Poetry in Our Time: The Poet, Publisher, Reader, and ReviewerA very timely and apt critical review of the poetry 'scene', delightful and informative demythologising of the present 'corporate poetry culture'. Wainwright's equivalent of Joyce's 'cultic twalette' critique brought up to date. |
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Page 16
... word of poetry . • Many teachers of poetry don't voluntarily read any of the stuff . • Many university teachers of English prefer not to " have to " teach poetry . It's hard to come by firm statistics ; but compare the present situation ...
... word of poetry . • Many teachers of poetry don't voluntarily read any of the stuff . • Many university teachers of English prefer not to " have to " teach poetry . It's hard to come by firm statistics ; but compare the present situation ...
Page 24
... word in a review, though again I have been sorely tempted from time to time!) Finally a reviewer ought to have both a catholic taste and yet a capacity to retain firm standards through the thick and thin of reading; to retain the ...
... word in a review, though again I have been sorely tempted from time to time!) Finally a reviewer ought to have both a catholic taste and yet a capacity to retain firm standards through the thick and thin of reading; to retain the ...
Page 28
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Popular passages
Page 63 - For I have learned To look on Nature not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man...
Page 101 - Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
Page 100 - And playing, lovely and watery And fire green as grass. And nightly under the simple stars As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away...
Page 7 - Then, Sir, what is poetry?" JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is.
Page 56 - We can only say that it appears likely that poets in our civilization, as it exists at present, must be difficult. Our civilization comprehends great variety and complexity, and this variety and complexity, playing upon a refined sensibility, must produce various and 275 complex results. The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into his meaning.
Page 40 - The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Page 99 - I saw eternity the other night Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm as it was bright; And round beneath it, time in hours, days, years, Driv'n by the spheres, Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world And all her train were hurled...
Page 99 - Then, reascending the bare common, saw A naked pool that lay beneath the hills, The beacon on the summit, and, more near, A girl, who bore a pitcher on her head, And seemed with difficult steps to force her way Against the blowing wind. It was, in truth, An ordinary sight ; but I should need Colours and words that are unknown to man, To paint the visionary dreariness Which, while I looked all round for my lost guide, Invested moorland waste, and naked pool.