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Tag Archives: poetry
From Memory
“The Second Coming,” poem by W. B. Yeats, http://www.poetryfoundation.org. Yeats, like Shelley in “Ozymandias,” associates folly and tyranny and self-aggrandizement with the desert lands. That happens to be where the trio of stern monotheisms were “revealed”: I’m the Only One, … Continue reading
Five Quotes About …
“What I teach you is nothing. What you learn by doing over and over is where the learning begins.” (Simon Michael) “Writing poetry is much easier than reading it.” (Guy Davenport) “Write hard and clear about what hurts.” (Hemingway) “It … Continue reading
From Memory
“A Refusal to Mourn the Death by Fire of a Child in London,” poem by Dylan Thomas poetryfoundation.org This poem is an antidote to the “thoughts and prayers” mantra. It reminds me of Millay’s “Dirge Without Music” in that it … Continue reading
Five Quotes About Poetry
“It’s the poet’s business to make poetry out of the unexplored resources of the unpoetical.” (T.S. Eliot) “I would sooner give the laurel to vigorous error than to any orthodoxy not inspired.” (W.B. Yeats) “A poem by its nature operates … Continue reading
From Memory
“Ozymandias,” poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, http://www.poetryfoundation.org This sonnet triggers a puff of schadenfreude. It’s fun to imagine that, given time, the desert swallows braggarts. (Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)
“Burning the Brush Pile”
I find among my keepings a poem by Galway Kinnell published in the New Yorker June 19, 2006. Its title is “Burning the Brush Pile.” Tending the pile, the speaker discovers a small, half-burnt snake still alive: “It stopped where … Continue reading
Happy Words
A word is a terrible thing to lose. Rescued Words by Wallace Stevens: fubbed gobbet diaphanes pannicles carked rapey cantilena fiscs phylactery princox funest Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.