Well, Michael, I fear that my comments may be superfluous. Your poem shows a restrained, elegiac calm that honors your theme and the individuals it commemorates.
Thanks Bob, I'm glad you liked my poem, especially because it was my first attempt at free verse and was written in my late teens. The poem was so unexpected, I sometimes wonder if I somehow channeled it.
A beautiful poem, with a very poignant dedication. I too am writing a sequence of sonnets which attempt to pour oil on this very troubled water. What else can we poets do except put empty words to our useless tears?
Yes, it's unfortunate that poets have to write such poems. But I do think such poems can change hearts and minds. Thanks for publishing the poem; as an editor, translator and publisher of Holocaust poetry, it means a lot to me not to be silent in such times.
This is a fabulous poem, and so well written. It's right up there with Michael's best work. But I do think, John, that rather than being 'useless' words can make everything happen. Unlike Auden. ('poetry makes nothing happen') most great poets quietly believe this, otherwise they wouldn't bother writing them in the first place. I'm glad to hear that you are writing a sonnet sequence and actively engaging with such an important issue. I look forward to reading it.
I think the best poets write to heal some hurt in themselves rather than as some form of public display. Shakespeare can be forgiven for his histrionics because after all he was a playwright. But even he never intended his sonnets for public consumption. The first edition was pirated. Blake didn't publish very widely. Emily Dickinson not at all. Hopkins only to his friends.
It takes me about four months to get a poem right, so you'll have to wait. As Charles Reade said: 'Make 'em laugh; make 'em cry; make 'em wait!'
I find it amusing that you pull three poets of a hat, like a magician, and ignore the fact that ALL the "serious" poets we know are trying very hard to get published. Blake published his own books, and invented a new engraving process, so he was trying VERY hard, but didn't have success in his lifetime. Whitman self-published and wrote his own glowing reviews. Dickinson did publish poems, just not very many. Hopkins was gay and might have been excommunicated for some of his poems, or jailed like Oscar Wilde. And he did publish his poem about the shipwreck. But in any case, millions of poets have tried to get their poems published, including you, so it seems poets are more like peacocks than blushing violets.
Actually I haven't really tried to get my poems published. As I work on them they acquire a patina of sanctity I don't want to see defiled. God knows I've seen everything else defiled. And I'm out of sympathy with most of the work I see in the little magazines anyway.
I'm bisexual myself, so that too has been very difficult. Largely because in point of fact I hate homosexuality, and certainly don't believe in it. Nevertheless it has been very much imposed on me. So that in order to write at all I have had to write about something I didn't want to, and nor did anybody else. And, believe it or not, I actually prefer pleasing people.
Also I don't like pushy-shovey self-intoxicated types. I actually prefer shrinking violets. (Which perhaps explains why I have so much of an animus against so many Americans.) Emily Dickinson talked of the 'hateful, hard, successful face' so that suggests she was of the same mind. And Shakespeare's sonnets certainly appeared first in a pirated edition.
The image I've always nurtured in my mind is that of being discovered by other people and being forcibly published against my will. That was what used to happen at school whenever we were asked to write an imaginative composition. Much to my embarrassment. (Though admittedly that wasn't entirely unmixed with a certain amount of gratification.)
You're bisexual but you hate homosexuality? You submitted poems to me for THT but you're not trying to get published? You hate "self-intoxicated types" but that's how you sounded to me in our discussions of possible publication of your poems. You don't strike me as a "shrinking violet." Shakespeare published both plays and lyric poems, with quite a bit of fawning over his patrons. Very little of what you say adds up for me.
'A violet by a mossy stone Half-hidden from the eye' is Wordsworth's preference. Which Browning too finds 'Far better than this gaudy melon-flower.'
Good poets are full of internal contradictions. That's why they write poems. To help heal the rift. That's perhaps also explains why the oxymoron is such a favourite device with them.
I only submitted those poems once I'd been asked. And quickly withdrew them once I found out you would not be a sympathetic publisher. And it took me a long time to submit anything to David. And again only after he'd asked me.
To expect people to be consistent is the mark of one who knows very little of human nature. Have you never heard of enantiodromic conversion?
And, yes, I do hate homosexuality... What of that? Do you hate nothing about yourself?
'If thy right arm offend thee cut it off, ' as somebody once remarked. We are all works in progress.
Every exclamation mark is a rhetorical flourish! Do you never use exclamation marks?Every question mark is an admission of ignorance and therefore a gesture of humility. Do you never use question marks? I use both as appropriate.
Blake was thought to be a crackpot. As was Yeats. (Indeed by many he still is.) Anybody who doesn't follow the herd is bound to be laughed at. Especially in conformist America. But what great poet ever followed the herd? People who merely follow the herd never have anything valuable to say.
Poetry should tease out the complexities in one's own nature. That's what it's for. Whole armies battle it out in the complex soul of the genuine poet.
Yes. I agree. But I think a fitting modesty is always permitted. As well as the occasional rhetorical flourish.
As for Martin Luther King I used to think highly of him until I found out he didn't write his own speeches. That makes me deeply suspicious. I thought only politicians employed speech-writers. And I am not so fond of politicians.
I side with the great Muhammad Ali, who said, "It ain't braggin' if you can back it up."
From what I understand King didn't stick to the script of the prepared speech. King allegedly put aside his prepared remarks and extemporaneously delved into the “dream” stuff after his friend Mahalia Jackson shouted: “Tell ‘em about the dream, Martin.”
Aren't "fitting modesty" and "rhetorical flourishes" antithetical? It seems poets who are actually modest would avoid rhetorical flourishes. Poets known for rhetorical flourishes don't strike me as modest: Shakespeare, Milton, Hart Crane, Dylan Thomas, et al.
Do you mean egomaniacal poets should PRETEND to be modest, for sake of appearances? Are you modest yourself? I didn't get that impression from our discussions. Not that it bothers me if you are immodest, but isn't it better to be honest?
I love this poem. It so sad, timeless and totally relatable.
I'm glad you love the poem, but I wish I hadn't had to write it.
Now that's what I call I nice response! How true that is if so much of our work!
Well, Michael, I fear that my comments may be superfluous. Your poem shows a restrained, elegiac calm that honors your theme and the individuals it commemorates.
Thanks Bob, I'm glad you liked my poem, especially because it was my first attempt at free verse and was written in my late teens. The poem was so unexpected, I sometimes wonder if I somehow channeled it.
A beautiful poem, with a very poignant dedication. I too am writing a sequence of sonnets which attempt to pour oil on this very troubled water. What else can we poets do except put empty words to our useless tears?
It’s a beautiful poem indeed. A timeless, and unfortunately timely one.
Yes, it's unfortunate that poets have to write such poems. But I do think such poems can change hearts and minds. Thanks for publishing the poem; as an editor, translator and publisher of Holocaust poetry, it means a lot to me not to be silent in such times.
This is a fabulous poem, and so well written. It's right up there with Michael's best work. But I do think, John, that rather than being 'useless' words can make everything happen. Unlike Auden. ('poetry makes nothing happen') most great poets quietly believe this, otherwise they wouldn't bother writing them in the first place. I'm glad to hear that you are writing a sonnet sequence and actively engaging with such an important issue. I look forward to reading it.
I think the best poets write to heal some hurt in themselves rather than as some form of public display. Shakespeare can be forgiven for his histrionics because after all he was a playwright. But even he never intended his sonnets for public consumption. The first edition was pirated. Blake didn't publish very widely. Emily Dickinson not at all. Hopkins only to his friends.
It takes me about four months to get a poem right, so you'll have to wait. As Charles Reade said: 'Make 'em laugh; make 'em cry; make 'em wait!'
I find it amusing that you pull three poets of a hat, like a magician, and ignore the fact that ALL the "serious" poets we know are trying very hard to get published. Blake published his own books, and invented a new engraving process, so he was trying VERY hard, but didn't have success in his lifetime. Whitman self-published and wrote his own glowing reviews. Dickinson did publish poems, just not very many. Hopkins was gay and might have been excommunicated for some of his poems, or jailed like Oscar Wilde. And he did publish his poem about the shipwreck. But in any case, millions of poets have tried to get their poems published, including you, so it seems poets are more like peacocks than blushing violets.
Actually I haven't really tried to get my poems published. As I work on them they acquire a patina of sanctity I don't want to see defiled. God knows I've seen everything else defiled. And I'm out of sympathy with most of the work I see in the little magazines anyway.
I'm bisexual myself, so that too has been very difficult. Largely because in point of fact I hate homosexuality, and certainly don't believe in it. Nevertheless it has been very much imposed on me. So that in order to write at all I have had to write about something I didn't want to, and nor did anybody else. And, believe it or not, I actually prefer pleasing people.
Also I don't like pushy-shovey self-intoxicated types. I actually prefer shrinking violets. (Which perhaps explains why I have so much of an animus against so many Americans.) Emily Dickinson talked of the 'hateful, hard, successful face' so that suggests she was of the same mind. And Shakespeare's sonnets certainly appeared first in a pirated edition.
The image I've always nurtured in my mind is that of being discovered by other people and being forcibly published against my will. That was what used to happen at school whenever we were asked to write an imaginative composition. Much to my embarrassment. (Though admittedly that wasn't entirely unmixed with a certain amount of gratification.)
You're bisexual but you hate homosexuality? You submitted poems to me for THT but you're not trying to get published? You hate "self-intoxicated types" but that's how you sounded to me in our discussions of possible publication of your poems. You don't strike me as a "shrinking violet." Shakespeare published both plays and lyric poems, with quite a bit of fawning over his patrons. Very little of what you say adds up for me.
'Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)'
I leave it to the great poets to answer for me.
'A violet by a mossy stone Half-hidden from the eye' is Wordsworth's preference. Which Browning too finds 'Far better than this gaudy melon-flower.'
Good poets are full of internal contradictions. That's why they write poems. To help heal the rift. That's perhaps also explains why the oxymoron is such a favourite device with them.
I only submitted those poems once I'd been asked. And quickly withdrew them once I found out you would not be a sympathetic publisher. And it took me a long time to submit anything to David. And again only after he'd asked me.
To expect people to be consistent is the mark of one who knows very little of human nature. Have you never heard of enantiodromic conversion?
And, yes, I do hate homosexuality... What of that? Do you hate nothing about yourself?
'If thy right arm offend thee cut it off, ' as somebody once remarked. We are all works in progress.
Every exclamation mark is a rhetorical flourish! Do you never use exclamation marks?Every question mark is an admission of ignorance and therefore a gesture of humility. Do you never use question marks? I use both as appropriate.
Blake was thought to be a crackpot. As was Yeats. (Indeed by many he still is.) Anybody who doesn't follow the herd is bound to be laughed at. Especially in conformist America. But what great poet ever followed the herd? People who merely follow the herd never have anything valuable to say.
Poetry should tease out the complexities in one's own nature. That's what it's for. Whole armies battle it out in the complex soul of the genuine poet.
Yes, kudos to John for writing the sonnet sequence. I would like to see it as well.
Words have helped change the world:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s poetic "I Have A Dream."
The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was written as a poem and became the anthem of Northern soldiers fighting the forces of slavery.
Abraham Lincoln was a fan of Robert Burns and may have been influenced by the great Scottish poet's views on equality in poems like "For A' That."
William Blake's touching poems about child chimney sweeps helped raise public awareness of the need for child labor laws.
Blake became one of the world's most influential poets through his influence on songwriters like Bob Dylan, John Lennon and many others.
Blake wrote the first poem by a major poet about racial equality, "The Little Black Boy."
These were more than "empty words" applied "useless tears."
And there are many other examples that I could cite.
Yes. I agree. But I think a fitting modesty is always permitted. As well as the occasional rhetorical flourish.
As for Martin Luther King I used to think highly of him until I found out he didn't write his own speeches. That makes me deeply suspicious. I thought only politicians employed speech-writers. And I am not so fond of politicians.
I side with the great Muhammad Ali, who said, "It ain't braggin' if you can back it up."
From what I understand King didn't stick to the script of the prepared speech. King allegedly put aside his prepared remarks and extemporaneously delved into the “dream” stuff after his friend Mahalia Jackson shouted: “Tell ‘em about the dream, Martin.”
So perhaps he was a poet after all.
Thank God for that! A prophet after all.
He's been read and quoted more than most poets, in any case. Ali too.
Well. It's up to us to change that, Michael.
Aren't "fitting modesty" and "rhetorical flourishes" antithetical? It seems poets who are actually modest would avoid rhetorical flourishes. Poets known for rhetorical flourishes don't strike me as modest: Shakespeare, Milton, Hart Crane, Dylan Thomas, et al.
Do you mean egomaniacal poets should PRETEND to be modest, for sake of appearances? Are you modest yourself? I didn't get that impression from our discussions. Not that it bothers me if you are immodest, but isn't it better to be honest?
It is always an honor to be published by the Age of Muses. Comments and suggestions are always welcome.