A Poetry Meme from Dylan
The Answers to some questions:
1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was ..... either "A Skeleton in Armor" or "The Wreck of the Hesperus"
2. I was forced to memorize "The Village Blacksmith" in school and I loved it and made fun of it ("And the muscles of his brawny arms were as strong as rubber bands.)
3. I read/don't read poetry because I like it; I tend to shy away from much modern poetry because the things I like best--rhythm and rhyme are often absent, but I also tend to shy away from poems in which these elements are too facile, too slick.
4. A poem I'm likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is there are several: "Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" ( T S Eliot), Holy Sonnet XVI (John Donne), "To His Coy Mistress" (Andrew Marvell), "The Hunting of the Snark" (Lewis Carroll), and "The Owl and the Pussycat" and "The Jumblies" Edward Lear. And I don't suppose we should forget that all time favorite from which the title of this blog derives its name "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam." (Oh, and there are really too many more from Sappho and Catallus to Kay Ryan--good and indifferent. I think fondly of "The Goblin Market" and of Chidiock Tichborne, of Geoffrey Chaucer and the Stanzaic and Alliterative Morte D'Arthur, of Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Villon, Prevert, and Apollinaire. When asked for a favorite, dozens, perhaps hundreds flit through my head "Caliban upon Setebos" (Robert Browning), Shakespeare, Michael Drayton and Robert Southwell; Robert Herrick and Henry Vaughn; Dana Gioia and Rita Dove. And probably one of the great neglected poets of our era Edward Arlington Robinson, and Sterling Lanier; Coventry Patmore and Gerard Manley Hopkins--wow, I haven't really helped anyone who wanted to know a favorite, have I? Perhaps Abou Ben Adhem, and despite its overweening hubris Invictus (when has not each of us felt in some measure the same?))
5. I write/don't write poetry, but . . . hmmmm, I haven't anything to say to this.
6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature ..... it doesn't--there's every bit the satisfaction or the intense desire to fling the book across the room--however, I suppose I'm less likely to cut a poet any slack whatsoever. I can tolerate miscalculations in prose--but in poetry. So for example, I'm in complete concord with Seamus Heaney in his remarks of the poetry of James Joyce. (In short: he oughtn't to have done it.)
7. I find poetry ..... everywhere--cereal boxes, newspapers, the dullest droning critic--it's all around and hidden inside the most unlikely packages.
8. The last time I heard poetry ..... yesterday reading psalm 139 in the magnificent KJV AND psalter of the c. 1652 BCP. I was reading to a friend in the hospital who requested it.
9. I think poetry is like ..... poetry, or air, or water, or nothing else, or everything else
I invite your participation, either in the comments or on your own blogs--if on your own, I'd really appreciate it if you would drop me a comment so that I could stop by and read your responses. Thank you!
1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was ..... either "A Skeleton in Armor" or "The Wreck of the Hesperus"
2. I was forced to memorize "The Village Blacksmith" in school and I loved it and made fun of it ("And the muscles of his brawny arms were as strong as rubber bands.)
3. I read/don't read poetry because I like it; I tend to shy away from much modern poetry because the things I like best--rhythm and rhyme are often absent, but I also tend to shy away from poems in which these elements are too facile, too slick.
4. A poem I'm likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is there are several: "Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" ( T S Eliot), Holy Sonnet XVI (John Donne), "To His Coy Mistress" (Andrew Marvell), "The Hunting of the Snark" (Lewis Carroll), and "The Owl and the Pussycat" and "The Jumblies" Edward Lear. And I don't suppose we should forget that all time favorite from which the title of this blog derives its name "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam." (Oh, and there are really too many more from Sappho and Catallus to Kay Ryan--good and indifferent. I think fondly of "The Goblin Market" and of Chidiock Tichborne, of Geoffrey Chaucer and the Stanzaic and Alliterative Morte D'Arthur, of Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Villon, Prevert, and Apollinaire. When asked for a favorite, dozens, perhaps hundreds flit through my head "Caliban upon Setebos" (Robert Browning), Shakespeare, Michael Drayton and Robert Southwell; Robert Herrick and Henry Vaughn; Dana Gioia and Rita Dove. And probably one of the great neglected poets of our era Edward Arlington Robinson, and Sterling Lanier; Coventry Patmore and Gerard Manley Hopkins--wow, I haven't really helped anyone who wanted to know a favorite, have I? Perhaps Abou Ben Adhem, and despite its overweening hubris Invictus (when has not each of us felt in some measure the same?))
5. I write
6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature ..... it doesn't--there's every bit the satisfaction or the intense desire to fling the book across the room--however, I suppose I'm less likely to cut a poet any slack whatsoever. I can tolerate miscalculations in prose--but in poetry. So for example, I'm in complete concord with Seamus Heaney in his remarks of the poetry of James Joyce. (In short: he oughtn't to have done it.)
7. I find poetry ..... everywhere--cereal boxes, newspapers, the dullest droning critic--it's all around and hidden inside the most unlikely packages.
8. The last time I heard poetry ..... yesterday reading psalm 139 in the magnificent KJV AND psalter of the c. 1652 BCP. I was reading to a friend in the hospital who requested it.
9. I think poetry is like ..... poetry, or air, or water, or nothing else, or everything else
I invite your participation, either in the comments or on your own blogs--if on your own, I'd really appreciate it if you would drop me a comment so that I could stop by and read your responses. Thank you!
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