| ribbons |
10-19-2020 05:40 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marie Monday
(Post 2140033)
|
:laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:
I agree with Lisna, Marie - perfectly chosen GIF and Bishop poem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marie Monday
(Post 2140046)
Elizabeth Bishop is my latest poetry obsession. I think she appeals to me because her poetry reminds me a bit of mathematics: it's a dense language putting a lot of meaning into small bits of text, sometimes requiring a lot of digging to find it. The funny things is that the method of condensing is opposite: in mathematics it's done by making language efficient and unambiguous, but I guess poetry uses the ambiguity of language to add meaning. Also I'm probably not the first to wonder about this, but maybe the habit of hiding sexual identity and emotions played a role in Elizabeth Bishop's habit of hiding personal feelings in clever imagery. Anyway, that's more fitting for the poetry thread
|
I’ve read very few Elizabeth Bishop poems, unfortunately – time to remedy that. Your analysis of Bishop makes me think of Emily Dickinson, whose poetry is likewise highly condensed and cognitively challenging. In the world of female poets (or poets in general) I’m still incredibly stuck on Dickinson and Sylvia Plath. No others speak to me as they do.
On topic with this thread, another of my favorite poets -- who happened to be gay -- is Hart Crane.
Quote:
from Crane’s “The Broken Tower”:
And so it was I entered the broken world
To trace the visionary company of love, its voice
An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled)
But not for long to hold each desperate choice.
|
Quote:
Crane’s “Chaplinesque” (I love the image of the kitten)
We make our meek adjustments,
Contented with such random consolations
As the wind deposits
In slithered and too ample pockets.
For we can still love the world, who find
A famished kitten on the step, and know
Recesses for it from the fury of the street,
Or warm torn elbow coverts.
We will sidestep, and to the final smirk
Dally the doom of that inevitable thumb
That slowly chafes its puckered index toward us,
Facing the dull squint with what innocence
And what surprise!
And yet these fine collapses are not lies
More than the pirouettes of any pliant cane;
Our obsequies are, in a way, no enterprise.
We can evade you, and all else but the heart:
What blame to us if the heart live on.
The game enforces smirks; but we have seen
The moon in lonely alleys make
A grail of laughter of an empty ash can,
And through all sound of gaiety and quest
Have heard a kitten in the wilderness.
|
|
