As the year comes to a close, I have been engaged in a mad dash around the country finishing up the year and setting up the next. So it has been planes, trains, automobiles, airports and a blur of office buildings and meetings.
At the same time, I had booked to attend a seminar on poetry for December 15 in a bid to improve my skills (as much as there are any). I have been looking forward to this for several months now. The night before, I had to take the red-eye flight from Seattle to Boston and suddenly I felt weary and felt my voice disappearing on me.
My body was screaming for rest and I thought about the early morning travel to come the next day and the grueling evening drive to VT on Friday.
Something had to give. The seminar instructor does not know me, so won't care. My body tucked warmly in a blanket doesn't care. Freddie, our dog, happy to see me back doesn't care. My family rather have me rested than wax poetic anyway.
Perhaps I can try to enroll again, but my anticipated seminar on poetry had to give way.
Below is what I sadly missed.
My body was screaming for rest and I thought about the early morning travel to come the next day and the grueling evening drive to VT on Friday.
Something had to give. The seminar instructor does not know me, so won't care. My body tucked warmly in a blanket doesn't care. Freddie, our dog, happy to see me back doesn't care. My family rather have me rested than wax poetic anyway.
Perhaps I can try to enroll again, but my anticipated seminar on poetry had to give way.
Below is what I sadly missed.
The Poem and the Idea
Wednesday, December 15th, 7:00-10:00pm
Poems that describe a heron or the moon can be nice, but what sets the one you remember apart from all the rest? Chances are it’s an interesting idea.
This seminar will explore poetry as a manifestation of thought, examining the ways in which poems communicate complex ideas (be they overt ideas, diffuse ideas, or meta ideas through conceptualism), the overlapping territory of poetry and philosophy, and the difference between the poetic idea and other modes or tropes, such as imagery, description, narrative, and abstraction.
Class time will be divided between lecture, discussion, and in-class reading, with an emphasis on discussion. A reading packet will be distributed, including poems by Rae Armantrout, Anne Carson, Maggie Nelson, Wallace Stevens, and Jon Woodward.
2 comments:
Like the story of desert warehouse watchman, sometimes our passions can clash with priorities and take an occasional beating.
I agree that poems not necessarily convey soft or romantic side of life. They can be equally powerful on serious matters.
I would like to quote from Ted Hughes, which I am sure you will have in your
collection
Hawk Roosting
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.
The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.
My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot
Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -
The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:
The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.
The photograph you have posted (aeroplane wing) is just beautiful. Good luck for your next poetry seminar....
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