If the question was, who was more influential, I think it has turned out to be Stevens
this is absolutely true - how happy are you with the present condition of poetry becomes the question then
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Wednesday, 28 July 2010 03:22 (thirteen years ago) link
at which point we will have a proper lit-fight on our hands
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Wednesday, 28 July 2010 03:23 (thirteen years ago) link
aw man later this week I will give this some serious reading/thought
― corn piece in mouffetard (acoleuthic), Wednesday, 28 July 2010 03:29 (thirteen years ago) link
I don't know about proper, more like unfortunate and lazy.
― bnw, Wednesday, 28 July 2010 03:35 (thirteen years ago) link
?
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Wednesday, 28 July 2010 03:40 (thirteen years ago) link
unless you're a person who doesn't think poetry has its ups & downs like any other genre I guess
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Wednesday, 28 July 2010 03:41 (thirteen years ago) link
had a Russian teacher in high school who would, on occasion, do something like look out the window and notice it was starting to become winter or something and then would just go "you know, this reminds me of a poem by Robert Frost" and then recite the entire thing from memory
― markers, Wednesday, 28 July 2010 03:43 (thirteen years ago) link
love that guy
― markers, Wednesday, 28 July 2010 03:44 (thirteen years ago) link
sorry aero, wary of blanket dismissals, have sat through too many
― bnw, Wednesday, 28 July 2010 03:44 (thirteen years ago) link
oh I don't blanket dismiss all poetry being written at present, nothing like that there's a lot of people working I like, I'll read anything wave books puts out usually with pleasure & I think we have in Norman Dubie something of a really oddball national treasure who doesn't get talked about nearly enough. but I do think some of the more alienating aspects of modernism & its various legacies, the directions the form went throughout the 20th century - i.e., the influences that took hold, among which Stevens ranks high; the things about Stevens against which Frost in his general clarity tends to stand - are the things about which people have disagreements, which are generally fun & even healthy
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Wednesday, 28 July 2010 03:49 (thirteen years ago) link
^^^ Do the Russians love Frost? Nabokov did.
― alimosina, Wednesday, 28 July 2010 14:40 (thirteen years ago) link
I know Joseph Brodsky loved Frost. Stevens, not as much
― donald nitchie, Wednesday, 28 July 2010 15:35 (thirteen years ago) link
I've always had the impression that Stevens did not really have much appeal outside of English-speaking countries--see also: Wordsworth.
― demons a. real (Drugs A. Money), Wednesday, 28 July 2010 19:24 (thirteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Tuesday, 3 August 2010 23:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Wednesday, 4 August 2010 23:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Stevens wins; Alfred gives up.
― demons a. real (Drugs A. Money), Wednesday, 11 August 2010 17:16 (thirteen years ago) link
When presented with a situation where numerous explanations are equally plausable, it is wise to choose the most charitable among them. Alfred may have been the victim of a bad haircut and consequently is ashamed to show his face around here until it grows out.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 11 August 2010 17:39 (thirteen years ago) link
Wait till you see my beard.
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 11 August 2010 17:45 (thirteen years ago) link
LOL sorry Alfred, I didn't mean to be uncharitable...
― demons a. real (Drugs A. Money), Wednesday, 11 August 2010 18:33 (thirteen years ago) link
Really digging this description of Triton/the sea from The Comedian as the Letter C
... Triton incomplicate with thatWhich made him Triton, nothing left of him,Except in faint memorial gesturings,That were like arms and shoulders in the waves,Here, something in the rise and fall of windThat seemed hallucinating horn, and here,A sunken voice, both of rememberingAnd of forgetfulness, in alternate strain.
Wonderful depiction of a God, for a start, and a wonderful description of the sea (that remembering and forgetfulness in alternate strain, descriptive of the hush and flood of the ocean).
― Pork Pius V (GamalielRatsey), Thursday, 7 October 2010 09:00 (thirteen years ago) link
Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbsAlways wrong to the light, so never seeingDeeper down in the well than where the waterGives me back in a shining surface pictureMe myself in the summer heaven godlikeLooking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,Something more of the depths—and then I lost it.Water came to rebuke the too clear water.One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a rippleShook whatever it was lay there at bottom,Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 28 April 2012 20:00 (twelve years ago) link
The one moonlight, in the simple-colored night,Like a plain poet revolving in his mindThe sameness of his various universe,Shines on the mere objectiveness of things..It is as if being was to be observed,As if, among the possible purposesOf what one sees, the purpose that comes first,The surface, is the purpose to be seen,.The property of the moon, what it evokes.It is to disclose the essential presence, say,Of a mountain, expanded and elevated almostInto a sense, an object the less; or else.To disclose in the figure waiting on the roadAn object the more, an undetermined formBetween the slouchings of a gunman and a lover,A gesture in the dark, a fear one feels.In the great vistas of night air, that takes this form,In the arbors that are as if of Saturn-star.So, then, this warm, wide, weatherless quietudeIs active with a power, an inherent life,.In spite of the mere objectiveness of things,Like a cloud-cap in the corner of a looking-glass,A change of color in the plain poet's mind,Night and silence disturbed by an interior sound..The one moonlight, the various universe, intendedSo much just to be seen --- a purpose, emptyPerhaps, absurd perhaps, but at least a purpose,Certain and ever more fresh. Ah! Certain, for sure...
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 31 January 2020 15:43 (four years ago) link
Head says Stevens, heart says Frost on this. Today, I think I'd go Stevens, but happy to have both.
I'd not read 'For Once' before. I love it. If it hadn't been in that format (and not in the thread, obviously) I might have mistaken it for Larkin.
― Ngolo Cantwell (Chinaski), Sunday, 16 February 2020 14:30 (four years ago) link