tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post1399859696285436045..comments2024-03-28T19:56:32.848-05:00Comments on Anecdotal Evidence: `Not Subject to Our Stiff Geometries'Patrick Kurphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436175583386298032noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-83744140083613060272012-03-02T11:22:23.618-06:002012-03-02T11:22:23.618-06:00Chesterton has a wonderful essay on "The Slav...Chesterton has a wonderful essay on "The Slavery of Free Verse."In it he says:<br /><br />"I have always had the fancy that if a man were really free, he would talk in rhythm and even in rhyme. His most hurried post card would be a sonnet; and his most hasty wires like harp-strings... He would express his preference among the dishes at dinner in short impromptu poems, combining the more mystical gratitude of grace with a certain epigrammatic terseness, more convenient for domestic good feeling."<br /><br />The essay is available online here:<br /><br />http://www.oldandsold.com/articles11/fancies-8.shtml<br /><br />J.D. FlanaganFinn MacCoolhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05432695149915870818noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-74007598116465730562012-02-16T07:54:04.758-06:002012-02-16T07:54:04.758-06:00This is written in the seven/five/seven, aba terce...This is written in the seven/five/seven, aba tercets Dick has used so often and to great effect in his later years. It is one of his few new poems that the New Yorker rejected, so I instantly pounced on it and got him to send it to First Things. Like Ms. Pinkerton, I think it the finest poem in the Grace Notes Anthology, and I also think it one of the finest in the slim collection, Anterooms, which Dick gave us last year.Tim Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07106390218589177362noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-86839948615121743542011-03-02T23:37:51.394-06:002011-03-02T23:37:51.394-06:00Bravo for Wilbur's ninetieth! In 2009 he publi...Bravo for Wilbur's ninetieth! In 2009 he published "Psalm," five stanzas of syllabics (5-7-5), in First Things, (collected in Jody Bottom's anthology, Grace Notes, in 2010). "Psalm" is a devotional poem of exquisite movement, assonance, and meaning.<br /> <br />Give thanks for all things<br />On the plucked lute, and likewise<br />The harp of ten strings.<br /><br />Have the lifted horn<br />Greatly blare, and pronounce it<br />Good to have been born.<br /><br />Lend the breath of life<br />To the stops of the sweet flute<br />Or capering fife,<br /><br />And tell the deep drum<br />To make, at the right juncture,<br />Pandemonium.<br /><br />Then, in grave relief,<br />Praise too our sorrows on the<br />Cello of shared grief.Helen Pinkertonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-13587885906421218522011-03-01T09:42:12.525-06:002011-03-01T09:42:12.525-06:00(Let me try that link again -- that's what com...(Let me try that link again -- that's what comes of posting after midnight)<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/fjbc8U</a>Cynthia Havenhttp://bookhaven.stanford.edunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-90791034290918769932011-03-01T09:39:15.918-06:002011-03-01T09:39:15.918-06:00I was so glad to see this post because years ago a...I was so glad to see this post because years ago as an undergraduate I went to a Richard Wilbur reading. The grace with which he carried himself impressed me permanently that as poets we do not have to be, or seem, uncivilized.<br /><br />Maybe "amazed" is okay because it resonantes with the maze-like spirals on the pinecone?Shelleyhttp://dustbowlpoetry.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-74382420723858076222011-03-01T02:30:41.983-06:002011-03-01T02:30:41.983-06:00Oh how wonderful (and perhaps predictable) that yo...Oh how wonderful (and perhaps predictable) that you share my enthusiasm for Dick Wilbur!<br /><br />Just made my own post a few minutes after midnight, but it looks like you beat me to it:<br /><br />http://bit.ly/fjbc8UCynthia Havenhttp://bookhaven.stanford.edunoreply@blogger.com