{"id":137990242,"date":"2025-01-29T15:10:27","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T21:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/?p=137990242"},"modified":"2026-02-28T14:12:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T20:12:28","slug":"things-that-are-helpful-things-that-are-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/things-that-are-helpful-things-that-are-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Things That Are Helpful, Things That Are Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

My first poem of this year's Stafford Challenge<\/a> reflected my mood. It might best be described as gray. Not exactly wallowing in deep depression over here, because that would be letting the bastards win. (See #5 and #6, below.) A day or two ago, I wrote another - determined to be honest, to not focus on nor shy away from politics, to avoid didacticism and clich\u00e9, and to avoid either sinking into a morose pit of despair or a false sense of positivity and \"rah-rah, kum ba yah!\" No, we clearly cannot \"all just get along.\" I'm not here to make anyone feel better about, or absolved of responsibility for, their choices.<\/em><\/p>\n

After more or less succeeding with the Abecedarian poem, \"The Price of Eggs\" (below) - and triple-dipping by counting it as one of my daily poems and the first in my self-imposed \"alphabetic forms challenge\" - I ran across these wise words posted on Facebook in 2017 - still true, today - by Bernice A King - on the Be A King <\/strong><\/a>Facebook page:<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. Use his name sparingly so as not to detract from the issues. I believe that everyone, regardless of their beliefs, deserves the dignity of being called by their name. However, this is a strategic tactic. While we are so focused on him we are prone to neglect the questionable policies that threaten freedom, justice and fairness advanced by the administration<\/span>.<\/li>\n
  2. Remember this is a regime and he's not acting alone<\/span>;<\/li>\n
  3. Do not argue with those who support him and his policies--it doesn't work;<\/li>\n
  4. Focus on his policies<\/span>, not his appearance and mental state;<\/li>\n
  5. Keep your message positive; those who oppose peace and justice want the country to be angry and fearful because this is the soil from which their darkest policies will grow<\/strong><\/span>;<\/li>\n
  6. No more helpless\/hopeless talk<\/strong><\/span>;<\/li>\n
  7. Support artists and the arts<\/span>;<\/li>\n
  8. Be careful not to spread fake news<\/span>. Check it;<\/li>\n
  9. Take care of yourselves; and<\/li>\n
  10. Resist!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Keep demonstrations peaceful. In the words of John Lennon, \"When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system\u2019s game. The establishment will irritate you - pull your beard, flick your face - to make you fight! Because once they\u2019ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don\u2019t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.\"<\/p>\n

    When you post or talk about him, don't assign his actions to him, assign them to \"The Republican Administration,\" or \"The Republicans.\" This will have several effects: the Republican legislators will either have to take responsibility for their association with him or stand up for what some of them don't like; he will not get the focus of attention he craves; Republican representatives will become very concerned about their re-elections.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    It's all worth remembering, but I have emphasized the parts I think are particularly important right now. While I won't be sharing all of my poems here, at least until they've had their shot at contests or publication elsewhere, I want to share this one with you since it has already been posted publicly in several places.<\/p>\n

    The Price of Eggs (an Abecedarian)<\/h2>\n

     <\/p>\n

    A<\/strong>usterity's an unfamiliar thing
    b<\/strong>ut soon, hard times befall us\u2014frugal skills
    c<\/strong>ould be required of us all. But no
    d<\/strong>espairing, now! Do not accept the price!
    E<\/strong>ggs hardly justify the sacrifice.
    F<\/strong>our years: we face a famine, starved of hope;
    g<\/strong>rief tries to overshadow all our joys.
    H<\/strong>ere stand courageous, friends\u2014live well and laugh
    i<\/strong>nstead \u2013 your tears won\u2019t grow a thriving crop. No
    j<\/strong>ustice there to harvest, there\u2019s no peace.
    K<\/strong>now kind compassion, struggle on, survive\u2014
    l<\/strong>ive on, to fight another brutal day.
    M<\/strong>ay fear subside and warm winds guide as we
    n<\/strong>egotiate the coming change, resist
    o<\/strong>ld foes: our apathy towards avarice,
    p<\/strong>retending \u201chow it\u2019s always been\u201d precludes a
    q<\/strong>uest to build a lock, to lift all boats,
    r<\/strong>eturn some bounty\u2014builders, dreamers\u2014
    s<\/strong>tay the course. We can, we will, we must
    t<\/strong>ogether tear down walls between us. Let
    u<\/strong>s work with one another, forge a peace.
    V<\/strong>ictorious, the battle-weary rest;
    W<\/strong>e needn\u2019t \u201cfight\u201d on every clich\u00e9d front
    E<\/strong>xcept where vengeance and destruction lie a
    Y<\/strong>earning, yawning chasm; one man\u2019s only
    z<\/strong>eal. There, fight we must, in self-defense, and win.<\/p>\n

    Alphabet Forms Challenge<\/h2>\n

    The form: Abecedarian<\/a>. I would encourage you to try it for yourself! I don't know, yet, if I will make it through my alphabet challenge, as I plan to avoid any forms that seem too unnatural or contrived to flow well in English, and I really haven't looked ahead in any of the lists to see which letters may be missing entirely. I choose based on how well the description of the form seems to match the mood I'm in on any given day. This isn't at all planned out in advance. Right now, I'm working from this list: List of 168 Poetic Forms for Poets | Types of Poems and Poetry - Writer's Digest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    For yesterday's form, I chose the Bref Double<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    For today's, the Contrapuntal<\/a> - which now seems much easier than I thought, at first, being essentially the solo version of a Tapestry<\/a> form - a collaborative form that Necia Campbell and I wrote together last year, and which appears towards the end of the recently released, Poems from the Rebel Outpost<\/strong><\/a>. The previous link will take you to Barnes & Noble; to buy from Amazon, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    If you do decide to join me, and choose to share your poems, come back and leave a link in the comments. (Comments from new commenters and all comments containing links will go to moderation unless you limit yourself to one and have commented here often enough to be on my \"trusted peeps\" list. If you're not on the list, glare at the Bouncer and leave a few thoughtful comments!) That's just one of the perks of being a frequent flyer on my blog!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It’s been a challenging week on many fronts, but for today, I choose poetry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137990244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_has_post_settings":[],"wds_primary_category":11,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[2727,2725,2726,2728,2729],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-137990242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing","tag-alphabetic-forms-challenge","tag-poetry","tag-poetry-forms","tag-stafford-challenge","tag-thestaffordchallenge"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 04:28:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137990242"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137990833,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990242\/revisions\/137990833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137990244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137990242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137990242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137990242"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=137990242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}