Mood:
suaveNow Playing: the intellectual...
Topic: Poetry
Another poetry book I found is a dull-looking schoolbook. Longman English Series Poetry 1900-1965. (A lot of these collections contain only British and sometimes "Commonwealth" writers but not American. Which irritates me. We all speak English and one of my favourite poets was American (Sylvia Plath)— I particularly like her Insomniac click http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/sylviaplath/1402 I'm sorry about all the ads around it.
Another favourite (who I consider a great poet, not just a great war poet — Wilfred Owen. Two of his best are Dulce et Decorum Est (click http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1543.html) and Futility (click http://www.poemtree.com/poems/Futility.htm). As I said (somewhere) I'm going to start a poetry blog. Maybe I'll post on it all my faves as well as my own dubious & uneven works. Sometimes I've found stuff by myself and thought "wow — did I really write that?" It doesn't seem possible. Other times I just read stuff back and cringe. It's taken quite some willpower not to remove certain past postings (or bits of them).
But, talking of execrable verse, did no-one like my William McGonnagal? It's difficult to pick out single quotes that sum up the full grandeur of this man's prowess. But these lines out of Jottings of New York (http://www.taynet.co.uk/users/mcgon/jottings.htm) give a good idea of why people say of him "he's so bad, he's good":—
And Brooklyn Bridge is a very great height,
And fills the stranger's heart with wonder at first sight,
But with all its loftiness, I venture to say,
For beauty it cannot surpass the new Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay.
(He loves his bridges on the "silvery" River Tay (http://www.taynet.co.uk/users/mcgon/disaster.htm). He also wrote some lines on The Tay Bridge Disaster, and a lovely work on the railway's replacement http://www.taynet.co.uk/users/mcgon/railway.htm...)
And, believe me, the morning I sailed from New York
For Bonnie Dundee, my heart it felt as light as a cork.
Wow!
Mr McGonnagal said his best time of year for public readings was Easter, as the crowds seemed to have less spare supplies of eggs to hand...
