Geoff Edwards's personal annotations on this page
Gpedwards bookmarked
on 2008-04-18
Why don't modern poems rhyme? Why don't modern American poets deal with pollitical issues? etc.
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And now these bewildering times, when those whose interest is
to consternate us hardly bother to conceal their purposes.
Yes, we have antagonists, and some of their grievances are just,
but is no one blameless, are we all to be combatants, prey?
This link has been bookmarked by 3 people . It was first bookmarked on 17 Apr 2008, by nate stearns.
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Why Don't Modern Poems Rhyme, Etc.Frequently asked questions about the business of verse.
Posted Thursday, April 17, 2008, at 12:39 PM ET1. Sometimes I see a poem in Slate or another magazine, and it doesn't do a thing for me. Half of the time I can't figure out what it means—what is that all about?
Generalizing won't do. We'd have to discuss a particular poem. At times prominent magazines publish things that aren't very good.
Magazines sometimes make me think of four lines the 18th-century actor David Garrick wrote as part of his poem praising poet Thomas Gray. About a certain kind of reader, Garrick wrote:
The gentle reader loves the gentle Muse.
That little dares, and little means;
Who humbly sips her learning from Reviews,
Or flutters in the Magazines.
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Geoff Edwards
Why don't modern poems rhyme? Why don't modern American poets deal with pollitical issues? etc.
-
And now these bewildering times, when those whose interest is
to consternate us hardly bother to conceal their purposes.
Yes, we have antagonists, and some of their grievances are just,
but is no one blameless, are we all to be combatants, prey?
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