Tag: form

coming to America, going not so well…

And now, as the Pythons used to say, for something completely different. Yes, it’s another another arrival in America, courtesy of Tracy K Smith, a former Poet Laureate; but it’s very different from last week’s. Read ‘The United States Welcomes you‘ and shiver.

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is April really the cruellest month?

Cos this month, though it’s short, does seem to go on rather. I do enjoy the early nightfalls of winter, and the pleasure of being cocooned in the heavier-weight duvet, rejoicing in warmth while all outside is cold. But there comes a point when I don’t want to get up in the dark; when I’m tired of wearing clothes that rustle and having my hood up, slithering in mud on my morning walk. So when I discovered this account of ‘February‘ by Bill Christopherson, it resonated. See what you think.

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the condition of music

Walter Pater says somewhere or other, I forget where, that “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music”. He continues, “For while in all other kinds of art it is possible to distinguish the matter from the form, and the understanding can always make this distinction, yet it is the constant effort of art to obliterate it.” What I take from this is something about the relationship between form and content: how in the best poems the equation is not form plus content = meaning, but form times content = impact/connection/experience. And this week’s poem seems to me to be one which ‘aspires’ successfully. Have a read of ‘As I Walked Out One Evening‘ by Auden, and see what you think.

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