CBminstrel• Show poetry

Hi there,

This is a first for me, joining a group like this.

I am a music student, specialising in first study voice. I have always loved literature, and if I wasn't studying music, I would definitely be studying literature and history.

I enjoy creative writing in my free time, but I have never really written any poetry before. Only a couple of pieces, but that is it. So this really is all new to me. I thought it would do me good, to try my hand at poetry, as I write music for my course, and I would also like to be able to write lyrics for vocal pieces.

So, I apologise in advance for the terrible attempts! Hehe...seriously, I truly am a beginner on this, but you can only learn by practice and constructive criticism.

I hope I don't do anyone's eyes permanent damage....

I have also just started using StoryWrite as well, although it will mostly be fanfics there. Have a look if you ever get a spare moment to fill.

 

 

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Favourite Poetry:

~ Shakespeare: Particularly Sonnet 116 'Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds...'

~ Oscar Wilde: Particularly 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' sadly enough as it expresses such sad honesty and pain, however his earlier work is simply divine.

~ Lord Byron: Absolutey anything by Byron...it was all suitably lush and vibrant in language and expression.

~ Edgar Allan Poe: I have to confess, I do think he had a way of cheating in his poetry, to make things fit, but I don't care, because he did it with skill and not in a clumsy manner (like only Bach can put an unfavoured chord in a Bach chorale, because only he could do it with the needed style...when other people try and cheat, it just sounds bad...hehe). My favourite of his is 'The City In The Sea', and most definitely not the over exposed, over used, over rated bloody Raven ~rolls eyes~ ;-)

~ William Blake: The only reason he's made the list is because of the preface to 'Milton' that would later become the words to the song 'Jerusalem'...beautiful.

~ Cecil Spring-Rice: In the same idea as above, he is only mentioned for the words that would be put to the Jupiter theme from Holst's Planet Suite, 'I vow to thee my country...'

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Favourite Authors/Books:

~ William Makepeace Thackeray: Anyone with a name like that has to be good, huh? I love 'Vanity Fair', featuring the infamous 'Becky Sharp' as the lead character...the very first of the strong, ruthless female characters...and written so well by a man no less.

~ J.R.R. Tolkien: Need I say more? 'Lord of the Rings' blew me away. I have never read a book that has included as much as Rings. Love and loyalty in friendship and kin, realistic family relationships, an epic adventure, so many metaphores in the story to express views on real life and attitudes, full and indepth characters, a lush and vivid history of the fantasy world, and just really cracking story writing. Never, in my opinion, has another book managed to capture all of these things so well and with such quality.

~ George Martin: Ooo...chilling. The 'Ice and Fire' series of books are just spellbinding. Brilliant characters on a fantasy backdrop of political intrigue and backstabbing, I have never known an author who seems to love torturing his characters as much as he does! Pure evil...and yet that's why we love it ;-)

~ Stephen Fry: The sheer brilliance and intelligence of this man shines through in his books. So funny, and yet sad and touching in all the right places, he produces books that you can read again and again, and still laugh and ache with them. My favourite is 'The Liar', never has a book made me laugh as much as this one...and yet it is still so clever with twists and turns that are far superior to the supposedly best thriller and mystery writers, mentioning no names...

~ Bernard Cornwell: I really am a sucker for the 'Sharpe' books...~blush~ I just love them. Sharpe is such a great character, and he manages to write such fun adventure soldiering books, that are still indepth and historically spot on. I also like his Arthur series (as in 'King Arthur'), a really human and heart achingly good take on the myths.

~ Jerome K. Jerome: 'Three Men in a Boat' was the first 'real' book I ever read as a child. I fell in love with it, and have loved it ever since. I have been a keen boater, and all the comedic scenes he writes about in terms of the struggles and discomforts of boating on the river are all spot on...and that only makes it funnier. A really charming book, and there's something so English about it in that charm. I love it.

~ Oscar Wilde: Although I have already mentioned him above in the poetry section, I think he needs to be in this list too for the truly gothic and enthralling 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'.

~ Arthur Conan Doyle: I am absolutely in love with the Sherlock Holmes stories. In love, utterly and completely, until death do us part. Sherlock Holmes is my all time favourite fictional character....such depth and real human drama inside of him, and yet all wrapped up in a cool deceptive mask. A brilliant mind, and yet also with flaws as well...a drug user no less ;-) Words cannot describe how much I love these stories and characters, so the above will have to do!

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Favourite Music:

Music can say a lot about a person, so I thought I'd put some down. I have a really wide and weird mix of tastes, so let's start with earlier music and then go onto modern :-)

~ Bach

~ Beethoven

~ Mozart

~ Elgar

~ Bartok

~ Stravinsky

~ Shostakovich

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~ David Bowie

~ The Kinks

~ Led Zeppelin

~ Adam & The Ants

~ Queen

~ Alice Cooper

~ Extreme

~ R.E.M

~ Jon Bon Jovi (Don't say a word....hehe)

~ Aerosmith

~ Nine Inch Nails

~ The Beautiful South

~ Pulp

~ Theatre of Tragedy

~ Within Temptation

~ Rasputina

~ James Marsters

~ Melissa Williamson

~ Kaiser Chiefs

~ The Thrills

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Favourite Films:

~ Lord of the Rings Trilogy

~ Wilde

~ Equilibrium

~ Pirates of the Caribbean

~ Serenity (I also love the tv programme this came from, 'Firefly')

~ Final Fantasy: Advent Children

~ Goldeneye

~ Event Horizon

~ Silent Hill

~ Labyrinth (leave it.... ;-) )

~ Lady Chatterley

~ Kingdom of Heaven (surprisingly enough to me...)

~ Moulin Rouge

~ The Rocky Horror Picture Show

~ The Blues Brothers

~ The Phantom of the Opera (Hush! The Phantom was gorgeous ;-) )

~ Gosford Park

~ Withnail and I

~ Battle Royale

~ Gone with the Wind (no excuse...just appeals to the romantic in me)

~ Interview with the Vampire

~ Cabaret



Although they're not films, I can't be bothered to add a television section, and so I'll mention here that the Jeremy Brett version of the Sherlock Holmes television adaptations are one of my favourite things to watch in the whole world, and the prize of my DVD collection :-)

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Favourite Theatre:

~ Hamlet - William Shakespeare

~ Macbeth - William Shakespeare

~ The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde

~ Translations - Brian Friel

~ 'Art' - Yasmina Reza

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~ Carmen - Geroges Bizet

~ The Magic Flute - Mozart

~ Fidelio - Beethoven

~ The Mikado - Gilbert and Sullivan

~ H.M.S Pinafore - Gilbert and Sullivan

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~ Les Miserables - Schönberg and Boublil

~ Chicago - Fosse, Kander and Ebb

~ Rent - Larson

~ Jesus Christ Superstar - Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice

~ Sweeney Todd - Sondheim

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And that's about all I can think of for now....I'll update if there's anything else I think of. Thanks! :-)

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