The Poetry Edition

Listen up, suckers -- it's poetry time. If you aren't happy about that, blame Karin. She got me in the mood by writing, and posting on her blog, what strikes me as quite an excellent little paradelle. (A paradelle is a eleventh century French poetic form. Or is it?) So, it's her fault.

Four Subjects


It has been said, accurately enough I think, that there are really only four subjects of poetry. The person who said this was the late William Matthews, and he said it in a poem very sensibly titled "Four Subjects of Poetry."

Four Subjects of Poetry
by William Matthews

1. I went out into the woods today, and it made me feel, you know, sort of
religious.

2. We're not getting any younger.

3. It sure is cold and lonely (a) without you, honey, or (b) with you,
honey.

4. Sadness seems but the other side of the coin of happiness, and vice
versa, and in any case the coin is too soon spent, and on what we know not
what.

Autumn Poetry


What about seasonal poems? A minute ago, I planned on saying that they don't fit any of the above categories. But looking at the list again, it occurs to me that a seasonal poem, and in particular a good Autumn poem, is a kind of grand slam experience. It hits all four subjects at once. The wistfulness of Autumn, after all, is rooted in experience of nature, and it speaks to the passing of time as well as to loneliness, sadness, and regret. Capture all of that in a poem, and you've hit the poetic ball out of the park. If you will forgive me my metaphor.

This time of year, I often do a mass-mailing of Keats' "To Autumn." I will spare my email contacts the spam this year, and inflict it on you the L&TM5K reader instead. Honestly, I'm not especially what you would call a "poetry guy," but I think this one rewards either a casual or a careful read. It's good.


Two challenges for any the poetry-oriented:

1 - Do you have a favorite piece of Autumnal poetry? Stick that puppy in the comments!

2 - Do you have a fall poem that you yourself have composed? Are you brave enough to put it in the comments? Sure you are.



Keats, Baby!


To Autumn
John Keats (1795-1821)

1.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.


2.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.