Happy New Year! And the 78th Virtual Poetry Circle

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It’s 2011, can you believe it?  Another year has flown by and it’s time to begin anew.  No resolutions for me this year.  I’m just going to take it one day at a time in 2011 and see what happens along the way.  With the new baby coming and the dog with his same old health problems, I think I’ll have my hands full already.

I’ll try to keep blogging and reading, but commenting on other blogs may be sparse or sporadic.  I hope you’ll all be patient.

I hope you all spent your New Years Eve well and had a great time no matter what you did.  I know I had a good time cosmic bowling for 2 hours with my husband and listening to the PBS Lincoln Center special of music.  I wanted it to be a fun and low key evening and it was.  I even got to pig out on some crab rangoon . . . my favorite Chinese food.

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Welcome to the 78th Virtual Poetry Circle!

Remember, this is just for fun and is not meant to be stressful.

Keep in mind what Molly Peacock’s books suggested. Look at a line, a stanza, sentences, and images; describe what you like or don’t like; and offer an opinion. If you missed my review of her book, check it out here.

In honor of the new year, lets have a poem about beginnings.  Check out this one from Lord Alfred Tennyson:

In Memoriam

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Let me know your thoughts, ideas, feelings, impressions.  Let’s have a great discussion…pick a line, pick an image, pick a sentence.

I’ve you missed the other Virtual Poetry Circles.  It’s never too late to join the discussion.