Tag: meaning

poetry appreciation

the wheel of fortune

Feb 18, 2021 #acceptance, #agency, #ambition, #calm, #chance, #change, #comfort, #connection, #constant, #destiny, #fate, #Fortune, #meaning, #modest, #modesty, #passivity, #peace, #philosophical, #powerlessness, #reflection, #Robert Southall, #soothing, #Southall, #times go by turnes, #wheel of fortune by Lucy Crispin

I just love it when a poem from another time or place “reaches” me: suddenly I’m in relationship with someone from another age or culture, often someone whose bones are long since turned to dust. Ain’t that something? Last week a poetry magazine I read had Robert Southall’s* ‘Times go by Turns‘ printed under the Editorial, and I had just that experience of remote connection: I felt less alone—comforted by being accompanied, by seeing what is common and constant in human experience. See if the poem does it for you, too.

Read More
poetry appreciation

the condition of music

Dec 10, 2020 #art, #Auden, #ballad, #content, #experience, #folk tale, #form, #innocence, #lyric, #meaning, #Pater, #Philip Larkin, #reader response, #Walter Pater, #WH Auden by Lucy Crispin

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.

Read More
poetry appreciation

the school in which we learn

Apr 23, 2020 #April, #Calmly We Walk, #death, #Delmore Schwartz, #depression, #despair, #dread, #fear, #grief, #meaning, #mindful, #mindfulness, #mortality, #poem, #poetry, #presence, #present, #Schwartz, #spring, #time, #time is the fire in which we burn, #time is the school in which we learn by Lucy Crispin

I’ve no idea how well known this poem is, but it’s relatively new to me, and its refrains have been pulsing their steady rhythm through me for the last week or so. So here it is: ‘Calmly We Walk through This April’s Day‘ by Delmore Schwartz.

Read More
error: Content is protected !!