Sylvia Townsend Warner was a very interesting woman and
was actually very hard to research unless one buys a book. There are a few internet sites about her, but
none go into detail about her life. In
Sylvia's day, poets were mostly men and women wrote un-noticed. Sylvia was actually studied to be a musician
and stated that she became a poet and writer by accident. Sylvia simply saw a piece of paper one day
and thought it so beautiful that she had to write on it. It was also lucky that a friend introduced
her to yet another friend who gave her work to some publishers. Sylvia married a man, but later separated and
became a lesbian. She wrote about the
dark nature in people and often took historical events and gave them the dark
twist that she was famous for. I liked
reading Sylvia's poems, especially the ones that were founded in history. It is truly the greatest insight into how Sylvia
thinks when one reads those poems based on fact. It shows that she sees mostly the honest a
raw nature of events and shows that life honestly doesn't always have a happy
ending.
February 14
D.H. Lawrence wrote a Preface for a book that had already
been out and in circulation. His
reasoning was that it gave readers a time with the book to figure out for
themselves what exactly the book meant.
It is almost condescending that he is writing this preface later. It is as if he is saying, "for those of
you who weren't smart enough to figure this out... here you go." This preface is very interesting in that most
of it sounds like a free-verse poem. The
words used and comparisons made are very interesting. The word nude is used several times. It is referring to honesty and openness. Free-verse is compared to birds and
fire. When a bird is in the wind and in
flight, it is in that moment free.
Free-verse allows writers to be spontaneous and flexible like a flame. Walt Whitman is introduced in this
preface. It is said that Whitman is so
close to that urgent moment that he is so neat the quick that poets that strive
to make a proper free-verse fear his ability to be so close to this
"perfection".
February 09
I am writing today's blog about the poem Mid - Day by H.D. This poem is very interesting and seems to
actually be talking about a man who is having a Mid-Life crisis. There is an interesting correlation with the
title. There are several references to
seeds and different types of trees. The
first stanza is an acknowledgment or opening to the fact that the man is in
crisis. he is
"anguished"(4). The poem seems
to be working backwards in time. the
black seeds are dead and can no longer give life to something, suggesting that
the man is old. Then it speaks more of
the conflict and being "scattered in its whirl"(10). I am assuming that "its" is
life. Then the seeds are shriveled and
things that are alive begin to bend and fall with age. The memory of childhood is looked upon and
symbolized by the poplar tree sitting up on a hill. These memories are cherished and put up on a pedestal
/ hill. The tree has deep roots and has
a long and healthy life ahead of it. The
man gives one last lamenting note in remembering his childhood says defeatedly
that he is perishing on his current path.
This poem is very interesting and I thought the comparison of life to
that of plant life very interesting.
February 07
I found it very interesting that Lowell and Pound had such a hard time working together or should I say working within the same group, the Imagists. The conflict was so great that Pound actually left the group for another similar movement called Vorticism. The only said difference in the Vorticism and the Imagist was that Vorticism insisted on dynamism. Pound stated that Lowell had degraded the name of the Imagist and renamed her works in the movement as “Amygism”. Pound is very interesting and has a somewhat blackened history from his time supporting Anti-Semite actions. I’m thinking that Pound tried a little too hard to be at the cutting edge of ideas and ended up making a mistake that he later claimed to regret. The indictment of treason being rescinded was very surprising. How can a group of poets claiming his poetry is of such importance get Pound off the hook? I may have to look a little more into Pound’s life. It is very interesting. In a Station of Metro isn’t much of a poem, but when you read the notes behind it, it is very interesting. It took him a year to decide on these two lines to explain what he saw and felt. It goes back to Pound’s determination to create an image exactly as it was seen, felt, ect…
February 02
Siegfried Sassoon 's two poems were very interesting. They both made you imagine a tragic scene
that Sassoon is making slightly comical.
In Blighters, Sassoon is
wishing that a tank would come down the aisle of the theater that a group of
soldiers was in and make them stop their inappropriate jokes about those who
had died. He makes is slightly comical
by saying that the tank would come in "Lurching to rag-time tunes, or
'Home, sweet Home," (6). In The General, the General is actually
making the scene slightly comical. He's
all cheery and telling soldiers good morning while they march off to possibly
die. This is nothing to be cheery about
and yet the general is being so. I
really didn't get the last like of the poem though. "But he did for them both by his plan of
attack." (7) I'm thinking that it's
irony. Maybe it is referring to the
General having done a "favor" for these boys by sending them off to a
good morning at the front lines of the war.
Either way, his poems show the attitude that several soldiers shared, a
disdain for the things happening around them but the grit to continue on.
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