Pen and the Plow


similar in shape not size

both cut deep without reprieve

over land and paper furrows go

“never an easy way”

before setting pen or plow

“find out the nature of the place”

does it require corn or grapes

in that yet unbroken ground

“take command over the fields”

so plant other crops

burn off the empty field

change is good now get to work

fling dung and ashes

shout away the birds

“call down rain with your prayers”

let the crosswise story be told

____________________

NaPoWriMo – write a georgic

Quotes are Virgil translated by Robert Wells

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Pen and the Plow

Old Authors and a New Game

Forty four cards in the deck. There are eleven portraits of authors and each has four titles per author. The game is to try to collect all four titles for each author to make a book. Player with the most books wins. I always wanted to draw the card of Louisa May Alcott the only woman in the deck.

Here’s a new game. Match the quote with the author and the title of the book that the quote came from.

Quote
Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?

Words, words, words.

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.

How that personage haunted my dreams, I need scarcely tell you.

A man without conscience is but a poor creature………

Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always understand him.

What other dungeon is so dark as one’s own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one’s self!

For his heart was in his work, and the heart giveth grace unto every art.

God of Jacob! It is the meeting of two fierce tides – the conflict of two oceans moved by adverse winds!

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.

Authors
Henry Longfellow Washington Irving Alfred Tennyson

Nathaniel Hawthorne James Fenimore Cooper Mark Twain

William Shakespeare Sir Walter Scott Louisa May Alcott

Charles Dickens Robert Louis Stevenson

Titles
Pathfinder The Legend of Sleepy Hollow The Brook

The House of the Seven Gables Song of Hiawatha Ivanhoe

Treasure Island Little Women Oliver Twist

Tom Sawyer Hamlet

Play the game without googling or binging or anything else. Just use your literary skills. If you match a quote to the correct author you get one point. If you match the quote to the title you get one point. If you get the title to the author you get a point. If you are correct with the quote, the title and the author you get all three points.

33 points You are the champion of the game and not only do you know the authors and the titles but also the literary style, famous line or theme of each writer.

22 to 32 points You really know your old authors even some that seem obscure to most people today.

11 to 21 points You no doubt have knowledge of these authors and can put two and two together on some occasions.

0 to 10 points Time to study up on your dead poets and authors.

Old Authors and a New Game