tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post3435061953573546007..comments2024-03-23T20:37:37.891-07:00Comments on First Known When Lost: AlpineStephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-58403147925375507422016-07-20T21:19:13.163-07:002016-07-20T21:19:13.163-07:00Mr Floyd: Thank you very much for your thought-pr...Mr Floyd: Thank you very much for your thought-provoking comments, which provide a great deal to mull over. First, I like your movement from Hardy's "Afterwards" (one of my favorites by him) to Cavafy's "Ithaka" (I presume you are referring to that, but I could be wrong). I think this would be a fine epitaph to have when all is said and done: "He was a man who used to notice such things." Which fits well with "Ithaka": "Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,/you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean." (Translation by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.)<br /><br />As for Dickinson's poem: I was hoping that Brian's quoting of the Dickinson poem might prompt a response from you, given what you have taught me over the years about her work. I had to go scurrying around the internet to find out what "attar" was. Now I know, and it does help me in beginning (only beginning!) to understand what she is getting at. But I certainly see that the poem provides a fine complement to the poem posted by Brian. For instance: "Distills amazing sense/From ordinary meanings/And Attar so immense//From the familiar species/That perished by the Door." I confess that I get befuddled in the final two stanzas: I have only a vague inkling of what she is getting at. But I plan to give it further time and attention.<br /><br />Finally: "Beauty and Truth" is definitely NOT, as you suggest, a "prating platitude." (And I would never think that of any of your thoughts!) But, if some think that it is, it is a platitude I am happy to embrace. Among other things, Beauty and Truth, Truth and Beauty, are exactly what evil and barbarism cannot touch.<br /><br />Thank you very much for sharing your meditations on these matters. I always appreciate hearing from you.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-78053406247500697062016-07-20T20:49:57.142-07:002016-07-20T20:49:57.142-07:00Mr Ashton: Thank you very much for your thoughts ...Mr Ashton: Thank you very much for your thoughts on the subject at hand. And thank you for the passage from Annie Dillard, which I agree goes well here. Your posting of R. S. Thomas's "The Bright Field" is apt: the poem demonstrates Dillard's thoughts in action, given the reactions it awakens in the reader (at least in this reader). You are correct about my familiarity with "The Bright Field": it is perhaps my favorite Thomas poem (and one of my favorite poems, period). It has appeared here on more than one occasion. I appreciate your sharing it at this time. I'm the same as you: I never tire of reading it. And it certainly is helpful in times such as these.<br /><br />I thought that perhaps you were off on holiday, but it turns out you have been busy at work. I would have thought that summer was a slow period in your occupation, but that shows how little I know! But at least you have been able to spend time in your allotments. As ever, it is a pleasure to hear from you. Thank you for visiting again.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-1452821160815621882016-07-20T09:41:36.293-07:002016-07-20T09:41:36.293-07:00The poet, it is true, dies, but the great poets le...The poet, it is true, dies, but the great poets leave an "attar so immense," words "distill[ing] amazing sense from ordinary meanings, that we learn to see the word in a different way (see the Dickinson poem below). I think Brian, who I am sure is familiar with this poem, would concur. You and your faithful readers may or may not agree but to Dickinson, and her life confirms her comment, the great poet is the discloser of insights that reveal to us the poverty of our imaginations, It's interesting, as odd as it sounds, to compare this poem with Hardy's "Afterwards"-a poem about perceiving the beauty and wonder and magic of the quotidian. Beauty and truth, if you forgive the prating platitude, are not found in Ithaca, but in the common things seen and experienced on the way to Ithaca Proust notes the same characteristic in the painting of Chardin, who can, says Proust, find the nimbused glory in a bowl of fruit on a modest table. And of course you have taught us the glory of the haiku, its taking the commonplace and peeling it to the essence of its beauty and revelation.<br /><br />This was a Poet—It is That<br /> Distills amazing sense<br /> From ordinary Meanings<br /> And Attar so immense<br /><br />From the familiar species<br /> That perished by the Door<br /> We wonder it was not Ourselves<br /> Arrested it—before<br /><br /> Of Pictures, the Discloser<br /> The Poet—it is He<br /> Entitles Us—by Contrast<br /> To ceaseless Poverty<br /><br /> Of portion—so unconscious<br /> The Robbing—could not harm<br /> Himself—to Him—a Fortune<br /> Exterior—to TimeBruce Floydnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-66698854506553430192016-07-20T06:47:46.680-07:002016-07-20T06:47:46.680-07:00Mr Pentz, I have been reading your posts regularly...Mr Pentz, I have been reading your posts regularly, but this is the first opportunity I’ve had to comment for a while. Summer is a very busy time at the university getting ready for the start of the new semester in September and in between work commitments most of my free time has been spent tending to my allotments, not in the least an onerous task, time consuming, but one happily untouched by what can seem to be the almost daily occurrence of barbarity and evil.<br /><br />Closeness to nature and involvement in the natural and timeless cycles of life as well as literature and art are certainly not trivial. I would contend they are of crucial importance; refuges of safety and sanity, reminders to us all of what is important to underpin and ensure a kind, tolerant and civil society.<br /><br />I came across this quote from the writer Annie Dillard recently which seemed to my mind to fit here “"Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power?"<br /><br />The Michael Roberts poem is wonderful and entirely new to me. I hope you don’t mind but reading R S Thomas’s Abersoch brought another wonderful Thomas poem to mind, one which I’m sure you are very familiar with, but a poem personally I never tire of reading, and one which I think is a perfect example of the poem as a complex and ever-evolving thing that resonates through the details of a poets personal experience to echo particulars and moments in our own lives, and such moments remain, hopefully immune from the prevalence of evil. <br /><br />I have seen the sun break through<br />to illuminate a small field<br />for a while, and gone my way<br />and forgotten it. But that was the<br />pearl of great price, the one field that had<br />treasure in it. I realise now<br />that I must give all that I have<br />to possess it. Life is not hurrying<br />on to a receding future, nor hankering after<br />an imagined past. It is the turning<br />aside like Moses to the miracle<br />of the lit bush, to a brightness<br />that seemed as transitory as your youth<br />once, but is the eternity that awaits you.<br />John Ashtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-4613432087221716972016-07-19T16:09:00.960-07:002016-07-19T16:09:00.960-07:00George: Thank you for the reference to the poem, ...George: Thank you for the reference to the poem, which is new to me, given that my acquaintance with Bunting's poetry is limited. I have tracked it down on the internet: it is lovely, and is a good companion to the poems in the post, especially "St. Ursanne": "so that the heart never rests from love of the city/without lies or riches." Your point about "how fragile respites can be" is an excellent one.<br /><br />As always, it is a pleasure to hear from you. Thank you very much for stopping by again.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-54139137408525172042016-07-19T15:14:10.818-07:002016-07-19T15:14:10.818-07:00In Basil Bunting's "Let Them Remember Sam...In Basil Bunting's "Let Them Remember Samangan" (dated 1937), there is the "wall looking out to the high mountains." The poem does carry a sense of how fragile respites can be.Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14819154529261482038noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-18298900278622597992016-07-19T11:07:01.512-07:002016-07-19T11:07:01.512-07:00Brian: Thank you very much for your kind words ab...Brian: Thank you very much for your kind words about the post. And thank you as well for the poem by Dickinson, which is new to me. It fits perfectly here, and states far more articulately and beautifully what I was bumblingly and inadequately attempting to convey. <br /><br />I agree with you that "each age can also be each person": after all, it is each reader of a poem who acts as the "disseminating" "lens" within his or her own time. And we must also remember that each Age is in some sense a Dark Age. I suppose that readers of poetry can be likened to the monks in medieval times who preserved civilization, line-by-line, as they produced manuscripts in their candle-lit rooms. It is an act of preservation and continuation.<br /><br />Thank you again.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-28215962072803725512016-07-19T09:20:01.366-07:002016-07-19T09:20:01.366-07:00An excellent reprieve from a busy day. Thank-you
...An excellent reprieve from a busy day. Thank-you<br /><br />I find Emily Dickinson gives a fine insight into how poetry is at once the vision of a particular consciousness and a living thing creating a wide range of personal response. Each age can also be each person, I suppose. <br /><br />The Poets light but Lamps —<br />Themselves — go out —<br />The Wicks they stimulate<br />If vital Light<br /><br />Inhere as do the Suns —<br />Each Age a Lens<br />Disseminating their<br />Circumference —<br />Brianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12068470029393614652noreply@blogger.com