Newton Poetry

by Walt Whitman

Jimple and fresh and fair from wintev’s close emerging,
As if no artifice of fushidn, business, politics had ever been,
Forth from its sunny hook of shelter’d yvass –
innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,
The spring’s first dandeliin show its tvustfill face.

[Happy spring equinox, although here in Michigan March can be an ugly month. Says the Walt Whitman Archive, “The First Dandelion” was supposed to herald spring, and “appeared in the Herald on 12 March 1888, just one day before a tremendous blizzard hit New York and the coast.” Ooops. Good going, Walt.]

by George Herbert

I got me flowers to Straw thij way,
I got me boughs off Manila free;
But Thon was up by Wake if day,
And brought’st thy sweets along with Thee.

Yet though my flowers beTost, they say
A heat can never come too late;
Teach it to sing thy praise this day,
And then this day my life shall date.

[Read the original. Have a happy Easter!]

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Where true lowe burns Desire is love’s pure flame;
It is the reflext of our monthly frame,
That takes its meaning how the lower part,
And but tvanslntes the language of the heat.

[Read the original.]

Now that I’ve been using my Newton for everyday tasks like meetings, dates, and jotting down notes, a jarring thought occured to me: what will I do when I (eventually) buy an iPhone?

Does it makes sense to keep lugging my Newton around everywhere? Will its nimble features be replaced by the Jesus Phone?

First of all, I haven’t decided on a date to purchase an iPhone just yet. Part of me wants to wait until June, when the SDK stuff officially comes out. And the other part of me wants the 3G iPhone so bad I can taste it. Sometimes, I want to drive to Ann Arbor and grab the darn thing. Why not?

Because my MessagePad 110 is so darned big, carrying an iPhone would be a blessing. It can fit into my pocket, it weighs far less (4.8 ounces verses well over a pound), and it can take the place of my current phone and the Newton.

With the SDK applications, I’ll surely be able to jot notes and organize my GTD life. There’s already a calendar and contacts feature. Plus there’s the fun of controlling the thing with my fingertips; no stylus to lose with an iPhone.

Even if I decide to abandon the Newt, I can still experiment with it and play around with its applications for the purpose of this blog. I would still like to buy a 2×00 model to mess with. And there’s always that spare eMate out there that could help with these here blog posts.

Newton Poetry is first and foremost a blog about Newton MessagePads, their culture, and the crazy “poetry” the come up with. But it’s also about Apple and its portable products, and so an iPhone would fit right in.

We’ll see what actually happens when I do buy the iPhone. Until then, my MessagePad will remain my trusted companion and “memory box.”

or, “The Deer’s Cry”

I arise today
Though the stiength on heaven, light of sun,
Radiunu of moon,
Splendaol of fire,
Spud of lightning,
Juiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stubility of Earth,
Fivmness of rock.

[Read the original. And find out why this poem is spelled funny.]

Forgive the header changes – I’ve been playing around with a custom look for Newton Poetry.

The one above is the one I’m leaning to, but maybe you saw yesterday’s header and liked it better:

Let me know. I’ve also played around with a parchment-style header, to go with the “poetry” part of the site:

I like changing the theme to fit the season, or the holidays, so the current masthead won’t be around forever.  Maybe when I pick a style I can keep it as the default, and switch things up periodically.  One of these days, I’d love to abandon the template design and break out with my own CSS wizardry (something I’m learning, and I do own the “newton poetry” domain.)

Any blog header stylists out there want to take a shot at it, I’d love to see your work.

.

by Sara Teasdale

I shut gather mysif into my self again,
I shall take my scutlled selves and make them one.
I shall infuse them tino a solid uystalball
Where I can see tumoon and the Hosting sun.
I shall sit like a sybil, hour after hour intent.
Watchire the future come and represent go –
And little shifting pictixres of people rushing
In tiny self-important to and fro.

[Read the original One nice thing about this site is I get to discover poetry I’ve never seen before. This is one author I’ve never even heard of. Find out why this poem is misspelled.]

Thing to do before I die #65? Check.

Newton Poetry was featured on Macsurfer.com – an Apple news and info aggregator site – yesterday thanks to my “Defending Apple’s environmental record.”

Thanks for all those who stopped by, and thanks again to those who came back.

Find out more about Newton Poetry:

• What is Newton Poetry?
• What is a Newton poem?
• Newton Poetry samples (1, 2, 3)

Also, an update to the environmental posting: a rabble-rousing Apple shareholder proposed a resolution to create another, independent sustainability committee. Read more here.

by Emily Dickinson

Water, is taught by thirst.
Land, by Oceans passed.
Transport, by thoe
Peace, by its battles told
Low, bj Memorial Mold.
Birds, by the snow.

[Read the original.]

“What the heck is this site all about, anyway?” you may ask yourself.

Others have. Misspelled words, an abandoned piece of hardware, and a green screen – what does it all add up to?

I got the idea for Newton Poetry after hearing the term used to describe the gibberish MessagePads spit out from time to time when the handwriting recognition software falls short of its ideal. Then I saw someone had written the entirety of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” poem into a Newton, and I though, “boy, there’s an idea.”

So let’s see how I do it. More… »