Poetry

[Reggia]

Poets and poetry...

[[deleted user]]

Well, my favorite poet is Edgar Allan Poe so I am also on a list for him. A stamp just came out for him and its a good one.
I also like Robert Frost which I guess everyone does.

[Reggia]

I've enjoyed the few Robert Frost poems I've read, I think all in collections such as textbooks.

[Rhonda]

For some reason or other, I suppose my laconic mood, I began thinking of Gerard Manley Hopkins this morning. I was introduced to him by a very close Jewish friend who was in graduate school in literature when I studied philosophy. I thought it odd that she was reading a Jesuit poet, but she found his poetry revealing. She often told me I didn't deserve Hopkins because I was not willing to put forth the effort to understand him and perhaps, at the time, she was right. I am in awe of how he used words in primitive ways, for not only their meaning, but also their sound.

Patience, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray,
But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks
Wants war, wants wounds; weary his time, his tasks;
To do without, take tosses, and obey.
GMH #68

[[deleted user]]

Very interesting but very hard to understand for me Rhonda. Long ago someone once told me never to pray for patience.

The book I am reading now Following the Sun has many poems about the sun I have never read before. One is:

O Day-spring, Brightness of the Light eternal, and Sun of Justice, come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.
Roman Catholic: The Great Antiphon
(traditionally sung on the day of the winter solstice)

Also:

E pur si muove
(Nevertheless it moves)
Galileo (sotto voce after recanting his heliocentric theory at his inquisition)

[[deleted user]]

Also this one is very interesting as he points out that most pilgrimages start out under the astrological sign of the Ram (first sign in spring) Is this true?

(Whan) the younge soone hath y in the Ram his haf course yronne,
- Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.
Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales

[[deleted user]]

just got this one on the neverending quiz:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
2 It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
3 It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
4 Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
5 Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
6 And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
7 And wears man's smudge & shares man's smell: the soil
8 Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.


9And for all this, nature is never spent;
10 There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
11And though the last lights off the black West went
12 Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
13 Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
14 World broods with warm breast & with ah! bright wings.

[Rhonda]

Alice wrote: "Also this one is very interesting as he points out that most pilgrimages start out under the astrological sign of the Ram (first sign in spring) Is this true?"
I suspect strongly that this time, into May as it is "Aries half run" had more to do with the first time of the year in which people could travel without getting stuck in the mud. I also suggest that it had something to do with post May Day repentances. May Day, although essentially a pagan festival, was quite a celebration in medieval England and fully embraced by the church. The Queen of the May was something akin to being crowned Miss America.

[[deleted user]]

Rhonda wrote: "Alice wrote: "Also this one is very interesting as he points out that most pilgrimages start out under the astrological sign of the Ram (first sign in spring) Is this true?"
I suspect strongly tha..."

Yes, I always wanted to dance around a May pole but never got to! My little sister did long ago. This was celebrated in Mississippi where my mother grew up. Some old pagan festivals are quite fun! No wonder people didn't want to give them up.

That is a good point about spring being a much easier time to travel.

[[deleted user]]

I believe the first day of May is Beltane?

[Nicole]

I believe you're right about Beltane.

I like some of Gerard Manly Hopkins' poetry, too. I think of "The world is charged with the grandeur of God." every time I see a shaft of sunlight breaking through clouds in a spectacular way. I couldn't always understand what Hopkins was saying, but I often liked the way he put words together.

[[deleted user]]

I sure like that line from his poetry. Once I saw a rainbow and was under the delusion that God sent it just for me. There in NM I once saw a double rainbow. But the thing that really fascinated me was the verga. Did I spell that right? I have done about 8 paintings of verga. They are easy with watercolor but I have done them in acrylic too.

NM is such a magical place.