News of the Muse

This blog gets more views than usual during National Poetry Writing Month.
I enjoy checking other people’s blogs as well. Take a look at them so far.
To participate, you can submit your poetry blog HERE.

I have published 30 original poems every April for the last four years.
I am re-posting some older work during March.
You can read them by clicking on the NaPoWriMo widgets to the right ▶

To a Progressive Poet

Your poems read as staggered prose;
the rhythm of the words escapes you.
One assumes, un-mused, you chose
a free-verse prison to run into.

You are modern. And it shows
in lack of structure, meter, beat.
Your emperor, set free of clothes
meanders on unsteady feet

exposed as naked, fending blows
from anarch subjects bored to tears
by cryptic, existential woes
and dreary imagery. One hears

within the verbiage you compose
a load of godless free-form tripe.
The lyrical ebb achieves new lows;
the scent is somewhat over-ripe . . .

Flux Danger

A Carefully Gated Medium

Dec1

After all, on one end of the scale, poetry has gone from being something that you did in order to Write Your Name Large Across the Sky to a carefully gated medium that requires years of apprenticeship to produce meticulous golden lines that up to 10 people will ever voluntarily read. The last time I stumbled upon a poetry reading, the attendees were students of the poet who were there in the hopes of extra credit.

Alexandra Petri @ Washington Post

Churchill’s Muse Returns

Oct21

Thence simple bards, by simple prudence taught,
To this wise town by simple patrons brought,
In simple manner utter simple lays,
And take, with simple pensions, simple praise.
Waft me, some Muse, to Tweed’s inspiring stream,
Where all the little Loves and Graces dream;
Where, slowly winding, the dull waters creep,
And seem themselves to own the power of sleep;
Where on the surface lead, like feathers, swims;
There let me bathe my yet unhallow’d limbs,
As once a Syrian bathed in Jordan’s flood—
Wash off my native stains, correct that blood
Which mutinies at call of English pride,
And, deaf to prudence, rolls a patriot tide.
From solemn thought which overhangs the brow
Of patriot care, when things are—God knows how;
From nice trim points, where Honour, slave to Rule,
In compliment to Folly, plays the fool [. . .]

From: The Prophecy of Famine by Charles Churchill (1732– 1764)

Chas. Churchill: Unamused

Oct20

Me, whom no Muse of heavenly birth inspires,
No judgment tempers when rash genius fires;
Who boast no merit but mere knack of rhyme,
Short gleams of sense, and satire out of time;
Who cannot follow where trim fancy leads,
By prattling streams, o’er flower-empurpled meads;
Who often, but without success, have pray’d
For apt Alliteration’s artful aid;
Who would, but cannot, with a master’s skill,
Coin fine new epithets, which mean no ill:
Me, thus uncouth, thus every way unfit
For pacing poesy, and ambling wit,
Taste with contempt beholds, nor deigns to place
Amongst the lowest of her favour’d race.