MacGuffin's Poetry Corner

[Ada_Lovelace]

"The forbidden fruit undoubtedly refers to female sexuality, as many critics have stated, yet it can also relate to female education and knowledge. .... forbidden pleasures [were] clearly associated both with wild nature...and the secret delight of books"

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/crossetti/scholl.html

I also find it curious that a poem with such strong (in my reading) sexual imagery was a best-seller when it was written... perhaps "The Tree of Knowledge" analogy effectively "sanitized" the poem for Victorian and child audiences?

I cannot even imagine a society where I, by virtue of being a woman, might be discouraged from partaking in the "secret delight of books"... as was true for many [not all] women in Victorian times.

I believe I could live without sex long before I could live without books... in fact I know I could... The stimulation of a good read is often both satisfying, and long lasting...

++++

Thanks to MacGuffin & OMW

[Ivy]

The Victorian era was very sexually charged under the surface but the code of conduct prevented people from acknowledging this outright. I'm not surprised she didn't come right out and say it was there, although it undeniably is. And yet, it IS a childrens' book, too. It reminds me of old cartoons, where there's one thing going on for kids and another, far naughtier thing going on for the benefit of the adults who are with the kids.

[MacGuffin]

The Victorian era was very sexually charged under the surface but the code of conduct prevented people from acknowledging this outright. I'm not surprised she didn't come right out and say it was there, although it undeniably is. And yet, it IS a childrens' book, too. It reminds me of old cartoons, where there's one thing going on for kids and another, far naughtier thing going on for the benefit of the adults who are with the kids.
Do you think it was possible she was that naive?

[Ivy]

Do you think it was possible she was that naive?

I very seriously doubt it. She was a nun but she worked with prostitutes so I'm pretty sure she was fully aware of sexual themes.

[MacGuffin]

I very seriously doubt it. She was a nun but she worked with prostitutes so I'm pretty sure she was fully aware of sexual themes.
That... slut!

I like sluts.

I also can't quite decide what the goblins represent. Men in general?

[Ivy]

I don't think so... I think they're just a stand-in for temptation and excess, sexual and otherwise. She had seen the effects of drug addiction with her brother and sister-in-law and probably other people close to her. And then the prostitutes she worked with who were used for their sexuality.

[elfsprin]

i have to say that i really didn't enjoy reading this at all at first- too much repetition, too long between stanza breaks. then i was rereading it today and it suddenly clicked for me that this would make a really good animated film-noir short. it seemed to me that i could picture her dreaming this, a macabre nightmare, then trying to convey the vision with words.

and then i liked it.

i find generally that writing that is very heavy on S descriptors makes me tired and bored when i read it- i tend to prefer more suggestion than specific description. (which is kind of contradicted by the fact that i really enjoy reading dickens... hmm)

how did this piece come to "work" for you, OMW? did it kind of turn you off initially as well, or did you like it straight away? do you generally like writing like this, or was this an exception?



the image of the goblins trampling her, tearing her clothes and draining pieces of fruit into her open mouth is horrifying. utter rape.

[Ferrus]

I don't think so... I think they're just a stand-in for temptation and excess, sexual and otherwise.
Yes that was my impression.

The giving of the lock of hair seemed to index the frittering of youth on such things.

Whilst the 'rape' scence seems again to be on two levels - just that and also, perhaps, the social opprobrium, or, in the case of the prostitutes the literal starvation, that can accrue by not partaking.

[MacGuffin]

sure, I know that you are tired of hearing about it, but
most repeat the same theme over and over again, it's
as if they were trying to refine what seems so strange
and off and important to them, it's done by everybody
because everybody is of a different stripe and form
and each must work out what is before them
over and over again because
that is their personal tiny miracle
their bit of luck

like now as like before and before I have been slowly
drinking this fine red wine and listening to symphony after
symphony from this black radio to my left

some symphonies remind me of certain cities and certain rooms,
make me realize that certain people now long dead were able to
transgress graveyards

and traps and cages and bones and limbs

people who broke through with joy and madness and with
insurmountable force

in tiny rented rooms I was struck by miracles

and even now after decades of listening I still am able to hear
a new work never heard before that is totally
bright, a fresh-blazing sun

there are countless sub-stratas of rising surprise from the
human firmament

music has an expansive and endless flow of ungodly
exploration

writers are confined to the limit of sight and feeling upon the
page while musicians leap into unrestricted immensity

right now it's just old Tchaikowsky moaning and groaning his
way through symphony #5
but it's just as good as when I first heard it

I haven't heard one of my favorites, Eric Coates, for some time
but I know that if I keep drinking the good red and listening
that he will be along

there are others, many others

and so
this is just another poem about drinking and listening to
music

repeat, right?

but look at Faulkner, he not only said the same thing over and
over but he said the same
place

so, please, let me boost these giants of our lives
once more: the classical composers of our time and
of times past

it has kept the rope from my throat

maybe it will loosen
yours

-Charles Bukowski (1992)

[MacGuffin]

There's been a fair amount of discussion about the nature of art and creation and genius lately, so I thought this'd be a good one.

[outmywindow]

Nothing of critical import, but just some personal reactions to the poem:


some symphonies remind me of certain cities and certain rooms,
make me realize that certain people now long dead were able to
transgress graveyards
I feel that way about literature, that by reading the product of their mind, the authors are being kept alive in a way. I think this explains why I enjoy the epistolary format so much, especially when the writers casually mention that they hope to be great men remembered someday, but that they doubt anyone will ever have noticed that they ever lived. Not to sound self-centered about it, but I feel like I'm giving them a small gift by keeping their lives relevant and remembered.

and even now after decades of listening I still am able to hear
a new work never heard before that is totally
bright, a fresh-blazing sun
And this, this I can happily relate to as well. When I young and naive (okay, more naive), I was legitimately worried that I was reading all the good books too quickly, and that I'd actually run out of things worth reading long before I was dead. I remember actually talking to my mother about my worries, they were that great! I still smile back at my younger self whenever I find something wonderful to read which was previously unknown to myself, reassuring younger me that I needn't have worried so much.

Thanks for posting this, Mac! :)

[MacGuffin]

I feel that way about literature, that by reading the product of their mind, the authors are being kept alive in a way. I think this explains why I enjoy the epistolary format so much, especially when the writers casually mention that they hope to be great men remembered someday, but that they doubt anyone will ever have noticed that they ever lived. Not to sound self-centered about it, but I feel like I'm giving them a small gift by keeping their lives relevant and remembered.

I do that too, but I don't think of giving them a gift, I usually get hung up on the fact that I'll probably end up like nearly all of my ancestors: completely forgotten except for the DNA they gave me.

[outmywindow]

I do that too, but I don't think of giving them a gift, I usually get hung up on the fact that I'll probably end up like nearly all of my ancestors: completely forgotten except for the DNA they gave me.
Mmm, yeah, that too.

Fuckin' depressing is what it is...

[Ferrus]

I do that too, but I don't think of giving them a gift, I usually get hung up on the fact that I'll probably end up like nearly all of my ancestors: completely forgotten except for the DNA they gave me.
Well, you never know, archaelogists may discover a legal contract with your signature on it millenia hence.

[MacGuffin]

Well, you never know, archaelogists may discover a legal contract with your signature on it millenia hence.
Damn, I better get around to signing some.

[elfsprin]

And this, this I can happily relate to as well. When I young and naive (okay, more naive), I was legitimately worried that I was reading all the good books too quickly, and that I'd actually run out of things worth reading long before I was dead. I remember actually talking to my mother about my worries, they were that great! I still smile back at my younger self whenever I find something wonderful to read which was previously unknown to myself, reassuring younger me that I needn't have worried so much.


i am still young and naive and this is one of my greatest fears!

OMW if you feel so inclined, i'd find a pm or two about good reading very encouraging. i've hit most classics, as impossible as that sounds. i'm a little light on contemporary writers- just started a foray into modern russian pop lit, but it's been kind of disappointing. then again, i had my hopes set way up high. russian, literature, modern... how could it not be awesome? but it hasn't been so far.

anyway, i'd love some recommendations, if you feel like it.

[MacGuffin]

OMW if you feel so inclined, i'd find a pm or two about good reading very encouraging. i've hit most classics, as impossible as that sounds. i'm a little light on contemporary writers- just started a foray into modern russian pop lit, but it's been kind of disappointing. then again, i had my hopes set way up high. russian, literature, modern... how could it not be awesome? but it hasn't been so far.

anyway, i'd love some recommendations, if you feel like it.
Hell, that'd be a good thread.

Book recommendations. We could have a fiction and non-fiction one.

[elfsprin]

Hell, that'd be a good thread.

Book recommendations. We could have a fiction and non-fiction one.

i thought about starting that, but it seemed too similar to how the "current book" thread is being used right now.

[MacGuffin]

i thought about starting that, but it seemed too similar to how the "current book" thread is being used right now.
Yeah, but it's pretty unfocused.

Maybe reformat "favorite books" thread into one where people post lists of the the best fiction and non-fiction books they've read and why.

[Ivy]

Maybe one with suggestions for particular people? Maybe that'd fit better at MBTIC.

[kble]

repeat, right?

The line that hit me the hardest.

The poem is all-encompasing, speaks of transcending time and mortality and at the same time remains very grounded in the moment of writing and the everyday stuff like drinking wine and listening to music from the little black radio. I like these little interplays in a poem.

I'm not so keen on the romantic ideal of art the poem seems to project myself, maybe because I've seen it used too often.

I can recommend Hölderlin to anyone that likes their poets a little cryptical and deranged. :) English translation of a good one: http://home.att.net/~holderlin/poem/mnemosyne.htm - in a way it's also about remembring.

[MacGuffin]

The poem is all-encompasing, speaks of transcending time and mortality and at the same time remains very grounded in the moment of writing and the everyday stuff like drinking wine and listening to music from the little black radio. I like these little interplays in a poem.
The fact that it is done in short medium like a page-long poem is what I find really impressive.

[MacGuffin]

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-W. H. Auden (1936)

[MacGuffin]

Obviously I picked this one cause I will be at a funeral on Wednesday (pallbearer too). Though I'm having a hard time relating, mostly I feel blank. I have felt that way before though, "For nothing now can ever come to any good." I assume I'll feel that way if it is ever my parents or (god forbid) my brothers or wife.

This one got a bit more famous when it appeared in Four Weddings and a Funeral, but I've never seen that movie!

[elfsprin]

have you been to many funerals?

[MacGuffin]

have you been to many funerals?

Not many, thankfully. That will only increase now.

[Rajah]

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-W. H. Auden (1936)AHEM, I posted this one to you before.

*grumblegrumble*

[MacGuffin]

AHEM, I posted this one to you before.

*grumblegrumble*

I know, thanks!

[elfsprin]

Not many, thankfully. That will only increase now.

funerals always feel very surreal to me- akin to the blankness you mentioned. it's not always something that's easily put into words.


i'm very sorry for your loss, macguffin.

[MacGuffin]

Part I

Upon a time, before the faery broods
Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,
Before King Oberon's bright diadem,
Sceptre, and mantle, clasp'd with dewy gem,
Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns
From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip'd lawns,
The ever-smitten Hermes empty left
His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft:
From high Olympus had he stolen light,
On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight
Of his great summoner, and made retreat
Into a forest on the shores of Crete.
For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt
A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt;
At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured
Pearls, while on land they wither'd and adored.
Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont,
And in those meads where sometime she might haunt,
Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse,
Though Fancy's casket were unlock'd to choose.
Ah, what a world of love was at her feet!
So Hermes thought, and a celestial heat
Burnt from his winged heels to either ear,
That from a whiteness, as the lily clear,
Blush'd into roses 'mid his golden hair,
Fallen in jealous curls about his shoulders bare.
From vale to vale, from wood to wood, he flew,
Breathing upon the flowers his passion new,
And wound with many a river to its head,
To find where this sweet nymph prepar'd her secret bed:
In vain; the sweet nymph might nowhere be found,
And so he rested, on the lonely ground,
Pensive, and full of painful jealousies
Of the Wood-Gods, and even the very trees.
There as he stood, he heard a mournful voice,
Such as once heard, in gentle heart, destroys
All pain but pity: thus the lone voice spake:
"When from this wreathed tomb shall I awake!
When move in a sweet body fit for life,
And love, and pleasure, and the ruddy strife
Of hearts and lips! Ah, miserable me!"
The God, dove-footed, glided silently
Round bush and tree, soft-brushing, in his speed,
The taller grasses and full-flowering weed,
Until he found a palpitating snake,
Bright, and cirque-couchant in a dusky brake.

She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd;
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,
Dissolv'd, or brighter shone, or interwreathed
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries -
So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries,
She seem'd, at once, some penanced lady elf,
Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self.
Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire
Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne's tiar:
Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet!
She had a woman's mouth with all its pearls complete:
And for her eyes: what could such eyes do there
But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair?
As Proserpine still weeps for her Sicilian air.
Her throat was serpent, but the words she spake
Came, as through bubbling honey, for Love's sake,
And thus; while Hermes on his pinions lay,
Like a stoop'd falcon ere he takes his prey.

"Fair Hermes, crown'd with feathers, fluttering light,
I had a splendid dream of thee last night:
I saw thee sitting, on a throne of gold,
Among the Gods, upon Olympus old,
The only sad one; for thou didst not hear
The soft, lute-finger'd Muses chaunting clear,
Nor even Apollo when he sang alone,
Deaf to his throbbing throat's long, long melodious moan.
I dreamt I saw thee, robed in purple flakes,
Break amorous through the clouds, as morning breaks,
And, swiftly as a bright Phoebean dart,
Strike for the Cretan isle; and here thou art!
Too gentle Hermes, hast thou found the maid?"
Whereat the star of Lethe not delay'd
His rosy eloquence, and thus inquired:
"Thou smooth-lipp'd serpent, surely high inspired!
Thou beauteous wreath, with melancholy eyes,
Possess whatever bliss thou canst devise,
Telling me only where my nymph is fled, -
Where she doth breathe!" "Bright planet, thou hast said,"
Return'd the snake, "but seal with oaths, fair God!"
"I swear," said Hermes, "by my serpent rod,
And by thine eyes, and by thy starry crown!"
Light flew his earnest words, among the blossoms blown.
Then thus again the brilliance feminine:
"Too frail of heart! for this lost nymph of thine,
Free as the air, invisibly, she strays
About these thornless wilds; her pleasant days
She tastes unseen; unseen her nimble feet
Leave traces in the grass and flowers sweet;
From weary tendrils, and bow'd branches green,
She plucks the fruit unseen, she bathes unseen:
And by my power is her beauty veil'd
To keep it unaffronted, unassail'd
By the love-glances of unlovely eyes,
Of Satyrs, Fauns, and blear'd Silenus' sighs.
Pale grew her immortality, for woe
Of all these lovers, and she grieved so
I took compassion on her, bade her steep
Her hair in weird syrops, that would keep
Her loveliness invisible, yet free
To wander as she loves, in liberty.
Thou shalt behold her, Hermes, thou alone,
If thou wilt, as thou swearest, grant my boon!"
Then, once again, the charmed God began
An oath, and through the serpent's ears it ran
Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian.
Ravish'd, she lifted her Circean head,
Blush'd a live damask, and swift-lisping said,
"I was a woman, let me have once more
A woman's shape, and charming as before.
I love a youth of Corinth - O the bliss!
Give me my woman's form, and place me where he is.
Stoop, Hermes, let me breathe upon thy brow,
And thou shalt see thy sweet nymph even now."
The God on half-shut feathers sank serene,
She breath'd upon his eyes, and swift was seen
Of both the guarded nymph near-smiling on the green.
It was no dream; or say a dream it was,
Real are the dreams of Gods, and smoothly pass
Their pleasures in a long immortal dream.
One warm, flush'd moment, hovering, it might seem
Dash'd by the wood-nymph's beauty, so he burn'd;
Then, lighting on the printless verdure, turn'd
To the swoon'd serpent, and with languid arm,
Delicate, put to proof the lythe Caducean charm.
So done, upon the nymph his eyes he bent,
Full of adoring tears and blandishment,
And towards her stept: she, like a moon in wane,
Faded before him, cower'd, nor could restrain
Her fearful sobs, self-folding like a flower
That faints into itself at evening hour:
But the God fostering her chilled hand,
She felt the warmth, her eyelids open'd bland,
And, like new flowers at morning song of bees,
Bloom'd, and gave up her honey to the lees.
Into the green-recessed woods they flew;
Nor grew they pale, as mortal lovers do.

Left to herself, the serpent now began
To change; her elfin blood in madness ran,
Her mouth foam'd, and the grass, therewith besprent,
Wither'd at dew so sweet and virulent;
Her eyes in torture fix'd, and anguish drear,
Hot, glaz'd, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear,
Flash'd phosphor and sharp sparks, without one cooling tear.
The colours all inflam'd throughout her train,
She writh'd about, convuls'd with scarlet pain:
A deep volcanian yellow took the place
Of all her milder-mooned body's grace;
And, as the lava ravishes the mead,
Spoilt all her silver mail, and golden brede;
Made gloom of all her frecklings, streaks and bars,
Eclips'd her crescents, and lick'd up her stars:
So that, in moments few, she was undrest
Of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst,
And rubious-argent: of all these bereft,
Nothing but pain and ugliness were left.
Still shone her crown; that vanish'd, also she
Melted and disappear'd as suddenly;
And in the air, her new voice luting soft,
Cried, "Lycius! gentle Lycius!" - Borne aloft
With the bright mists about the mountains hoar
These words dissolv'd: Crete's forests heard no more.

Whither fled Lamia, now a lady bright,
A full-born beauty new and exquisite?
She fled into that valley they pass o'er
Who go to Corinth from Cenchreas' shore;
And rested at the foot of those wild hills,
The rugged founts of the Peraean rills,
And of that other ridge whose barren back
Stretches, with all its mist and cloudy rack,
South-westward to Cleone. There she stood
About a young bird's flutter from a wood,
Fair, on a sloping green of mossy tread,
By a clear pool, wherein she passioned
To see herself escap'd from so sore ills,
While her robes flaunted with the daffodils.

Ah, happy Lycius! - for she was a maid
More beautiful than ever twisted braid,
Or sigh'd, or blush'd, or on spring-flowered lea
Spread a green kirtle to the minstrelsy:
A virgin purest lipp'd, yet in the lore
Of love deep learned to the red heart's core:
Not one hour old, yet of sciential brain
To unperplex bliss from its neighbour pain;
Define their pettish limits, and estrange
Their points of contact, and swift counterchange;
Intrigue with the specious chaos, and dispart
Its most ambiguous atoms with sure art;
As though in Cupid's college she had spent
Sweet days a lovely graduate, still unshent,
And kept his rosy terms in idle languishment.

Why this fair creature chose so fairily
By the wayside to linger, we shall see;
But first 'tis fit to tell how she could muse
And dream, when in the serpent prison-house,
Of all she list, strange or magnificent:
How, ever, where she will'd, her spirit went;
Whether to faint Elysium, or where
Down through tress-lifting waves the Nereids fair
Wind into Thetis' bower by many a pearly stair;
Or where God Bacchus drains his cups divine,
Stretch'd out, at ease, beneath a glutinous pine;
Or where in Pluto's gardens palatine
Mulciber's columns gleam in far piazzian line.
And sometimes into cities she would send
Her dream, with feast and rioting to blend;
And once, while among mortals dreaming thus,
She saw the young Corinthian Lycius
Charioting foremost in the envious race,
Like a young Jove with calm uneager face,
And fell into a swooning love of him.
Now on the moth-time of that evening dim
He would return that way, as well she knew,
To Corinth from the shore; for freshly blew
The eastern soft wind, and his galley now
Grated the quaystones with her brazen prow
In port Cenchreas, from Egina isle
Fresh anchor'd; whither he had been awhile
To sacrifice to Jove, whose temple there
Waits with high marble doors for blood and incense rare.
Jove heard his vows, and better'd his desire;
For by some freakful chance he made retire
From his companions, and set forth to walk,
Perhaps grown wearied of their Corinth talk:
Over the solitary hills he fared,
Thoughtless at first, but ere eve's star appeared
His phantasy was lost, where reason fades,
In the calm'd twilight of Platonic shades.
Lamia beheld him coming, near, more near -
Close to her passing, in indifference drear,
His silent sandals swept the mossy green;
So neighbour'd to him, and yet so unseen
She stood: he pass'd, shut up in mysteries,
His mind wrapp'd like his mantle, while her eyes
Follow'd his steps, and her neck regal white
Turn'd - syllabling thus, "Ah, Lycius bright,
And will you leave me on the hills alone?
Lycius, look back! and be some pity shown."
He did; not with cold wonder fearingly,
But Orpheus-like at an Eurydice;
For so delicious were the words she sung,
It seem'd he had lov'd them a whole summer long:
And soon his eyes had drunk her beauty up,
Leaving no drop in the bewildering cup,
And still the cup was full, - while he afraid
Lest she should vanish ere his lip had paid
Due adoration, thus began to adore;
Her soft look growing coy, she saw his chain so sure:
"Leave thee alone! Look back! Ah, Goddess, see
Whether my eyes can ever turn from thee!
For pity do not this sad heart belie -
Even as thou vanishest so I shall die.
Stay! though a Naiad of the rivers, stay!
To thy far wishes will thy streams obey:
Stay! though the greenest woods be thy domain,
Alone they can drink up the morning rain:
Though a descended Pleiad, will not one
Of thine harmonious sisters keep in tune
Thy spheres, and as thy silver proxy shine?
So sweetly to these ravish'd ears of mine
Came thy sweet greeting, that if thou shouldst fade
Thy memory will waste me to a shade -
For pity do not melt!" - "If I should stay,"
Said Lamia, "here, upon this floor of clay,
And pain my steps upon these flowers too rough,
What canst thou say or do of charm enough
To dull the nice remembrance of my home?
Thou canst not ask me with thee here to roam
Over these hills and vales, where no joy is, -
Empty of immortality and bliss!
Thou art a scholar, Lycius, and must know
That finer spirits cannot breathe below
In human climes, and live: Alas! poor youth,
What taste of purer air hast thou to soothe
My essence? What serener palaces,
Where I may all my many senses please,
And by mysterious sleights a hundred thirsts appease?
It cannot be - Adieu!" So said, she rose
Tiptoe with white arms spread. He, sick to lose
The amorous promise of her lone complain,
Swoon'd, murmuring of love, and pale with pain.
The cruel lady, without any show
Of sorrow for her tender favourite's woe,
But rather, if her eyes could brighter be,
With brighter eyes and slow amenity,
Put her new lips to his, and gave afresh
The life she had so tangled in her mesh:
And as he from one trance was wakening
Into another, she began to sing,
Happy in beauty, life, and love, and every thing,
A song of love, too sweet for earthly lyres,
While, like held breath, the stars drew in their panting fires
And then she whisper'd in such trembling tone,
As those who, safe together met alone
For the first time through many anguish'd days,
Use other speech than looks; bidding him raise
His drooping head, and clear his soul of doubt,
For that she was a woman, and without
Any more subtle fluid in her veins
Than throbbing blood, and that the self-same pains
Inhabited her frail-strung heart as his.
And next she wonder'd how his eyes could miss
Her face so long in Corinth, where, she said,
She dwelt but half retir'd, and there had led
Days happy as the gold coin could invent
Without the aid of love; yet in content
Till she saw him, as once she pass'd him by,
Where 'gainst a column he leant thoughtfully
At Venus' temple porch, 'mid baskets heap'd
Of amorous herbs and flowers, newly reap'd
Late on that eve, as 'twas the night before
The Adonian feast; whereof she saw no more,
But wept alone those days, for why should she adore?
Lycius from death awoke into amaze,
To see her still, and singing so sweet lays;
Then from amaze into delight he fell
To hear her whisper woman's lore so well;
And every word she spake entic'd him on
To unperplex'd delight and pleasure known.
Let the mad poets say whate'er they please
Of the sweets of Fairies, Peris, Goddesses,
There is not such a treat among them all,
Haunters of cavern, lake, and waterfall,
As a real woman, lineal indeed
From Pyrrha's pebbles or old Adam's seed.
Thus gentle Lamia judg'd, and judg'd aright,
That Lycius could not love in half a fright,
So threw the goddess off, and won his heart
More pleasantly by playing woman's part,
With no more awe than what her beauty gave,
That, while it smote, still guaranteed to save.
Lycius to all made eloquent reply,
Marrying to every word a twinborn sigh;
And last, pointing to Corinth, ask'd her sweet,
If 'twas too far that night for her soft feet.
The way was short, for Lamia's eagerness
Made, by a spell, the triple league decrease
To a few paces; not at all surmised
By blinded Lycius, so in her comprized.
They pass'd the city gates, he knew not how
So noiseless, and he never thought to know.

As men talk in a dream, so Corinth all,
Throughout her palaces imperial,
And all her populous streets and temples lewd,
Mutter'd, like tempest in the distance brew'd,
To the wide-spreaded night above her towers.
Men, women, rich and poor, in the cool hours,
Shuffled their sandals o'er the pavement white,
Companion'd or alone; while many a light
Flared, here and there, from wealthy festivals,
And threw their moving shadows on the walls,
Or found them cluster'd in the corniced shade
Of some arch'd temple door, or dusky colonnade.

Muffling his face, of greeting friends in fear,
Her fingers he press'd hard, as one came near
With curl'd gray beard, sharp eyes, and smooth bald crown,
Slow-stepp'd, and robed in philosophic gown:
Lycius shrank closer, as they met and past,
Into his mantle, adding wings to haste,
While hurried Lamia trembled: "Ah," said he,
"Why do you shudder, love, so ruefully?
Why does your tender palm dissolve in dew?" -
"I'm wearied," said fair Lamia: "tell me who
Is that old man? I cannot bring to mind
His features - Lycius! wherefore did you blind
Yourself from his quick eyes?" Lycius replied,
'Tis Apollonius sage, my trusty guide
And good instructor; but to-night he seems
The ghost of folly haunting my sweet dreams.

While yet he spake they had arrived before
A pillar'd porch, with lofty portal door,
Where hung a silver lamp, whose phosphor glow
Reflected in the slabbed steps below,
Mild as a star in water; for so new,
And so unsullied was the marble hue,
So through the crystal polish, liquid fine,
Ran the dark veins, that none but feet divine
Could e'er have touch'd there. Sounds Aeolian
Breath'd from the hinges, as the ample span
Of the wide doors disclos'd a place unknown
Some time to any, but those two alone,
And a few Persian mutes, who that same year
Were seen about the markets: none knew where
They could inhabit; the most curious
Were foil'd, who watch'd to trace them to their house:
And but the flitter-winged verse must tell,
For truth's sake, what woe afterwards befel,
'Twould humour many a heart to leave them thus,
Shut from the busy world of more incredulous.

[MacGuffin]

Part II

Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is - Love, forgive us! - cinders, ashes, dust;
Love in a palace is perhaps at last
More grievous torment than a hermit's fast -
That is a doubtful tale from faery land,
Hard for the non-elect to understand.
Had Lycius liv'd to hand his story down,
He might have given the moral a fresh frown,
Or clench'd it quite: but too short was their bliss
To breed distrust and hate, that make the soft voice hiss.
Besides, there, nightly, with terrific glare,
Love, jealous grown of so complete a pair,
Hover'd and buzz'd his wings, with fearful roar,
Above the lintel of their chamber door,
And down the passage cast a glow upon the floor.

For all this came a ruin: side by side
They were enthroned, in the even tide,
Upon a couch, near to a curtaining
Whose airy texture, from a golden string,
Floated into the room, and let appear
Unveil'd the summer heaven, blue and clear,
Betwixt two marble shafts: - there they reposed,
Where use had made it sweet, with eyelids closed,
Saving a tythe which love still open kept,
That they might see each other while they almost slept;
When from the slope side of a suburb hill,
Deafening the swallow's twitter, came a thrill
Of trumpets - Lycius started - the sounds fled,
But left a thought, a buzzing in his head.
For the first time, since first he harbour'd in
That purple-lined palace of sweet sin,
His spirit pass'd beyond its golden bourn
Into the noisy world almost forsworn.
The lady, ever watchful, penetrant,
Saw this with pain, so arguing a want
Of something more, more than her empery
Of joys; and she began to moan and sigh
Because he mused beyond her, knowing well
That but a moment's thought is passion's passing bell.
"Why do you sigh, fair creature?" whisper'd he:
"Why do you think?" return'd she tenderly:
"You have deserted me - where am I now?
Not in your heart while care weighs on your brow:
No, no, you have dismiss'd me; and I go
From your breast houseless: ay, it must be so."
He answer'd, bending to her open eyes,
Where he was mirror'd small in paradise,
My silver planet, both of eve and morn!
Why will you plead yourself so sad forlorn,
While I am striving how to fill my heart
With deeper crimson, and a double smart?
How to entangle, trammel up and snare
Your soul in mine, and labyrinth you there
Like the hid scent in an unbudded rose?
Ay, a sweet kiss - you see your mighty woes.
My thoughts! shall I unveil them? Listen then!
What mortal hath a prize, that other men
May be confounded and abash'd withal,
But lets it sometimes pace abroad majestical,
And triumph, as in thee I should rejoice
Amid the hoarse alarm of Corinth's voice.
Let my foes choke, and my friends shout afar,
While through the thronged streets your bridal car
Wheels round its dazzling spokes." The lady's cheek
Trembled; she nothing said, but, pale and meek,
Arose and knelt before him, wept a rain
Of sorrows at his words; at last with pain
Beseeching him, the while his hand she wrung,
To change his purpose. He thereat was stung,
Perverse, with stronger fancy to reclaim
Her wild and timid nature to his aim:
Besides, for all his love, in self despite,
Against his better self, he took delight
Luxurious in her sorrows, soft and new.
His passion, cruel grown, took on a hue
Fierce and sanguineous as 'twas possible
In one whose brow had no dark veins to swell.
Fine was the mitigated fury, like
Apollo's presence when in act to strike
The serpent - Ha, the serpent! certes, she
Was none. She burnt, she lov'd the tyranny,
And, all subdued, consented to the hour
When to the bridal he should lead his paramour.
Whispering in midnight silence, said the youth,
"Sure some sweet name thou hast, though, by my truth,
I have not ask'd it, ever thinking thee
Not mortal, but of heavenly progeny,
As still I do. Hast any mortal name,
Fit appellation for this dazzling frame?
Or friends or kinsfolk on the citied earth,
To share our marriage feast and nuptial mirth?"
"I have no friends," said Lamia," no, not one;
My presence in wide Corinth hardly known:
My parents' bones are in their dusty urns
Sepulchred, where no kindled incense burns,
Seeing all their luckless race are dead, save me,
And I neglect the holy rite for thee.
Even as you list invite your many guests;
But if, as now it seems, your vision rests
With any pleasure on me, do not bid
Old Apollonius - from him keep me hid."
Lycius, perplex'd at words so blind and blank,
Made close inquiry; from whose touch she shrank,
Feigning a sleep; and he to the dull shade
Of deep sleep in a moment was betray'd

It was the custom then to bring away
The bride from home at blushing shut of day,
Veil'd, in a chariot, heralded along
By strewn flowers, torches, and a marriage song,
With other pageants: but this fair unknown
Had not a friend. So being left alone,
(Lycius was gone to summon all his kin)
And knowing surely she could never win
His foolish heart from its mad pompousness,
She set herself, high-thoughted, how to dress
The misery in fit magnificence.
She did so, but 'tis doubtful how and whence
Came, and who were her subtle servitors.
About the halls, and to and from the doors,
There was a noise of wings, till in short space
The glowing banquet-room shone with wide-arched grace.
A haunting music, sole perhaps and lone
Supportress of the faery-roof, made moan
Throughout, as fearful the whole charm might fade.
Fresh carved cedar, mimicking a glade
Of palm and plantain, met from either side,
High in the midst, in honour of the bride:
Two palms and then two plantains, and so on,
From either side their stems branch'd one to one
All down the aisled place; and beneath all
There ran a stream of lamps straight on from wall to wall.
So canopied, lay an untasted feast
Teeming with odours. Lamia, regal drest,
Silently paced about, and as she went,
In pale contented sort of discontent,
Mission'd her viewless servants to enrich
The fretted splendour of each nook and niche.
Between the tree-stems, marbled plain at first,
Came jasper pannels; then, anon, there burst
Forth creeping imagery of slighter trees,
And with the larger wove in small intricacies.
Approving all, she faded at self-will,
And shut the chamber up, close, hush'd and still,
Complete and ready for the revels rude,
When dreadful guests would come to spoil her solitude.

The day appear'd, and all the gossip rout.
O senseless Lycius! Madman! wherefore flout
The silent-blessing fate, warm cloister'd hours,
And show to common eyes these secret bowers?
The herd approach'd; each guest, with busy brain,
Arriving at the portal, gaz'd amain,
And enter'd marveling: for they knew the street,
Remember'd it from childhood all complete
Without a gap, yet ne'er before had seen
That royal porch, that high-built fair demesne;
So in they hurried all, maz'd, curious and keen:
Save one, who look'd thereon with eye severe,
And with calm-planted steps walk'd in austere;
'Twas Apollonius: something too he laugh'd,
As though some knotty problem, that had daft
His patient thought, had now begun to thaw,
And solve and melt - 'twas just as he foresaw.

He met within the murmurous vestibule
His young disciple. "'Tis no common rule,
Lycius," said he, "for uninvited guest
To force himself upon you, and infest
With an unbidden presence the bright throng
Of younger friends; yet must I do this wrong,
And you forgive me." Lycius blush'd, and led
The old man through the inner doors broad-spread;
With reconciling words and courteous mien
Turning into sweet milk the sophist's spleen.

Of wealthy lustre was the banquet-room,
Fill'd with pervading brilliance and perfume:
Before each lucid pannel fuming stood
A censer fed with myrrh and spiced wood,
Each by a sacred tripod held aloft,
Whose slender feet wide-swerv'd upon the soft
Wool-woofed carpets: fifty wreaths of smoke
From fifty censers their light voyage took
To the high roof, still mimick'd as they rose
Along the mirror'd walls by twin-clouds odorous.
Twelve sphered tables, by silk seats insphered,
High as the level of a man's breast rear'd
On libbard's paws, upheld the heavy gold
Of cups and goblets, and the store thrice told
Of Ceres' horn, and, in huge vessels, wine
Come from the gloomy tun with merry shine.
Thus loaded with a feast the tables stood,
Each shrining in the midst the image of a God.

When in an antichamber every guest
Had felt the cold full sponge to pleasure press'd,
By minist'ring slaves, upon his hands and feet,
And fragrant oils with ceremony meet
Pour'd on his hair, they all mov'd to the feast
In white robes, and themselves in order placed
Around the silken couches, wondering
Whence all this mighty cost and blaze of wealth could spring.

Soft went the music the soft air along,
While fluent Greek a vowel'd undersong
Kept up among the guests discoursing low
At first, for scarcely was the wine at flow;
But when the happy vintage touch'd their brains,
Louder they talk, and louder come the strains
Of powerful instruments - the gorgeous dyes,
The space, the splendour of the draperies,
The roof of awful richness, nectarous cheer,
Beautiful slaves, and Lamia's self, appear,
Now, when the wine has done its rosy deed,
And every soul from human trammels freed,
No more so strange; for merry wine, sweet wine,
Will make Elysian shades not too fair, too divine.
Soon was God Bacchus at meridian height;
Flush'd were their cheeks, and bright eyes double bright:
Garlands of every green, and every scent
From vales deflower'd, or forest-trees branch rent,
In baskets of bright osier'd gold were brought
High as the handles heap'd, to suit the thought
Of every guest; that each, as he did please,
Might fancy-fit his brows, silk-pillow'd at his ease.

What wreath for Lamia? What for Lycius?
What for the sage, old Apollonius?
Upon her aching forehead be there hung
The leaves of willow and of adder's tongue;
And for the youth, quick, let us strip for him
The thyrsus, that his watching eyes may swim
Into forgetfulness; and, for the sage,
Let spear-grass and the spiteful thistle wage
War on his temples. Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine -
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.

By her glad Lycius sitting, in chief place,
Scarce saw in all the room another face,
Till, checking his love trance, a cup he took
Full brimm'd, and opposite sent forth a look
'Cross the broad table, to beseech a glance
From his old teacher's wrinkled countenance,
And pledge him. The bald-head philosopher
Had fix'd his eye, without a twinkle or stir
Full on the alarmed beauty of the bride,
Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet pride.
Lycius then press'd her hand, with devout touch,
As pale it lay upon the rosy couch:
'Twas icy, and the cold ran through his veins;
Then sudden it grew hot, and all the pains
Of an unnatural heat shot to his heart.
"Lamia, what means this? Wherefore dost thou start?
Know'st thou that man?" Poor Lamia answer'd not.
He gaz'd into her eyes, and not a jot
Own'd they the lovelorn piteous appeal:
More, more he gaz'd: his human senses reel:
Some hungry spell that loveliness absorbs;
There was no recognition in those orbs.
"Lamia!" he cried - and no soft-toned reply.
The many heard, and the loud revelry
Grew hush; the stately music no more breathes;
The myrtle sicken'd in a thousand wreaths.
By faint degrees, voice, lute, and pleasure ceased;
A deadly silence step by step increased,
Until it seem'd a horrid presence there,
And not a man but felt the terror in his hair.
"Lamia!" he shriek'd; and nothing but the shriek
With its sad echo did the silence break.
"Begone, foul dream!" he cried, gazing again
In the bride's face, where now no azure vein
Wander'd on fair-spaced temples; no soft bloom
Misted the cheek; no passion to illume
The deep-recessed vision - all was blight;
Lamia, no longer fair, there sat a deadly white.
"Shut, shut those juggling eyes, thou ruthless man!
Turn them aside, wretch! or the righteous ban
Of all the Gods, whose dreadful images
Here represent their shadowy presences,
May pierce them on the sudden with the thorn
Of painful blindness; leaving thee forlorn,
In trembling dotage to the feeblest fright
Of conscience, for their long offended might,
For all thine impious proud-heart sophistries,
Unlawful magic, and enticing lies.
Corinthians! look upon that gray-beard wretch!
Mark how, possess'd, his lashless eyelids stretch
Around his demon eyes! Corinthians, see!
My sweet bride withers at their potency."
"Fool!" said the sophist, in an under-tone
Gruff with contempt; which a death-nighing moan
From Lycius answer'd, as heart-struck and lost,
He sank supine beside the aching ghost.
"Fool! Fool!" repeated he, while his eyes still
Relented not, nor mov'd; "from every ill
Of life have I preserv'd thee to this day,
And shall I see thee made a serpent's prey?"
Then Lamia breath'd death breath; the sophist's eye,
Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly,
Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging: she, as well
As her weak hand could any meaning tell,
Motion'd him to be silent; vainly so,
He look'd and look'd again a level - No!
"A Serpent!" echoed he; no sooner said,
Than with a frightful scream she vanished:
And Lycius' arms were empty of delight,
As were his limbs of life, from that same night.
On the high couch he lay! - his friends came round
Supported him - no pulse, or breath they found,
And, in its marriage robe, the heavy body wound.

-John Keats (1819)

[Ghost-Girl]

Goodness, you do like that tending toward the epic, don't you? I am interested in this though...haven't read much Keats. Why this one?

[MacGuffin]

Goodness, you do like that tending toward the epic, don't you? I am interested in this though...haven't read much Keats. Why this one?

Yeah, I'll try to go back to the shorter poems in the future.

I love the imagery, and for dying so young Keats has some good insight into relationships:

Had Lycius liv’d to hand his story down,
He might have given the moral a fresh frown,
Or clench’d it quite: but too short was their bliss
To breed distrust and hate, that make the soft voice hiss.

[Ivy]

We were just talking about Keats whilst high in the hot tub last night. His gravestone reads "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." He died so young, and everyone always says "Imagine what he could have accomplished if he had lived a normal lifespan," but I reckon knowing you'll likely die young as he did kind of lights a fire under one's ass.

[MacGuffin]

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory's wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind,
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.

Helen being chosen found life flat and dull
And later had much trouble from a fool,
While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,
Being fatherless could have her way
Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man.
It's certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.

In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful;
Yet many, that have played the fool
For beauty's very self, has charm made wise,
And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

May she become a flourishing hidden tree
That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,
And have no business but dispensing round
Their magnanimities of sound,
Nor but in merriment begin a chase,
Nor but in merriment a quarrel.
O may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place.

My mind, because the minds that I have loved,
The sort of beauty that I have approved,
Prosper but little, has dried up of late,
Yet knows that to be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief.
If there's no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.

An intellectual hatred is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accursed.
Have I not seen the loveliest woman born
Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn,
Because of her opinionated mind
Barter that horn and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all's accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

-W. B. Yeats (1919)

[Arouet]

Only because you seem to like Yeats--and elevated, lyrical language, in general--and also because you yourself mentioned returning to shorter poems--you might enjoy the following by Yeats: Sailing to Byzantium, The Magi, Leda and the Swan, and that spare jewel which Joyce in Ulysses has Stephen Dedalus sing to his mother on her deathbed, Who Goes with Fergus?

JFK: "There's no point in being Irish unless you know the world is going to break your heart."

Eerie, no? I'm part, and I must say, it's a very strange culture, the contradictions: Catholicism, Enya, machine guns--and just a wee drop of the crayture.

There is other great literature, of course--and I don't suppose it's even possible that I could be objective (too much English blood, too). But for such a tiny corner of the world, i.e., the British Isles, to have produced the volume of great literature it has, is astounding to the point of being inexplicable. And yes, of course, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Goethe, etc.--but I doubt that there's even a nation on Earth that comes close to the intensity of "English" lyric poetry.

And the Anglo-Irish Yeats is a perfect illustration. He seems often to be writing beneath the shadow of some enormous wing.

Do read these poems I mentioned, though; you won't be disappointed.

And damned decent of you, Old Boy, to have done this pro bono publico, in the old sense.

[MacGuffin]

Only because you seem to like Yeats--and elevated, lyrical language, in general--and also because you yourself mentioned returning to shorter poems--you might enjoy the following by Yeats: Sailing to Byzantium, The Magi, Leda and the Swan, and that spare jewel which Joyce in Ulysses has Stephen Dedalus sing to his mother on her deathbed, Who Goes with Fergus?

JFK: "There's no point in being Irish unless you know the world is going to break your heart."

Eerie, no? I'm part, and I must say, it's a very strange culture, the contradictions: Catholicism, Enya, machine guns--and just a wee drop of the crayture.

There is other great literature, of course--and I don't suppose it's even possible that I could be objective (too much English blood, too). But for such a tiny corner of the world, i.e., the British Isles, to have produced the volume of great literature it has, is astounding to the point of being inexplicable. And yes, of course, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Goethe, etc.--but I doubt that there's even a nation on Earth that comes close to the intensity of "English" lyric poetry.

And the Anglo-Irish Yeats is a perfect illustration. He seems often to be writing beneath the shadow of some enormous wing.

Do read these poems I mentioned, though; you won't be disappointed.

And damned decent of you, Old Boy, to have done this pro bono publico, in the old sense.

Thanks, I always appreciate a response.

PM me (anyone) with more suggestions!

[Arouet]

Keats & Yeats kept going round in my head, elevated language, and I said, because this is like me, you know what? fuck the ruffled, tubercular Keats, and Yeats, let me tell you, his life was for me like a Warning Sign, because he never DID bed Maud Gonne--OR her daughter--"Helen of Troy," gimme a break, and so I thought, hey, you know what this guy MacGuffin may need? it's just one of those poems that stuck with me, that's all, no reason whatsoever--And this is, you know, I have decent recall, but for nothing that matters to anyone; I've tried to dine out on it, but NOTHIN'. So now, and because he's peculiar, but I think I remember where in this one, here it is:

mister youse needn't be so spry
concernin questions arty

each has his tastes, but as for i
i likes a certain party

gimme the he-man's solid bliss
for youse ideas i'll match youse

a pretty girl who naked is
is worth a million statues

* * *

Yeah, Estlin Edward Cummings. Cheers.

[MacGuffin]

Keats & Yeats kept going round in my head, elevated language, and I said, because this is like me, you know what? fuck the ruffled, tubercular Keats, and Yeats, let me tell you, his life was for me like a Warning Sign, because he never DID bed Maud Gonne--OR her daughter--"Helen of Troy," gimme a break, and so I thought, hey, you know what this guy MacGuffin may need? it's just one of those poems that stuck with me, that's all, no reason whatsoever--And this is, you know, I have decent recall, but for nothing that matters to anyone; I've tried to dine out on it, but NOTHIN'. So now, and because he's peculiar, but I think I remember where in this one, here it is:

mister youse needn't be so spry
concernin questions arty

each has his tastes, but as for i
i likes a certain party

gimme the he-man's solid bliss
for youse ideas i'll match youse

a pretty girl who naked is
is worth a million statues

* * *

Yeah, Estlin Edward Cummings. Cheers.

Thanks!

I posted some Cummings earlier (http://forums.intpcentral.com/showthread.php?p=883910#post883910).

[Ivy]

Your last two submissions have put a song into my head:

A dreaded sunny day
So I meet you at the cemetry gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
A dreaded sunny day
So I meet you at the cemetry gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
While Wilde is on mine
So we go inside and we gravely read the stones
All those people, all those lives
Where are they now ?
With loves, and hates
And passions just like mine
They were born
And then they lived
And then they died
It seems so unfair
I want to cry
You say : "'Ere thrice the sun done salutation to the dawn"
And you claim these words as your own
But I've read well, and I've heard them said
A hundred times (maybe less, maybe more)
If you must write prose/poems
The words you use should be your own
Don't plagiarise or take "on loan"
'Cause there's always someone, somewhere
With a big nose, who knows
And who trips you up and laughs
When you fall
Who'll trip you up and laugh
When you fall
You say : "'Ere long done do does did"
Words which could only be your own
And then produce the text
From whence was ripped
(Some dizzy whore, 1804)
A dreaded sunny day
So let's go where we're happy
And I meet you at the cemetry gates
Oh, Keats and Yeats are on your side
A dreaded sunny day
So let's go where we're wanted
And I meet you at the cemetry gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
But you lose
'Cause weird lover Wilde is on mine
Sure !

But I am really loving the latest one, the Yeats. I had never read it before. This bit kind of surprised and pleased me, what do you think it means?


It's certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.

I'd also like to understand where it goes in the last stanza a bit better. I sort of lose my grip (already tenuous) on it there. And I admit that I feel a touch indicted by the stanza regarding opinionated shrewish wimmins, a correlative to the male blowhard I suppose. I may lose my feminist letters for that.

[Arouet]

I know your question isn't directed at me, but I now feel in some strange way obligated. Please believe that I detest sounding cryptic, but for reasons both personal and "aesthetic," I'm always ambivalent (as in a prison cell with swirling god-music from some undiscovered planet, the walls closing in) when the subject is "analyzing" poetry: I'm against it.

But the grey matter has been involuntarily compiling--I am "sharing," being a Good Citizen, not "showing off," right?--a short list of poems that you (Mac, Ivy) might like. And if they are not to your taste, MacGuffin, and you've no interest in printing any of them, at least one or two others out in the Great Nowhere can take a look. I'd be surprised if any of these isn't somewhere online. (Is "online" hyphenated? I thought we'd done away with those, as well as with punctuation, in general.)

This short list emerged from thinking about Yeats (which for me leads inevitably to Pound, Eliot, Williams, and Imagism, etc.). You'd printed previously a historically significant example, Williams's "wheelbarrow" (in which there's more than meets the eye).

Roethke, throughout most of his life, was profoundly influenced by Yeats, but you may not hear this in the poems I'm suggesting. (And you'd hear it even less so in his later, longer-lined, far more contemplative ("spiritual") works.)

Frost and Hemingway were influenced by Imagism, too, though Frost's poems do not at first glance reflect this. (It's a bit like not being able to hear Boogie-Woogie in the Beatles' Lady Madonna. But all analogies are, by definition, limited--and this one wasn't particulary good. Would Chopin have been possible without Beethoven? I wouldn't know; but my guess is, probably not.)

Is anyone still awake?

A more conversational tone (in poetry) took hold before The Great War. Pound proposed it; Yeats and Eliot wrote it. But it was Williams, love him or like him, whose poetry was the most "conversational," and his influence spread like grass (as in Leaves).

Read the Frost poems aloud, and you'll hear that he's "just talking"--his casual (often casually sly) New England music.

Frost was of course was an Imagist. But it may be fairly argued--though I would never bother--that all were touched by the gift of understated emotions. (I'm laughing; you're not; it's a problem. This happens a lot. I'm talking to no one in particular.)

Roethke: Elegy for Jane, The Meadow Mouse, Orchids

Frost: After Apple-Picking; Birches (lest there be confusion re trees)

Pound: Damn! I'm getting lines, but not the title. Try Letter from the River Merchant's Wife. And if that's not right, sorry; I'll check and get back to you. That's pretty close, though. Pound is credited with having made haiku famous in the West. But he did a number of loose translations, also.

I should add: Imagism emerged from Pound's fascination with Oriental literature. It may be that, even now (owing in part to the considerable difficulty in learning to read and write Chinese--and by all accounts, Japanese even more cumbersome), the artistic achievements of three dynasties (Sung, Tang, Ming) (?) have not been fully appreciated.

But once you consider the "state of the Art" in 1910, you begin to appreciate Pound's great contribution to literature.

He was, unfortunately, a master crank (right, I know, look who's talking), who thought very highly of Mussolini and who therefore made numerous radio broadcasts in support of fascism: "Was not Athens built so? By the few?"

He was imprisoned for his nostalgia--a psychiatric facility called St. Elizabeth's--for I think something like seventeen years.

And on THAT note....

I'm in the very bad habit of reading my posts and emails only AFTER I've sent them, because I'm just so eager to send it and be done with it. (--Bad also because I insult people without really meaning to. To insult someone intentionally is one thing, but that's just embarrassing.)

In this case, however, it is to be hoped that I merely omitted a WORD, that is, "not"; I meant to say that Frost was NOT an Imagist.

[Arouet]

Responding to my own post--again--is so funny, I'm actually having trouble typing.

I recognize that no one cares what I think (nor should they), but I unfortunately did what I often do when I post, which is to say something off the top of my head that others might easily misunderstand, and then of course I feel compelled to clarify what no one in fact cared about in the first place. (It’s very funny.)

It certainly wouldn’t be accurate to say that I in any way object to the “spirit” of this thread, to people’s curiosity, to their posing questions and analyzing a poem. If I gave this impression, I am sorry. I should’ve, I suppose, put it another way.

Suppose every time you listened to Bach or Bartok; every time you saw a painting by De Kooning or Chagall; some professor kept pressing you to explain what the artist MEANT, what he INTENDED (and you perhaps had to write about it). You (or at least most people) would very soon become repulsed by music and painting. ("Uh-oh, I'm not gonna GET IT, and I'll feel Dumb, I hate that!")

Words have meanings, definitions, yes. Words are not colors, sounds. With words, you cannot keep meaning out--though people you talk to every day are unusually (unintentionally) very good at this.

But with respect to “meaning,” DISSECTING a poem will only get you so far. Discussing technique is bad enough (though occasionally helpful, if you’re really interested in such things), but literary critics and most of their professorial minions have all but destroyed most people’s capacity to derive any pleasure from a poem. They leave many students with the impression that, for every poem, there’s an equivalent paragraph in PROSE, one that explains clearly the secret profundity that the poet-bastard successfully hid from all but the literati.

This is just one of many reasons poets hate critics. If the poet had wanted to write it in prose, he would have—but the truth is, he couldn’t, because prose is not the language of his creative experience any more than prose is the language of Thelonius Monk.

This is the reason poets rarely if ever discuss the “meaning” of one of their poems; their interest (if any) is in having YOU EXPERIENCE it. And if, when talking to a poet, you read things in his poem that he never intended, he won’t say, “No, that’s not it at all.” He’s far more likely to look at the line again and simply look at you, slightly puzzled, possibly with a “Well. That’s interesting.”

Many poems are "puzzling"—and INTP’s are drawn to puzzles. But “puzzle” implies a solution—and Art isn’t a Problem to be Solved. Poets have a greater capacity for Psychic Chaos than most people. To them, you see, it isn’t Chaos. And I wish that more people would sometimes just let a poem wash over them, as they do with colors and music.

[elfsprin]

Responding to my own post--again--is so funny, I'm actually having trouble typing.

I recognize that no one cares what I think (nor should they), but I unfortunately did what I often do when I post, which is to say something off the top of my head that others might easily misunderstand, and then of course I feel compelled to clarify what no one in fact cared about in the first place. (It’s very funny.)

It certainly wouldn’t be accurate to say that I in any way object to the “spirit” of this thread, to people’s curiosity, to their posing questions and analyzing a poem. If I gave this impression, I am sorry. I should’ve, I suppose, put it another way.

Suppose every time you listened to Bach or Bartok; every time you saw a painting by De Kooning or Chagall; some professor kept pressing you to explain what the artist MEANT, what he INTENDED (and you perhaps had to write about it). You (or at least most people) would very soon become repulsed by music and painting. ("Uh-oh, I'm not gonna GET IT, and I'll feel Dumb, I hate that!")

Words have meanings, definitions, yes. Words are not colors, sounds. With words, you cannot keep meaning out--though people you talk to every day are unusually (unintentionally) very good at this.

But with respect to “meaning,” DISSECTING a poem will only get you so far. Discussing technique is bad enough (though occasionally helpful, if you’re really interested in such things), but literary critics and most of their professorial minions have all but destroyed most people’s capacity to derive any pleasure from a poem. They leave many students with the impression that, for every poem, there’s an equivalent paragraph in PROSE, one that explains clearly the secret profundity that the poet-bastard successfully hid from all but the literati.

This is just one of many reasons poets hate critics. If the poet had wanted to write it in prose, he would have—but the truth is, he couldn’t, because prose is not the language of his creative experience any more than prose is the language of Thelonius Monk.

This is the reason poets rarely if ever discuss the “meaning” of one of their poems; their interest (if any) is in having YOU EXPERIENCE it. And if, when talking to a poet, you read things in his poem that he never intended, he won’t say, “No, that’s not it at all.” He’s far more likely to look at the line again and simply look at you, slightly puzzled, possibly with a “Well. That’s interesting.”

Many poems are "puzzling"—and INTP’s are drawn to puzzles. But “puzzle” implies a solution—and Art isn’t a Problem to be Solved. Poets have a greater capacity for Psychic Chaos than most people. To them, you see, it isn’t Chaos. And I wish that more people would sometimes just let a poem wash over them, as they do with colors and music.


do you protest against the analyzation of poems for the sake of the poem, or for the sake of the reader? what's at stake? the poetic ideal?


i find it interesting that you contrast words with sounds, in one of your earlier posts. you seem to suggest that words inherently have meaning (ie. language is a thing until itself, or else men use language in that fashion without exception) while sounds do not. i'm curious how you would flesh out that distinction.

[Arouet]

I'd never be "against" analyzing poetry if it leads the person to some insight or if he/she derives pleasure from this process, as many do. I wish only that more "non-literary" folks COULD derive pleasure from poetry, and I think that they--scientists, programmers, etc.--have been taught by well-meaning teachers and professors (unintentionally) to read a poem with a certain degree of dread, condescension, and irritation. They've been taught to regard the Poet as a kind of Trickster (in the pejorative sense); he speaks in symbols, never says what he means, never means what he says.

If you by nature seek clarity and precision in all forms of written language--as scientists, for example, are wont to do--the ambiguity of poetry may annoy you. This is of course your right; "fault" wouldn't enter the equation.

I am simply reporting that this decision (conscious or otherwise) re the purpose of language isn't particularly useful when reading certain kinds of poetry. We live with mysteries constantly: When did Time begin? We will die without knowing the answer (I assume). But we manage to enjoy life no less because of it. --And so, too, with certain poems.

So my laughably circuitous response to your first question would be: for the sake of the reader.

(Just my opinion.)

Re your second question--if I understood you correctly--I used an analogy (music/painting and poetry) that I knew was not apt, but that was all I had at the time.

My point was probably that modern poetry tends often to leap from place to place, from image to image (associations), without giving the reader a roadmap or any warning signs that say "Puxatawnee: Next Right." What happens is, you'll just arrive. If you're not prepared for the ride, don't get in: It's all about The Ride.

Dylan Thomas is as good an example as any. He is rarely if ever called a Surrealist, but of course he was. And his language is so rich with music and sound-effects, some of his poems will forever remain a mystery.

And this mystery bothers some people; but usually because they get in the car and think they're going to Cleveland. And all I want is to feel that I've BEEN SOMEWHERE. I may not know where, exactly, but a destination, if a poem has one, should I think have an element of surprise--unlike, say, a persuasive essay or a status report on a new housing project.

I'm beginning to sound a bit flaky, I think. (--"Beginning?!")

[g_vartan]

I'd never be "against" analyzing poetry if it leads the person to some insight or if he/she derives pleasure from this process, as many do. I wish only that more "non-literary" folks COULD derive pleasure from poetry, and I think that they--scientists, programmers, etc.--have been taught by well-meaning teachers and professors (unintentionally) to read a poem with a certain degree of dread, condescension, and irritation. They've been taught to regard the Poet as a kind of Trickster (in the pejorative sense); he speaks in symbols, never says what he means, never means what he says...

Perhaps, you are generalizing too much. I've been pleasantly surprised how broad and deep the talents of many "non-literary" folks around here in the areas of arts & literature and how many appreciate its fine beauty. To each their own...each approaching poetry in a different angle....it is a highly personal and subjective interpretation...and we can't really measure or dictate to how one should choose to view it.

I guess as an ENFJ, I see things in terms of emotions or tone. Robert Frost captures it perfectly for me, "A poem begins with a lump in the throat, a home-sickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where the emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words." But the reason why I peruse here in INTPc is it forces me to view things in a different angle or to read poems that I wouldn't normally pick-up --- expands my perspective and repertoire.

You highlighted some interesting choices though and have a unique perspective - perhaps you should share it, as appropriate :)

[Arouet]

You're right, of course, about my generalizing--but generalizing's okay as long as you know that's what you're doing. I didn't mean to imply that the wizards of science have no capacity to appreciate poetry.

You are--I'm assuming, because of your MBTI designation, so a reasonable guess, but I'm not asking--a woman. And if you generalized and said, "Most men have no use for poetry," this would be fair. Most women don't either, of course, but I think that, "generally speaking," Feeling Types (who are usually women, after all, 66 percent, I think) are more willing than men to be caught reading a book of poetry. (Most guys can't even stand novels unless they're written by Clancy or similar writers.)

Another generalization: Most women enjoy characters, stories. Most men read for information. (Every year, I have a little Super Bowl party with several good friends, and half of them read nothing but technical manuals. Two are a bit more like me, I guess, so they read history, politics...maybe tackle (ha) a scientific subject now and then.)

I can't say I've ever had a great deal of patience with most novels, though I've read my share. I do return, though, off and on--though these periods may be years apart--to plays and poetry. (I'm a 5W4, though, so maybe this explains it.)

And you know, while I'm on the subject (I'm not, really), the greatest disparity in test scores between male and female students is one that receives almost no attention from the media. Everyone assumes--because this is all we ever hear about--that the greatest disparity is in math, and, to a lesser extent, science, with the males way ahead.

But I've read that the greatest disparity is actually in verbal skills, with the females even farther ahead--and almost nothing has ever been done to address this. And if female English teachers continue to insist that eighth-grade boys write essays on literature that the TEACHER likes, it's never going to get any better.

At some point, the schools are going to have to make a decision: Are we in English class to help eighth-grade boys learn how to WRITE? Or are we in English class to have EIGHTH-GRADE BOYS write about LITERATURE?

Because eighth-grade boys were NOT designed to read much literature--and especially not the type they're being exposed to.

(Yes, another generalization--but as a generalization, fairly reasonable.)

[attila_the_hunny]

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.

[Arouet]

Okay. The first thing I'd do would be to try to hold her, almost imperceptible rocking. I'd look at her, move the strands of her hair away from her eyes. If she broke away, I'd stay there, not say a word, look out the window, let her vent. If she ran into the other room, I'd give her one minute, then follow. (They're not like us. They actually want you to go in after them. But don't try to solve the problem. She needs time, by herself, with you close by. You can bring her one of the cats. This woman's probably got four or five.)

And now someone will think I'm making fun of HER?!

Please. Try not to be an idiot.

[camille]

Attila, I love Kim A's poetry. She ranks very high on my list of favorite poets because she is so real and raw and doesn't write shit to surprise you; she writes it how it really is and if you are surprised, that's your fault not hers.

[Arouet]

Camille, one of the reasons the poem works IS its "surprises." (Maybe you'd prefer the word "changes" or maybe "turns.")

What the author's avoiding I'd call "deliberate ambiguity" (though there's sufficient ambiguity here to keep most readers interested).

The poem works also because on her knife are tears, her vulnerability, though evident throughout (red dress), becoming even more obvious towards the end. (I am now resisting any further dissection.)

Beyond that and with respect to the tone of your post: I'm not the type to "personalize" everything--quite the opposite. But I sense a disturbance in the Force.

If your post was in fact in any way a response to me (I had previously talked about "surprises"), you misread, at least in part, my intent.

When I read the poem, I hear A Girl in Trouble, a child. You may not care much for my reaction, but there it is. There are reasons I would be bound to hear her this way--and I am wired to feel protective towards women in such situations.

[Arouet]

I may end up regretting this, but let me pose some (rhetorical) questions and therefore to no one in particular:

Is she writing this poem to a specific male; to "Patriarchy," in general; or to her father? And more to the point, aren't these often one and the same.

Or is she actually writing--perhaps without realizing it?--to her mother.

[bluebell]

I may end up regretting this, but let me pose some (rhetorical) questions and therefore to no one in particular:

Is she writing this poem to a specific male; to "Patriarchy," in general; or to her father? And more to the point, aren't these often one and the same.

Or is she actually writing--perhaps without realizing it?--to her mother.

My assumption was that it was addressed to an ex-lover, and that the poem was about life after breaking free from that relationship.

[camille]

Camille, one of the reasons the poem works IS its "surprises." (Maybe you'd prefer the word "changes" or maybe "turns.")

What the author's avoiding I'd call "deliberate ambiguity" (though there's sufficient ambiguity here to keep most readers interested).


Beyond that and with respect to the tone of your post: I'm not the type to "personalize" everything--quite the opposite. But I sense a disturbance in the Force.

If your post was in fact in any way a response to me (I had previously talked about "surprises"), you misread, at least in part, my intent.


There wasn't any tone in my post other than a deep appreciation for a relatively new writer. Nothing in my post was intended as a response to what you had written.

EDIT: I don't think the poem is written to anyone in particular. I think she's showing that she wants everyone to see the woman she is inside. She wants to show the confidence that women do who wear flimsy little dresses like they own the room, the men and women in it, the cracks in the sidewalk. I don't think it has anything to do with her sexuality;sexuality is just one of the easiest ways to get attention so we can show what is inside. People don't respond to words like they do to the body. She could tell people how confident she is, or show them, and she chooses to flaunt it down the street, past normal, regular, everyday people and events....all in a little evening dress. The play on wearing a cheap flimsy dress past daily activities and people is the whole story....that is what makes it so interesting. If she wrote that she wore a flimsy dress to a nightclub, it would show little.

Wearing the dress through birth-cries and love-cries shows that she wants to make sure that confidence is always there through trying times in life. To die, to be buried, in that dress, is to go out with confidence, a reminder to people that she really lived her life as herself, not hidden.

[Arouet]

...and perhaps even probably (but not necessarily). My point, hardly profound, is simply this: Our reading of any poem is a mirror. We never escape ourselves. Most men would read this differently from the way most women would. Most bisexual women would probably read this differently from the way most straight women would, etc.

What's the "red dress," exactly? Her revenge for having been faithful and then cast aside? Her objection to (and of?) the "double standard"? Was a double standard imposed on her? Is she angry because being a woman seems more complicated than being a man? (It usually is.)

An observation: I have for years been fascinated by women's relationships with their mothers. We break from ours, you see, it's pretty easy. We realize right away we're made from very different stuff.

But no woman has this luxury. She is reminded constantly, brought back to her body, her mother's, the facts of biology, emotions--and too many life-choices.

It's surprsing that even more women don't hate us. Some of them would hate us no matter what we did. Many women I know, when you get right down to it--if they had to choose--would rather be their fathers than their mothers. (This must make life very complicated. And no, I'm not being a smart-ass. )

(I'm drifting right past those pig snouts.)

One of the things I like about poetry is that I might not read it the same way tomorrow, or even tonight.

I was responding to Bluebell, left the computer to answer a call I'd been expecting--the reason my response made even less sense than ususal.

C, your take is interesting. I will process, and try to process only.

[Arouet]

...which are of course contradictory: to articulate my position without influencing anyone. (I'll frequently stray from the topic to avoid saying all that I "know"--because I can sometimes be more persuasive than I realize. You know what they say about INTP's: "It's often themselves they're trying to convince.")

I'll be interested in reading what others have to say, so let me try to get out of the discussion with this: I agree only that the red dress means more than mere sexuality, though its meaning includes this.

[MacGuffin]

Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;
Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.
"Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?"
"Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?
Den Erlenkönig mit Kron und Schweif?"
"Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif."
"Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir!
Gar schöne Spiele spiel' ich mit dir;
Manch' bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand,
Meine Mutter hat manch gülden Gewand."
"Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht,
Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht?"
"Sei ruhig, bleib ruhig, mein Kind;
In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind."
"Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehen?
Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön;
Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn,
Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein."
"Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort
Erlkönigs Töchter am düstern Ort?"
"Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh es genau:
Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau."
"Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;
Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt."
"Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an!
Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan!"
Dem Vater grauset's, er reitet geschwind,
Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind,
Erreicht den Hof mit Müh' und Not;
In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.



Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,
He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.
"My son, wherefore seek'st thou thy face thus to hide?"
"Look, father, the Erl-King is close by our side!
Dost see not the Erl-King, with crown and with train?"
"My son, 'tis the mist rising over the plain."
"Oh, come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me!
Full many a game I will play there with thee;
On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,
My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold."
"My father, my father, and dost thou not hear
The words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?"
"Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives;
'Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves."
"Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there?
My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care
My daughters by night their glad festival keep,
They'll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep."
"My father, my father, and dost thou not see,
How the Erl-King his daughters has brought here for me?"
"My darling, my darling, I see it aright,
'Tis the aged grey willows deceiving thy sight."
"I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy!
And if thou'rt unwilling, then force I'll employ."
"My father, my father, he seizes me fast,
Full sorely the Erl-King has hurt me at last."
The father now gallops, with terror half wild,
He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child;
He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread,--
The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1782)

[MacGuffin]

This poem gave me the creeps as a kid. I've long been attracted to the supernatural and irrational. Something can't be explained by science or reason? Cool! I want to know everything, so to suggest something is inherently unknowable by normal means catches my attention. Imagine my delight in finding out later that one of the most prolific and popular authors was Stephen King. Middle school was the best of times as long as I was buried in a book.

The most frightening thing about this poem is the fact the evil is happening right in front of the father and he cannot prevent it, let alone see it. Usually the supernatural happens in isolated and dark places. For it to happen in a father's arms hinted at the real life horrors of the world I'd learn about later.

Of course, now I'm about to be a parent myself. Already I am learning to feel the fear from the father's side of the story. This is more unsettling than anything I felt from this poem as a child.

More available at wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Erlkönig).

[MacGuffin]

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere--
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year:
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir--
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul--
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll--
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole--
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere--
Our memories were treacherous and sere,--
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)--
We noted not the dim lake of Auber
(Though once we had journeyed down here)--
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn--
As the star-dials hinted of morn--
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn--
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said: "She is warmer than Dian;
She rolls through an ether of sighs--
She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies--
To the Lethean peace of the skies--
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes--
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said: "Sadly this star I mistrust--
Her pallor I strangely mistrust:
Ah, hasten! -ah, let us not linger!
Ah, fly! -let us fly! -for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust--
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust--
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied: "This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybilic splendour is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty tonight!--
See! -it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright--
We safely may trust to a gleaming,
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom--
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb--
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said: "What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied: "Ulalume -Ulalume--
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere--
As the leaves that were withering and sere;
And I cried: "It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed -I journeyed down here!--
That I brought a dread burden down here--
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon hath tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber--
This misty mid region of Weir--
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."


{Said we, then — the two, then —" Ah, can it
Have been that the woodlandish ghouls —
The pitiful, the merciful ghouls —
To bar up our way and to ban it
From the secret that lies in these wolds —
From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds —
Had drawn up the spectre of a planet
From the limbo of lunary souls —
This sinfully scintillant planet
From the Hell of the planetary souls ?")

-Edgar Allen Poe (1847)

[elfsprin]

nice one.

poe is one of the few writers who can pull off the ryhming thing without making me bored. the line repetition would really irritate me, though, if there were more stanzas. i think poe seems to escape coming across as leaning on the feet and meter like crutches because his vocabulary is so spectacular. he feels to me, a reader, like a master of the poetic structure, rather than someone who struggles to accomodate it.

[MacGuffin]

Farm boys wild to couple
With anything______with soft-wooded trees
With mounds of earth______mounds
Of pine straw______will keep themselves off
Animals by legends of their own:
In the hay-tunnel dark
And dung of barns, they will
Say______I have heard tell

That in a museum in Atlanta
Way back in a corner somewhere
There's this thing that's only half
Sheep______like a woolly baby
Pickled in alcohol______because
Those things can't live______his eyes
Are open______but you can't stand to look
I heard from somebody who ...

But this is now almost all
Gone. The boys have taken
Their own true wives in the city,
The sheep are safe in the west hill
Pasture______but we who were born there
Still are not sure. Are we,
Because we remember, remembered
In the terrible dust of museums?

Merely with his eyes, the sheep-child may
Be saying______saying

I am here, in my father's house.
I who am half of your world, came deeply
To my mother in the long grass
Of the west pasture, where she stood like moonlight
Listening for foxes. It was something like love
From another world that seized her
From behind, and she gave, not Iifting her head
Out of dew, without ever looking, her best
Self to that great need. Turned loose, she dipped her face
Farther into the chill of the earth, and in a sound
Of sobbing______of something stumbling
Away, began, as she must do,
To carry me. I woke, dying,

In the summer sun of the hillside, with my eyes
Far more than human. I saw for a blazing moment
The great grassy world from both sides,
Man and beast in the round of their need,
And the hill wind stirred in my wool,
My hoof and my hand clasped each other,
I ate my one meal
Of milk, and died
Staring. From dark grass I came straight

To my father's house, whose dust
Whirls up in the halls for no reason
When no one comes______piling deep in a hellish mild corner,
And, through my immortal waters,
I meet the sun's grains eye
To eye, and they fail at my closet of glass.
Dead, I am most surely living
In the minds of farm boys: I am he who drives
Them like wolves from the hound bitch and calf
And from the chaste ewe in the wind.
They go into woods______into bean fields______they go
Deep into their known right hands. Dreaming of me,
They groan______they wait______they suffer
Themselves, they marry, they raise their kind.

-James Dickey (1966)

[foodeater]

In the summer sun of the hillside, with my eyes
Far more than human. I saw for a blazing moment
The great grassy world from both sides,
Man and beast in the round of their need,
And the hill wind stirred in my wool,
My hoof and my hand clasped each other,
I ate my one meal
Of milk, and died
Staring. From dark grass I came straight
To my father's house, whose dust
Whirls up in the halls for no reason
When no one comes______piling deep in a hellish mild corner,
And, through my immortal waters,
I meet the sun's grains eye
To eye, and they fail at my closet of glass.
Dead, I am most surely living


I like these lines. I don't know why. Probably the shift in tone and focus.. for a poem about guys having sex with sheep it was surprisingly moving.

[Ferrus]

for a poem about guys having sex with sheep it was surprisingly moving.
Ah, such observations make life worth living.

[Ghost-Girl]

I agree with foodeater that think the strophes talking from the sheep-thing's perspective really make the poem work well, where it otherwise might have just been a poem about sheep-fucking. It gives it a disturbing edge that I don't think it would have had otherwise...brings about that fear of the unknown, or even just fear of the unwanted. The boogeyman that will arrive if you do bad things isn't a monster, but instead it's this terrible thing that can't survive.

The breaks within the lines are interesting, but I'm not sure that I see their purpose. Anyone care to comment on that part?

[MacGuffin]

The breaks within the lines are interesting, but I'm not sure that I see their purpose. Anyone care to comment on that part?

I'm not sure, but they did catch my eye. In fact, I'm not sure why I like this one, hoping others can dissect it better than I.

Does the sheep fucking mean anything more when you consider Dickey also wrote the novel Deliverance?

[Ghost-Girl]

Found an analysis (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/feature.html?id=179991) at the Poetryfoundation.org website. It offers an explanation for the pauses within the lines, plus some interesting insights into the poem.

Also, I found a recording of Dickey reading the poem that's pretty interesting: http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/dickey/sheep.htm (off to the left side, requires RealPlayer to play)

[camille]

I'm going backwards here, but a friend just sent this to me and I thought it might be interesting to some of you to hear Kim A. speak her poem.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16213

[MacGuffin]

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

-ee cummings (192?)

[Ferrus]

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

-ee cummings (192?)
Oh, and you thought no one would notice that this was already posted by Musee des Beaux arts (sp?), back in her blag, eh?

[MacGuffin]

Oh, and you thought no one would notice that this was already posted by Musee des Beaux arts (sp?), back in her blag, eh?

Did she?

Cool, she can come comment!

[camille]

Love this. One of my favorites.

[Delilah]

Love this. One of my favorites.

Agreed. :wub:

[MuseedesBeauxArts]

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

-ee cummings (192?)

Scraping up poems from the bottom of my blag, eh? ;)

Upon re-reading it just now, I remembered how much I like its rhythms and timings--unexpected pauses, momentum built and suddenly broken, changes in word order that force you to slow down and really read. To me, it reads as a crescendo-decrescendo (which reminds me of something by Li-Young Lee, actually).

*wanders off to find the other poem*

[MuseedesBeauxArts]

This Room And Everything In It
by Li-Young Lee

Lie still now
while I prepare for my future,
certain hard days ahead,
when I'll need what I know so clearly this moment.

I am making use
of the one thing I learned
of all the things my father tried to teach me:
the art of memory.

I am letting this room
and everything in it
stand for my ideas about love
and its difficulties.

I'll let your love-cries,
those spacious notes
of a moment ago,
stand for distance.

Your scent,
that scent
of spice and a wound,
I'll let stand for mystery.

Your sunken belly
is the daily cup
of milk I drank
as a boy before morning prayer.

The sun on the face
of the wall
is God, the face
I can't see, my soul,

and so on, each thing
standing for a separate idea,
and those ideas forming the constellation
of my greater idea.
And one day, when I need
to tell myself something intelligent
about love,

I'll close my eyes
and recall this room and everything in it:
My body is estrangement.
This desire, perfection.
Your closed eyes my extinction.
Now I've forgotten my
idea. The book
on the windowsill, riffled by wind...
the even-numbered pages are
the past, the odd-
numbered pages, the future.
The sun is
God, your body is milk...

useless, useless...
your cries are song, my body's not me...
no good...my idea
has evaporated...your hair is time, your thighs are song...
it had something to do
with death...it had something
to do with love.

[MacGuffin]

Scraping up poems from the bottom of my blag, eh? ;)

Upon re-reading it just now, I remembered how much I like its rhythms and timings--unexpected pauses, momentum built and suddenly broken, changes in word order that force you to slow down and really read. To me, it reads as a crescendo-decrescendo (which reminds me of something by Li-Young Lee, actually).

*wanders off to find the other poem*

Yes, that's what I liked about it, the way he breaks up the flow, esp. towards the end.

[elfsprin]

This Room And Everything In It
by Li-Young Lee


love this one! i had never heard of him before- is he very prolific? is this poem representative of his usual work?

and it's redundant to state my love of all things eec. nice pick.

ps. the eec poem gives me very strong visual impressions, one of which is a woman with a huge, electric-blue bush. it kind of makes me want to experiment with dyes in a similar way. that could be kind of fun!

[MacGuffin]

He evidently wrote this for Elaine Orr (from wikipedia):


Elaine Orr: Cummings' first marriage, to Elaine Orr, began as a love affair in 1919 while she was married to Scofield Thayer, one of Cummings' friends from Harvard. The affair produced a daughter, Nancy, born on December 20, 1919. Nancy was Cummings' only child. After obtaining a divorce from Thayer, Elaine married Cummings on March 19, 1924. However, the marriage ended in divorce less than nine months later, when Elaine left Cummings for a wealthy Irish banker, moved to Ireland and took Nancy with her. Under the terms of the divorce Cummings was granted custody of Nancy for three months each year, but Elaine refused to abide by the agreement. Cummings did not see his daughter again until 1946.

That would suck. :sadbanana:

[ryan_m_parr]

"The Second Coming"

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

- Yeats

[MacGuffin]

Hey thanks!

Except I already posted it (http://forums.intpcentral.com/showthread.php?p=685918#post685918). What do you make of it?

[ryan_m_parr]

Hey thanks!

Except I already posted it (http://forums.intpcentral.com/showthread.php?p=685918#post685918). What do you make of it?

Ahh, it had been awhile since I read this thread, so it must have been overlooked in memory.

The poem evokes a contrasting legacy imparted from cultural derivatives. Any culture or period of time lingers on from the past.

Aside from the obvious implications of Jung's shadow, similarly implied through the Tool song, 46 and 2, their seems to be a certain soul of humanity that deliberately holds onto destructive legacy as a mind tap for inspiration. While engendered to focus on the past, never-the-less standing for the present in hopes that destroying the surroundings, more-so pivots attention towards idealized all-powerful evocations.

The super-ego, in idealized hearkened ring for attention -- the trumpeters call -- stands paradoxical to the joy's evoked in an ideology. An ideology can justify the right and contrast the identified group as one that cannot be wrong, no matter the consequences of action. No matter the "inhumanity" there is always a right. Contrast that with any idealization of another, and however innocent and benevolent we like to present identity, it can always have a festering sore compelling humanity forward to action.

[MacGuffin]

So you don't think creation requires some destruction?

[ryan_m_parr]

So you don't think creation requires some destruction?

I'm sure that the legacy of mankind has always arisen through destruction, manipulation, ignorance, and maligned integrity. Whether or not this requires denial of the fact, does not allow the prerogative of denial in the illusion of need, submissive and prostrate before destructive identity. Ultimately mankind has developed an inferiority complex whereby the illusion of eminence and shirked duties of society must preclude from self-identity. That the self is all that matters as result of denial of other's existing, and that only the fragile and vulnerable self must be awakened to the reality of all other's experience that differs from the self.

I get the impression that Yeats was alluding to something of a global society that is arisen through destruction, much like a phoenix. Unfortunately I hope he knew better than aspire to ancient astrology, as he seems to refer to the ancient magi (modern bs refers to them as "Kings".) Perhaps I would rather assume he wasn't looking optimistically about the destructive nature of humanity.

[Bking]

Every Monday {okay, some Mondays}, I am going to post a famous poem for analysis and conversation.

Why? I have three main reasons.

1) To educate myself. I am very ignorant when it comes to poetry. I last took an English class in high school, and that was composition. I have never really studied poetry in any way.

2) To educate others. I suspect many INTPs are far more comfortable discussing programming or science. Perhaps others will learn something.

3) To facilitate discussion. Have to have quality threads in addition to the fun ones, or this forum becomes stagnant.

So I hope to learn, first and foremost. If anyone has any resources to help me/others better understand poetry in general - please share. After all, I am far more familiar with 80s pop music lyrics than Tennyson.

The one thing I admire about poetry is the ability to convey complex moods, events, places, people, and ideas with just the right words and phrasing. I am not long-winded myself, so I find that command of the language attractive.

If anyone has a well-known poem they think we should discuss, let me know and I will probably post it.


...This is the kinda stuff thats gonna keep this forum alive.

I write poems...Would it be ok if i put a few on here? Im curious to know how i will act to such brutal analysis. :dieemo:

[camille]

Put them in the atelier (http://forums.intpcentral.com/forumdisplay.php?f=19). Start a new thread with your work.

Make sure you are serious about getting critique, though. People won't be nasty, but honest.

[MacGuffin]

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

-Dylan Thomas (1946)

[Ghost-Girl]

I do love Dylan Thomas.

That one reminds me of this poem:

Woe!

It is true, our tribe is similar to the bees,
It gathers honey of wisdom, carries it, stores it in honeycombs.
I am able to roam for hours
Through the labyrinth of the main library, floor to floor.
But yesterday, looking for the words of masters and prophets,
I wandered into high regions
That are visited by practically no one.
I would open a book and could decipher nothing.
For letters faded and disappeared from the pages.
Woe! I exclaimed-so it comes to this?
Where are you, venerable ones, with your beards and wigs,
Your nights spent by a candle, griefs of your wives?
So a message saving the world is silenced forever?
At your home it was the day of making preserves.
And your dog, sleeping by the fire, would wake up,
Yawn, and look at you, as if knowing.

- Czeslaw Milosz

[MacGuffin]

I do love Dylan Thomas.

That one reminds me of this poem:

Woe!

It is true, our tribe is similar to the bees,
It gathers honey of wisdom, carries it, stores it in honeycombs.
I am able to roam for hours
Through the labyrinth of the main library, floor to floor.
But yesterday, looking for the words of masters and prophets,
I wandered into high regions
That are visited by practically no one.
I would open a book and could decipher nothing.
For letters faded and disappeared from the pages.
Woe! I exclaimed-so it comes to this?
Where are you, venerable ones, with your beards and wigs,
Your nights spent by a candle, griefs of your wives?
So a message saving the world is silenced forever?
At your home it was the day of making preserves.
And your dog, sleeping by the fire, would wake up,
Yawn, and look at you, as if knowing.

- Czeslaw Milosz

That one is good.

I've been thinking about how and why someone creates anything, and whether it is worth it. Dylan Thomas digs out a satisfactory answer. And... puts it in the form of a poem!

I think that's the third D.T. poem I've posted on this thread.

[MacGuffin]

INTO my heart on air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

-A. E. Housman (1896)

[MacGuffin]

So I picked this poem having it recently brought to my attention. It hits that nostalgic sweet spot that many INTPs are supposed to have.

You can't go home again?

[djm]

So I picked this poem having it recently brought to my attention. It hits that nostalgic sweet spot that many INTPs are supposed to have.

You can't go home again?

My favourite poet Houseman.

I think the context is that rural Salop was changing forever as the locals left for the city to work in the factories in Birmingham and the Black Country. The countryside started to mechanise, and life picked up pace a little inching forwards never backwards. But the poetry is a universal metaphor even if the geography is specific.

It's melancholic but sweetly so. The blue hills are the mountains of Wales which are visible on the horizon in Salop from the high points like the Wrekin, Clee hill and the Long Mind.

[camille]

Youth. To see things as beautiful and clear. Remember how, as a child, you took in so much with your senses that adults appeared to miss because they had so much on mind?

Between Dixon (where I grew up) and Providence (seven miles from home) I could always tell where we were on the trip, even if I was lying down in the bed of the truck, because of the smell of oil as we passed a field that had an oil pump.

[Scarlett letters]

The hills are only blue from a distance. Up close, they're a kind of unpoetical muddy gray...
You can never go home again. Home isn't a place, it's a memory.

[Scarecrow]

The hills are only blue from a distance. Up close, they're a kind of unpoetical muddy gray...
You can never go home again. Home isn't a place, it's a memory.

Brilliant.

[narsasistickx]

There is something very interesting about bird watching.

They just have so much careful wisdom when they land.

Look twice up, tilt the neck and flatter the wings in a gust of a dust storm.

They tilt their necks back when they are ready to finally land.

Bucking their heads trotting their necks as their bodies struggle to keep up.

They play games with the grass. Poking at it curiously whenever their senses pick up motion on the ground.

They see me. And for a second its like I have just betrayed natures one rule.
Don't look.

[MacGuffin]

proud of his scientific attitude

and liked the prince of wales wife wants to die
but the doctors won't let her comman considers frood
whom he pronounces young mistaken and
cradles in rubbery one somewhat hand
the paper destinies of nations sic
item a bounceless period unshy
the empty house is full O Yes of guk
rooms daughter item son a woopsing queer
colon hobby photography never has plumbed
the heights of prowst but respects artists if
they are sincere proud of his scientif
ic attitude and liked the king of)hear

ye!the godless are the dull and the dull are the damned

-e.e. cummings

[Digital Future]

OK, just tidied this one up. Granted it was in collaboration with Aiue.

I love your brain, not heart

I love your heart, not brain

I love your brain and heart

I ate your brain and heart

Knowledge and love, what a dish

[Llewellyn]

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

-Dylan Thomas (1946)

I like this one. To me what poetry is about, is the spontaneous seize of an odd moment that would otherwise pass by. Or that's what I've heard somewhere. It is one take.

By the way, poetry is of more interest to me than programming or science. Good to have a thread like this.

[Llewellyn]

[Assuming I can post a poem here in MacGuffin's thread]

This is written down by me, with some help, from a reading on BBC's Essential Byron.

Lord Byron - Thoughts On Freedom

They only can feel freedom truly
Who have worn long chains
The healthy feel not health
In all its glow in all its glory of full veins
And flushing cheeks and bounding pulses
Til they have known the interregnum of some malady
That links them to their beds
In some white common feverish hospital
Where all are tended and none cared for
Left to public nurses
Paid for pity
Till they die or go forth cured
But without kindness

[dunno]

I like this one. To me what poetry is about, is the spontaneous seize of an odd moment that would otherwise pass by. Or that's what I've heard somewhere. It is one take.

By the way, poetry is of more interest to me than programming or science. Good to have a thread like this.

That's one thing poetry can be about, but generally I believe that it has a much broader scope.

If morality is the disruption of instinct by language, and poetry builds language, poetry must be important, no matter how difficult it is to see the subtle and varied ways people like Shakespeare and Dickinson have shaped our world.

On one hand, poetry is absurd in its coupling of sound and meaning. On the other, I believe that absurdity helps disrupt who we are in fundamental ways that we could not otherwise achieve - and such disruptions are the basis for our progress.

The Tint I cannot take — is best —
The Color too remote
That I could show it in Bazaar —
A Guinea at a sight —

The fine — impalpable Array —
That swaggers on the eye
Like Cleopatra's Company —
Repeated — in the sky —

The Moments of Dominion
That happen on the Soul
And leave it with a Discontent
Too exquisite — to tell —

The eager look — on Landscapes —
As if they just repressed
Some Secret — that was pushing
Like Chariots — in the Vest —

The Pleading of the Summer —
That other Prank — of Snow —
That Cushions Mystery with Tulle,
For fear the Squirrels — know.

Their Graspless manners — mock us —
Until the Cheated Eye
Shuts arrogantly — in the Grave —
Another way — to see —

[elfsprin]

On one hand, poetry is absurd in its coupling of sound and meaning. On the other, I believe that absurdity helps disrupt who we are in fundamental ways that we could not otherwise achieve - and such disruptions are the basis for our progress.


have you read any heidegger?

also, go back to post 474, read on, and let us resurrect that topic of conversation!

... if you like.

[dunno]

I haven't read much Heidegger. I mean to. One of these days.


read in the context of her other poems, i see a very particular meaning in this poem. the first thing to notice is how wislawa is referencing two distinct kinds of 'knowing' or knowledge- the rational, and the intuitive (also it could be helpful to re-label them the appoline and the dionysiac, if there are any nietzsche readers scampering about here. if not, think appoline = communication through and reliance on logic, words, and analysis whereas dionysiac = communication through and reliance on that which escapes concrete form, music, and intuition):

It seems the poet could also be responding to Blake's concepts of 'good' and 'evil' - but I'm also convinced these influenced Nietzsche's ideas about a and d: "Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy." - from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell - that's just a taste, he really develops his own understanding of these words in the Prophetic Books., cf Milton (the poem by Blake, not the poet).


in another poem from this collection (conversation with a stone (http://thehousecat.blogspot.com/2007/06/conversation-with-stone.html)), she repeatedly asks a stone to let her inside, to open up and let her see its full identity. the stone keeps refusing her, and eventually says: i don't have a door. it also says 'you lack the sense of taking part' meaning (in my opinion)- seeking to know Reality or a Thing through questions and inquiry is ultimate ineffectual. on one level, the stone has no door because it is what it is, imminently without need of further dissection- in other words, it seems that knowing the stone should be absurdly simple. to the contrary, humans are unable to assess Reality on that level, because our methods of understanding inherently cause us to relate all of our knowledge, perceptions, and understandings back to our own selves; to really comprehend Reality, we have to escape ourselves (a point she raises in the poem "we're extremely fortunate (http://neptune.esc.k12.in.us/socratic/resources/FORTUNE.html)").

in 'view with a grain of sand (http://anandsengupta.blogspot.com/2007/04/perception-without-mindfulness-sticks.html)' she basically points out that our definitions of things have no relationship with reality. essentially, it's because we are self-referencing.

Could we say the issue is mental reality's lack of a convincing continuity with physical reality? The thing exists, the body reproduces, the mind reflects. There's an incurable separation between each. But I wouldn't say that physical reality has no relationship with mental reality since they certainly influence one another.

I enjoy these poems. Thank you for introducing them to me.

They definitely feel Romantic to me - in their use of hyperbole and what seems to me to be a foundation in nostalgia. For example, the speakers desire to be inside the stone - and this might be a stretch - could be his nostalgia for childhood, that time before we've done too much self-reflection, when we had perhaps a greater continuity with physical reality. So along that vein, here's a section from Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality:

0 joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That Nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest,
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:--
--Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings,
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts, before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
Uphold us--cherish--and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor man nor boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence, in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither;
Can in a moment travel thither--
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

[elfsprin]

I haven't read much Heidegger. I mean to. One of these days.

i'd recommend poetry, language, thought (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060937289/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0060904305&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=17GCQT8W6A56R7VB8273) as an ideal initial foray into his writing. it's a collection of essays, and well suited for a reading in short intervals. it's my personal opinion that it's better to read this collection prior to diving into being and time (http://www.amazon.com/Martin-Heidegger/e/B000APZ0DM/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1) or his other works.

many readers comment on how difficult heidegger's language is, but actually i didn't find it particularly perplexing. his language usage (for example, saying "a thing thinging" or "the thingness of a thing") makes sense to me - i know what he's getting at, or what his point is. what i found very challenging was writing about his work in analytical essays, which required rephrasing him or 'translating' him into precise and formally logical wording, as i considered it lazy an unacceptable (academically) to simply use his own peculiar language when writing about him.

as a qualifier, i feel i should add a small anecdote: we read hegel's reason in history in high school for our humane letters seminar. hegel made complete sense to me; i could understand what he was saying and what his point was... it seemed obvious. i thought his points were easy to 'translate' in seminar such that his theses became evident to everyone. we had a guest professor there for that book, whose purpose had been to unravel the writing for us. she told me that it was very odd that i would understand the thought patterns and routes that hegel used, and that it was somehow significant that i seemed at ease when reading the works of the continentals.

whatever it is that makes hegel's writing obvious to me, i think that same thing is what makes heidegger's writing understandable. and so, the point: if you already know that you detest the continentals (or hegel in particular) or find them completely obscure, i would wager that heidegger will come across the same way. if hegel seems obvious to you, i think you'll find reading heidegger immensely enjoyable.



It seems the poet could also be responding to Blake's concepts of 'good' and 'evil' - but I'm also convinced these influenced Nietzsche's ideas about a and d: "Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy." - from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell - that's just a taste, he really develops his own understanding of these words in the Prophetic Books., cf Milton (the poem by Blake, not the poet).

i haven't read any blake... or maybe just one or two odd pieces here and there during high school, which was a while ago, so i don't feel i can comment on that.

based solely on the quote you've given, "Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy," i'm not sure i would agree that a and d are influenced by blake. or at least: perhaps they started out that way, but diverged in the end. i'd be very interested in discussing this with you in more detail, if you are also interested, but not in this thread (out of respect for MacG). i'd like the opportunity to reread the birth of tragedy first, if we're going to talk about that, so rep me or something if you're game and i'll do so.




Could we say the issue is mental reality's lack of a convincing continuity with physical reality? The thing exists, the body reproduces, the mind reflects. There's an incurable separation between each. But I wouldn't say that physical reality has no relationship with mental reality since they certainly influence one another.

I enjoy these poems. Thank you for introducing them to me.

They definitely feel Romantic to me - in their use of hyperbole and what seems to me to be a foundation in nostalgia. For example, the speakers desire to be inside the stone - and this might be a stretch - could be his nostalgia for childhood, that time before we've done too much self-reflection, when we had perhaps a greater continuity with physical reality.

that's very interesting; i don't find them to be romantic at all (and don't recall noticing any hyporbole... can you point an example of that out?). however, this may be a case of us talking about two different things: you, the author's objective, and me, my interpretation (i'm referencing eco's interpretation and overinterpretation, and the triad nature of voice that he discusses).

it may be the case that wislawa was writing from a kind of nostalgic foundation, but i don't see any evidence for that in her writing. i find her stance endlessly pragmatic, and concerned primarily with ontological concerns and epistemology.

i think one reason why the nostalgia qualification seems impossible to me is that i see her worldview excluding such examples as the one you listed: "that time before we've done too much self-reflection, when we had perhaps a greater continuity with physical reality." i think wislawa is stating something directly to the contrary: that there was and never can be a time when humans have a greater mental continuity with with physical reality. i don't think her point that our knowledge of reality is divorced from reality due to self-referencing has anything to so with self-reflection; rather, i think her meaning for self-referencing deals with the fundamental and inescapable nature of human inquiry and understanding.

i think (i have no citation for this, this is my surmise) that she came to her theses through pure philosophical inquiry. however, i think that it's valid to come to the same conclusions via scientific inquiry. i am very much in agreement with the points made in this TED talk (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6308228560462155344#), and what i'm talking about in the first sentence of this paragraph can best be summed up by a quote from the video: "the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."

it greatly pleases me that her theses, her worldview, can be arrived at from either starting point, and that's one of the reasons that i am a fan of her poems (in general, i tend to strongly prefer things that do just that: seem to poses truth and insight that can be arrived at from either vantage point. i am a big fan of cohesion, in that sense).

[MacGuffin]

Keep discussing. That's what the thread is for.

[Vasilisa]

by Tony Hoagland

I wanted to punch her right in the mouth and that’s the truth.

After all, we had gotten from the station of the flickering glances
to the station of the hungry mouths,
from the shoreline of skirts and faded jeans
to the ocean of unencumbered skin,
from the perilous mountaintop of the apartment steps
to the sanctified valley of the bed—

the candle fluttering upon the dresser top, its little yellow blade
sending up its whiff of waxy smoke,
and I could smell her readiness
like a dank cloud above a field,

when at the crucial moment, the all-important moment,
the moment standing at attention,

she held her milk white hand agitatedly
over the entrance to her body and said No,

and my brain burst into flame.

If I couldn’t sink myself in her like a dark spur
or dissolve into her like a clod thrown in a river,

can I go all the way in the saying, and say
I wanted to punch her right in the face?
Am I allowed to say that,
that I wanted to punch her right in her soft face?

Or is the saying just another instance of rapaciousness,
just another way of doing what I wanted then,
by saying it?

Is a man just an animal, and is a woman not an animal?
Is the name of the animal power?
Is it true that the man wishes to see the woman
hurt with her own pleasure

and the woman wishes to see the expression on the man’s face
of someone falling from great height,
that the woman thrills with the power of her weakness
and the man is astonished by the weakness of his power?

Is the sexual chase a hunt where the animal inside
drags the human down
into a jungle made of vowels,
hormonal undergrowth of sweat and hair,

or is this an obsolete idea
lodged like a fossil
in the brain of the ape
who lives inside the man?

Can the fossil be surgically removed
or dissolved, or redesigned
so the man can be a human being, like a woman?

Does the woman see the man as a house
where she might live in safety,
and does the man see the woman as a door
through which he might escape
the hated prison of himself,

and when the door is locked,
does he hate the door instead?
Does he learn to hate all doors?

I’ve seen rain turn into snow then back to rain,
and I’ve seen making love turn into fucking
then back to making love,
and no one covered up their faces out of shame,
no one rose and walked into the lonely maw of night.

But where was there, in fact, to go?
Are some things better left unsaid?
Shall I tell you her name?
Can I say it again,
that I wanted to punch her right in the face?

Until we say the truth, there can be no tenderness.
As long as there is desire, we will not be safe


:peep:

MacGuffin requested I post a copy of this poem in his thread

[MacGuffin]

Ah, thank you.