Fictional Favorites, Divergent: Abnegation

Welcome, Poetry Friday celebrants!


Glad to have you here on this last Friday of National Poetry Month. What a month it has been! Today, we're wrapping up Fictional Favorites.


This series of posts considers What would fictional characters' favorite poets/poems be?

I've been offering poems for the five factions in Divergent by Veronica Roth. Insurgent, the second book in the trilogy, is coming out in a week and the excitement is building.

Today's poems are for ABNEGATION, the selfless faction. Abnegation may come off as drab, but there's more than meets the eye.

I've already shared ones for Dauntless, Erudite, Amity, and Candor. I have been trying hard to avoid spoilers!


For ABNEGATION:

On Quitting
by Edgar Albert Guest

How much grit do you think you’ve got?
Can you quit a thing that you like a lot?
You may talk of pluck; it’s an easy word,
And where’er you go it is often heard;
But can you tell to a jot or guess
Just how much courage you now possess?

You may stand to trouble and keep your grin,
But have you tackled self-discipline?
Have you ever issued commands to you
To quit the things that you like to do,
And then, when tempted and sorely swayed,
Those rigid orders have you obeyed?

Don’t boast of your grit till you’ve tried it out,
Nor prate to men of your courage stout,
For it’s easy enough to retain a grin
In the face of a fight there’s a chance to win,
But the sort of grit that is good to own
Is the stuff you need when you’re all alone.

How much grit do you think you’ve got?
Can you turn from joys that you like a lot?
Have you ever tested yourself to know
How far with yourself your will can go?
If you want to know if you have grit,
Just pick out a joy that you like, and quit.

It’s bully sport and it’s open fight;
It will keep you busy both day and night;
For the toughest kind of a game you’ll find
Is to make your body obey your mind.
And you never will know what is meant by grit
Unless there’s something you’ve tried to quit.

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I Ask You
by Billy Collins

What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?

read the rest here

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To play pianissimo
by Lola Haskins

To play pianissimo
Does not mean silence.
The absence of moon in the day sky,
for example.

read the rest here

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Wanderer
by Antonio Machado

Wanderer, your footsteps are
the road, and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
the way is made by walking.
­
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Also:

Keeping Things Whole by Mark Strand
Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye (who also had a poem for Candor!)

Thanks for visiting. Please leave your link in the comments and I will round them up throughout the day!

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Robyn Hood Black shares an interview with Carol-Ann Hoyte and Heidi Bee Roemer, the editors of AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!, a sports-themed poetry anthology which will debut with the Olympics this summer.

Amy Ludwig VanDerwater has three things for us today! At The Poem Farm she has the third-to-last letter of this month's Dictionary Hike: X is for XENOPHOBIA.

At Sharing Our Notebooks, Amy has Suz Blackaby with her good humor and word tickets.

And Sharing Our Notebooks also has Allan Wolf with his wall writing and butt books. (Butt books?)

Linda at TeacherDance follows Amy L-V's advice to use verbs!

Today Steven Withrow gives us an original poem: Questions About Invertebrates.

Susan Taylor Brown is back with an original poem: 13 Ways of Looking at a Hummingbird.

Renee LaTulippe shares Julie Larios' No Strings Attached, Lee Wardlaw's WON TON: A Cat Tale Told In Haiku, and a giveaway of THE HOUSE by J. Patrick Lewis!

Julie Larios offers a heartfelt thank-you-with-links to Renee LaTulippe who has done such a wonderful job with readings and interviews of children's poets during the month of April.

Fats from Gathering Books contributes Woman to Man by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Greg has a catku by Lee Wardlaw. Since last Poetry Friday, he's also had poems by Ron Koertge, Susan Taylor Brown, Bruce Coville, Thanhha Lai, Robert L. Forbes, and JonArno Lawson!

Mary Lee sums up the problem with packing all of our ardor for poetry into one month when she says "The best I can do this last Friday of National Poetry Month is to share yesterday's poem. Today's poem won't be written until tonight. Maybe late tonight. (That's what the month's come to...but I haven't dropped a stitch yet!!!)" You're doing great, Mary Lee.

Andi Sibley is in with a great poem written by her son.

Wow, I go do school and vet drop-offs and the next thing I know my mailbox is full!

Liz Steinglass shares an original, silly poem this morning: "Poke that Pea!"

Jim Hill adds Imminent Growth Spurt, an original inspired by his omnivorous kid.

Laura Shovan is excited to have Jeannine Atkins guest-blogging about multi-tasking at Author Amok today.

Tara at A Teaching Life discovered a "new" poet.

Alice at Supratentorial reviewed A River of Words, a juvenile biography of Williams, and has some other Williams related links to share.

Laura Purdie Salas is in with her daily haiku plus two stunning haiku from October Mourning, a forthcoming collection by Leslea Newman.

This week's 15 Words or Less poems are underway.

Write Time has the Progressive Poem today.

Heidi added to her post from earlier this week featuring poems by kindergarteners...She thinks the collection should be called "Small and Juicy!"

Doraine Bennett has kitchen appliances for writers today.

At Random Noodling, Diane Mayr reviews last weekend's Massachusetts Poetry Festival.

The war is almost over at Kids of the Homefront Army, but not quite...

Kurious Kitty shares "Buttercups," and, Kurious K's Kwotes' quote is by Helen Ferris.

We're in the middle of lilac time at The Write Sisters, and we have a poem called The Beat.

Jama Rattigan is spotlighting Heidi Roemer with an original poem about skating.

Ruth is contributing Wendell Berry's How To Be A Poet.

Charles, a.k.a. Father Goose, shares his original A Poem is a Metaphor.

Debbie Diller gives us My Cat and I by Aileen Fisher.

The Stenhouse Blog has a book spine poem for us today.

Irene Latham points us to a poem of hers about a not-evil stepmother titled "Anne Moynet Audubon, Long Before Birds of America that appeared yesterday at Your Daily Poem.

Betsy has poems (and info about a chalk poetry celebration) at Teaching Young Writers.

Sara brings A Love Song by William Carlos Williams (and an update on her efforts to learn how to sing).

Amy at Hope is the Word is highlighting the delightful picture book A Sock Is a Pocket for Your Toes by Elizabeth Garton Scanlon.

Kate is celebrating haiku at Book Aunt, with a focus on Issa and on ocean haiku from the comments (for a giveaway of her book, Water Sings Blue). People can still write a haiku to enter in the next three days.

At Fomagrams, Dave Elzey shares week four of his daily twitter haiku, and a little bonus mention of the political tweets of Elinor Lipman.

Sylvia Vardell posted a 5Q interview with the wonderful Janet Wong.

Violet took on a very difficult challenge: to use coon, tour, lid, painted, price, query, cog, eve, jail, jab, why, be, hex, ha, x-rays, dare, zoo, looks, slime, fees, men, waste, date, leaner, nips, will, pin, worms, riot, tiger, jut, gait, and rang in a poem. Wow!

Lorie Ann is sharing An Awesome Book at ReaderTotz and an original haiku at On Point.

Esther at Teaching Authors brings us original poems by fourth graders.

Janet Squires is all about wild poetry today.

Joyce Ray reports on a fantastic Maine poetry festival she attended on poetry and revolution.

Jeannine wrote about a new collection of poems based on painting and history called This Caravaggio by Annie Boutelle.

Over at Wild Rose Reader, Elaine has an original poem titled Things to Do If You Are a Book. (So sorry about your car!)

Marjorie sounds a final clarion call for people to contribute to LitWorld's Global Poem for Change.

At Bildungsroman, we have the monologue from Labyrinth.

Karen Edmisten has finally made it to Poetry Friday.

April is in Chicago for the International Reading Association Convention, but she still managed to send her Poem-A-Day-Challenge poem, in which her dog, Eli, meets a handmade doll. All this month's poems can be viewed here.

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