Author Archives: wordcloud9

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About wordcloud9

Nona Blyth Cloud has lived and worked in the Los Angeles area for over 50 years, spending much of that time commuting on the 405 Freeway. After Hollywood failed to appreciate her genius for acting and directing, she began a second career managing non-profits, from which she has retired. Nona has now resumed writing whatever comes into her head, instead of reports and pleas for funding. She lives in a small house overrun by books with her wonderful husband.

TCS: A Word After a Word After a Word is Power

Posted on November 13, 2023 by wordcloud9

    Good Morning! ______________________________ “You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what’s in your heart.” ─ Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom … Continue reading →

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TCS: No Question Is Ever Settled Until It is Settled Right

Posted on November 6, 2023 by wordcloud9

Good Morning! ______________________________ “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. ” ─ Percy Bysshe Shelley ________________ I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative … I believe that … Continue reading →

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TCS: Dark Mornings Show Thy Mask

Posted on October 30, 2023 by wordcloud9

Good Morning! ______________________________ “Have you come to sing pumpkin carols?” ─ Linus, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown ________________ “Each person who ever was or is or will be has a song. It isn’t a song that anybody else wrote. It … Continue reading →

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TCS: I Will Not Dance to Your Drummed Up War

Posted on October 23, 2023 by wordcloud9

Good Morning! ______________________________ Poets aren’t very useful.  Because they aren’t consumeful or very produceful. ─ Ogden Nash ________________ Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toe nails twinkle, makes you want to do … Continue reading →

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TCS: May No Fascist Ever Drag You into Forever Fear

Posted on October 16, 2023 by wordcloud9

Good Morning! ______________________________ How long shall bomb and bullets think for human brains? ─  Katharine Lee Bates, from “How Long” ________________ We all declare for liberty, but  in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. … Continue reading →

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TCS: A Working Class Hero Is Something To Be

Posted on October 9, 2023 by wordcloud9

   Good Morning! For bonus points, can you name the working-class hero pictured above? ______________________________ In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty.  ─  … Continue reading →

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TCS: What Happened Next? Does Color Modify Poetry?

Posted on October 2, 2023 by wordcloud9

Good Morning! ______________________________ The poet may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather. ─  Lionel Trilling _______________ Rhythm is sound in motion. It is related to the pulse, the … Continue reading →

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TCS: How Many Times Do I Have to Say It

Posted on September 25, 2023 by wordcloud9

Good Morning! ______________________________ You don’t have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone. – John Ciardi _______________ Must I always sing at the gate to hearten the men who fight For causes changeful as wind … Continue reading →

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TCS: When You’re Looking for What’s Lost, Everything’s a Sign

Posted on September 18, 2023 by wordcloud9

 Good Morning! ______________________________ “It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” ― William Carlos Williams _______________ “Not even waste is inviolate. The day misspent, the love misplaced, … Continue reading →

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TCS: But We Shall Ride the Lightning

Posted on September 11, 2023 by wordcloud9

Good Morning! ______________________________ “This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.” ― Mary Oliver_______________ “Stand like a beaten anvil. Let earth’s wrongBeat on that iron and … Continue reading →

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