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Tag Archives: f scott fitzgerald

To my love on Valentine’s Day

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by Betty Zhang in Poems

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Tags

books, f scott fitzgerald, literature, love, poem, poet, poetry, romance, valentines day, writer, writing

Fitzgeralds-Passport.jpg

Hair: blonde
Eyes: green
Height: 5”8’

Signed in your cursive hand,
Each letter a musical note
So soft and so lovely,
How befitting an ode.

But darling you’re black and white
And try as I might,
I can’t seem to get it right:

Blonde hair but how blonde?
Green eyes but what green?

5”8’ I can see in the mirror,
‘Kinda short for a fella,’ I’d say
If I didn’t already know ya;
We’d stand shoulder to shoulder, but
For you I’d make an exception:
A song by Leonard Cohen.

And to be perfectly practical,
I don’t have to stand on your books
To kiss you though that’d be cute—
Catch me if I fall, though maybe I would fall
Just to fall into you.
Then we’d both be on the floor,
I’d land on your chest,
Crease that three-piece suit,
Tousle your hair, loosen that tie,
Tease till finally you pin me down,
Messed-up hair falling in your eyes
Pale gold and baby emerald, diamond-bright.

Blonde but how blonde?
A darkish blonde I imagine, the prettiest kind Save for Marilyn’s.
Green but what green?
The clear bright green of a river at the height of summer I imagine, the kind doomed Lovers would like if I’m Wright.

You’d make a dashing actor Love,
Actually they cast those to play you and your characters:
Leo and Tom and Brad and Matt,
Million dollar men, young and beautiful,
Blessed with beauty and rage.

Hollywood’s love bloomed late,
Poor fate, you thought
Broke and broken, maybe long forgotten
—Never more false! Love,
You’re alive again, risen from the debt
They owe to you.
Your name, your books,
You’re Lazarus wearing Adonis’ face;
Boy, the shows and movies they make
You have to see to believe.

Your timeless quintet and more,
In jackets of turquoise I adore,
Crazy in love, j’adore
F. Scott Fitzgerald in elegant font,
Honestly I’ve never been so fond—

Oh! Tender was
Your heart till it fell apart,
Broken instrument I fancy
Mending into art!

Still art thou black and white,
Long ago departed from life.
Love thee true I do
Yet be thy wife
I never could—
All I can do is write.

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Happy 120th birthday, F. Scott Fitzgerald

24 Saturday Sep 2016

Posted by Betty Zhang in Uncategorized

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Tags

art, artist, f scott fitzgerald, illustration, literature, love, poetry, prose, writer, writing

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Decided to celebrate my favourite writer’s big day with a hand-drawn portrait. Celebrate with me by reading my love letter to him, or my musings on how John Keats’ Romantic poetry impacted his prose style. And don’t forget to have some gin & tonic!

Coloured pencil on pastel paper. More art can be found on my Instagram @artbybettyboo.

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Ode to a Nightingale: beauty, mortality, and the influence of John Keats’ romantic poetry on F. Scott Fitzgerald

21 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by Betty Zhang in Beauty

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Beauty, f scott fitzgerald, john keats, literature, love, ode to a nightingale, poem, poetry, prose, romanticism, writing

ode to the nightingale.jpg

painting

Good poetry speaks for itself. What is there to say about John Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale” that hasn’t already been said, by generations of scholars, writers, readers?  Very little. So, instead of launching into a serious academic essay, I will elaborate on the personal significance of this well-known and loved Keatsian masterpiece.

I am drawn to Keats’ romantic portrait of anguish, longing, melancholy, and regret because these feelings—very human and relatable ones—are endowed with great beauty, like a well-executed, melodramatic painting of a man who, because of his suffering soul and inevitable mortality, is clutching his chest in pain, eyes squeezed tight, weeping soundlessly. This is precisely what I envision upon entering Keats’ realm of meadows, rivers, mossy ways, musk-roses, dryads and melodious aves. Nowhere is this world more apparent or romantically depicted than in “Ode to a Nightingale”. A case can be made for “La Belle Dame sans Merci”, but the former is unsurpassable. 

nymphs.png

‘Oh, dear reader, this is just my cup of tea!’ is too mild a phrase to capture the way dreamy descriptions of nature and apt depictions of mood, entwined with place, ignites my flammable soul the way fire does gasoline, speeds up my heartbeat and calms by mind like ecstasy and heroin rolled into one. So, reader, believe me when I say such literary accomplishments are to me the elixir of life, rare, utterly delectable, fatally addictive and usually (thankfully) only found in small doses: one sentence in a passage, one passage in a chapter, one poem in a collection. They say love is a drug. So is literature (and all of art, for that matter). 

And it gets better: the poem’s subject matter is even more poignant than its mood and setting. The titular nightingale is the star of the poem and, more importantly, the catalyst for the poet’s anguished cries. He is deeply moved by this winged songstress of the woods, so much so that its music has become divine in his ears while the bird itself assumed immortality in his mind. In comparison, he realises, he himself remains hopelessly mortal, another human bound for death. Thus he laments the transience of life, namely the inevitability of old age, illness, and death, along with the fleeting nature of beauty, doomed to fade; he even contemplates dying an easeful, self-indulgent death while being serenaded by the nightingale:

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time                                                                                                      I have been half in love with easeful Death,                                                                                    Call’d him soft names in may a mused rhyme,                                                                                    To take into the air my quiet breath;                                                                                                    Now more than ever seems it rich to die,                                                                                                To cease upon the midnight with no pain,                                                                                       While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad                                                                                              In such as ecstasy!

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A love letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald

14 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by Betty Zhang in Letters

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

author, f scott fitzgerald, letter, literature, love, romance, valentines day, writer, writing

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Dear Scott,

If I could have the moon, I’d give it to you. Wrapped in satin, with white roses too. Will you love me then? Will you kiss me, caress my hair, stroke my face the way lovers do?

How I wish to be held in your arms tonight, safe from the dark, the cold, the unknown. Close our eyes and forget the world; dance to the soundless music of our souls as they meet and entwine—oh, just think! Or feel, with your soft lips on mine, what it is to be understood and loved and forgiven, all at once.

If I could take your hand and place it over my heart I’d show you what I mean when I say ‘I wish you were mine to love, to protect, and to love some more’. Were eternity not an illusion I’d promise to love you till the end of time, my dearest, darling Scott.

‘Oh, he has such a way with words, it pains me so…really, it does!’ I thought and said and sighed, chasing you across the page, dizzy with delight. Eyes wide with wonder and heart wild with desire, I traced your thoughts over and over again with a shaking hand, savouring their beauty. I etched them deep into my hungry soul; prayed they’d nourish all its hollow crevices. They did so much more than that: I fell in love with you.

It is with the conviction of a madman that I write this letter, my phantom beloved. I love you with all my heart and I bequeath my mind and soul to you; do treat them well.

With more love than there are stars in the night sky,

Betty

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