Thread: Who's The Hardest Poet To Understand?

Originally Posted by Banzai

Yeah, definitely Eliot. The Waste Land and The Hollow Men in particular had me scratching my head for ages.

Seriously? The Waste Land is deliberately obtuse with all it's references to classical literature and mythology, but I find The Hollow Men as clear as clear can be.

The hardest poets are the certifiable schizophrenics. If you can get through the Cantos of Ezra Pound you must be as insane as he was.

Let me post an excerpt:

Canto LXXXI


Zeus lies in Ceres' bosom
Taishan is attended of loves
under Cythera, before sunrise
and he said: "Hay aquí mucho
catolicismo--(sounded catolithismo)
y muy poco reliHión"
and he said: "Yo creo que los reyes desaparecen"
(Kings will, I think, disappear)
That was Padre José Elizondo
in 1906 and 1917
or about 1917
and Dolores said "Come pan, niño," "eat bread, me
lad"
Sargent had painted her
before he descended
(i.e., if he descended)
but in those days he did thumb sketches,
impressions of the Velásquez in the Museo del Prado
and books cost a peseta,
brass candlesticks in proportion,
hot wind came from the marshes
and death-chill from the mountains.
And later Bowers wrote: "but such hatred,
I had never conceived such"
and the London reds wouldn't show up his friends
(i.e., friends of Franco
working in London) and in Alcázar
forty years gone, they said: "Go back to the station to eat,
you can sleep here for a peseta"
goat bells tinkled all night
and the hostess grinned: "Eso es luto, haw!
mi marido es muerto"
(it is mourning, my husband is dead)

Et Cetera

Yeah. Stream-of-consciousness free verse.

FYI, the Canto's were used as evidence in Pound's trial for sedition to prove he was insane.

I am so grateful for this thread. Until I read T.S. Eliot (as a mature student at University of London ten years ago) I wrote non-stop poetry. Called myself a poet (before journalist, etc.), and aimed for the day I’d be published.

Then Eliot came along, with his “Waste Land”, “Prufrock” and the rest. and killed my confidence. I stopped. After all, if this was “free verse” (i.e. no rules), and I couldn’t make sense of it, then how senseless was I?

Whereas, sonnet writing with all its rhyme-schemes and meters... oh, I could follow that. And the Romantics? Well, then I was home. Keats – my hero! – helped me earn my degree and I’ll love his Odes forever. And didn’t Wordsworth say something about writing for the “common man” – so that everyone could understand? Exactly. That’s how I believe poetry should be.

Oh, thank you for this thread. Maybe I’ll start again!

Virginia

P.S. I wrote my dissertation on Milton’s Paradise Lost!

Oh no! I just read Wafti's reply - and others that have come in - and I see I was right all along...

But then no. It's just people like Wafti who try to put people like me off. And that's because they've got a problem!

Virginia

Rocky,

I am really sorry, I think I killed your thread!

The thing is, I only started posting here this week and came to this thread through one of the replies, rather than your original post. I am so sorry - and embarrassed - you must have thought I was very rude.

Also, I'm afraid I haven't read Derek Walcott, so couldn't comment on your thoughts there. Oh dear. I hope I can make up for it one day...

Virginia

EE Cummings

John Wilmot, a.k.a. the Earl of Rochester very in depth and intricate.

- The Hooded One

Try reading Jorie Graham. Now that's difficult.

We've mentioned Eliot, Chaucer, Dante, Pound, e.e., Auden, and Milton.
Perhaps that's because they're from another time with all their Enlightenment and metaphysical messages. Hell, I mean fuckin' shit, I watch my language yet I could be part of this list for all the "elitist," "exclusivist," "in-fucking-accessible" commentary I get for my work. Never stopped me.
I have to add some who could be on this list: Wallace Stevens, Emily Dickinson, Rainer Maria Rilke, Marianne Moore, Adrienne Rich, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Jon Anderson (Yes), Baudelaire, they're all difficult yet their work lasts for perhaps that one line, which keeps someone after reading their work from suicide or murder.

With that I have to add some rules about poets...

1. Someone is speaking to us about something which seriously concerns her/him.

2. There is almost always an emotional tenor to a poem.

3. The poem always – just like a person – has a voice, a recognizable and unique voice.

4. The lyric poem issues from a self.

5. That self wants to make contact.

6. We are often so uncomfortable with ourselves that saying something important often requires us to be indirect.

7. It is always better to read several poems by a poet, rather than just one; always better to start with short poems rather than long ones.

8. Embrace strangeness. To do this, you will have to trust your imagination.

9. Try strangeness on for size: use yourself as a touchstone. To do this, you will have to trust your imagination. Beyond thinking it's just their masturbatory gibberish.

10. The poem is an esthetic object: form and ‘beauty’ are always part of what is going on in the poem.

11. Every rule for reading poems, including numbers 1-10, can be discarded in favor of this one rule:

LISTEN to the poem.

That's a nice sentiment there Exo. It reminds me of what Edward Hirsch said in "How to Read Poems and Fall in Love with Poetry," that every poem is a message in a bottle waiting for its heartland. Some poems are for us, some are not. Maybe it would be great if we had a thread and we have a discussion of poems that other people find difficult but speak to us directly that way other people can see these poems in a new light.

Heard a programme today on Radio 4 (BBC) discussing T.S. Eliot and his poems; their relationship to his time; his relationship with Pound; his notes, which were not released 'til the 70s, and lots more. Very interesting, it's available on BBC iplayer, go to radio 4 , then arts and culture, the programme was called "In our time" with Melvin Bragg in the chair, even for those who know lots about him I would bet there was something new in there.

Is hard to understand poetry a good thing?

Then again I suppose anyone can make a poem hard to read, I'll do it right now.

So I ran tooth the hallow caves,
there I jumped because I had pains.

Not any good though is it XD!

ezra pound.

also walcott's not bad. Omeros is pretty straight forward.

Eliot -- like Flannery O' Connor, one of my many literary heroes -- becomes a lot clearer when you take his Catholocism into account. For Eliot, belief was a wavering thing -- often rock solid, but often plauged by doubt.

My favorite poet, though, is Sandburg. Because of his clarity and the fact that he created some of the most beatiful and heartbreaking little stories in the English language with plain vocabulary and a breathtaking precision. Just try to read "Onion Days" or "Mag" or "Child Of The Romans" and not be moved.

A sample:

THE JUNK MAN

I AM glad God saw Death
And gave Death a job taking care of all who are tired
of living:

When all the wheels in a clock are worn and slow and
the connections loose
And the clock goes on ticking and telling the wrong time
from hour to hour
And people around the house joke about what a bum
clock it is,
How glad the clock is when the big Junk Man drives
his wagon
Up to the house and puts his arms around the clock and
says:
"You don't belong here,
You gotta come
Along with me,"
How glad the clock is then, when it feels the arms of the
Junk Man close around it and carry it away.

If I ever in my life write something that can make someone else feel what that poem makes me feel, I'll die a satisfied man.

Sylvia Plath is very good.