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.
Author: Ben Sears
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.
POETS Day! Bullfighting and Elizabeth Bishop
Bishop only published one hundred and one poems in her lifetime, and some of those came after “The Complete Poems” was released in 1970.
POETS Day! Some Sonnets with 14 Lines
The “little song” can be corrupted only so much.” So, a bit of liberty here or there, but don’t push it.
POETS Day! Comparing Apples and Rossettis
As best I can tell, this is the entirety of an unfinished poem written between 1869 and 1886 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
POETS Day! William Cowper
I can’t imagine anything more irrational than, when assured of eternal damnation, acting to immanentize that fate.
POETS Day! The Transcendent Shades Cahaba
It’s a great word so I wouldn’t blame her, but more time was spent on transcendental chapters of that text than any of the novels on the syllabus.
POETS Day! Liking Robert Browning
He thinks Browning has a point to make but is too hard to understand, is a possibility. He could be dense. The problem is that Browning wasn’t just a shower.
POETS Day! Philip Larkin and Narrative
Philip Larkin is brilliantly acerbic. He cuts cruelly because he cuts directly when mockingly describing habits and rituals of life he finds silly or undignified.
POETS Day! GK Chesterton Was a Merry Old Soul
Chesterton got roped into a production of Old King Cole and it roused his muse.
POETS Day! Arnold on Dover, Hecht on Arnold
Matthew Arnold’s literary personage stands in contrast to his father’s upright example. And then it doesn’t. And then it does again.
POETS Day! A Bit of Light Verse
What’s an otherwise famous dead English poet named Jonson to do when the Doctor hogs the name in such an un-Christian manner?
POETS Day! Kingsley Amis with a Touch of Philip Larkin
I think Kingsley Amis is also showing us something sh**** and then showing us something he thinks is sh****ier. He’s making a point.
