Archives

NPM: Poetry Matters

Apr10

Can poetry matter? The problem with most poetry these days is low ambitions. Oh, I know, Shelley once explained that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, but what many of them want is to be the world’s acknowledged legislators. And so a huge amount of political verse is poured out these days to try to change the world. But it still has low ambitions, as poetry, never seeking to use poetry as the fundamental art by which we try to understand the human condition in general and our own times in particular.”
Joseph Bottum, First Things

Can you name any poem that has influenced you or that you believe has changed the way we “understand the human condition”?

I do think the ideas of T.S. Eliot have entered the collective consciousness. We think in terms of hollow men and Prufrock as typifying the plight of modern man. We see the landscape and our lives as a “vast wasteland” and man as lost and wandering among the ash heaps. Other than Eliot, I can’t think of a poet who has really been an “unacknowledged legislator” in the past hundred years. Can you?

Michael Gough reading T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J.. Alfred Prufrock:

Poet of the Day: T. S. Eliot
Poetry activity for today: Listen to a poet read his own poem. For links to poetry read aloud, try this list called Poetry Aloud, A Directory of Poetry Readings on the Internet.

Blood Brothers by S.A. Harazin

Apr9

Clay Gardner and Joey Chancey are best friends, even they’re as different as the proverbial night and day. Clay is poor. Joey is rich, or at least upper middle class. Clay works at the hospital to earn a little money to keep heart and soul together; Joey has no job but a very active social life. Clay’s family consists of a dead mother, a distant and cold father, and a sister who’s busy builiding her own life in another state. Joey has a close and loving family. Clay wants to become a doctor, but doesn’t have the money to even enter college in the fall. Joey, the class valedictorian and football hero, is planning to go to Duke in the fall.

When Clay gets off work and finds Joey in their clubhouse, naked and wielding a weapon with intent to do bodily harm to Clay or anybody else who gets close, he can hardly believe it’s happening. But it does happen, and Clay must find out what’s wrong with Joey, how he changed from a competent, ambitious, friendly high school graduate to a psychotic mess on the critical list at the hospital. And everyone thinks it’s Clay’s fault somehow. It all makes for a great mystery with a message that’s never preachy or heavy-handed.

Surprisingly, author S.A. Harazin is a woman. I found this fact surprising because Blood Brothers is such a very male book. The narrator and protagonist, Clay, is a guy. His thoughts are guy thoughts. I don’t know how Ms. Harazin made me feel as if I’d climbed inside a male brain when I read this book, but she did. And that’s some accomplishment for a “chick”.

Also, Ms. Harazin’s background and experience in nursing shows. Having spent a lot of time in emergency rooms myself lately (with my parents), I recognize some of the atmosphere that pervades Clay’s workplace. And I figure the author gets the details and the ambience right since some of it feels so familiar.

Some violence and crude language, but not too overpowering. Good for young adult girls. Great for young adult guys.

Angel by Cliff McNish

Apr8

One of the main characters in Cliff McNish’s YA novel, Angel is Stephanie Rice, the socially backward homeschooled daughter of strict parents who have not until recently allowed her to have friends or significantly interact with the outside world. Stephanie wears the wrong clothes to her new school, talks about the wrong subjects, and tries way too hard to make friends. If it sounds like a bad stereotype, it is, but Stephanie does have one thing that distinguishes her from all those other formerly homeschooled social disasters out there: she’s obsessed with angels.

Freya, the other main character in the book, is also an angel-addict, but she’s faced her mentally ill fascination with becoming an angel, overcome it, been healed and been released from the mental hospital. So Freya doesn’t believe in angels anymore. However, she keeps on seeing them, especially one dark angel who scares the heck out of her.

McNish’s angels are certainly not Biblical angels. The angels in this books are more like alien beings from another part of the universe, who, having compassion on poor humans on Earth, try to do what they can to alleviate human suffering. Unfortunately, these angels are limited beings, also limited in number, and with no access to a Living God. According to the book, some angels believe in God and others don’t, just like humans in that respect. So, the angels in Angel aren’t really angels at all, not messengers of God, not beings created by a loving God to praise and worship Him, not “holy ones” set apart to the service of God. Author Cliff McNish just uses the word “angel” and then makes up his own fantastical beings who have very little in common with the angels in the Bible. I wish he had called them almost anything else, maybe gods, although they’re beautiful but essentially impotent gods.

Another problem I had with the novel: the human characters behave rather oddly, even the ones who are supposed to be sane. A father leaves his daughter alone in the house for two days just as he is considering committing her to a mental institution because he believes she’s relapsed into mental illness. Huh?
A mom locks her erratically behaving daughter in a bedroom and then leaves to pick up her husband, the girl’s dad, from work, leaving the girl locked up with the makings of a bonfire in the room. Huh?
A teacher allows a discussion in which most of the class is ganging up on and tormenting a new student in her classroom to go on for a very long time. Why?
Such anomalies abound.

Then, there are sentences like this one: “Freya was just using that as an excuse to keep him with her and talk to her.” (p. 310)

And this one: “An unaccountable need to defend herself was racing through her blood.” Adrenaline?

I found Angel absorbing in some ways, but unsatisfying in the end. I kept hoping that some of the characterization issues would be resolved, that the peculiarities of the the characters’ behaviors would turn out to have rational explanations. But they didn’t. Only New Age, irrational explanations that were ultimately unconvincing.

Not my cup of tea, but thanks to Lerner for sending me a review copy.

NPM: Poetry from the Desk Drawer

Apr8

Back in January, Becky at Farm School posted on Poetry Friday about a special poetry anthology, compiled by Alice Roosevelt Longworth and her brother Theodore (”Ted Jr.”) Roosevelt (1887-1944) and published in 1937. She made it sound so special that I had to see if I could find a copy at the library. My library system actually didn’t have The Desk Drawer Anthology, but they ordered it for me from afar (North Harris County College Learning Resource Center).

These are mostly the kinds of poems that one member of my family in particular despises: some sentimental stories and proverbial sentiments, classic poets such as Dickinson, Holmes, Longfellow, and Whitman. The emphasis is on American poems and poets. A radio host back in 1937 announced the anthology on his program and invited people to send in their favorites; they sent in so many favorites that Mr. Roosevelt and his sister had to cull it from 40,000 entries down to a few hundred published poems. Here are a couple that I particularly liked:

City Rain by Lola Mallatt

Behind this mist of whispering soft lace,
This silver silk, so silently let fall,
I think the city wears a dreaming face,
And wishes not to stir or wake at all.

There is no earth tonight–no heavens–nothing
But thin blown rain, and rows of lamps, gold-furred,
And quiet people going up and down
In shining coats, with faces sweetly blurred.

Men by Dorothy E. Reid

I like men.
They stride about,
They reach in their pockets
And pull things out;

They look important,
They rock on their toes,
They lose all their buttons
Off of their clothes;

They throw away pipes,
They find them again.
Men are queer creatures;
I like men.

Poet of the day: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (Go here for a Celebration of Longfellow.)
Poetry activity for today: Find a poem that someone in your family clipped from a magazine or a newspaper and kept. D your grandparents have a favorite poem? Do you have a favorite poem in your wallet or purse or taped to your wall or mirror? If not, you should.

NPM: Poetry or Novels

Apr7

We should be more surprised by the dominance of the novel in modern literature than we are. Even if we can say that something like novels existed in the ancient world or in the east, the dominant forms of literature were poetic rather than prose. The shift from epic poetry to the novel is one of the key marks of the shift from ancient and medieval to modern literature. Shakespeare, though not writing epic, is still writing poetry, as are many of the major English writers until the 18th century. It seems to me that it reveals something quite profound about the character of the modern age. What it reveals is pretty hard to determine, but it is remarkable to realize that the novel as we know it began to rise in the seventeenth century, and has since drive every other genre from the field. Nothing today rivals the novel in its popularity or number of publications or visibility. No poet today has anything close to the popularity of a John Grisham, nor even of a more serious novelist like John Updike. There is a lot of poetry written today, perhaps more than ever before, but it does not have the same cultural position that poetry had in the past.”
–Peter Leithart, Bunyan Defoe and the Novel

Poetry or novels? Why?

And doesn’t Leithart discount the influence of popular lyrical poetry that forms the basis for most pop music? Sufjan Stevens may not write classic poetry and may not be your cup of tea, but his lyrics are popular poetry, and he has just as many fans as, if not more than, John Updike.

Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois by Sufjan Stevens

When the revenant came down
We couldn’t imagine what it was
In the spirit of three stars
The alien thing that took its form
Then to Lebanon
Oh, God
The flashing at night, the sirens grow and grow
Oh, history involved itself
Mysterious shade that took its form
Or what it was, incarnation
Three stars
Delivering signs and dusting from their eyes.

I’m not totally sure what it means, but if that ain’t popular poetry . . .

Poet of the day:
Poetry activity for today: Play Exquisite Corpse. The resulting poem might make a great rock ballad if you add in a few repeats and a bridge between verses.

Gloom, Despair, and Agony On Me

Apr7

Christianity for Modern Pagans, Wretchedness, Ch. 3

“Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep dark depression, excessive misery;
If it weren’t for bad luck,
I’d have no luck at all:
Gloom, despair and agony on me.” —Song lyrics from the TV comedy Hee-Haw.

Buddha’s First Noble Truth: “To live is to suffer; life is suffering.” The word “suffering” (dukkha) in this saying actually means “out-of joint-ness”, according to the book. It reminds me of Hamlet’s “The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,/ That ever I was born to set it right!” Can it be set right by human effort, or are we humans doomed to perpetual out-of-joint-ness?

Pascal: “We desire truth and find in ourselves nothing but uncertainty. We seek happiness and find only wretchedness and death.”

And again, Pascal: “Man is vile enough to bow down to beasts and even worship them.”

I watched a video tribute the other day when I was looking for resources for our twentieth century history class. It was a tribute to Bonnie and Clyde, thieves and murderers. We are certainly vile enough, or perverse enough, to admire the most deplorable people and events.

Pascal, once more: “The alternative to theism is not atheism but idolatry.”

My brother in law quotes someone (maybe Chesterton?) to the effect that if a man doesn’t believe in God he’ll fall for anything. Everyone worships someone or something. Man is a worshipping animal.

So, the Christian apologist or counselor must first discover (uncover) what is is that the so-called atheist actually worships. To whom or what does he ascribe worth? His relationships? Wife? Family? His own towering intellect? Nature? Pleasure? If it could be demonstrated that all of these are empty and meaningless in and of themselves, then what? Or if all of these are taken away from a man, what then?

Then, wretchedness, uncertainty, and despair.

Also in this series of posts on Peter Kreeft’s Christianity for Modern Pagans:

I’m Back. (arguing against neutrality/agnosticism)
Sinners Need Silence, and Ultimately, a Saviour

NPM: Reading Poetry

Apr5

I am persuaded that many excellent persons, if they were confronted with the alternatives of reading “Paradise Lost” and going round Trafalgar Square at noonday on their knees in sack-cloth, would choose the ordeal of public ridicule. Still, I will never cease advising my friends and enemies to read poetry before anything.”
Arnold Bennett, How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day (1908)

So, the question is: have you read “Paradise Lost”? If not, what would it take to get you to read this epic poem?

True confession: I’ve only read excerpts of Milton’s famous poetic opus.

“What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.”
Lines 22-26 of Book 1 of Paradise Lost

Poet of the Day: John Milton
Poetry activity for today: Read Paradise Lost? Read part of Paradise Lost. Read out loud.
Alternatively, you could crawl on your knees in sackcloth through the nearest public space. The mall, perhaps?

Winter Haven by Athol Dickson

Apr4

I’m sorry to say that I didn’t think this book, the third novel I’ve read and enjoyed by Mr. Dickson, was as good as either River Rising (Semicolon review here) or The Cure (Semicolon review here). Of course, I put River Rising on my list of the Best Novels of All Time, and I’ve raved about it over and over. So, the pressure to live up to its predecessors was intense. The dialogue in this latest novel felt forced and stilted, and the plot reminded me of a Gothic romance: a dashing older man with a dilapidated mansion and secrets to keep, dark and eerie events and characters, hints of violence and horror in the past, the question of whether Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome can be trusted. Add in an insecure and frightened heroine and a madwoman, and it’s all been done before, better, in Jane Eyre or Rebecca. Your mileage may vary, but if you haven’t read River Rising, by all means, drop everything and hie thee to the nearest bookstore or library and grab a copy.

Still, I did like the setting of Winter Haven on an isolated island off the coast of Maine. What are the advantages of setting a novel (or play) on an island, particularly an island with limited or no access to the outside world. It’s like LOST. (Winter Haven has time issues and a polar bear, too—like LOST. No, I am not obsessed with LOST.)

In an island setting, you, the author, can limit your cast of characters, and you can make The Island a metaphor for the Earth itself or for a community. Or you can further isolate your protagonist by making him a castaway on a deserted island as in Robinson Crusoe or the Tom Hanks movie Castaway. What does solitude and the lack of relationship and human companionship do to a man, or a woman? How does he survive alone? Or you can have a group of castaways forced to associate and build a new society, for better or for worse: The Swiss Famiy Robinson (utopian) or Lord of the Flies (very dystopian).

Let’s build a list of island stories:

Books:

The Odyssey by Homer. (Odysseus travels from one island to another and gets trapped on Calypso’s island home.)
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss.
The Tempest by William Shakespeare.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
Hawaii by James Michener.
Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie.
A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie.
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhyss.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. (island-hopping)
The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells.
Mysterious Island by Jules Verne.
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell.
The Cay by Theodore Taylor.
Island by Aldous Huxley.
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Pitcairn’s Island by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. ( A sequel to Mutiny on the Bounty)

Film
Gilligan’s Island (TV series from my misspent youth)
Fantasy Island (ditto)
Key Largo
South Pacific
Cast Away
LOST (TV series from my misspent middle age)

Romesh Geneskera’s Top Ten Island Books

Anyone have additional suggestions in the category of Good Stories with Island Settings?

NPM: Write a Poem, or Thirty

Apr3

The English Room presents 30 Days of Poetry, a series of lessons on writing poetry for students in the middle grades. Students learn to write all sorts of poetry from cinquains to sestinas to concrete poems.

This poem by George Herbert, written in the 17th century, is a sort of a concrete poem, probably one of the earliest examples:

Easter Wings
Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:

With Thee
O let me rise,
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day Thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne;
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.

With Thee
Let me combine,
And feel this day Thy victorie;
For, if I imp my wing on Thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Poetry activity for today: Try writing a concrete poem.
Poet of the day: George Herbert, who was born on this date in 1593.

I’m becoming more and more fond of Mr. Herbert, as evidenced by these Herbert posts from the archives.

The Dawning by George Herbert.

The Sonne by George Herbert.

A Wreath by George Herbert.

More April 3 Birthdays.