February 12, 2021

Jed and I have been reading this 1076 page book of poetry for years, 

and we finally finished it today.

I consider this a slightly remarkable accomplishment, 

especially in light of the workload he's carried since starting middle school.

  I'm by no means a poetry aficionado, but I enjoy the cadence and the imagery.

This anthology is in chronological order, 

with the first poem estimated to have been written circa 1250-1350,

and the last in the late 1900s.

One interesting thing I noticed is how free-form the genre became in that last century.

I'm afraid to say, I'm not a fan.

It probably does not bode well for my intelligence to admit this,

but I really like clever rhymes.  :)

One of my favorites is The Garden of Proserpine,

written by Algernon Charles Swinburne in the 1800s.

The theme is a little depressing, but I love the rhyming scheme.

It's A B A B C C C B

Here's a sample:

 

We are not sure of sorrow,

And joy was never sure;

To-day will die to-morrow;

Time stoops to no man's lure;

And love, grown faint and fretful,

With lips but half regretful

Sighs, and with eyes forgetful

Weeps that no loves endure.

Those Winter Sundays, by Robert Hayden, 

is one free-form poem written in the 1900s that I liked,

though it is strikingly sad and poignant.

 

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze.  No one ever thanked him.

 

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he'd call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

 

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love's austere and lonely offices?