David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 153
September 1, 2018
A perfect poem for today – In Memoriam Sen. John McCain
High Flight
John Gillespie Magee, Jr
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, –and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of –Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
August 31, 2018
Poetry Quarterly has accepted my poem “In a New Land” for publication later this year
Poetry Quarterly has accepted my poem “In a New Land” for publication later this year
August 24, 2018
An excellent reading of Eliot’s Four Quartets
Dove Descending: A Journey Into T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets by Thomas Howard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Thomas Howard apologizes regularly for the prosaism and reductiveness of his line-by-line reading of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. And he is correct that the poetry is much better and much more than his analysis. Yet great poets need great readers, as Whitman maintained. And it is wonderful as one reader to be in the room listening to another, deeply appreciate and erudite reader as he lives with one of the great poems of the last 100 years.
Howard clearly is of a mind with Eliot in terms of the religious assumptions and faith consistent with Anglo-Catholicism. That does not mean a reader of another faith, or no faith, cannot find power, meaning, and even solace in the poem or in Howard’s exegesis of it.
I recommend Dove Descending, not as any sort of substitute for reading and rereading the Quartets themselves, but as a great resource in helping inform and reveal the poetry.
August 23, 2018
Three of my poems are now live online at the Mystic Blue Review
Three of my poems are now spotlighted online at the Mystic Blue Review:
“A Murder” after Rimbaud’s “Les corbeaux“
They are also included in Issue #5 available HERE.
Note: The stanza breaks are not showing correctly in these poems. “Morlocks” and “A Murder” have 6 line stanzas, while Eland” has 5 line ones.
Thank you Editor, Alexa Findlay, for spotlighting these poems.
August 22, 2018
Facing the End of All Beginnings
Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I have read and reread Eliot’s Four Quartets during 6 of my nearly 7 decades thus far, and still find them the best poetry he wrote and among the best of the 20th Century. It does not matter that I am not an Anglo-Catholic or even a Christian. I still find a solace here. His overt faith in Redemption doesn’t preclude him from facing the dark living to die we all face. He is merciless in his mercy. The words are dense and beautiful. The imagery powerful. There is a Buddhist quality to his Christianity, though for him the End is Eternal Life. I will reread again as I near the end of all my beginnings.
View all my reviews
August 18, 2018
Issue 5 of The Mystic Blue Review is now available online, including 3 of my poems.
Issue 5 of The Mystic Blue Review is now available online, including 3 of my poems. Thank you Editor-in-Chief Alexa Findlay.
August 17, 2018
August 16, 2018
Farewell, Poet of Soul: Aretha Franklin, music’s ‘Queen of Soul,’ dies at 76 – The Washington Post
She was one of the most celebrated and influential singers in the history of American vernacular song, a defining interpreter through song of black pride and women’s liberation.
— Read on www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/aretha-franklin-musics-queen-of-soul-dies-at-76/2018/08/16/c35de4b8-9e9f-11e8-83d2-70203b8d7b44_story.html
August 15, 2018
The Mystic Blue Review will publish 3 of my poems in their 5th Issue.
The Mystic Blue Review will publish 3 of my poems in their 5th Issue.
August 11, 2018
My poem “Brittle Adoration” is available for reading online at The Flexible Persona.
My poem “Brittle Adoration” is available for reading online at The Flexible Persona.
This is from an unpublished collection of poems inspired by Rimbaud.
