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Originally Speaking...

"On Wesley's assertion that originality is nigh impossible I remind you of the virtually infinite combinations of words possible. This quote from a classic Stephen Fry sketch sums it up-
"Imagine a piano keyboard, eh, 88 keys, only 88 and yet, and yet, hundreds of new melodies, new tunes, new harmonies are being composed upon hundreds of different keyboards every day in Dorset alone. Our language, tiger, our language: hundreds of thousands of available words, frillions of legitimate new ideas, so that I can say the following sentence and be utterly sure that nobody has ever said it before in the history of human communication: "Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers." Perfectly ordinary words, but never before put in that precise order.
Of course we severely curtail the possibilities when we rhyme, but the range is still virtually infinite.

Wesley's section on proof-reading is profoundly important. Read it again! Proof-read, aloud! Read aloud to friends and neighbours.

I add to that, reading poetry. How can you know if your work is original if you don't read other people's poetry? Especially the greats, they are a short-cut to knowing what has been so well said it has become cliche.

Only a very few of us are so innately talented we can write from ignorance. Do you really think you are that good?"

I missed all of this because I was depressed and drunk.

What to do?
What to do?

Comment? How petty. How small after the fact. If you can't dive into a pool of sharks, don't brag about swimming with predators.
Critique? Ah, who will learn? I am, after all, a gifted teacher (I have been told so by greater than what is on this site), so what is the point in teaching after the points have been made?
Conversation? No... conversation requires two and I am alone... for now.

A point expressed? Yes... perhaps.
Jess, your sentence was spectacular!
However, I believe it is found in the Septuagint, Genesis Chapter 51, Verse Seventeen. Perhaps a little paraphrased, but the statement clearly is the same.
Nothing changes.

It is how we perceive it.
For strangely enough... I have not seen or heard or read or touched.... everything. If I were to step into the Sistine Chapel I would see what hundreds and others thousands have seen.

And I would weep. I would weep for I saw something I had seen only in photographs. I would weep for I would see the artist on his back for years on scaffolding producing it (for I have read). I would weep for I saw something new TO ME.

To me

To me.
That is all NEW means to any of us. Is it NEW to us?
I am sad that I missed this last workshop. I hope many of you join me in my new one.
Thank you Jess for the opportunity to teach.

Comments

We all go through bad times. But fortunately, like the good times, they always come to an end. So shake your head and be thankful that you have passed through on part of your journey and are now on land whose slopes are more gentle.
As to your being gone and what to do? I doubt you could go back and try to catch up from where you left off. Too much water has poured over that ford. I would recommend yopu just jump into where things are Now and not dwell on what you might have missed.
.........welcome back............stan

This is absolutely not you!
Come back to the real world! We need you here more than any time before.

❤❤❤❤❤❤

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words
........Robert Frost☺

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Stop being such a sad "B" there are many here that listen to your words, your teaching is of a very high level but you had better get a shorter horse
You are only as good as you give, everyone here needs some teaching at some point, even if it is you that has to learn to walk along the side of a corridor. (A Nuns story)
Yes I am bollocking you for your sad Blog,
Then you say at one point that you are a better teacher than most here on Neo, so someone told you, then later you say you would cry on entering the Sistine chapel, hope you look in the mirror quickly, though I haven't seen that perfect mirror yet but you will know what that will show you..
You say you are alone, what crap is this, if you stand on a high place you can see all, just take the time too look around and see those that stand with you, the top of the hill is as big as you want it to be.
Now cut out all this self indulgence and be the teacher I know you can be, Yours Ian.T

.
There are a million reasons to believe in yourself,
So find more reasons to believe in others..

For gawd sake....grow a pair! Clearly over stuffed with natural talents...take some time out...reach out to less fortunate people and walk in their suffering.

Stop holding your nose when you survey the Plebs from your lofty intellectual heights.

Ells

I learned this
deprivation is the sperm
of sexualist poetry
and
to add some spice to the taste of finality
mix a woman's X chromosome
to give a tail either in front or rear
take it as thou wish

Shakespeare’s and bards like me
are not anointed every moment
ask the creators here

and

denigrators for their vision

Epicurial poetry I shan't adhere
let me be free and lonely
my poets dear

loved

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