Whence Cometh Bad Poetry ?
The funny thing about it is that snobbery for so-called bad poetry comes now at a moment when the Internet seems to be forecasting a democratic comeback for poetry. All sorts of people are indulging in a pleasure for language, recording their breakups, the sound of the ocean, the majesty of the night sky, the changing of the seasons, and O so many other topics that would make an established workshop leader’s upper lip twitch itself into a snarl fit.
by: Michael Alexander Chaney
Full Post HERE
Medieval Simulacra of Pleasure
Medieval theories of meter, in fact, frequently assume that the pleasure man takes in meter is a simulacrum of the pleasure he takes in the observation of the principle of order and recurrence in a universe which is itself will and order incarnate.
from: Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, Paul Fussell 1965
Hmmmm.
by simulacrum I guess he must mean an insubstantial form or semblance of something; or maybe the replacement of reality by its representation – or perhaps merely an image devoid of the substance contained in the original?
IMAGE CREDIT: sodahead.com
as The Writer To His Blog, so
The Author To Her Book
Anne Bradstreet (1612 – 1672)
Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did’st by my side remain,
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call.
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
The visage was so irksome in my sight,
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet.
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun cloth, i’ th’ house I find.
In this array, ‘mongst vulgars may’st thou roam.
In critic’s hands, beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known.
If for thy father askt, say, thou hadst none;
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.
