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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Journals Extinguished” (written on and for the day in 1824 of the burning of Lord Byron’s journals), “Volumes in Flames while the Spirit Lives” (written on the anniversary of the day Nazis in Germany staged massive public book burnings of “un-German” books), and “Visiting and Seeing the Signs” 5/18/19 while she hosted “Poetry Aloud” (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Journals Extinguished” (written on and for the day in 1824 of the burning of Lord Byron’s journals), “Volumes in Flames while the Spirit Lives” (written on the anniversary of the day Nazis in Germany staged massive public book burnings of “un-German” books), and “Visiting and Seeing the Signs” 5/18/19 while she hosted “Poetry Aloud” (his video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her cc&d 5/20 “Imagination” book poems “Vexing”, “Just Names”, “Vatican Turned into a Whorehouse”, and “Journals Extinguished” during the “Poetic License open mic 5/3/20 home edition” she hosted in Austin, but globally through a Facebook event page (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr).

See Facebook live video of Janet Kuypers reading her cc&d 5/20 “Imagination” book poems “Vexing”, “Just Names”, “Vatican Turned into a Whorehouse”, and “Journals Extinguished” during the “Poetic License open mic 5/3/20 home edition” she hosted in Austin, but globally through a Facebook event page (his video was filmed from a from a Samsung S9 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Journals Extinguished” (written on the anniversary of the day Lord Byron’s journals were burned, 5/17/1824) from the Janet Kuypers poetry book “Every Event of the Year (Volume one: January-June)” 5/17/20 as a bonus May reading for the “Poetic License open mic 5/3/20 home edition” (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr).

See Facebook streaming live video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Journals Extinguished” (written on the anniversary of the day Lord Byron’s journals were burned, 5/17/1824) from the Janet Kuypers poetry book “Every Event of the Year (Volume one: January-June)” 5/17/20 as a bonus May reading for the “Poetic License open mic 5/3/20 home edition” (this video was filmed from a Samsung S9 camera).

See a YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Vexing”, “Just Names”, “Vatican Turned into a Whorehouse”, and “Journals Extinguished” from the v297 “Imagination” section of the cc&d 5-8 2020 collection book “One with the Mountain” live 8/5/20 (from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr).

See a Facebook live video stream of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Vexing”, “Just Names”, “Vatican Turned into a Whorehouse”, and “Journals Extinguished” from the v297 “Imagination” section of the cc&d 5-8 2020 collection book “One with the Mountain” live 8/5/20 (video filmed & streamed from a Samsung S9 camera).

Journals Extinguished Janet Kuypers 5/17/19 (written for the day in 1824 of the burning of Lord Byron’s journals) The other day I walked into my library, walked over to a shelf off to the side, reached down and took one of my journals. I opened it up to a random page, and I started to read about struggles of the time, and I saw the commas, long dashes and ellipses I every-so abundantly used in my copy — because even in ranting about my minutiae, I knew when a pause was necessary to let the reader weigh their thoughts about everything the writer had to say... And yes, I may start sentences with “and” or “but” or “because,” since new sentences are often a continuation of the last thought, and the thinking never stops. I may get grandiose with the way I splice my sentences, but I know I’m not the first. Lord Byron was a British poet, politician, and a man who led the Romantic movement. But if you look at his writings, he knew the power of the ellipses, and the power of making readers pause to make the poem a part of themselves — and therefore make the poem unique for every reader. This poet knew this, and he also knew to keep people guessing about his personal life as well... So after he passed away — at 36 years old — colleagues of his; his publisher, a fellow poet, and his companion, all decided that to reveal truths in his journals would be too much for the world, so... page by page, they burned all of his diaries. Knowing the power of the written word — and that power in the hands of a gifted writer — that journal burning has been called more than once “the greatest crime in literary history”. And yes, as I look at my hand-written writings taking a shelf of books in my library that no one else in the world will probably ever read, as a writer, I can still think of these journals as necessary... and they are necessary for anyone who knows anything about literature — and the writer’s mind. We’ll never know what was written on Lord Byron’s burned journal pages... but maybe, just maybe, when writing like this is taken away, maybe this can help us to understand how essential the written word can be.

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