tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post1140391813712364505..comments2024-03-23T20:37:37.891-07:00Comments on First Known When Lost: "Everything Turns Away Quite Leisurely From The Disaster"Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-25564613613168390772018-08-14T20:48:50.145-07:002018-08-14T20:48:50.145-07:00Alec: Thank you very much for sharing your Lego c...Alec: Thank you very much for sharing your Lego creations: wonderful! I like "Fleet Visit," the Fenton poems, and the skateboarder as well. Your Icarus in the sea is a sad sight! I never knew one could do such things with Legos. I can imagine it did take quite a bit of time. Thank you again. Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-68785587452162738552018-08-11T05:28:16.699-07:002018-08-11T05:28:16.699-07:00I few years ago I wasted many hours rendering this...I few years ago I wasted many hours rendering this and a couple of other Auden poems in Lego. Find it here if anyone's interested. https://fentonaudenraybourn.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/auden-musee-des-beaux-arts/ Love the blog. Alechttps://fentonaudenraybourn.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-8970150517327342602014-01-17T11:31:20.129-08:002014-01-17T11:31:20.129-08:00Mr. McMahon: thank you very much for visiting agai...Mr. McMahon: thank you very much for visiting again, and for your thoughts. <br /><br />I appreciate your reference to "Ode to the Medieval Poets": I had read that recently as well, and I should have mentioned it in my post. I agree with you in your general views on Auden. I tend to run hot and cold on his poetry, and although the consensus (as you know) is that his poetry went into decline after 1939 and his move to America, I'm not so sure about that. I agree that a fair amount of his political poetry (of the 30s in particular) seems dated. But, as you say, the gems remain, and for those he will never be forgotten.<br /><br />And thank you for mentioning The Mill and the Cross: it had been in my Netflix queue for quite some time, but last night I finally watched it based upon your recommendation. It is marvelous and beautiful, fulfilling the fantasy we all have had: "I'd like to walk into that painting!" But it is harrowing as well: I will need to watch it when I begin to have idle daydreams about how living in the "simpler" times of the late Middle Ages or early Renaissance would be wonderful. Yikes!<br /><br />On a side-note: as you probably know, this idea of walking into works of art was also explored by Kurosawa in the Van Gogh dream (with Martin Scorcese appearing as Van Gogh!) in Dreams. But Majeski goes far, far beyond Kurosawa.<br /><br />Thank you again.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-90454866218579799192014-01-16T13:41:17.870-08:002014-01-16T13:41:17.870-08:00Stephen, Auden can be such a difficult poet at tim...Stephen, Auden can be such a difficult poet at times and many of his less well poems seem to me to have dated. But when he does it well, he does it exceedingly well and deserves his place amongst the first rank of poets. The ideas of history, suffering and stoicism in the middle ages, which the opening lines evoke for me, are echoed in his less well known Ode to the Medieval Poets. Incidentally, Brueghel's medieval world is explored in a very interesting and unusual film called The Mill and the Cross by the Pole Lech Majeski. Thanks as always for the picture and the poem.<br /><br />Brian McMahonBrian McMahonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05592868406475670117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-58020360768236470762014-01-08T20:44:43.677-08:002014-01-08T20:44:43.677-08:00Susan: Happy New Year to you as well. It's go...Susan: Happy New Year to you as well. It's good to hear from you.<br /><br />How lucky you are to have seen the painting. Yes, the perspective is marvelous, isn't it? You can see how it would have planted a seed in Auden's mind. I love the oblivious ploughman and the preoccupied fisherman -- a few yards away from Icarus's legs disappearing into the sea! And then there is the shepherd in the dead center gazing up into the sky -- is he idly gazing at a random bird or at Daedalus?<br /><br />It is the sort of poem that begs to be memorized, isn't it? The opening phrase almost compels it.<br /><br />As always, thank you for your thoughts.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-72568937916420959392014-01-08T15:27:50.080-08:002014-01-08T15:27:50.080-08:00How wonderful today to read "Musee des Beaux ...How wonderful today to read "Musee des Beaux Arts" & see the Icarus painting. But I don't have to read the poem -- I have known it by heart for years & quite often say it over to myself when I am awake in the night.<br />When we were in Brussels a few years ago of course we went to the museum. It was undergoing work, & so the only painting "from the poem" I could find was Icarus. It astounded me -- how utterly different it was from the picture I had in my head when thinking out the poem. The plowman was so strongly in the foreground, the perspective so unexpected.<br />What a treat your blog is -- Happy New Year -- SusanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-33262144909682190352014-01-07T19:48:48.743-08:002014-01-07T19:48:48.743-08:00Mr Ashton: it's a nice coincidence that Auden&...Mr Ashton: it's a nice coincidence that Auden's poem was one of your early poems as well. I wasn't familiar with "The Lament of Swordy Well" before you mentioned it, but now I've looked it up: lovely. It brings to mind -- as many have noted -- how the enclosures so greatly affected (adversely) Clare's life (and no doubt his mental condition).<br /><br />I should be careful what I say about fiction! I too have many favorite passages in novels and short stories that have moved me a great deal. But I do think (for me at least) that poems are something special.<br /><br />As ever, I'm happy to have you stop by.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-64205611647726910462014-01-07T11:15:45.903-08:002014-01-07T11:15:45.903-08:00Mr Pentz, life has it's odd coincidences does&...Mr Pentz, life has it's odd coincidences does'nt it. There are a few poems I too remember that awoke and inspired an interest in poetry for me. One was the Auden you post here another was Binsey Poplars by Hopkins. The lament of Swordy Well by John Clare I recall affected me very deeply and still does. As you so rightly say experiences can never be reproduced in exactly the same way and yet those words long since chanced upon can still move and move very strongly.<br />I agree too, that except on a few occasions, and it is particular passages rather than the whole novel, poems move one in a way novels seldom do.John Ashtonnoreply@blogger.com