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If You Could Write One Great Poem, What Would You Want It To Be About?
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When I think of the very few poems I've written and the one that resonated most with me, certainly it was not great, but it was also not at all about a subject I'd have expected to stay with me as it did (my mother's singing only when she's sad), so my only guess is that what we hope our best work to be about (love, mourning, hope, beauty) and what it actually is about may often have little in common. And who knows, after I have a body of work behind me, perhaps my favorite piece will be about a subject I don't even care for: baseball? watching others drink?
I like the Pinsky poem. My Great Poem? I have no idea. I never know where I'm going with my poetry until it comes out of my fingers. I know I'm most satisfied with a poem I have written has good images, a little twist on language, and an ending that makes the reader go back and reevaluate the poem. Doesn't always happen.
I'm pretty sure I'll never write a poem on a huge overarching subject like war. I seem to be attracted to the small and the everyday.
But, Ruth, I'm sure you could write a small poem and have it resonate big issues, like war. I know you've done it.
It's what I wish would happen more often, Sherry. I always start out with the small stuff. If it leads beyond, then I'm a happy camper.
Seriously, someone give me an example of a "great poem." Not everybody likes Homer (I certainly do), or consider it "great."
That said, I think a great poem, regardless the subject (war, love, hate, etc.) must come from the authors heart (great in terms of quality, not quanity).
I'm thinking of Mat. 6:21 "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
But hey, what is a "poem?" Perhaps you are a "poem!" and it's the greatest one you'll ever write. Keep writing.
But in terms of words on paper, how 'bout;
"Roses are redViolets are blue,
I like Specter..."
(the above "unfinished work," two years in the making and "only two lines long," is from a movie; anybody know which one? and in it's context was "truly" a great poem.)
Farewell,
Dash
How about this one?
A Song on the End of the World
On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lighting and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes,
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.
Cats, definitely cats. I am owned by three and the mere flicker of their tail is what poetry, at its best, is about.
It's interesting; much as we crave peace, struggle (even struggle to achieve peace) seems to be at the core of the human spirit. In this best of all possible worlds, we may be content to tend our own garden, but only after a lifetime of vain struggle.
Perhaps for that reason, I think of "Great Poem" topics (as opposed to "Good Poem" topics) as being ones that contain the kernel of some philosophical truth, one that is (or can be) equally appealing to a young person beginning their struggle for the glimpse it gives them of a peace at the end, for a middle aged person fully caught up in the struggle to where they cannot see any good end, for the aging person whose struggle has gently transformed into a kind of contentment, one hopes -- acceptance of their past for all the joy and sadness it contained, the acceptance of their predicament as the black mouse and the white mouse nibble the vine to which they cling, the sweetness of the strawberry yet upon their lips.
There can also be great poems and good ones that focus "just" on the struggle, or "just" on a moment of peace, but to me they seem just a bit incomplete.
With that said, it is easier to give examples of what I think are great poems than to define a specific topic. I agree with Ruth -- not every poem I write comes out "targeted at greatness", but sometimes I make a stab at it. Whether or not the efforts are successful depends on the reader as much as they depend on me.
So, great poems:
Ulysses (by Tennyson)
Arguably one of the greatest poems in the English language. Crossing the Bar gets honorable mention by the same poet.
Sailing to Byzantium (by Yeats)
Along with maybe six or seven other Yeats poems, Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water, When you are Old, Among School Children, Leda and the Swan, The Second Coming, The Wild Swans at Coole, The Lake Isle of Innesfree, probably more. The greatest poet of the English language and all that.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (by Eliot)
And arguable Gerontion and The Wasteland
Ozymandias (Shelley)
Lucifer by Starlight (Meredith)
and so on. As Ruth has observed, I'm stuck in the wrong century, or centuries.
My own efforts at "greatness" would probably be:
Planting Season:
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Poetry/hot_...
The Awakening:
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Poetry/hot_...
Who Shall Sing, when Man is Gone:
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Poetry/who/...
Old Age:
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Poetry/who/...
Prayer for Mankind:
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Poetry/who/...
Enjoy (or not). I doubt that any of them will compare well to Yeats or Eliot, but we do what we can.
rgb
A great poem can deal with small things, and in doing so lead us to think beyond the ostensible scope of the poem into the heart of the world.
I tend to dislike poems that hit straight on, mowing us over with wide and glorious abstractions and "poetic" language. Far better that we be led from the concrete things of our world into participating in the great overarching themes.
Robert, I'll read those poems, later. This is a driveby posting this morning.
It gets down to a matter of taste. By way of giving examples, I have to say that in the realm of "greatness" I can't help but list (off the top of my glass of wine which I am now drinking):
"The Faerie Queene," Edmund Spenser
"The Deserted Village," Oliver Goldsmith
And here's one written by one of those I-Rany-uns that we must very soon bomb or we will not be able to shop at our favorite mall,
"Robaiyat" H.O-Mar Khayam translated by Edward Fitzjerald (You know, "A jug of wine a loaf of bread and thou..." but I have to say it is a depressing poem overall). I have a copy in English, French, and Persian! given to me by an Iranian friend.
And Shakespeare’s "Quality of Mercy" is worth putting to memory.
Lamb's translation of the Latin verse of Vincent Bourne hits on greatness in the following:
Epitaph On A Dog
By Vincent Bourne
"Poor Irus’ faithful wolf-dog here I lie,
That wont to tend my old blind master’s steps,
His guide and guard; nor, while my service lasted,
Had he occasion for that staff, with which
He now goes picking out his path in fear
Over the highways and crossings, but would plant,
Safe in the conduct of my friendly string,
A firm foot forward still, till he had reach’d
His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide
Of passers-by in thickest confluence flow’d:
To whom with loud and passionate laments
From morn to eve his dark estate he wail’d.
Nor wail’d to all in vain: some here and there,
The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave.
I meantime at his feet obsequious slept;
Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear
Prick’d up at his least motion, to receive
At his kind hand my customary crumbs,
And common portion in his feast of scraps;
Or when night warn’d us homeward, tired and spent
With our long day and tedious beggary.
These were my manners, this my way of life,
Till age and slow disease me overtook,
And sever’d from my sightless master’s side.
But lest the grace of so good deeds should die,
Through tract of years in mute oblivion lost,
This slender tomb of turf hath Irus rear’d,
Cheap monument of no ungrudging hand,
And with short verse inscribed it, to attest,
In long and lasting union to attest,
The virtues of the Beggar and his Dog."
"(Dogs,) definitely (dogs.)"
I'll think of other poems I think are great later. I have none of my own I think great - unless "roses are red....."
And no one has answered my question from a previous post regarding what movie I was quoting about "Specter." I'll give you a hint, and the poet was a great one - Norther Winslow.
Farewell,
dash
Pamela,
I'll drink a hearty health to you tonight! You have made my day. Yes, it is "Big Fish." And it was the one and only Steve Buscemi who played the greatest poet ever to come from Ashton, Norther Winslow.
Thanks again Pamela.
Farewell,
Dash
There's a poem written that's an elegy to a cat who drowned in a goldfish pond. I think it was one of the English Victorian age poets. But I can't remember the name of the poem or author.
Another poem that comes to mind as being “great” in terms of subject and otherwise is Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” Milton’s invocation to the “heavenly Muse,” alone, is worth the money;
“Sing, heavenly Muse,…I thence invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar…
…That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence.
And justify the ways of God to men.”
As to Goldsmith’s “Deserted Village,” which was published May 26, 1770, Irving says,
“…its sale was instantaneous and immense. The first edition was immediately exhausted; in a few days a second was issued; in a few days more a third and by the 16th of August the fifth edition was hurried through the press.”
This poem was so popular in its day that people would make literary pilgrimages to Lissoy (the Auburn of “DV”) and take away bits and pieces of the famed hawthorn-bush.
“The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made!
How often have I blest the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labour free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree…”
The poem has spectacular imagery and metaphor too numerous to mention here. Two of my favorites are:
The first is “to husband out life’s taper,” and the “hound and hare.”
“In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my griefs – and God has given my share –
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
To husband out life’s taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting by repose;
I still had hopes – for pride attends us still –
Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill,
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
And, and as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,
Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return, - and die at home at last.”
Dang it, you can never go home!
The other favorite imagery is the Village Preacher, his way of life and the metaphor of “some tall cliff that lifts its awful form.”
“A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e’er had changed, nor wished to change, his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train;
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sate by his fire, and talked the night away;
Wept o’er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe:
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And even his failings leaned to virtue’s side;
But in his duty prompt at ever call,
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all;
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.
Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed,
The reverend champion stood. At his control,
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last faltering accents whispered praise.
At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran;
Even children followed, with endearing wile,
And plucked his gown, to share the good man’s smile.
His ready smile a parent’s warmth expressed,
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."
If I were a “preacher,” I would want to be like Goldsmith’s Village Preacher.
Farewell,
Dash
