Poetry Magic 1

Product Information

And of course she’s not alone. Countless thousands of thoughtful and intelligent people have had experiences of a kind that they call religious. James paid them the compliment of taking these experiences seriously, and produced a classic of psychological insight. But could there be a Varieties of Magical Experience? Could the mental universe that produced witch bottles and sigil, and grimoires, and the whole idea of magic itself, be rich enough to sustain an examination of that sort? Poems are not created by recipe, or by pouring content into a currently acceptable mould. Shape and content interact, in the final product and throughout the creation process, so that the poems will be continually asking what you are writing and why. The answers you give yourself will be illustrating your conceptions of poetry. Once again, those conception will develop – eventually to include experiences more viscerally part of you, since poems are not a painless juggling with words. The objectives of magical practice, as it appears in the evidence, can be as varied as the range of human wishes; anything for which someone might want extraordinary power may appear as the aim of magic. Although some scholars have imagined magic as primarily concerned with harmful effects for personal purposes (with a special category of “white” magic to account for the exceptions), it is not the ill will that marks magic in the ancient sources as much as the extraordinary nature of the performance or the abnormal social position of the performer. Above all, the discourse of magic applies in cases where the practice is seen as an extraordinarily efficacious means of obtaining the end, whatever that end might be.

Our next members’ poems competition will be on the theme of ‘Broken Vessels’, proposed by our judge Naush Sabah. Naush is a writer, editor, critic, and educator based in the West Midlands. In 2019, she co-founded Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal where she is currently Editor and Publishing Director. All poems published in Poetry News are also eligible forthe Hamish Canham Prize each year. The latest winner of the Hamish Canham Prize is Tom Bailey. Poetry News Winter 2023 competition: ‘Broken Vessels’ None of that is easily accomplished, given the pressures of everyday life. Nor is there wide agreement on what sort of apprenticeship should be served. Schools of poetry are often hostile to, if not contemptuous of, other movements, and what is prized in one may be anathema to another. The beginning poet should read widely, join many groups, take any criticism seriously, but perhaps remember these points:

Give AI a Try!

What is the dream’s message? Write that message into your poem. In this way, you are divining from the subconscious mind, mining the dreamscape, and channeling it from the ether into a physical thing to be explored and tapped into. Dedicate a whole section of your grimoire to dream poetry and you’ll watch the themes and messages unravel — allowing you to swim in a literary sea of the self. Herbal poetics By the way, don’t feel constrained or pressured by ideas of “good poetry,” or popular poetry. These are poems for you; they’re magic. They’re your essence. They’re not meant to be published or shared with the world. Write the poetry that speaks to you. In your voice. In whatever language you want to write in. Lisa Marie Basile (she/her) is a poet, essayist, editor, and chronic illness awareness advocate living in New York City. She's the founder and creative director of Luna Luna Magazine and its online community, and the creator of Ritual Poetica, a curiosity project dedicated to exploring the intersection of writing, creativity, healing, & sacredness.

The recipe says to “add the rest, the usual,” that is, the whole formula, which is attested elsewhere in full: Maskelli Maskellō Phnoukentabaō Oreobazagra Rēxichthōn Hippochthōn Puripēganux. Are you a fan of cannabis or mugwort? Both are used for spiritual purposes, opening a sort of mental portal. In a high state, write what comes to mind. Don’t bother making sense or trying to define meaning right away; just let the feelings guide you. Ride the wave of the self, and let your words slip onto paper, unregulated. Light your joint with the flame from a candle lit in your sacred space.The deadline for entries is Friday 27 October 2023; poems must be unpublished as of our spring Poetry News issue publication date at end December 2023.

At one time it shows a man in the guise of an ass, (at another time) it makes an ass (look like) a man and a notable. So begins this Victorian poem which offers us an ambiguous ‘witch’ as its (initial) speaker: she appears to be some sort of outcast, making a journey to visit a man, perhaps her beloved. Is she a depiction of the much-shunned Victorian ‘fallen woman’? She has the power to make the fire die in the grate, so she seems to possess some otherworldly power or aura. Coleridge was the great-grand-niece of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The deity Abrasax is invoked to drive off the unknown daimon or other hostile entity that afflicts little Sophia-Priskilla. You’ll dedicate each line or stanza to a specific idea or feeling you’d like to conjure, let go of, or release. Each line, in effect, will give you the opportunity to focus your intention and energy. This is where poetry spells really get powerful since you can focus stanzas or lines on archetypes, gods, goddesses, guides, ancestral symbols, power colors, sacred sounds, or goals and conjurings.The language of binding indeed seems to characterize the magical curses, and the Greek term katadesmos—binding down—is used in the ancient sources to designate the magical curse tablets. In addition to verbs of binding, verbs of handing over or registering appear, as the target is consigned to the power of the divinity invoked. It is notable, however, that such language of transfer also appears in the public curses, whereas binding less often appears in such prayers for justice or community curses.

What distinguishes poetry from other literary compositions? Nothing, says a vociferous body of opinion: they are all texts, to be understood by the same techniques as a philosophic treatise or tabloid newspaper. But that makes sense only to readers of advanced magazines, for poetry does indeed seem different. Even if we accept that poetry can be verse or prose – verse simply having a strong metrical element – poetry is surely distinguished by moving us deeply. In fact, for all but Postmodernists, it is an art form, and must therefore do what all art does – represent something of the world, express or evoke emotion, please us by its form, and stand on its own as something autonomous and self-defining. Italian poet and scholar Dante Alighieri is best known for his masterpiece La Commedia (known in English as The Divine Comedy), which is universally considered one of world literature’s greatest poems. Divided into three sections— Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso— The Divine Comedy presents an encyclopedic overview of the mores, attitudes, beliefs, philosophies, aspirations, and material aspects of the medieval world. Cool observation: detached and depersonalized viewpoints and characters, usually informal, sometimes unfinished. Whether you see magic as a literal force that influences your life or as a fantastical idea, there is no better way to describe it than through poetry. Poems About Magic Poetry definitions are difficult, as is aesthetics generally. What is distinctive and important tends to evade the qualified language in which we attempt to cover all considerations. Perhaps we could say that poetry was a responsible attempt to understand the world in human terms through literary composition.Poetry may well be the art of the unsayable. A good poem lies somewhere beyond mere words: it is the intangible, an exultation in things vaguely apprehended, something which emerges out of its own form, and which cannot exist without that form. Any poem that can be completely understood or paraphrased is not a poem, therefore, but simply versified or emotive prose (though not the worse for that).