- Recitals
and Cantillations
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Years ago, before I developed a problem with my
throat, I used to put some of my favorite classical poems to song and sing
them at poetry readings and such. It's an activity I sorely miss, and which
I hope to return to one day should my throat ever heal or otherwise allow me
the gift of singing. Most of these recitals and cantillations were recorded
while I was attempting to train my voice between 2001 and 2004. I've since
been unable to train my voice further due to the pain and difficulty
involved.
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Writings
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I have explored writing throughout my life. Most of
it is poetry. Here you'll also find materials I've managed to preserve from my
adolescence and early adulthood. Some of this material I plan to revise at some
point; some I already have.
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- Journeys Into
Poetic Forms
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This is a chapbook collection I began putting together mid 2002. Presently, the collection consists of
three series. Series I is dedicated to the ghazal, Series II to free verse,
and Series III to the villanelle and its variations. Each chapbook can be
viewed as PDF, which may be perused online
using Adobe Acrobat Reader, which most everyone has. There has been a long lull
in my activity with these chapbooks because of severe time and energy
constraints. But I continue writing, and I hope to one day have enough
material for more chapbooks and a forth series.
- Color
Themes for XP
- I've never been able to stand the Microsoft default color
schemes. And with XP, Microsoft has pompously decided that every user of their
operating environment throughout the world will enjoy using an interface that
seems to be based on cheap children's toys. The XP "look" is a disgusting,
wretched eyesore. Here I provide many low contrast color themes using the
windows classic "look" that may or may not relieve the headache you've developed
from looking at any of the themes provided by Microsoft's complete lack of
inventiveness.
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My Favorite Poetry Author
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Robert Service is my favorite poet ever. His poetry
was a deep inspiration to me in my troubled youth. Especially his poem,
The Spell of the Yukon, which was the first of his poems I ever
came across. His seems to be the message of daily acceptance of what is,
keeping your chin up and never quitting even though "God knows
sometimes it seems even heaven itself is against you", the joys
of life's little pleasures, like the sunshine, and the green grass on a
summer day, or a pleasant conversation over some ale in a friendly pub. My
favorite of his works are his remarkable ballads (rhyming poems that tell
good stories) such as The Ballad of the Northern Lights, Clancy
of the Mounted Police and The Ballad of the Black Fox Skin,
just to name a splendid few. I have recently put together a searchable
archive of Service's poetry. People like it so much that there is even
a link to it from Art Ude's "The Original Home Page of Robert
W. Service", which is considered to be the official website for
information about the poet himself, his life, and his poetry.
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