Aug 6 2024 - What is the State of Poetry?

 

What is the state of poetry today?  It seems far away and long ago to me.  But that turns out to be where my attention has been directed, rather than what poetry has been doing.  There are lists of the greatest poems.  On all the lists is William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 with its famous first line:  Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? What is Emily Dickinson's most famous/celebrated poem?  "Because I could not stop for death - this was published after her death.  Seems fitting.   Lord Byron's most famous poem starts "She walks in beauty, like the night"  Frost's "The Road Not taken" - a poem that we remember by its name rather than its first line which is:  Two road diverged in a  yellow wood"  Another famous first line is:  "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.    John Donne's "No man is an island, Entire of itself:"  Such a memorable opener.  Here's the Reader's Digest article with extracts of the poems HERE.   For a more extensive list of mostly 20th century and beyond poems check out this entertaining article HERE.  One of poetry's great questions?  Is poetry dead.  People certainly ask it a lot or they ask variations such as "does poetry still matter? Here's an entertaining title: "The ultimate and decisive is poetry dead article" Looks like poetry is alive for a lot of writers and journalists.  That handrail at Niagara Falls is instantly recognizable to me.  I took the recent picture and removed most of the people.  It seems poetic now.

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Oct 14 2020 - Evermore

 

I got the sense of Pottermore as coming from Evermore.  It seems a strange expression.  It says in the dictionary it is chiefly used for rhetorical effect or in ecclesiastical contexts - it means always.  Other definitions say continually, forever and always in the future. Shakespeare's big vocabulary included this word: Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor from Love Expands “LADY CAPULET: Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death? What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears? An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live; Therefore, have done: some grief shows much of love; But much of grief shows still some want of wit. JULIET: Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss. from Romeo and Juliet Past cure I am, now reason is past care, And frantic-mad with evermore unrest; My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, At random from the truth vainly express'd; from a Sonnet The ecclesiastical references to evermore seem to be mostly in the Old Testament - it has many verses with evermore, but with the message of cruelty and punishment ahead for those who do not obey.  Even Psalms with its celebration has the sense of obedience: Psalms 86:12 I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name for evermore. So I have an explanation of  Pottermore - it is expected to always be with us. In the past, I would have considered this a decorative pumpkin stem.  Now I see it as a Millie chewing toy.

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Sep 18 2020 - More of Just To Say

 

William Carlos Williams' poetry is quoted often.   There are other more quoted poets.  While I didn't look up who has the most quotes, I was fascinated by who is quoted most.  Here is the countdown.  Can you imagine that Alexander Pope is in the first position, and Shakespeare is down at fourth?  Some of the poets are referred to by first and surname, and others just by surname.  Is that sloppy naming conventions? No matter, this is a remarkable chart.        Here are the 50 best known lines of poetry: This is all from blog.inkyfool.com and is the Fifty Most Quoted Lines of Poetry.  The most quoted line from Alexander Pope is also the best known line of poetry: To err is human;  to forgive, divine. So back to William Carlos Williams and his imagist,  enjambed poems.  Here is one his most quoted, as compared to most parodied poems.  Would you like the interpretation?  Take a look at the line-by-line analysis HERE. The Red Wheelbarrow so much depends upon   a red wheel barrow   glazed with rain water   beside the white chickens Here are his words on poetry's place in our lives: It is difficult to get the news from poetry, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. Our layout pictures today seem the opposite of the poem above.  Nothing sparse here!

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Autumn Surges Ahead

Can Autumn surge?  We don't think of this season as arriving in flows, waves or billows.  We don't think of Autumn as arising either.  A poetry website summarizes how Autumn has been portrayed in poems: "Autumn is the time of ripening. All hopes of spring and all actions of summer are finished with autumn. Nature in its adult state inspires for solitude and thinking. Carpet of orange, yellow and brown leafs is the best field for long walks. After gathering all harvest autumn offers time to think about all that had happened in two past seasons. Poetry about autumn is mostly sad and nostalgic. Those poems are filled with memories of past. Creators of those pieces recall their past times and share them to all readers. And in many ways this type of read is pleasant." What are the great Autumn poems?  Well, there is one that shines above all overs.  It is John Keats' poem "To Autumn." This poem is universally considered one of the most perfect short poems in the English language. The work marks the end of his very short poetic career, and life.  A little over a year following the publication of "To Autumn", Keats died in Rome of tuberculosis. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. The full poem is here.  Our picture today denies that Autumn has arrived.  These are pictures of Victoria's Butchart Garden gelato cafe, and then the enclosed restaurant garden.  These are the Autumn gardens that lull us into thinking "warm days will never cease".

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