LXII

Don August 3rd, 2009

LXII 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.” 

The third movement follows inexorably from the first two.  Once the Poets and the Critics have betrayed their trust, what else is there for the poor Readers to do?

 

 

 ARS POETICA:  A Musical Suite in Four Movements

(Continued)

 

III

 Nolo Tolerare:  (Plaintive Chant for the Reading Public) 

Poetry is a pastime for

The pedantic scholar and the bore.

My proof for this?  It’s plain to see

They’re not writing anything for me!

For all I care, their poems can rot.

I’m not a fool!  I’ll buy them not.

 

Oh, once I thought that Robert Frost

Had shown me something I else had lost

About a snowy woodland eve . . .

But I was wrong.  I was deceived.

The English Teacher (who should know

When such things are and are not so)

Said that he had really written

About a Death Wish that had smitten

The poor old man before his time,

And that was why he wrote the rhyme.

I thought he’d given me a sight

Into the mystery of the night—

How Nature’s presence, always near

Could suddenly become quite clear,

Life capsule in one snowy eve . . .

But I was wrong.  I was deceived.

 

And that’s not all:  this recent “verse”

Is, if it’s possible, even worse.

You can’t even think you’ve caught the scent

Of something the poet might have meant.

Well, I have now been burned enough.

I’m thought with all this wretched stuff.

For all I care, their poems can rot.

I’m not a fool!  I’ll buy them not.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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