Little Philosophers Quotes (11 of 16): Emily Dickinson

"People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles."

http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org (E.Dickerson Museum is in Amherst, Mass.)

http://www.amherst.edu

For Republic's Day, a Quote from Nazim Hikmet

One of the many great ironies about Turkey, my late father Mehmet Gokbudak's country and a nation I've visited 15 times, is that the great poet Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963), who was a communist who died in exile in the Soviet Union, is now the official national poet of Turkey!

Today, Hikmet is buried in Moscow (image above).

The Republic of Turkey was established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on this day in 1923, which was 89 years ago.

Here is a quote from Hikmet, who is honored here in America with the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival which is usually held in April:

"Living is no laughing matter. You must live with great seriousness like a squirrel for example_ I mean without looking for something beyond and above living, I mean living must be your whole occupation."

http://www.nazimhikmet.org.tv

http://www.nazimhikmetfestival.org

Quotes of the Da/Week- Emily Dickinson

We continue quoting figures who have been made into plush doll toys by the American novelty company the Unemployed Philosophers Guild with a quip from poet Emily Dickinson , who lived a quiet, reclusive life during the mid-1800s in New England where she penned many famous works, including "A Bird Came Down the Walk."

There is an Emily Dickinson museum in Amherst, Mass.

Here is her quote:

"Behavior is what a person does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes."

www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org

Quote of the Day/Week-Sylvia Plath

Today, we conclude our quotes from famous poets from around the world, with the American poet Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) who committed suicide at age 30 in England. Plath was married to the famous English poet Ted Hughes (1930-1998), with whom she had two children.

Plath published two poetry collections "The Colossus and Other Poems" and "Ariel." She was the first poet to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry posthumously. Plath also wrote the novel "The Bell Jar."

Actress Gwyneth Platrow, then 30 herself while the film was being shot, played in the poet in the biopic film "Sylvia" (2003).

Here is Plath's quote:

"How frail the human heart must be_ a mirrored pool of thought."

http://www.poets.orghttp://www.sylviaplath.de

Quote of the Day/Month: Pablo Neruda

Gadzooks! Blogger has just changed the way we do blogging, perhaps my friends who left blogging for gardening, raising pet snakes and watching every episode of "Welcome Back Kotter" had the right idea.

Today, we are continuing to quote famous poets from around the world in honor of National Poetry Month with a quip from the late Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) who was honored earlier this month at the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival in Cary (Raleigh), NC.

Neruda began life as  a poet when he was just a teenager. He was known for his surrealist nature. Neruda died just three days after right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006) took power in the coup that would haunt Chile for decades. Neruda was from the political left.

Here is his quote:

"Loe is so short, forgetting is so long."

His famous works include "I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You" and "If You Forget Me."http://www.poemhunter.org

Just for the fun of it, I am saying that I am blogging from the Salt Lake City Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, I have not been to that zip code since 2007.

Quote of the Day/Week-Rita Dove

Today, we continue to celebrate National Poetry Month, with a quip from poet and University of Virginia professor Rita Dove, whose collection "On the Bus with Rosa Parks" (1999) is one of my personal favorites.

Dove, 59, was poet laureate fro 1993-95; here is her quote:

"Going to the library was the one place we got to go without asking for permission. And they let us choose what we wanted to read. It was a feeling of having a book be mine entirely."

Quote of the Day/Week-Nazim Hikmet

It turns out that we have had visitors today from Afghanistan?! Of course, we have no idea if those blog hits are from American troops or village dwellers in Kandahar province, but either way_ thanks for visiting.

Today, in honor of both National Poetry Month and the up-coming Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival in Cary (Raleigh), NC, on April 15th, we quote the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet (1901-1963).

The great irony of Hikmet's life is that he lived in exile in her later years in Russia because he was a communist. He ended up dying in Moscow, but today he is the national poet of Turkey and his once-revoked Turkish citizenship was given back to him posthumously.

This year's Nazim Hikmet festival honors the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.

Here is the quote from Hikmet, who is also my personal favorite poet, with Charles Bukowski being a close second:

"However and wherever we are, we must live as if we will never die."

Quote of the Day/Week_ Reinaldo Arenas

We are continuing our quotes from Latin Americans with a quip from the Cuban novelist and poet Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990) who left his island nation in part because of the country's political suppression of homosexuals, such as himself.

Arenas became the subject of the 2000 film "Before the Night Falls" featuring Spanish actor Javier Bardem in the starring role in a film that also included Johnny Depp and Sean Penn. The feature was filmed in Mexico instead of Cuba.

Here is the quote from Arenas:

"I have always considered it despicable to grovel your life as it were a favor. If you can not live the way you want, there is no point in living."

Quote of the Week- Nazim Hikmet

We are very pressed for time today, but I thought us off with a quip from the late, great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet (1901-1963) who lived in exile in Russia for his communist views during the later part of his life.

Ironically, this poet, who is buried in Moscow, is now considered the national poet of Turkey.

Here is his quote:

"However and whereever we are, we must live as if we never die."

Quote of the Week- Allen Ginsberg

Gazooks! I forgot to save while I initially wrote this entry. At any rate, our subject in our continuing series of quotes from left-wing circles continues with a quip of the great American poet Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) who was a close friend of William Burroughs.

In 1956, the year he wrote his landmark poem "Howl," Ginsberg professed admiration for the then-new Cuban leader Fidel Castro according to Wikipedia. But, Ginsberg said he had his own idiosyncratic views of communism.

In the 2010 film "Howl," actor James Franco played Ginsberg who was also a gay rights activist.

Here is his quote:

"Follow your inner moonlight, don't hide the madness."

SIDEBAR: Honeymoon in Kigali? Yes, the east African country of Rwanda which underwent a dreadful period of ethnic strife and genocide in the 1990s is literally ready to put their past behind them.

Rwanda's tourism site (yes, there is such a place) is recommending that travelers viist the Akagea National Park where one can see zebras and elephants and a large concentration of waterbirds, such as the shoebill stork.

The site also states that Kigali offers many great restaurants with both regional and international cuisine.

The Lonely Planet does recommend that visitors take precautions, and that the border with Burundi is among the areas that one should avoid in Rwanda.

SIDEBAR TWO: It may not be as exciting as Katie Holmes telling the world that she is pregnant with Tom Cruise's third child, but "City Paper" in Washington, DC, has reported that the female Chinese panda Mei Xiang is apparently pregnant. Zoo officials will be checking to see if the panda, who is believed to be mating with male Chinese panda Tian Tian, is indeed expecting.

Quote of the Week- Robert Frost

As National Poetry month comes to a gradual close, we are featuring a quip from Robert Frost (1874-1963) who is perhaps best known for his poem "Fire and Ice" that perhaps 93 percent of us were required to read in high school.

We learned that there are actually two Robert Frost museums in New England. The Robert Frost Stone Home Museum is in South Shaftsbury, Vt. And, the Robert Frost Place Home, which is also the house where the poet resided from 1915-1920, is in Franconia, New Hampshire. Obviously, this might be quite a field trip for students from Provo High School in Provo, Utah (a real place)!

Here is the quip from Frost:

"A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer."

Lastly, fans of Gary Shteyngart (whew, we almost didn't get it right!) who feel that the author of the great novel "Absurdistan" was snubbed from our "Difficult, Long Names" list yesterday should know that we are planning to post another such list in May.

Quote of the Day- James Baldwin

Today's quote of the day comes from the late poet and writer James Baldwin (1924-1987) who was also a Civil Rights activist. Since he was black, gay and an atheist, Baldwin felt alienated from society and spent some time abroad as a writer, primarily in Paris, France, (starting in 1948) as well as Switzerland and Turkey.

Among his famous works are his second novel "Giovanni's Room," which was quite provocative when it was released in 1956.

Here is Baldwin's quip:

"Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced."

SIDEBAR: Many radical fundamentalist Christians in the United States, and perhaps elsewhere, are predicting that Judgment Day will come on May 21 of this year (wow!, they have an exact) and the end of the world as we know it will come on Oct. 21,
2011. And, they claim to spread optimism?!

Meanwhile, so we may be 'objective,' it should be pointed out that the heavy metal band Slayer is apparently not concerned with Judgment Day (even though we are not radical Satan-worshippers, I am inclined to agree with them here) as they play on performing in Santiago, Chile, on June 2, 2011. Closer to home, Slayer will be in Pittsburg, Pa., on July 23.

And, The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a group that makes fun of Christian doomsdayists and other radicals of this genre, had a cake made in their honor in Argentina recently. We wish we could share that image here with you, but we hate to agitate folks we actually agree with!

Quote of the Week- Nazim Hikmet

Today, we have two quotes from perhaps my two favorite poets on our two respective blogs. Amazingly enough, the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963) and the great African-American poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967) were born a mere two weeks apart.

Hikmet was born on Jan. 17, 1902, in what is now Salonika, Greece. Due to his communist beliefs, he lived much of his later life in Russia and he is buried in Moscow's famous Novodevichy Cemetery, where one can also see the tombstone of Boris Yeltsin.

Hughes was born on Feb. 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. He passed away in New York where he had resided for much of his adult life.

Hikmet's life is amazing for many reasons, and it would substantially more time than we have here to go into all the details. But, we can show the following ironies about his life:

-Though he is Turkey's best-known poet, Hikmet was not only born in what is now Greece and he died in Russia, but he also had Polish ancestery.

-Since, he is now amazingly enough considered Turkey's National Poet, he was posthumously given back his Turkish citizenship in 2009 which had been revoked during the time of his political activies.

-Joan Baez, of all people, sang a song version of his poem "Nazim Turkusu" in Turkish!

-Hikmet's poem "The Epic War of Independence" is considered to be a patriotic masterpiece which is even revered by right-wing Turkish nationalists today!

Here is his quote:

"Living is no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness like a squirel for example_ I mean without looking for something beyond and above living, I mean you must be your whole occupation."

Quotes from The Composers- Sergei Prokofiev

Today, as promised, we are quoting two Russian composers on our two blogs. We start Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1936), the modern composer we've quipped so far. He is perhaps best known for his symphonic children's story "Peter and the Wolf," which was written in 1936. It was ironically made into a Disney short film just ten years later.

The Soviet-era composer died on the same day when dictator Joseph Stalin's death was announced.

Prokofiev is buried at the famed Novodevichy Cemetary in Moscow where one can also find the graves of Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet (1901-963) who left Turkey because of his communist views (today, he is ironically Turkey's national poet) and famed Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) who directed "Battleship Potemkin."

Here is his quote:

"I play rather well- in any case, jauntily. My success was rather great and I should say no doubt unexpected."

SIDEBAR: For those who love all things Russian, Turkish-American writer and scholar Elif Batuman has a relatively new book (released in early 2010) entitled: "The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them." The book, as one would expect, discusses the likes of Anton Chekov and Leo Tolstoy. I will probably never read the rather lenghty "War and Peace" by Tolstoy myself, but Batuman's book is only (compared to Russian novels) 296 pages.

Even though I am also a Turkish-American, I have never met Batuman, though I've been told that her book, which was reviewed in "The New York Times" last year, is really good.

We learned through Wikipedia that Batuman also studied the Uzbek language as a grad student while studying in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

Quote of the Week-Allen Ginsberg

The poet Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) is our choice for The Quote of the Week as we continue our series on left-wing rdicals. Ginsberg was part of the beat movement, which included the late William Burroughs ("The Naked Lunch") who is perhaps my favorite writer/novelist.

We quoted Ginsberg earlier in April for National Poetry Month. This particular quote came across 'our desk' by chance, and we love it!:

"Democracy! Bah! When I hear that word I reach for my feather Boa!"

Special Quote of the Day- Nazim Hikmet

Since today is Republic's Day in Turkey, my late father's country, I thought I would quote the great Turksih poet Nazim Hikmet (1901-1963).

Hikmet was a communist who was frequently jailed for his political activity, but ironically today he is considered to be The Official National Poet of Turkey, and one of his poems about a Turkish military victory is actually considered to be a favorite among nationalists! Hikmet lived his later years in exile in the Soviet Union. He is buried in Moscow:

"However and wherever we are, we must live as if we will never die."

Quote of the Week- Nazim Hikmet

The late poet Nazim Hikmet (1901-1963) was born in what is today Greece (the city of Thessaloniki) and he died in Moscow at the age of 61, but he is considered to be the greatest Turkish poet.

Since my late father Mehmet Gokbudak hailed from Turkey and since April is National Poetry Month, I thought I would quote Hikmet who lived both an interesting and oppressed life.

His communist views made him a political exile in Russia, but today, ironically he is now the State Poet of Turkey and some of his poems are even revered by nationalists!

Here is today's quote from Hikmet:

"And, don't forget, a prisoner's wife must think good thoughts."