Oh I don't know, Jon. Most of us would be aware of that context. I
admit, it is one of the few Thomas poems I can still read (over &
over). I (I suspect like many) had the Collected, & read it all when I
was in my late teens early 20s) (hey, he was published by New
Directions; which was beginning to lead me to Pound, etc). But what
could a prairie boy, with his language, do with this, I mean as
learning how to write my own poems? On the other hand, I get how the
lack of a particular polemic makes it work, makes it last.
Interestingly, to me at least, is the way it refuses the usual Thomas
over-the-top treatment....
Doug
On 25-May-05, at 6:21 PM, Jon Corelis wrote:
> I think this is one poem which has to be considered in its historical
> context
> to be understood. I suspect that many people today who may read the
> poem
> aren't aware that it was written during World War II, that the child
> died in
> the blitz, and that the fire was Nazi bombs. This makes the poem
> doubly
> rejectionist: not only is it a poem about the death of a child which
> rejects
> sentimentality, it's an anti-war and anti-fascist poem which rejects
> ideological pontification and moralistic hand-wringing. Few poets
> today, I
> think, would venture to write a political and anti-war poem which is so
> isolated from any, even implicit, ideological posturing (perhaps The
> Iliad is
> such a poem,) which may be one reason why among the massive flood of
> political
> poetry being produced today, so little of it seems unstrained.
>
>
> =====================================
> Jon Corelis [log in to unmask]
>
> www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
> =====================================
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
Words cling to other words
As we have seen, although even these are
Migratory and the forgotten shows through as correction.
This noun has been defunct for centuries.
Ann Lauterbach
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