Not My Day to Die…….by Diane Tegarden

Not My Day to Die
By Diane Tegarden
04/03/13

It’s not my day to die today,
I’ll tell you how I know,
I went to post a letter
so I crossed the street real slow.

I looked both ways for traffic
making sure they could see me,
I felt safe as I noticed
a lady in her great big SUV.

She had on her turn signal
and her foot was on the brake,
she was looking in her lap
to busy for trouble to make.

So I started to cross the sidewalk
making sure she didn’t move,
when suddenly without warning
into the crosswalk her car drove!

I yelled and held my hands up,
admonishing her to stop,
luckily, she hit the brakes
as across the street I hopped.

I could see the other drivers
shaking their heads in doubt,
one stopped to see if I was OK,
and I told her “I’ve no need to pout”.

The accident was averted
there’s no need to cry,
I’ll live another day
because it’s not my day to die!

Author’s notes: This just happened last Wednesday and it made such an impression on me that I sat down and wrote a poem about it. It didn’t upset me or anything, I just realized that when you’re meant to die, you’ll die, until then, all manner of nonsense can happen to you, but you’ll survive!

31 Days of Notable Women- Frances Cornford, English poet

Frances Cornford, was an English poet. She was the daughter of the botanist Francis Darwin and Ellen Crofts Wordsworth, born into the Darwin—Wedgwood family. She was a granddaughter of the British naturalist Charles Darwin. Her elder half-brother was the golf writer Bernard Darwin. She was raised in Cambridge, among a dense social network of aunts, uncles, and cousins, and was educated privately.

Frances Cornford published several books of verse, including Poems (1910), Spring Morning (1915), Autumn Midnight (1923), and Different Days (1928). Mountains and Molehills (1935) was illustrated with woodcuts by her cousin Gwen Raverat.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Cornford

31 Days of Notable Women- Kathleen Jessie Raine, British poet

Kathleen Jessie Raine was born in London in 1908, where she grew up; taking on a number of unsatisfactory jobs. Through one of her later jobs she met the nephew of the Indian mystic Rama Coomaraswamy Tambimuttu, who invited her to contribute to his new magazine, Poetry London, she did of course, and soon developed a lifelong passion for all things Indian.

Source: http://www.poemhunter.com/kathleen-jessie-raine/

31 Days of Notable Women- Isabella V. Crawford, Canadian poet

Isabella Valancy Crawford (25 December 1850 – 12 February 1887) was an Irish-born Canadian writer and poet. She was one of the first Canadians to make a living as a freelance writer.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Valancy_Crawford

Acrostic poetry- no I’m not mad at anyone!

An acrostic poem is one where the first letter of every line spells a word, when read in a straight line vertically. The poem should demonstrate or define that word. My poem is a one word description of myself, called “Maverick”.

Majestic. Alone. I’ll go my own way,
Avoiding leaders and followers, what they may say.
Vested now in my solitude and sweet silence,
Envy and conflict, a rare occurrence.
Reaching beyond my own limits, no one judging why,
Incorrigible, a true radical, with authority I’ll vie.
Can you understand my desire to be completely free?
Know that this solitary journey, is the real me.

Contribute your own acrostic here, if ya like!

31 Days of Notable Women-Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, famous first, poet

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson was born on September 27, 1861 in New York City, the fourth and youngest child of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt.

She began writing at an early age, through the encouragement of her friends, in particular Edith Wharton who helped critique her poetry. In 1911, she published her first poem, “The Call of Brotherhood”, in Scribner’s Magazine. Her first book of poems of the same title was published in 1912. This volume was quickly followed by One Woman to Another and Other Poems (1914) dedicated to her daughter, also named Corinne, commemorating the loss of Robinson’s brother Elliott and son, Stewart. Other volumes of poetry by Robinson include Service and Sacrifice (1919) dedicated to her brother Theodore Roosevelt, The Poems of Corinne Roosevelt Robinson (1924), and Out of Nymph (1930) dedicated to Charles Scribner. She also wrote the prose memoir My Brother Theodore Roosevelt (1924). In 1920, Robinson became the first woman ever to address a nomination convention speaking before a crowd of 14,000.

 Bio from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinne_Roosevelt_Robinson

31 Days of Notable Women- Carolina Nairne, Scottish poet

 

Baroness Carolina Nairne (August 16, 1766 – October 26, 1845), a Scottish songwriter, was born in the “auld hoose” of Gask, Perthshire to Jacobite parents. Throughout her lifetime, she wrote various poems and songs, which she kept a secret from everyone in her life, including her husband, WM Nairne. Her works have been praised for their vivacity and eloquent style, and were often published under the pseudonym of “BB” during her lifetime mainly because it was not socially acceptable for women to write poetry at that time. She loved the Scottish countryside. She died in her family’s home on October 26, 1845, at the age of seventy-nine. Her songs are said to be second only to those of Robert Burns in popularity. Her legacy is also important because she adapted popular melodies and helped by so doing to preserve much of Scotland’s musical heritage, which would otherwise have been lost.

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Lady_Carolina_Nairne

31 Days of Notable Women- Katharine Tynan, Irish poet/novelist

Katharine Tynan (23 January 1861 – 2 April 1931) was an Irish-born writer, known mainly for her novels and poetry. After her marriage in 1898 to the writer and barrister Henry Albert Hinkson (1865–1919) she usually wrote under the name Katharine Tynan Hinkson (or Katharine Tynan-Hinkson or Katharine Hinkson-Tynan). Of their three children, Pamela Hinkson (1900–1982) was also known as a writer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Tynan

31 Days of Notable Women- Marjorie Pickthall, child prodigy, poet

Marjorie L. C. Pickthall was the daughter of Arthur C. Pickthall, an electrical engineer, and Helen Mallard, who had emigrated to Toronto in 1890 from England, when their child was about seven years of age. Marjorie Lowrey Christie Pickthall was born in London,England, the 14th of September, 1883, she achieved fame earlier in life than most poets. For a decade her poems and short stories have appeared in leading periodicals of England, the United States and Canada: and in the autumn of 1913, the University Magazine,Montreal, and John Lane, the Bodley Head, issued a volume of her collected verse, entitled A Drift of Pinions.

For once the reviewers and critics generally were of one opinion that the work was the product of genius undefiled and radiant, dwelling in the realm of pure beauty and singing with perfect naturalness its divine message. It was evident that a genius of a rare order had appeared in Canadian literature.

In 1913, Miss Pickthall was assistant librarian in Victoria College but the close confinement not agreeing with her health, she resigned and went to England to visit relatives. She was there when the Great War broke out and at once became interested in grey knitting and other matters pertaining to the soldiers. In 1915, Little Hearts, her first novel, was published and was very favorably received by the best critics. 

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/garvin/poets/pickthall.html

31 Days of Notable Women- Edith Lovejoy Pierce, peace activist and poet

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day”. – Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Edith Lovejoy Pierce (1904-1983) was a twentieth-century poet and pacifist.

Pierce was born in 1904 in Oxford,England. She married an American in 1929 and moved to theU.S.the same year. She and her husband lived in Evanston, Illinois.

Pierce was a poet and pacifist whose Christianity informed these two careers. In her writing she drew inspiration from the Bible, Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance, music, history, and religious mysticism, among other sources.

Source: http://www.bu.edu/dbin/mlkjr/collection/detail.php?id=56360&height=400&width=600