:: groupthink ::

:: Sunday, June 15, 2003 ::

ryan, sukumar:

thank you! poetry has purpose and lyricism as much as any other literary genre. it may not have the commercial legs as other genres, but perhaps therein lies a different worth of a different beholder, like a rare vintage or a deep, decadent chocolate. words from billy collins to rabindranath tagore have certainly added richness and texture to my perspective. what greater purpose is there in communication?

:: Courtnay 8:37 PM [+] ::
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Hmmm... "A friend of mine. . . abhors poetry; says it has no function in society." No function in society... I can't think of a greater reason to like poetry. Anything that flouts societal utility is admirable in my (poetry) book.

ryan
:: r 7:45 PM [+] ::
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Courtnay, your piece reminded me of a screed in a recent issue of Newsweek about the death of poetry as an art form. Dana Gioia, the estimable Chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts, wrote an oft-quoted piece in similar vein for an issue of the Atlantic Monthly. Yet, there are occasional signs of hope.

The best argument for poetry I've ever read is a fragment from William Carlos Williams:
"It is difficult to get the news from poems/
yet men die miserably every day/
for lack of what is found there."
(- from "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower", 1955 )



:: Sukumar 10:38 AM [+] ::
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A friend of mine, a scholar -- the rhodes kind -- and a poet, abhors poetry; says it has no function in society. i, of course a poet as well, abhor that sentiment. Eavan Boland is a case in point, is proof, is validation of poetry and of its function. She moves a reader to tears. Her latest book, her ninth, is titled Against Love Poetry, although the poetry is not against love. it is against "idealizations of traditional love poetry." what she writes is beyond explanation. you must simply read it.

here is one poem from her novel; it is based on a true story.


Quarantine

In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and a woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.

-- Eavan Boland
:: Courtnay 11:44 PM [+] ::
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