Your poem deserves better than only 3 comments, so I decided to make up for the small notice it's received and add at least a pennyworth.
I first learned of you quite a number of years ago, via an essay of yours, which I think gave your take on how poetry and poetry markets had evolved into their recent form. It was quite long ago that I read it, so please correct me if that capsulization of it is off, or wanting. I think the essay was and is well-known among the literary crowd. I remember thinking it was a good essay and made points that made sense.
I'm not certain, but the couple poems of yours I've seen here at David's little clubhouse recently might be the first samples of your poetry I've seen. If that's true--and possibly it isn't--it's probably because I haven't followed the poetry scene for so long. For some time now, I've devoted most of my reading hours to essays by thinkers. I'm drawn to the essay form and also to independent minds.
Your poem about pity appeals to me, as I said in my other response, especially because commiseration is what everyone should feel for everyone in the circumstances we all share and bear. Everyone's after all caught in the same trap, thus no different from anyone else in that most fundamental way. Yet most of the race seem to lack pity for all the rest. It is rare as intellect, rare as originality, rare as thoughtfulness. At least it looks that way to me.
Pity The Beautiful Iis a fine lamentation which passes a simple test: it is a poem that I would have liked to have written.
The poem, for me, evokes a subdued echo of De Contemptu Mundi. As I read the poem it is not difficult to situate it alongside the meditations on the evanescence of physical beauty in Villon's Grand Testament.
It is a fine renewal of tradition, of the spirit of poetic regeneration called for by Mallarme.
At first I wondered if the pitying shouldn't be more all-inclusive. But subsequently decided the poem wasn't trying to leave all the rest out.
The poem (which I should mention I like, since pity is due everyone entrapped in the human condition--and also for the fluidity of the writing) has a lovely closing, which I am affected by. Just reread the final stanza, to see if the present tense still held with regard to its affecting me. No tense change needed (though, ca va sans dire, the moment of rereading is now past).
So your poem wins my alms. Thx for posting it.
The thing below is just a tossoff, scribbled merely for self-amusement:
I do! I do! (If that's all they have...)
For some reason I feel impelled to mention Mick Jagger in this particular context. (Perhaps because that's who Dana Gioia was thinking of?)
Your poem deserves better than only 3 comments, so I decided to make up for the small notice it's received and add at least a pennyworth.
I first learned of you quite a number of years ago, via an essay of yours, which I think gave your take on how poetry and poetry markets had evolved into their recent form. It was quite long ago that I read it, so please correct me if that capsulization of it is off, or wanting. I think the essay was and is well-known among the literary crowd. I remember thinking it was a good essay and made points that made sense.
I'm not certain, but the couple poems of yours I've seen here at David's little clubhouse recently might be the first samples of your poetry I've seen. If that's true--and possibly it isn't--it's probably because I haven't followed the poetry scene for so long. For some time now, I've devoted most of my reading hours to essays by thinkers. I'm drawn to the essay form and also to independent minds.
Your poem about pity appeals to me, as I said in my other response, especially because commiseration is what everyone should feel for everyone in the circumstances we all share and bear. Everyone's after all caught in the same trap, thus no different from anyone else in that most fundamental way. Yet most of the race seem to lack pity for all the rest. It is rare as intellect, rare as originality, rare as thoughtfulness. At least it looks that way to me.
So pity them all, big and small;
Like you, they're Nature's prey after all.
Pity The Beautiful Iis a fine lamentation which passes a simple test: it is a poem that I would have liked to have written.
The poem, for me, evokes a subdued echo of De Contemptu Mundi. As I read the poem it is not difficult to situate it alongside the meditations on the evanescence of physical beauty in Villon's Grand Testament.
It is a fine renewal of tradition, of the spirit of poetic regeneration called for by Mallarme.
At first I wondered if the pitying shouldn't be more all-inclusive. But subsequently decided the poem wasn't trying to leave all the rest out.
The poem (which I should mention I like, since pity is due everyone entrapped in the human condition--and also for the fluidity of the writing) has a lovely closing, which I am affected by. Just reread the final stanza, to see if the present tense still held with regard to its affecting me. No tense change needed (though, ca va sans dire, the moment of rereading is now past).
So your poem wins my alms. Thx for posting it.
The thing below is just a tossoff, scribbled merely for self-amusement:
Pity the tots & little snots
Junkies & megalomaniacs
Torturers & tyrants
Terrorists whites & blacks.
Reds and browns and yellows
Colonies masses crowds
Peoples poplulations livers
Weather conditions & clouds.