Cape Canaveral Poet Laureate

(Photo courtesy of City of Cape Canaveral) On Friday, October 4, during our wonderful Friday Fest, the City dedicated its new mural, One Giant Leap for Mankind,  by artist Anón .  You can find his work on Facebook or at this link:    https://anon.myportfolio.com/?fbclid=IwAR2ESNmbrfCul2xcC5gS8vuGBbBjd2xExQ1SzMUaKH-DGcXSV5recZBfFDc I was honored to be part of that event and meet the artist, who, aside from being talented, is a super nice guy.  He brought his wife and new child to the dedication.  His mural served as inspiration for a new poem in the form of a song.  This song is comprised of four mono-rhymed quatrains (meaning each stanza is four lines long with a rhyme scheme of AAAA, BBBB, CCCC, DDDD, with perfect and loose rhymes).  The title is based on the location and topic of the mural.   The first line is from JFK’s famous speech that set us on our lunar path. The trajectory refernces the conical path portrayed on the m...

This song is in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch, Moon landing, and splashdown.  It was a great mission and a beautiful moment that brought the world together.   This song uses "personification".  That means that we give a non-human thing human-like characteristics.  Here, the narrator is speaking to the Moon as if it were a person and a friend. The narrator even sees the Moon as having "hands".    There is "wordplay" in the first line with the word "distant".  This word can mean things are physically far apart, but it can also mean (especially when it comes to relationships) that people have lost touch or emotionally grown apart.   There is a lot of "allusions" here.  Most of it making reference to important dates, locations, equipment, or other items related to the Moon missions.  For instance, the "Gods of time and of light" phrase refers to Saturn and Apollo (the launch vehicle and the sp...

A haiku is form of structured poetry derived from short Japanese poetry.  Although there are many interpretations of what a haiku is, the traditional haiku in English is a three line poem.  The first line contains five syllables, the second line contains seven syllables, and the third line contains five syllables.  So the traditional English haiku structure is referred to as 5-7-5.    Being a short form of highly structured poetry, it is a simple form for anyone interested to attempt. Can you come up with any haikus?  Due to the restrictive nature of the form, feel free to omit words that are superfluous or that do not add meaning.  For instance, rather than writing "The waves wash the Moon", you could write "Waves welcome moonrise".  Think about it like writing a telegraph or a quick text message.  You have a short amount of space to convey as much meaning as possible.  Try writing one and sharing it. In honor of the Summer of Space...

At tonight's City Council meeting, the City will be making a presentation of a Proclamation to members of the Brevard County Historical Commission commemorating City Resolution 1969-30, which commends the historical Apollo 11 Moon Landing of July 20, 1969, and declaring June 21, 2019 through September 23, 2019 as the Summer of Space in Cape Canaveral.  Here is that Proclamation: I will be reading the historical proclamation at the City Council meeting.  As a writer, it is important to understand language usage.  Looking at this proclamation, we can examine its structure and learn about how the City uses structure to make this proclamation. This type of writing is generally called a "resolution" because it shows that the signatory is resolved to perform an action. The first thing we can see are statements that begin with the word "whereas".  These are generally referred to as "recitals" or the "preamble".  As used in recitals, wh...