. What is distinctive and important tends to evade the qualified language in which we attempt to cover all considerations. Perhaps we could say that poetry was a responsible attempt to understand the world in human terms through literary composition. Lisa Marie Basile (she/her) is a poet, essayist, editor, and chronic illness awareness advocate living in New York City. She's the founder and creative director of Luna Luna Magazine and its online community, and the creator of Ritual Poetica, a curiosity project dedicated to exploring the intersection of writing, creativity, healing, & sacredness. Poetry is magic. And poems are spells. The spirituality of poetry is clear — but it’s not always obvious; like many paths and practices (especially witchcraft, folk magic, or other spiritual paths), poetry is a way toward self-reclamation, finding autonomy, understanding yourself and the world, and getting in touch with the divine, mysterious force within us — creativity.

November 2023, 6.30pm. Michael Phillips – Blake and Italy. Michael Phillips, master printmaker and leading expert on William Blake, will explore the influence of Italian art on Blake’s work. Cool observation: detached and depersonalized viewpoints and characters, usually informal, sometimes unfinished. The recipe says to “add the rest, the usual,” that is, the whole formula, which is attested elsewhere in full: Maskelli Maskellō Phnoukentabaō Oreobazagra Rēxichthōn Hippochthōn Puripēganux.

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Write a poem that speaks of the in-between, the crossroads, the liminal. What does it look at dusk? What does it feel like to be almost touched, almost loved, almost lost? How you capture what feels to straddle the liminal — in a poem? Word Worship Whether witches were “filthy quislings” or harmless village healers, they and those who believed in witchcraft and magic existed in a shared mental framework of hidden influences and meanings, of significances and correspondences, whether angelic, diabolic, or natural. Everything in the exhibition testifies to a near-universal belief in the existence of an invisible, imaginary world that could affect human life and be affected in turn by those who knew how to do it; and so do millions of other objects of similar kinds collected, exhibited, studied, or uncollected, unknown, lost, throughout the world and every period of history. As do legends, and ghost stories, and folk tales. If anything is a permanent fact of human nature, this is. Magic may thus be defined as a discourse (that is, not a thing, but a way of talking about things) pertaining to non-normative ritualized activity, in which the deviation from the norm is most often marked in terms of the perceived efficacy of the act, the familiarity of the performance within the cultural tradition, the ends for which the act is performed, or the social location of the performer. 2 Greek magic is then the discourse of magic within the ancient Greek world, which differs in various ways from the modern discourse of magic, as well as other ancient discourses of magic: Hebrew, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Phoenician, and even Roman. The objectives of magical practice, as it appears in the evidence, can be as varied as the range of human wishes; anything for which someone might want extraordinary power may appear as the aim of magic. Although some scholars have imagined magic as primarily concerned with harmful effects for personal purposes (with a special category of “white” magic to account for the exceptions), it is not the ill will that marks magic in the ancient sources as much as the extraordinary nature of the performance or the abnormal social position of the performer. Above all, the discourse of magic applies in cases where the practice is seen as an extraordinarily efficacious means of obtaining the end, whatever that end might be.