Tag Archives: books

POETS Day! Poems Found While Reading an Essay by Anthony Hecht

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Illustrated by Rene Sears

[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

There’s a constant drip to my life now. A background sound would imply direction. This isn’t that. This ubiquitous drip, this relentless hydro-metronome, reverberates from the porcelain of the bathroom behind me, the steel of the kitchen I’m in, and somehow through two bedroom doors from the other bathroom. It is of the house.

In 2010, a cold snap came. We were newly minted homeowners, landed for only a week at the time. The inspection report showed an open heating duct in the crawlspace so I donned my fiscal responsibility hat and had the duct capped immediately on moving in. The pipes froze a few days later and one burst a day or two after that. Chesterton’s fence was under my house.

In Wisconsin and other Big10 locales, pipes are insulated or designed to expand somehow. I’ve read about systems where conductive wires are wrapped around water pipes to provide warmth when switched on. This is all Star Trek stuff to Alabamians. Nobody has that here so we drip our faucets.

It hasn’t been above freezing for three days now. The drip haunts me. Mocks me. Its maddening report more assault than assurance. But what if it stops?

Take a POETS Day. Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. Nothing gets done at work on a Friday afternoon anyway, so go do fun stuff. Or if you live in Alabama, go home and listen. Listen and fear.

Drip. Drip. Dri…

***

I have a copy of Anthony Hecht’s Melodies Unheard: Essays on the Mysteries of Poetry I keep on hand when I’m in the mood. It sits in a stack with Broken Ground: Poetry and the Demon of History by William Logan, the collection of T.S. Eliot essays, Poetry and Poets, and a few like. Sometimes I think I enjoy reading about poetry, criticism and commentary, more than I like reading actual poetry. That might not be odd, but I think it is, and it warms my vanity as personal idiosyncrasies will.

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POETS Day! John Clare

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Linocut by Rene Sears

[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

You may have to shop. If you get too much from Amazon, they know. The thought actually counts and a bit of wear on your shoe leather should be on display.

It’s like wrapping. A perfect bow with the curly ribbons you get from running a scissor along the length real quick like you’re pull starting a chainsaw is wonderful to look at, but if you’re a twenty year old college guy with stylishly unkempt hair and smell like cherry vape, everyone knows you didn’t wrap that gift yourself. Small tears on the corners and a piece of masking tape, because the scotch tape ran out, lets grandma know you care.

That doesn’t mean shopping should impinge on regularly scheduled loafing time. Take a POETS Day. Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. Skip out of a useless lame duck Friday afternoon. Shopping isn’t fun, but getting out of work always is.

Before you do, take a minute for some verse.

***

“Many reviewers greeted John Clare with enthusiasm, hoping for a noble savage, an uncomplicated mind, freed from the artificial systems inculcated by formal education. Such fanciful suggestions of his isolation from the world of books have proved remarkably persistent. His eagerness to see his work in print has too often been forgotten in the various dubious attempts to portray him as innocent of the vicious preoccupations of the publishing trade.” – Paul Chirico

Several things had happened. In 1800, Robert Bloomfield erupted from seemingly nowhere selling a quick twenty-five thousand copies of The Farmer’s Boy; a labor class (labour in la lingua anglaise) kid whose little formal education but increased talent folded into a public taste bent towards Wordsworth and his Romanticism. The idea that poetry sprung from nature, pure and unadulterated by aristocratic letters was heady stuff in the early 1800s. The even larger eruption of George Gordon, Lord Byron on the scene in 1819, showed a public thirsty for, and kindled the concept of, stardom.

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POETS Day! Thomas Hardy Learns About Dames

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Illustration by Rene Sears

[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

We’re suffering Sudden Onset Fall. The leaves all dropped yesterday. Crunchy steps echo in the dark because dusk is a five minute period between school pick-up and the dog expecting dinner. I need a sweater to take my evening walk with my wife and by the time I get to the creek – I assume there’s a creek because there was a few days ago though I can’t see it without a flashlight – I need a coat.

When my wife and I started dating we were free and laughing, uncaring and unworried about what others thought. We’re all that stuff now, but with worse knees. Still, I’m suddenly caring about what others think a great deal when walking next to my bride as she’s decked out in a halogen beaming nylon harness get-up with safety red lights warning traffic off us. It’s a ridiculous get-up that I find prudent only because it’s so bright no one can make out our faces for the glare.

Make it a POETS Day. Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. Don’t let work pin you in and take what little sunlight God and Congress have allowed. Get out of there and enjoy yourselves.

Wear a sweater.

***

I’ve read praises of Thomas Hardy from Auden, Pound, Ransom, Larkin, and Frost. That’s a short list with recognizable notables to make the point that he’s respected by those whose respect is worthy of attention, but that list is far from exhaustive. Hardy was considered by many to be the greatest literary mind of his time and Max Gate, as his home in Dorchester was known, the end point of pilgrimages by Sassoon and Graves; again, not exhaustive. He was held in awe.

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POETS Day! Horace: Ode III, XXX

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Illustration by Rene Sears

[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

EnterpriseAppsToday’s web site has a number of statistics related to work place time wasting. It’s eye opening. Some selected bits – a few iotum or datum if you know not much latin:

In the United States, during 8 hours of working time, employees waste an average of 2.9 hours by doing no effective work.

31% of workers waste a minimum of 1 hour each workday.

6% of employees waste around 3 hours each day at work.

4% of workers claim they waste at least 4 hours daily in the workplace.

If employees in general waste 2.9 hours each, but only 6% waste 3 hours and 4% waste 4 hours, and 31% waste 1 hour, then the remaining 59% have to waste 3.89 hours a day. I don’t think people present 6% at 3 hours and 4% at 4 hours when there’s a whopping 59% at 3.89 hours going unmentioned. That’s not how you present facts. If you’re trying to show that time wasting at work is rampant, do you leave out the biggest cohort at almost the highest time waste rate but leave in 6% at a measly 3 hours? No. They made all of that up.

Even the people who compile employee time wasting figures aren’t giving the matter proper attention. Don’t feel bad skipping out of work early. Nothing’s getting done there anyway. Have a POETS Day. Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday.

First though, take a minute for some verse.

***

Suetonius writes that Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known to most of us as Horace, was military tribune under Brutus. This was two years after the assassination of Julius Caesar, so there was no “Shocked!” moment or questions about honor when Horace took up arms with the man. He was at Philippi for Octavian’s victory and would later claim to have left his shield behind and fled, but running off without a shield was an act claimed by Greek poets he admired and was probably a joke.

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POETS Day! Muriel Spark

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Illustration by Rene Sears

[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

I’d take a POETS Day for certain this week as I’m not sure what we’ll be up to next week. Doubtless we’ll be wondering how Argentina and pretty much everybody else gets to know who won their election a few hours after the polls close and we have to wait eons for plumbers to come and fix our water main. There will likely be uncertainty.

So this week, Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. Sneak some fun free time off this week because this time next, you’ll probably be boarding up windows or fitting pepper spray proof goggle and face mask combos, depending on whether things seem to be going your way.

“Democracy dies in darkness” is the current take. I prefer “A good many thing go on in the dark besides Santa Claus.” Hoover meant by that that there are back room dealings and secrets not shared and we have no idea… I always liked to think he meant fun stuff; trysts and forbidden fruit tastings and the like.

Go do the fun stuff for tomorrow (or through Tuesday, unless you did it at leisure during the last few weeks depending on where you live) we vote.

***

I read a Muriel Spark book. The experience prompted me to read another. And read other’s takes on what I read. And reconsider. And re-read. It’s an endeavor. I still struggle not to say Sparks.

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POETS Day! Mirrors and Robert Louis Stevenson

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Illustration by Rene Sears

[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

I have a $50 Australian coin. It’s a 1/20 oz. gold coin from 2002. I’ve found its twin on eBay and a few other sites selling for around $210 US. It was in a desk drawer and I have no idea how it got there or what it was doing previously. Boom. Here’s a weird coin to look up on the internet.

As far as I can tell, these coins were issued with various weights of gold content, mine being the lowest, and sold to investors. Nobody in Australia is paying for a round of tappy waddles with one of these. I paid in one and two pound coins in England and it was awkward. Every so often someone starts making noise about doing away with the American paper dollar and replacing it with a coin. They say that the coin will last longer and reduce something bad. I’m against it. I don’t like change.

That’s it. I just wanted to say “I don’t like change” so it had a double meaning. It’s not even a joke, really. It was a stupid waste of time and you read it. That’s what happens at work on Friday afternoons. You waste time. Cut it out and just leave already. You’re not going to do anything productive between now and quitting time. Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday.

But first, a little verse.

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POETS Day! John Crowe Ransom

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[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

As a fan of blazers, light sweaters, and undershirts I celebrate the slow but welcome change to slightly cooler highs. If such things repulse you, or even annoy you to a slight degree (Hah!), I’m sorry. The sunny hot times are waning.

I don’t know where you live. This may be too late, but there could be some swelter left in the wide sky part of the day. Get out there and sweat when the sun is highest. Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. Not many t-shirt afternoons left so don’t squander them working. Have POETS Day in the sunshine. Go. Be on your way.

But as per usual, take a moment for a little verse.

***

First, the elephant in the room: the guy had a bad-ass name. A surname is a surname so his patents may not be due any credit for the cool-sounding kicker. Crowe was his mother’s maiden name and John was his father’s first name too, so John Crowe Ransom as a moniker was a matter of judicious assembly. They could have screwed it up, though. John James Ransom was a preacher in small town Tennessee; a Methodist so probably not as fire and brimstone as some of the neighbors and less likely to need anti-venom, but any preacher’s son risks the possibility of facing the world as Ada Hezekiah or Enoch Zerubbabel. I might read a poem by Enoch Zerubbabel Ransom, but his first task as a poet would be overcoming my giggle. Nobody needs that headache.

John Crowe – and I think you have to say the two names together with an implied hyphen like you would John Paul or Mary Beth – sounds numinous. He’s a half-Indian warrior guide who saves an expedition foolish enough to ignore his earlier warnings, straight out of James Fenimore Cooper. He’s an outlaw so mean, he once shot a man for snoring too loud. Or more modern, he’s a wizened Kerouac reading high school dropout biker whose gang scares off the preppies so Eric Stoltz can have his dream date. It’s a larger-than-life name. His parents did him well.

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POETS Day! At Home with Edna St Vincent Millay

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Millay by Pond (photo by Arnold Genthe, 1914)

[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

Vyacheslav Volodin is the speaker of the Duma, and Reuter’s says he’s warning “that if the West gave permission for such [military] strikes deep into Russian territory then it would lead to a ‘global war with the use of nuclear weapons.’”

David Lammy, UK Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs and someone I’ve heard of, tells us global warming is “is systemic. Pervasive. And accelerating towards us.”

The Detroit Lions have a pretty good football team. Google “two headed goat” and find a world of images. George R.R. Martin isn’t even bothering to write the final book. It’s getting end-timey. Do you really want to squander your shrinking allotment by working?

Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. Get out and see the world while the world’s still there. And if David Lammy’s wrong, all the better. Have a great Friday afternoon. But first, some verse.

***

I made the mistake of reading an article about Rachmaninoff. It was a good article, “Rachmaninoff reigns” by David Dubal, The New Criterion, September 2023, but it contained the following:

“Studying his pianism is an exhilarating experience, and, although Rachmaninoff wrote for his own enormous hands, few pianists can resist reveling in the growths of his exotic pianistic gardens.”

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POETS Day! The Other Side of James Hogg

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Allan, William; James Hogg (1770-1835), Poet (The Ettrick Shepherd) (The Ettrick Shepherd’s House Heating or The Celebration of his Birthday); National Galleries of Scotland

[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

It’s almost another work week gone and there’s no sense in waiting for the official end. Call it a POET’S day and Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. There are books to read, people to meet, shows to catch. Shave a few hours off a Friday and enjoy.

First, a little verse for you.

***

I didn’t know he was a poet.

Until yesterday I knew James Hogg only as the author The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and I don’t know… a lack of curiosity or preoccupation with whatever shiny thing served as a diversion after reading that novel led me elsewhere. I’ll say that his book came to my attention in the first place when I was reading and reading about Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a book that if you’re unfamiliar, either so fascinates you that a third or fourth reading still reveals something new, or you don’t like it much at all.

The mystery writer Ian Rankin wrote his thesis on Miss Jean Brodie and in an interview he said that the main character claimed to be a descendant of Willam Brodie, a respected 18th century cabinet-maker who socialized with all the right sorts of people and spent his evenings burgling Edinburgh. Apparently, locksmithing was folded into the expected duties of a cabinet man in Scotland during the Age of Enlightenment and he kept key copies. It was a scandal when he was caught and chattering about living a double life commenced. The affair was among the inspirations for Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. According to Stevenson, another was Confessions, a book he said “has always haunted and puzzled me.”

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POETS Day! Harriet Monroe

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[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

It’s late at night because Trump made it so. I write this part last and now I want sleep. I didn’t expect him to go on so long. Maybe you can use that. Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. Tell the boss you were up late watching tv as a civic duty because democracy dies in darkness? If you watched it, grab an afternoon nap. If not, pretend you did and go to a bar or something fun. The speech ended around eleven thirty or so Central, in case you’re asked.

If you live in California, I don’t think this works as a POETS Day hooky excuse. You guys are so far behind the RNC was still pre-empting Judge Judy and the like. Sorry. Tell them your probiotics are out of alignment or something. That might work.

Enjoy the weekend.

***

I’m a fan of James May. Top Gear, obviously, but his other stuff too: James May’s Toy Stories, James May’s Man Lab, James May: Our Man In… I’ve got the cookbook from James May: Oh Cook! He’s impish and once got fired from a magazine for a naughty acrostic.

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