III

Don January 5th, 2008

III Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on “the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”   

Serious records of my poetic output began to be kept when I got to college.  It is now my freshman year at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, 1969-70.  One thing this Southern boy learned that year was how huge an effect weather in the Midwest can have on one’s mood.  Rain, cold, and snow are not just passing events there.  When they come, they take over.

 IMPRESSION I 

                                                            It is Thursday again.

                                                            The world’s head is bowed

                                                            By the weight of a cloud,

                                                            And gently, gently falls the rain.

            Why use the ABBA rhyme scheme of Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” for this little impression of a passing moment?  Because its chiastic shape teases you with form but does not have the closure of an ending couplet or even the expected repetition of, say, ballad stanza.  And it is the nature of weather in the Midwest to seem eternal whenever it is happening.  Did the young and inexperienced poet think of this consciously as he built his poem?  No.  It was either good luck or instinct.  Well, it doesn’t hurt to have either.   

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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