people in poetry.

Now Playing: 'The Scientist' by Coldplay

I don't know how to write poems that aren't about people. Put it that way.

I love the larger than life characters in history. Potemkin, Catherine, (sorry you guys didn't get to see that), Sir Thomas Wyatt...there's just so much to write about. There is so much poetry and music in their lives, we could probably sing it in two part harmony.

Maybe not.

I've always been fascinated with the six wives of Henry VIII; it's not often where you get presented with that kind of psychological, moral, religious, sexual etc dilemma. The two wives I particularly focus on are Katherine and Anne, simply because their feud was so long and violent, but because they're both fascinating women are are fascinatingly similar. And I feel like all women can relate to one or both at some point in their lives. I'm also fascinated as to how Anne of Cleves is portrayed in popular culture; she wasn't ugly, as far as we can tell, and she's one of the first instances where we just have to admit that there was no chemistry. But was she the lucky wife? I doubt it. A crime of passion is a passion nonetheless; to live and die unwanted and alone is the greater punishment.

But then there are the people I know. All the people I write about mean a lot to me, and I don't always mean it in a good way - sometimes you have to write about the people who cut deep and leave a scar. I love the anonymity of poetry, but nontheless I will say that The Girl Called Beauty is a girl I know, and also features - sort of - in kai su, teknon, He Who Was Never Mine and My Dear Rochester.

And then there are the people I will meet. The people I will love, one day; the people that will convince me that somehow all the ups an downs of life have meaning, have purpose. The people I love so unconditionally I love them even before I know them, even if I will never know them.

And then there is me. There is only one muse you can trust; and that is yourself.

As for the song influences, I don't know of any poets who actually do that. I love music, and much of the music I listen to I listen to for the lyrics; I love song lyrics. The first time I did this was The Only Exception, and I loved it. Music is a wonderful inspiration. The level of influence varies, of course - sometimes I will quote lines directly, whilst other times a song just triggers something deep within. I love that. It's beautiful.

Most of the time I write my poems in a spur of the moment. Other times I will scribble down something in the middle of the night (yes, I do have a pen and paper next to my bed), and I'll edit and publish it the next day. Sometimes I spend days and days mulling over one idea, a few lines, a particular song. Sometimes I'll go back and edit things, or delete things entirely. Poetry is a bit like that. As for structure...I don't really pay attention to meter and that. I love verse libre, and I love modern poetic structure. My favourite poets are T.S. Eliot, e.e. cummings and Sylvia Plath, although I certainly write a lot more poetry than I actually read; I never read poetry at all, really, until last year. Now I love it.  

I have two poems that I have written for this blog, but haven't published - Potemkin, and one inspired by Turning Tables by Adele. It's the first time I've felt the need to keep things private. Isn't that weird?

Yellow

It is not just women who bring forth.
I love men who lock themselves away

And then
Unveil their craft,
Their heart.

Call it a painting, a poem, a song.
Call it art.

I surrender the pieces of my heart to you. 
Turn it into something beautiful for me.

You and I
Can be artists together

We can come together
And create anything

Call it a house, a child, a tree
Call it love.

You see,
My love

I am an artist, too

I can play God
And paint my own universe
In pen-ink and tearstains

In my world
The stars all shine for you.

Inspired by 'Yellow' by Coldplay

gender and morality

Now Playing: 'Decode' by Paramore

What is the impact of gender on morality and moral development?

According to Kohlberg's work, females were initially thought to be slower in moral development tha males. This was completely dissed by Kohlberg's female colleague Gilligan, who said that Kohlberg's work (which was primarily centred around young, educated, Western males) and the concept of justice in general is severely male-oriented, and that women show equal or greater moral development in more feminine topics, such as pregnancy. It has since been suggested that male moral development is justice-oriented and female morale development is care-oriented.

Hmm. Food for thought.

I happen to talk to a lot of boys. I also happen to talk to a lot of boys in psych class. And because we go to a nerd school, we always pose random dilemmas to each other, like our views on abortion and euthanaesia and stuff. And I must agree with Gilligan.

I used to think that I had a very strong sense of justice; but now that I think of it, I am super soft. It doesn't take much to make my heart just melt. I am also much more likely to be more sympathetic on moral dilemmas, especially compared to my male colleagues who have said, amongst other things 'I think I'd go crazy if I had twins', 'I'd make her sign a contract cancelling any parental responsibility before sleeping with her' and 'I think I'd give up my Down Syndrome kid for adoption'. Harsh, yes, but it's honest teenage opinion. It will change, I am sure, as they get older and wiser (and cuter? Stubble?)  but nonetheless the men I know are not prone to be very sentimental about things that aren't particularly close or relevant to them.

I'm not saying that I'm weak and mushy and they're cold and heartless. It's important to have the two elements to balance out each other. Because, after all, the law is written in cold hard words and we're not robots; but we do need people to sometimes make the hard decisions.

So my verdict?

Win-win.

A Thousand Thousand Fearless Things #20

Now Playing: 'Cameo Lover (Live at Sing Sing Studios)' by Kimbra


#144: New pretty lacy things

#145: Just casually...dying of embarassment...

#146: Just because I'm tired, in school uniform, listening to music and off with the fairies DOESN'T MEAN I CAN'T SEE YOU STARING

#147: I. Hate. My. Email. Address.

#148: Ryan and James: Same height, same weight, same ethnicity, same gender, same psych class. Coincidence!? I think not...;P Love my clone. 

#149: Both earphones in: I love you, leave me alone. Universal language known to all but The Grown Ups. 

#150: You were supposed to agree with me


#151: The French/English/PNG/Australian girl born in Texas. 


#152: Pretty babies. Cute. Pretty baby clothes. Cute. Adult diaper in the Reject Shop. Creepy. 


#153: Holy tights. 


#154: We've lost the purity of the pursuit of knowledge. One of the headings of my notes today was 'What Is In The Test'. 


...More to come.

A Thousand Thousand Fearless Things #19

Now Playing: 'Victorian Invention Song' by Horrible Histories

#136: You are amazingly talented at getting people back on speaking terms with you.

#137: The Girl Named Beauty

#138: My legs (copyrighted to my mother) + tights + favourite heels + fluffy party dress = vavaVOOM. Just sayin. 

#139: A blouse, a pencil skirt and a visual illusion...

#140: Contact burns. On my face. No fun.

#141: Casually dissecting one of those 'Australia Day' koalas. Did you know that some of the members of 1D apparently contracted chlamydia from a koala that peed on them?

#142: Birthday soup, birthday noodles and birthday cake

#143: A little taste of something sweet and naughty...

...More to come.

The Girl Named Beauty.

I had forgotten
How lovely you are.

Forgive me

You will never ask,
And I will never tell,

But I apologise.

You do not know
How much I know

I am sure we have cried ourselves to sleep
For the same reasons;
For the reasons we dare not speak of.

It is strange,
I suppose,
To know so much

Yet only mention it
In passing...

I suppose
Katherine and Anne
Never had much to say to one another.

I never wanted to love him
Or hate you.

I envy you,
Truly.

I envy your beauty
That sparkles even in your name.

A Thousand Thousand Fearless Things #18

 Now Playing: 'Yellow' by Coldplay

 #128: PACES English

#129: Papercut

#130: The most decadent beef rendang

#131: Reading Korean. 

#132: V for Vendetta

#133: The name is Bond, James Bond

#134: I'm officially in love with Chris Martin. Sorry Harry. 

#135: My sister's 18th.

..More to come. 

random musings and non sequiteurs..

Now Playing: 'Danse Macabre' by Camille Saint-Saens 

I have really cold feet. Not metaphorically; literally. It's something I inherited from my mother. I'm so inefficient at heating up all five feet three inches of yours truly.

Despite my weight problem I've always had really tiny hands, and wrists, and ankles. When I wore a Medic Alert bracelet (I don't anymore, mostly because it's *really annoying* for people to say 'I didn't know you had a peanut allergy!') I had to wear the baby size until I was about ten years old. My penchant for rings (I wear two; a turquoise from my mother and a Celtic knot my mother bought for me in Scotland) comes mostly because I couldn't wear rings for a long time because I couldn't find any small enough. (My uncle stretched my Celtic ring before I died of gangrene, but when I bought it I was estatic because it was a perfect fit).

I'm fascinated by wedding rings. I love men who wear wedding rings; my father doesn't, and to me it epitomises his completely unromantic nature. 

People are shocked that I'm rather ambivalent about death. To me, death would be a bummer, but it's not really something I fear. I'm more frightened of pain. 

I don't listen to the radio. It just seems like a really inefficient way to listen to music. Right now my iPod is driving me crazy because when I'm not at my computer I don't have any control over what it plays. Despite all this, I always go spastic when I hear a favourite song on the radio.

I give myself pen tattoos occasionally, for no apparent reason. I always have fearless written on my leg (you'd have to be very nice to me to see that, boys), and I have Aspasia written on my right forearm. Before my lovely stretch marks I always thought I'd get a tattoo on my hip; I always used to put temporary tattoos on my hipbones. Mind you, I'm so chicken that I'll probably just stick to henna ;P

I've known more Maddys and Ryans than any other name. Isn't that weird? Oh, and Thomas'. There are millions of Thomas' in our grade. And Eleanor.

I am an insatiable gossip. Despite this, I can never for the life of me keep up with who's with who. Because I go to a high school. Social hierarchy collapses and regroups approximately every six seconds.

For the first time in my life I want someone to buy me books for my birthday. I would love to get Belle de Jour's books - and yes, I know they're about working girls.

I come from a very large, crazy, slightly dysfunctional but very loveable extended family. I think I am closest to my aunt (my father's brother's wife), because I lived with her for three months when I was eight.

What the hell have they done to children's cartoons? Bananas in Pyjamas and Angeline Ballarina...sob...

I much prefer learning than teaching. It's why I love spending time with older people. I love people who know more than I do. That being said, condescension is worse than any other character or physical defect.

There was a particular person who didn't even cross my mind as I packed my bags and galumphed around Asia. Now that particular person is always in my mind. Isn't that weird?

The Bold and the Beautiful. I swear, if my life was half as interesting/incestuous...

The most traumatic vaccination was the cervical cancer shot in year seven.

I'm living in a vacuum.

High school is an enigma.

In one sense, we live to study. We are living for one single purpose; a number, at the end of it, to tell you whether you're alright or just trash. At the end of every year, I throw away most of my hard work; my notes, my worksheets, the handouts. They mean nothing. It's another year of wasted work.

That's not to say that I don't value my academic career and achievements, but we're living in a vacuum. There is more to life than this, and I feel like something is being postponed, held back. Can't we do it both? Can't we plan for the future but live in the moment?

Do I even know anyone at school? School twists our characters and our personalities so much that maybe all I know are distortions. I know the people who only know me at school don't know me, not really. And the people who do know me, mostly pretend not to.

One day I will be an old woman. I hope I don't look upon this time as the wasted years. 

my mother.

Now Playing: 'Fix You' by Coldplay

I love my mother twice as much as anyone else I have ever loved in my entire life. I will always love my mother above anyone else.

I was raised by a working-class woman; and people judge her for that, all the time. I know people think that my mother put her career ahead of me when she put my sister and I in daycare when we were just a few months old. I know that I have sometimes resented that she never read to me, sometimes she wasn't home when I needed her, that my mother would only very rarely do the other things other mothers did at school. That was when I was younger, and much more selfish. And I believed what some of those housewives said.

It is only very recently that we would have been considered reasonably well off. I grew up in a school full of posh white kids who treated me and my old-fashioned, hand-me-down clothes like dirt. But even though I would have liked to have been a pretty white kid with fluffly blonde curls, playing in a nice house with flashy toys and an indulgent mother who devoted all her time and energy to her kids, nothing and nobody can replace my mother. She is my mentor, my teacher, my sister and my best friend. 

I don't have anything against housewives. I wouldn't mind being one for a few years. But you can't claim that my mother hasn't done everything she could for me. My mother is a true modern woman; but she is first and foremost my mother, and I don't think people respect that enough.

My mother gave up raising her own children by herself so that she could make ends meet. My mother has made great sacrifices in her career for us, and for that, I love her. Although she has always worked full time and I've often felt lonely without a constant, domestic presence, I've never doubted that she would do anything for us.

My mother is my greatest inspiration. She is the most loving person I know. She is the only person I have ever loved that has loved me back, equally and unconditionally. When I was little, she would tell me every day that no matter what she or I did or said, she would always love me. Nobody else has ever said that to me. Even when we fight, when we shout at each other and don't look each other in the eye, I always know that she loves me.

I am much closer to my mother than most girls my age. My mother is the most intelligent and funny person I know. She's someone I can really talk to, and she instilled in me a great admiration for intelligence and intellectual equality. She's not afraid to let her hair down; and for that, I love her. She's fearless. She doesn't care if she looks like a woman who's only had two hours sleep, because that's who she is, and she is supremely confident that her husband and children love her despite the superficial details. 

I've learned a lot from my mother, and from her mistakes and regrets. It's because of her I am devoted to giving myself the best education, and seeking new opportunities, reaching new heights. My teachers accuse me of obsessing over marks and being overly ambitious, but it's for my mother. I don't want to let her down. I know my mother is incredibly proud of me; and I want to do her pride justice. 

My mother has reached a crossroads in her life, and in her career. It's a turning point for her as a careerwoman, as a wife and as a mother. And I will support anything she does, from the bottom of my heart, regardless of the consequences. Because I remember, always, that she said that she would love me despite anything I said or did. And I will return the favour.

I love you, mummy. Remember that. This is your choice, because this is your life. And whatever you do or choose, I will love you, always. Whatever happens.