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BEAUTY OF POETRY
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SQUANDERED SERENDIPITY
the beauty of poetry is that you can keep going back to a classic poem and discover something new in it and gain new insight as your own life experiences evolve. The big problem--and I have way too much Dead Poet's Society in me--is that scholars and the academia sterilize the verse. You need to let the words dance across the page and be overwhelmed by beauty of the language or the emotional intensity of the poet’s verse. Great poetry will wilt under the cruel microscope of the Ivory Tower professor if the dreamers don’t keep it alive.
Quick inspiration
a poem rolls off the tongue
sears a willing soul
In sci-fi terms, poetry is
In sci-fi terms, poetry is akin to the 'unidentified' that is sequestered and put under the knife rather than being allowed to live and interacted with, learned from, enjoyed and celebrated!
here is poetry that doesn't always conform
galateus, arkayye, arqios,arquious, crypticbard, excalibard, wordweaver
There's a place for the
There's a place for the academia but it is important to have poetry reach up and grab you by the boo boo once in awhile.
In my opinion, your prose
In my opinion, your prose statement---this one right here, right now---is the best summary introduction to Poetry that I have ever read, and it is far superior to academic or scholary treatments of Poetry and the reason for reading them. These words of yours should be handed out to every student who takes a Poetry course. I attended a Poetry class during my senior undergrad year: it was given only one every three years, and admission to it was by invitation/recommendation only. And, after the first couple of days, I realized that it looked far better in the course catalogue than it really was. The course omitted all literary history, and all of the classic "great" Poets---and concentrated on contemporary (1970's) poetry in a book which contained a good many of the instructor's favorites or actual acquaintances. For a course that most of the seniors had waited their entire four years to take, it was a crushing disappointment; and I not only said so in my course evaluation, I actually signed the evaluation after giving it the most ruthless response of which I was then capable. But this Haibun you have written would have made the entire course, back in 1980, laughably superfluous and totaly unneccesary.
But, going forward, I hope some way can be found to get this to young Poets just starting out, or students of Poetry before they are subjected to professors who are so stale they are better qualified to be mummies than teachers.
I have commented on your Poetry before; but this particular Haibun, and the Senryu it precedes, are among the most brilliant that I have ever read, on postpoems or elsewhere. You should be very, very, very proud of this piece, and I am grateful that despite my affliction, I have lived long enough to read this splendid Haibun and to offer my grateful response in a comment.
Januarian
thank you for the kind
thank you for the kind words. May we all live long enough to find beauty, truth, love and joy in our lives.
I agree, a thousand
I agree, a thousand percent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Januarian