Poems

Back when Atari video game systems weren't considered retro, Yucef Merhi was playing around with words and video cords. The Venezuelan-born Merhi wrote poems as a hobby and mastered the Atari 2600 by the time he had reached junior high. That was when he decided to get creative by mixing the mediums. Through programming ingenuity, Merhi wired the Atari to act like a primitive computer, enabling him to post poetic messages on the video screen. He then gave others the chance to fiddle with his words.

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? If you’ve been looking for a creative outlet, why not take this opportunity to try your hand at poetry? A great place to start is to get an understanding of the history of poetry and poetic forms. Listen to the Book on CD “A Way with Words IV: Understanding Poetry” to get a thorough overview from Wheaton College English professor Michael Drout . Drout surveys the history of poetry from the early oral tradition to contemporary poetry, discussing different forms and features you might want to employ as you start to write poems of your own. There are several great books to help you learn traditional forms and poetic structures.

Babies make me smile. Babies make me sing. Babies make me laugh at all the sweet sounds and funny faces they make, but the newest little baby in our lives does something else. This little baby boy makes poetry happen. I don’t know what it is about our new grandson Declan, but when he was less than 10 hours old, his 6 year-old sister, Mary, had already made up several poems about him. Maybe it was the months of building excitement in his family, especially for his sisters and brother.

Young Chang COSTA MESA -- Mabel Knowles, an 87-year-old Christian poet, faces what she calls discrimination because the Costa Mesa Senior Center's new director has banned her religious rhymes, which have been published in the center's monthly newsletter without controversy for the last five years, . Aviva Goelman, the center's director, told Knowles her that her "Try Prayer" poem was not suitable for the November issue...

Deirdre Newman There's a poetry revolution brewing in Joe Norris' fifth-grade classroom at Victoria Elementary School in Costa Mesa. Norris introduced his students to his penchant for poetry during the first week of school and their reaction was overwhelmingly positive. "He made it really fun for us," said Courtney Ulrich, 10. Norris instructed his students to write "I Am" poems on Friday as part of a language arts lesson. The poems are comprised of several statements starting with "I" that encourage the students to express themselves creatively.

Young Chang In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "100 Years of Solitude," people in the town of Macondo live for more than a century. Some resurrect after death. One dead man's ghost visits his killer's home to look for water in the kitchen to use on his wounds. This is "magical realism," a term that describes Latin American literature during the 1960s. The technique is to make magic seem real. Most people connect it with literature. But Marilyn Ellis, a Corona del Mar artist, has translated the style to visual mono prints, a technique in which the artist paints on a sheet of plexiglass on an engraving press that is then used to create one print.

Patricia Dreyfus The morning is crisp, and the weather here is like Southern California. I wear my rebozo and good walking shoes to navigate the ancient cobblestone streets of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. The shopkeepers are washing the sidewalks before they open for the day. I see no neon signs, fast-food restaurants, billboards or traffic lights. In the Jardin, the central plaza of the town, vendors are setting up shop under the sheltering fig trees, and the pink morning light glows on the facade of La Parroquia, the central church.

"Many men have served God and country well in arms; they have been valorous in battle, magnanimous in victory, patient in defeat and capture and faithful in death." -- SHERWOOD ELIOT WIRT This column appears over the Memorial Day weekend. I read that it was originally called "Decoration Day" and was, and is still, a day to remember those who have died while serving our country. Apparently, there are differing stories about its true origin, as well as assorted places that claim to be the birthplace.

Suzie Harrison For Newport Beach poet Lee Mallory, life has taken him along a winding path that has included a period of prolific writing, a loss of words and a return to form. Two weeks ago, he unveiled his new book of poems at the Pale Ale Poets reading. Mallory moved to Laguna Beach when he was newly married in June 1969. He was a recent college graduate of UC Santa Barbara, and though he had written a bit in college, he developed his skill and affinity for words during that time.

Sue Doyle COSTA MESA -- The last train for German Jewish residents to legally leave Berlin whisked away a young Faye Zierler and her parents to freedom from the Nazis. Zierler's escape story survives through her son, Steven Breitbart -- one of more than 100 people Sunday who attended Holocaust Remembrance Day, known as Yom Hashoah, at the Jewish Federation Campus. The program's theme, "Passing the Torch," signigies the transfer of tales from one generation to the next so people like Breitbart can understand the Holocaust devastation and never let it happen again.

Babies make me smile. Babies make me sing. Babies make me laugh at all the sweet sounds and funny faces they make, but the newest little baby in our lives does something else. This little baby boy makes poetry happen. I don’t know what it is about our new grandson Declan, but when he was less than 10 hours old, his 6 year-old sister, Mary, had already made up several poems about him. Maybe it was the months of building excitement in his family, especially for his sisters and brother.

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? If you’ve been looking for a creative outlet, why not take this opportunity to try your hand at poetry? A great place to start is to get an understanding of the history of poetry and poetic forms. Listen to the Book on CD “A Way with Words IV: Understanding Poetry” to get a thorough overview from Wheaton College English professor Michael Drout . Drout surveys the history of poetry from the early oral tradition to contemporary poetry, discussing different forms and features you might want to employ as you start to write poems of your own. There are several great books to help you learn traditional forms and poetic structures.

Written in fading ink on yellowing index cards and Christmas stationery, an album filled with poems at 81-year-old Newport Beach resident Mimi MacGowan’s Bay Bay home is brimming with decades of family history in the form of humorous, rhyming verse. “Ann loves to go to the show, and no doubt to read Thoreau, but she can no longer hide, because of what is inside, a secret few of us know, her love of 90210,” reads one poem, a tribute of one of MacGowan’s family member’s love of a certain teen television drama.

Antwon Byrd is not what you call a vocal leader. He said so. Byrd writes his feelings on paper. He plays them on a bass guitar. Byrd is as much an artist as he is a football player at Costa Mesa High. Coming up with poetic verses and smoothly plucking strings are a contrast to the collisions on the field. The first two allow the senior to express himself. “It’s just a way for me to escape reality sometimes,” Byrd said. With the Mustangs’ 0-5 start to the season, who could blame Byrd?

“Trouble strife and war/They define the world I know.” Those are the opening lines of the first poem in a volume of poetry Corona del Mar High School student Daniel Ward recently self-published. Many of the poems are outlets for the pain that confronted him after tragic events in his life, like 9/11, when he sat in Cindy Coon’s fourth-grade class at Harbor View Elementary School. The quiet, bashful student returned to the school to thank Coon for inspiring him and to tell her he dedicated the book to her. Ward surprised her during a daily school assembly Friday morning, causing Coon’s jaw to drop and tears to well up in her eyes.

The murder and conspiracy trial of Rachael Mullenix nearly flew off the rails Monday afternoon, before the judge rejected a request for a mistrial by the defense and allowed the case to continue. It all began as prosecutor Sonia Balleste cross-examined defense witness Veronica Thomas, a psychologist hired to evaluate Mullenix. In the PowerPoint presentation she used to illustrate her questions about the defendant’s psychology, Balleste included an image of a poem written by Mullenix, titled “Female Player.

As we read the Daily Pilot this Sunday morning, take a few minutes to reflect on this past year, your life and the roles you play with your family, in your business or profession and in the community. Then read “The Dash” by Linda Ellis, a powerful, compelling poem with a meaningful message.   I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of his friend. He referred to the dates on her tombstone from the beginning to the end.   He noted that first came the date of her birth and spoke of the second with tears, but he said that what mattered most of all was the dash between those years.

ALISO VIEJO ? Weston Chandler reluctantly became a songwriter Friday. The Newport Harbor High School junior was one of more than 100 students from around Orange County attending the Leadership Institute For Teens' annual humanitarian conference at Soka University in Aliso Viejo. On Friday, the final day, the organizers planned an exercise in which students wrote short poems about times when they felt an urge to make a difference, then submitted their words to songwriter Don Miggs to convert into lyrics.

Back when Atari video game systems weren't considered retro, Yucef Merhi was playing around with words and video cords. The Venezuelan-born Merhi wrote poems as a hobby and mastered the Atari 2600 by the time he had reached junior high. That was when he decided to get creative by mixing the mediums. Through programming ingenuity, Merhi wired the Atari to act like a primitive computer, enabling him to post poetic messages on the video screen. He then gave others the chance to fiddle with his words.