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HAS ADDISON A CHANCE AGAINST PLATO?
Addison brought the charm to philosophy and philosophy to the life, in essays speaking from the bowels of the British Empire. Philosophy and poetry, like brains and passion, combine to civilize...
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ALAS! ALACK!
If there are twenty as beautiful as you, Let me love them, and be twenty times untrue— And be untrue to each of their charms, Forty times untrue with their beautiful arms— And as I kiss each beautiful...
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DANTE AND POPE BATTLE FOR CLASSICAL BRACKET FINAL
All poets are beautiful. Is Alexander Pope not beautiful? POPE: It would be a wild notion to expect perfection in any work of man: and yet one would think the contrary was taken for granted, by the...
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WHAT IF MY POETRY IS WRONG?
My poetry wants you to love me And maybe this is wrong. There is always a story Underneath the song. They say there is a crime Behind every care, They say that hidden blood Is on all we eat and wear....
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COLERIDGE AND SHELLEY BATTLE FOR ELITE EIGHT SPOT!
Coleridge. Not a happy life. But a happy mind. William Wordsworth is not a Romantic Poet. In his heart, Wordsworth is a Park Ranger. At least compared to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge can make...
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JOHN CROWE RANSOM TAKES ON BAUDELAIRE IN THE MODERN BRACKET
Ransom was the Southern American T.S. Eliot. He battles ‘the Father,’ Baudelaire. Charles Baudelaire and John Crowe Ransom are icons of Modernism. Ransom, the New Critic, defined Modernism explicitly,...
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ALL THE POET DOES
All the poet does— to keep steady and calm— Is convert the many words of worlds to one world’s few— Even as his wants increase—for he must, In the vision of his passion, remain dedicated to you. You...
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WILDE AND FREUD MIX IT UP IN MODERN BRACKET
Can Oscar Wilde move on to the Elite Eight? Oscar Wilde’s “Critic As Artist” (1891) predates Sigmund Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams” (1899, English translations soon followed) and comparing two key...
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YOU GET ME
Slender beauty who hides in the baskets and the tea, The gypsy who hungers, and Ursula, who writes poetry Are better at making signs than taking advice, For they do not understand: you get me. This is...
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DANTE VERSUS PLATO!
This battle between Plato and Dante is not merely a war between Greece and Rome. Because we are speaking of Plato and Dante, this contest takes place in heaven. The laws, which govern there, are...
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TO GET AWAY FROM RELIGION
To get away from religion, I did what I pleased today. I greeted the sun—which owns light and its dome of blue— As if it were a cloud, or a dying thought of you—drifting away. My morning was a yawning...
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MARJORIE PERLOFF, ADAM KIRSCH, AND PHILIP NIKOLAYEV AT THE GROLIER
The Hong Kong. Is there where Concrete Poetry finally met its end? So the trouble with the contemporary poetry scene is it lacks focus, while at the same time a single thought throws its shadow over...
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THIS NOVEL HAS MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU NEED, OR: WE REVIEW A BOOK WITHOUT A...
EDITORIAL I’m reading a novel that a friend highly recommended—she “couldn’t put it down” and “it made her cry in the end”—a “New York Times Bestseller” published about five years ago, a “chick...
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THE POEM THAT NO ONE READS
The poem that no one reads Has been sitting here for hours, Resting by the brook With a few dried flowers. The poem that no one reads Has been sitting here, among Songs that are never sung, Even...
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IN VAIN, IN VAIN!
In vain, in vain, All this sunshine and this rain. Children have no children here, This greenery is a green disguise, This fertility is merciless and sere, Love not for the womb, but for the eyes. In...
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SHELLEY KNEW THAT LOVE IS MEAN AND VILE
Shelley knew that love is mean and vile Because we must select one among the many. This is how love must be, if there is to be any. You have one—but the many attracts you all the while. Beauty lives...
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COLERIDGE AND POE: TO THE FINAL FOUR ONLY ONE CAN GO
COLERIDGE: What is poetry? is so nearly the same question with, what is a poet? that the answer to the one is involved in the solution of the other. For it is a distinction resulting from the poetic...
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J.L. AUSTIN AND EDMUND WILSON IN POST-MODERN BRACKET SEEK TO ADVANCE TO THE...
J.L. Austin: Can this Englishman advance past Princeton’s Edmund Wilson to the Final Four? WILSON: The old nineteenth-century criticism of Ruskin, Renan, Taine, Sainte-Beauve, was closely allied to...
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THE GREAT TRAGEDY OF HUMAN EXISTENCE
The great tragedy of human existence: To fight is easier than to love. Deny them, deny them is the least resistance. Downward is the reason for above. And now there is nothing more to say— Obligation...
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BIRTHDAY POEM FOR MY SON
A teen playing video games, watching TV, spoiled by his mom. Here’s where patience comes in. Not the same patience as When he was a baby and had that fever, Or when he was loaded into the ambulance...
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