POETS Day! Thomas Hardy Learns About Dames
I’m not immune from the sort of self-flattery that arises when someone whose writing I respect enforces a gut felt but not fully considered opinion.
Author: Ben Sears
Ben Sears is a writer and restaurant guy in Birmingham, Alabama. He lives quite happily across from a creek with his wife, two sons, and an obligatory dog. You can follow him on Twitter and read his blog, The Columbo Game.
POETS Day! The Dreaded Poet Voice
The trick to a good reading of most poetry seems to be in courting but not abusing suspension of disbelief.
POETS Day! Horace: Ode III, XXX
The nose wiping comment has me thinking that Roman colloquialisms are beyond my ken, so I’m not reading as much into that as I could.
POETS Day! Muriel Spark
Muriel Spark runs right up to the edge of crossing formal sensibilities with little near heresies, but she never quite does.
POETS Day! William Faulkner’s Go at Anachronism
They are as youthful as cool spring grass. They also have the defects of youth—youth’s impatience, unsophistication and immaturity.
POETS Day! Why Is Tom Bombadil?
If you correctly type “semillon” the first result is the Wikipedia page for Tolkien’s Silmarillion. Good for Tolkien, but bad for Sauternes and trimmed sauvignon blanc.
POETS Day! Mirrors and Robert Louis Stevenson
That’s it. I just wanted to say “I don’t like change” so it had a double meaning. It’s not even a joke, really.
POETS Day! WM Praed and an Irishman
Winthrop Mackworth Praed, a respected wit and politician who died young, tuberculosis at thirty-six. There’s still a Praed Society at Eton
POETS Day! John Crowe Ransom
I like Tillinghast’s phrase: “major minor poet.” Ransom’s precise word choice and easy formalism are things of wonder.
POETS Day! At Home with Edna St Vincent Millay
I’ve had a great deal of trouble since reading that line considering anything she wrote to be genuine. That’s a frustration.
POETS Day! The Other Side of James Hogg
Wordsworth wrote that Hogg “was undoubtedly a man of original genius, but of coarse manners and low and offensive opinions.
POETS Day! Thoughts on Part IV of TS Eliot’s “Burnt Norton”
It’s not a comfortable position for me because it’s rare to be right in opposition to learned consideration.
College Football, and I Didn’t Know You Could Do That With The Game Clock
Lines Written a Few Feet Away from My Television As and After I Flipped Through College Football Games, My Alabama Bias Is Part of the Mix
POETS Day! Anthony Hecht
When Anthony Hecht’s unit liberated Flossenbürg concentration camp, he was ordered to collect stories and information. It would haunt him for the rest of his life.
POETS Day! Useful Lines and a Favorite from Pound
There was a time when the falconer was the height of killing technology. We had projectiles, but they required attention and aiming.
POETS Day! AE Housman’s A Shropshire Lad
AE Housman ennui appealed to a generation fighting for a world as they grew disillusioned with it.
POETS Day! Alan Seeger
“Rendezvous” was published posthumously, probably written in 1916, months before his death at the Battle of the Somme
POETS Day! Harriet Monroe
Harriet Monroe published the Imagiste’s do’s and don’ts in 1913: direct treatment of the thing, no superfluities, a music phrase.
POETS Day! Judith Wright, Who’s from Australia
The Poetry Foundation, and so Poetry Magazine by extension or implication depending, has a beef with Judith Wright.
POETS Day! “Paul Revere’s Ride”
I recognize Longfellow’s worth. He’s just not my cup of tea – I suppose today I should say coffee instead – but when he shines, he shines.
