Haiku Hopscotch

Hey world. Ok, so today I'm going to tackle something a little more intense. I won't be doing a poem as usual, instead I'm going to be considering a literary term first introduced by John Keats: Negative Capability. This is a literary and almost philosophical concept which is pretty hard to wrap your head around. I'm actually still trying to understand it myself. Keats first mentioned the idea in a letter in December 1817: '...several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously – I mean Negative Capability, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason – Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge.' Essenti...

Hey world, here's my most recent poem, ' Beyond The Sea', which I wrote on January sixth. I went to the beach, and sat down on the hard stones and shells, Watching the deep, scarred skin of the ocean, constantly shift From form to form, Thinking. Someone told me once the ocean could tell us things if we listened hard enough. Though that was long ago, I sit and listen. The ragged breath of the tide repeats itself, Rhythmically clawing it’s way up the sand with desperate fingers, The seaweed chariots drawn by white foamy horses Ride the surf before turning around and continuing the race back out to sea. The salty air is a physical thing, a rough, cool hand tousling my hair. I pick up a stone, smoothed by the ocean’s touch. The gulls wheel above, and cry out their songs of woe. So I gaze out at the stormy waters, Thinking of times long Long ago. -A. Heezen