Thanks for the comments on my poem "Prayer." I noticed that the people
commenting on it echoed all three of the overtones which the word Byzantium
will have for any educated person: the ancient polis, the medieval imperial
capital, and the Yeatsian symbolic city. Some people have speculated on
what I meant by the poem. My own experience is that, while of course I
intend everything that a poem means, the intention is almost entirely
unconscious, and I don't feel in much better a position than a reader to
uncover it. I think, for instance, that Ken Wolman's interpretation is
quite valid, though I didn't have most of those things in mind consciously
when I wrote it -- all I was aware of doing was trying to create a tone and
atmosphere.

I wonder if other people would like to share their experience on this: when
you write a poem, are you aware that you're putting in things which the
critics are going to analyze, or like me are you mostly just aware that
you're trying to create something that sounds interesting? My own
experience is that the act of creating a successful poem must begin with
silencing the critic in yourself. I've also found that if a poem has very
obvious patterns -- for instance, if it falls into two clearly different
parts of exactly equal length -- which you didn't notice unitl after you'd
finished it, that's a pretty sure sign it's a good one.

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Thanks too, especially to Anny Ballardini, for the comments on the poem
"Irish Town," which I sent to the voice project and which I'll post to the
list after I send this. I suggested to Randolph that it might be worth
while to include comments on where people's accents came from; maybe he can
find somewhere to put that information after more sound files are up. My
own accent was formed in what is called Downstate Illinois, which is
basically northern and central Illinois outside of the greater Chicago area,
so I have a pretty standard Midwestern American accent, the one which in
America isn't considered having an accent at all.

And yes, the poem is mine. I can in this case say a little about my
conscious intention: I remember reading somewhere that in the old days
cities in Ireland were often divided into a poorer Irish quarter and a
higher class English one, called respectively Irish Town and English Town.
I found these phrases striking and they eventually turned into the poem,
though I didn't mean to limit its reference to Irish history or society,
since Irish Town and English Town are wherever you see them.

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There exists a huge amount of recorded poetry, though much of it is still
only availabe on old LPs. Two notable exceptions are the Rhino Records CD
anthology "In Their Own Voices" and the recent book/cd collection Poetry
Speaks (Sourcebooks, Inc., 2001), which between them include recordings not
only of most of the major twentieth century British and American poets but
also, astonishingly, of Robert Browning, Tennyson, and Whitman. Is anyone
aware of an Internet collection of such sound files? If nobody's done it,
there might be an opportunity to start one.

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I remember reading Christopher Logue's "War Music" when it first started
coming out in fragments in the 1960s and liking it. The hard thing to bring
across in the Iliad is the impetus, which you get some of in his versions.

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Personally, some of Robert Graves's poems have become possessions for always
for me: "She tells her love" and "Lovers in Winter" (two of the most
perfect short love lyrics in English,) "A Love Story," "Pure Death," "To
Juan at the Winter Solstice," "Inkidoo and the Queen of Babel," "The White
Goddess," "In the wilderness," and "Lament for Pasiphae," to name just the
ones I can think of readily. His The Greek Myths is regarded by mainstream
classicists as impossibly eccentric, though I think it is fascinatingly
suggestive, and his retellings seem to serve as a pretty good compendium of
the stories. As a poet Graves has largely become invisible, since no one
thinks that his traditional romantic poetry is worth reading any more: as
soon as they see that it scans and rhymes, most people can't see anything
else. As for me, I wouldn't trade the handful of poems I've mentioned above
for Carcanet's and Bloodaxe's entire poetry lines combined.

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A convention of poet laureates is a droll idea. You can read about it here:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/30/DD131359.DTL

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Quote of the week:

     To write poems for other than poets is wasteful.

                             -- Robert Graves

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Jon Corelis [log in to unmask]
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

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