Whitman isn’t in
He will not be in
This year or the next
He’s gone out
Far out where the two
Americas meet like kissing whales
~~~~~
Reading classical works aloud in Sarasota, and talking about them.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Two Links for Whitman
A Politically Incorrect Ode to Whitman
Whitman isn’t in
He will not be in
This year or the next
He’s gone out
Far out where the two
Americas meet like kissing whales
One’s-Self I Sing As I Ponder’d in Silence In Cabin’d Ships at Sea To Foreign Lands To a Historian For Him I Sing When I read the Book Beginning my Studies To Thee, Old Cause!
More....
And even more.... - including the Preface to Leaves of Grass - one snip:
The greatest poet hardly knows pettiness or triviality. If he breathes into anything that was before thought small it dilates with the grandeur and life of the universe. He is a seer … he is individual … he is complete in himself … the others are as good as he, only he sees it and they do not. He is not one of the chorus … he does not stop for any regulation … he is the president of regulation.
(Unfortunately, the Bartleby site is marred by the infernal presence of an audio ad for Wal-Mart gift cards)
Whitman isn’t in
He will not be in
This year or the next
He’s gone out
Far out where the two
Americas meet like kissing whales
Sunday, July 19, 2009
The old, old sophistries of June
Some further links to Dickinson:
Her grave
Lots of interesting links here
Her herbarium
From a review of 1913:
To gratify the aesthetic sense was never Emily Dickinson's desire; she despised the poppy and mandragora of felicitous phrases which lull the spirit to apathy and emphasize art for art's sake. Poetry to her was the expression of vital meanings, the transfer of passionate feeling and of deep conviction.
130
These are the days when Birds come back —
A very few — a Bird or two —
To take a backward look.
These are the days when skies resume
The old — old sophistries of June —
A blue and gold mistake.
Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee —
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.
Till ranks of seeds their witness bear —
And softly thro' the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.
Oh Sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze —
Permit a child to join.
Thy sacred emblems to partake —
They consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Intoxication: Two Poets
I taste a liquor never brewed —
From Tankards scooped in Pearl —
Not all the Vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an Alcohol!
Inebriate of Air — am I —
And Debauchee of Dew —
Reeling — thro endless summer days —
From inns of Molten Blue —
When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove's door —
When Butterflies — renounce their "drams" —
I shall but drink the more!
Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats —
And Saints — to windows run —
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the — Sun —
From Tankards scooped in Pearl —
Not all the Vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an Alcohol!
Inebriate of Air — am I —
And Debauchee of Dew —
Reeling — thro endless summer days —
From inns of Molten Blue —
When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove's door —
When Butterflies — renounce their "drams" —
I shall but drink the more!
Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats —
And Saints — to windows run —
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the — Sun —
Enivrez-Vous
Charles Baudelaire
Enivrez-VousIl faut être toujours ivre.Tout est là: c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve. Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie, ou de vertu, à votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous. Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous réveillez, l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l'étoile, à l'oiseau, à l'horloge, à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est; et le vent, la vague, l'étoile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vous répondront: "Il est l'heure de s'enivrer! Pour n'être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps, enivrez-vous; enivrez-vous sans cesse! De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise." | Get DrunkAlways be drunk.That's it! The great imperative! In order not to feel Time's horrid fardel bruise your shoulders, grinding you into the earth, get drunk and stay that way. On what? On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever. But get drunk. And if you sometimes happen to wake up on the porches of a palace, in the green grass of a ditch, in the dismal loneliness of your own room, your drunkenness gone or disappearing, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, ask everything that flees, everything that groans or rolls or sings, everything that speaks, ask what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will answer you: "Time to get drunk! Don't be martyred slaves of Time, Get drunk! Stay drunk! On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!" |
A few resources for Emily
Dickinson Poetry Lexicon:
Concordance (kind of unwieldy but better than nothing)
http://victorian.lang.nagoya-
Dickinson’s work online
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Regarding the organizing of ED's work, it seems she herself had bundled them into little booklets, stitched by hand, which were called fascicles:
Although the poems of Emily Dickinson remained virtually unpublished during her lifetime, she did engage in a private kind of self-publication from about 1858 to 1864. During those years, she made copies of more than eight hundred of her poems, gathered them into forty groups, and bound each of these gatherings together with string to form booklets. While she sometimes sent a friend a copy of one of the poems from the booklets, there is no evidence that she showed them in their bound form to anyone. more...
An index to the fascicles.
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