I'm not sure if this means anything, but coincidence is always intriguing, and I almost posted this, and now since Frank's given me another opening… Anyway, I'll do it here, to avoid trolling for trolls…
So my mother (who, unlike me, actually reads contemporary poetry) sent me (hardcopy, via USPS) a poem she thought I'd like, about birds and love and such. It was by Anthony Hecht. I couldn't really place him, though the name was vaguely familiar, but immediately thereafter I was following a search from my referrer log which led to a page of "literary symbiosis": parodies, symbionts, retellings, etc. There I found a poem I'd long recalled, though I'd read it many years ago and had forgotten the poet. Of course, it was by Hecht. The poem is The Dover Bitch, which gives a third party version of Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach, with an appreciation of the girl's point of view. This had nothing to do with the search, which was for Sumer is Icumen in, but in view of the current weather you should check out Ezra Pound's wicked winterizing of that old lyric, appearing on the same page. If you know what this all adds up to, you can tell me.
There may be an ironic self-contradiction in the tender exhortation, "Ah, love, let us be true/ To one another ! " If the world has no love or certitude, then there is no way for even love to be true. I don't really get the Hecht parody since I don't think there is a girl at all in this sombre love poem. Dover Beach may even qualify as "modernist" in the way it places an isolated neurotic on the edge of a highly charged symbolic landscape. Skiddeth bus & sloppeth us, now that's some bloody real bodily poetry. oceanoceanoceanoceancanoeoceanoceanocean.
Yeah, Arnold was about as existential as a Victorian could be, but he was certainly aware (if only in absence) of what McKenna called “the widely felt intuition of the presence of the Other as a female companion to the human navigation of history”. What was available to the Romantics had disappeared again, within a couple of generations. Perhaps Marguerite, and the girl on the beach, are the same as the girl in the grave?
(And here’s the poem my Mom sent, along with helpful marginal notes, like “this is the anti-war part I like”, “poet seems to have trouble with feminists”, and “a late marriage wtih perfection.” My Mother (if no one else) still has hope for me.)
I still have hope for you. I hope we get a better look at the Clark's Nutcracker next time. Laura Riding has no truck with sexist women either. Ottava rima, I presume?
But words are things, and a small drop of ink
Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think;
'Tis strange, the shortest letter which man uses
Instead of speech, may form a lasting link
Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces
Frail man, when paper -- even a rag like this,
Survives himself, his tomb, and all that's his!
from Byron's Don Juan, circa1819
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001; Ren just asked to see what the number google & one looks like. & shichyeah it all adds up; you do the math.
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So my mother (who, unlike me, actually reads contemporary poetry) sent me (hardcopy, via USPS) a poem she thought I'd like, about birds and love and such. It was by Anthony Hecht. I couldn't really place him, though the name was vaguely familiar, but immediately thereafter I was following a search from my referrer log which led to a page of "literary symbiosis": parodies, symbionts, retellings, etc. There I found a poem I'd long recalled, though I'd read it many years ago and had forgotten the poet. Of course, it was by Hecht. The poem is The Dover Bitch, which gives a third party version of Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach, with an appreciation of the girl's point of view. This had nothing to do with the search, which was for Sumer is Icumen in, but in view of the current weather you should check out Ezra Pound's wicked winterizing of that old lyric, appearing on the same page. If you know what this all adds up to, you can tell me.
- alex 2-19-2003 10:44 pm
There may be an ironic self-contradiction in the tender exhortation, "Ah, love, let us be true/ To one another ! " If the world has no love or certitude, then there is no way for even love to be true. I don't really get the Hecht parody since I don't think there is a girl at all in this sombre love poem. Dover Beach may even qualify as "modernist" in the way it places an isolated neurotic on the edge of a highly charged symbolic landscape. Skiddeth bus & sloppeth us, now that's some bloody real bodily poetry. oceanoceanoceanoceancanoeoceanoceanocean.
- frank 2-21-2003 9:07 pm [add a comment]
Yeah, Arnold was about as existential as a Victorian could be, but he was certainly aware (if only in absence) of what McKenna called “the widely felt intuition of the presence of the Other as a female companion to the human navigation of history”. What was available to the Romantics had disappeared again, within a couple of generations. Perhaps Marguerite, and the girl on the beach, are the same as the girl in the grave?
(And here’s the poem my Mom sent, along with helpful marginal notes, like “this is the anti-war part I like”, “poet seems to have trouble with feminists”, and “a late marriage wtih perfection.” My Mother (if no one else) still has hope for me.)
- alex 2-28-2003 6:32 am [add a comment]
I still have hope for you. I hope we get a better look at the Clark's Nutcracker next time. Laura Riding has no truck with sexist women either. Ottava rima, I presume?
But words are things, and a small drop of ink
Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think;
'Tis strange, the shortest letter which man uses
Instead of speech, may form a lasting link
Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces
Frail man, when paper -- even a rag like this,
Survives himself, his tomb, and all that's his!
from Byron's Don Juan, circa1819
- frank 2-28-2003 8:03 am [add a comment]
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001; Ren just asked to see what the number google & one looks like. & shichyeah it all adds up; you do the math.
- frank 2-22-2003 10:28 pm [add a comment]