Beyond the Horizon (iPhone 12 Pro) by Aditi Nair, 13; published in Stone Soup September 2022 A note from William Rubel Dear Friends – I would like to announce the opening of our 2022–2023 Fiftieth Anniversary Drive. In the closing months of this year, and throughout next year, we would like to gather our community of Stone Soup supporters and donors to see us on our way to the next fifty years. Our goal for this drive between now and December 2023 is $125,000. It is a lot! But that amount will provide us with the foundation we need to thrive in the decades to come. Many of us have a set of charities that are important to us and to our families. If you have the means, then I ask you to discuss with your family making Stone Soup one of your primary charities for this year and next. If any of you would like to speak with me directly, then please write to me. I’d be happy to talk to you about Stone Soup and our plans for the future. Thank you. Until next time, William’s Weekly Project I am taken with Aditi Nair’s photograph, Beyond the Horizon. I’ve read that one of the biggest differences between how we are now, we of the mobile phone era, and how we used to be is that we spend less time doing nothing. Less time thinking. We don’t just stand in line at the grocery, we pull out our phones. All of us, of all ages, do this! The title of Aditi’s photograph evokes the unphotographable—a place that cannot be captured on camera and can only exist in our imaginations, our dreams. A place beyond what we can see. The photograph offers us a rare opportunity to ponder. Let yourself be drawn in by this photograph. Spend some time with it. Let your eye wander the vast expanse of water to the point where sky and water converge on the horizon, beyond which is a place of infinite possibility. Aditi invites our contemplation through the placement of the figure looking out to sea. The boy in the photograph offers us a point of entry and helps us see ourselves standing there, looking, and absorbing the moment. I have been focusing my newsletter projects on photography because now almost everyone has a camera, either a stand-alone camera or one in a phone. I want you to find something to photograph that leads to a mystery—something that cannot be wholly captured by the lens of your camera. I will say no more. This is a very big challenge. Good luck! And, as usual, if you like what you achieve, please submit it to Stone Soup. Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #48: Prose Poetry
An update from our forty-eighth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, November 5, plus some of the output published below For this week’s workshop, we focused on prose poetry, which we defined as a prose composition that demonstrates the logic and characteristics common to poetry. The first thing we did was a favorite exercise of Conner’s: he asked that we try and write a “bad” poem. After the exercise, we read “On the Train” by Lydia Davis, “The Mysterious Arrival of an Unusual Letter” by Mark Strand, “I Am the Last” by Charles Simic, “Man with Red Hair” by Daniil Kharms, and “Information” by David Ignatow. All of these prose poems we characterized as feeling like excerpts from larger stories, or the beginning of a short story—they felt like they should keep going. The Challenge: Write a prose poem. If you feel stuck, write a story that feels like its an excerpt from a larger story but isn’t. Or you could write the beginning of a short story but cut it off before it really starts going. Or, take the “bad” poem from the beginning of workshop and turn it into a longer prose poem. The Participants: Allie, Emma, Anushka, Benedetta, Arjun, Tate, Robert, Aditi, Russell, Ella, Samantha, Alice, Josh, Anna, Savi Open House & Untitled Emma Hoff, 10 Open House An old photo, containing a memory. Aww, they say, beholding it. One day, it’s gone. They move on to another photo. Aww, they say again. It goes on like this, and, eventually, only the abstract painting is left. They study it. There’s silence. They hesitate. And then they say, aww. You dump salt on their heads as they walk into the kitchen and pet the frying pan. Everything is gone. The house is just a hollow box that you sit in. There are no walls, but you are enclosed by something. More and more of them come in. Aww, they say, patting your head. Untitled I’m watching the man in the corner, sipping tea that I made for him. He doesn’t remember. He’s too busy watching it, and I don’t want to tell him who he really is – I’m also afraid. Every noise startles me, and I feel like I want to go back inside. It’s cold. The door is locked. I know he won’t hear me knock. I sit down on the steps, and suddenly, in front of me, there’s a pineapple. On one side of my head is a star, and on the other side is a bird. The Thing is gone. It didn’t really mean anything anyway. It was just a plot twist.
Poetry Soup Ep. 3 – “No End of Fun” by Wisława Szymborska
Ep. 3: “No End of Fun by Wislawa Szymborska Transcript: Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup! I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. Each episode, I’ll discuss a different poem and poet. In this episode, I’ll be talking about the human race — which is, apparently, no end of fun. The great Polish poet, Wisława Szymborska, once said, “I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.” Lucky for her, she has written many amazing poems, and today I’ll be talking about one of her best works, titled “No End of Fun.” Wisława Szymborska was born on July 2, 1923 in Prowent, Poznań Voivodeship, Poland, which is now Kórnik, Poland. When her father died, her family moved to Torun and then Krakow, where she spent the rest of her life. Wisława Szymborska was a staff member of a literary review magazine called Życie Literackie (which means Literary Life). She was a poet, essayist, and translator. In 1996, she was given the Nobel Prize in Literature. Much of her work is centered around history and war, for example, in her poem “Hitler’s First Photograph,” she ironically uses ultra-sweet language to describe Adolf Hitler as a baby. Now I’m going to read “No End of Fun.” In this satirical poem, you learn how strange humans are, and how, in some cases, we are to be pitied. So he’s got to have happiness, he’s got to have truth, too, he’s got to have eternity did you ever! He has only just learned to tell dreams from waking; only just realized that he is he; only just whittled with his hand né fin a flint, a rocket ship; easily drowned in the ocean’s teaspoon, not even funny enough to tickle the void; sees only with his eyes; hears only with his ears; his speech’s personal best is the conditional; he uses his reason to pick holes in reason. In short, he’s next to no one, but his head’s full of freedom, omniscience, and the Being beyond his foolish meat— did you ever! For he does apparently exist. He genuinely came to be beneath one of the more parochial stars. He’s lively and quite active in his fashion. His capacity for wonder is well advanced for a crystal’s deviant descendant. And considering his difficult childhood spent kowtowing to the herd’s needs, he’s already quite an individual indeed— did you ever! Carry on, then, if only for the moment that it takes a tiny galaxy to blink! One wonders what will become of him, since he does in fact seem to be. And as far as being goes, he really tries quite hard. Quite hard indeed—one must admit. With that ring in his nose, with that toga, that sweater. He’s no end of fun, for all you say. Poor little beggar. A human, if ever we saw one. “No End of Fun” is the last poem in Szymborska’s 1967 collection by the same name. Szymborska begins her poem by talking about how humans desire so much. She writes how humans want everything — happiness, truth, and eternity. The ironic outside narrator, who is both Szymborska and some sort of extraterrestrial being, uses the words “did you ever!” three times throughout the poem to express disgust and surprise. This narrator appreciates the humans in the confines of their foolishness. The humans are like the country bumpkins of the universe, born beneath one of the “more parochial stars.” Szymborska repeats the exclamation of “did you ever!” three times in her poem. Then, in the end, she switches to, “if ever we saw one,” reinforcing the feeling of shock that we feel in the poem — how is it possible for us to even exist? She also comments on how young the human race really is, how quickly it will end, and how ignorant it is. According to Szymborska, man has “only just learned to tell dreams from waking.” Szymborska also writes, “a flint, a rocket ship;/easily drowned in the ocean’s teaspoon,/not even funny enough to tickle the void.” She shows that we’ve evolved so quickly, and yet we have so much more to explore and to do. She skips quickly through time here, and in the line, “with that ring in his nose, with that toga, that sweater.” Primitive man, ancient man, and modern man. The narrator uses this line to prove how old and wise it is. According to this cynical creature, human life spans are so short — you almost feel bad for them. The title of this poem is “No End of Fun,” and yet, the poem is about how the human race will end. It is almost like humanity is judging itself, and Szymborska is judging us, too. This poem makes us feel uncomfortable — most people would rather not think about these things. The poem is funny, but it’s also depressing. Szymborska shows that, compared to the rest of the universe, we’re really small and young — and that there could always be something out there that’s laughing at us. That was “No End of Fun” by Wislawa Szymborska. Maybe one day, you’ll meet a cynical alien just like the one she describes. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Poetry Soup, and I’ll see you soon with the next one!
