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In what way is this a response to Eliot? It's not unusual for poets who would embrace George (not Georg--she was English) Eliot's statement to get angry at the demands on occasion. It's also not unusual for them tp write light verse. While I'm at it, that "noisome--er, sorry" routine is one of those signs that says "sophomoric--I don't have to pay attention to this guy," which is probably not what you hope to convey. Mark At 01:31 PM 4/27/2009, you wrote: >Hugo Claus - aka Jan Hyoens, Thea Streiner, Dorothea van Male and for a time >Mr Silvia Kristel - wrote a response to Georg Eliot's noisome - er, sorry, >fiercesome - quote. Not that he knew it. But I suppose he was acquainted >with that kind of thing. On the Nobel Prize he said "L'argent de ce prix >m'aurait bien arrangé". He opted for euthanasia on February 13 2008. > >ENVOI >My verses are still yawning a bit. >I'll never get used to it. They've lived here >long enough. >Enough. I'm booting them out, I don't want to wait >till their toes get cold. >No more disturbance by their confused howls! >I want to listen to the drone of the sun >or of my heart, that perfidious sponge that hardens. > >My verses don't screw classically, >they babble vulgarly or boast too grandly. >In the winter they get cracked lips, >in the spring they are laid up by the first touch of warmth, >they mess up my summers >and in autumn they smell of women. > >Enough. I'm going to hold my hand over their head >for just twelve more lines on this sheet >and then they get a kick in the arsehole. >Go and moan somewhere else, you two-bit rhymes, >do your trembling elsewhere for twelve readers >and a snoring reviewer. > >Go now, verses, on your light feet, >you didn't step too hard on the old earth >where the graves laugh when they see their guests, >one corpse piled on top of the other. >Go now and totter towards Her >that I don't know. > >trans. from the Flemish >mjw > > > >And the globe keeps rolling towards a pocket without a bottom although on >the way the green cloth field is smooth. - Louis MacNeice >----- Original Message ----- >From: andrew burke >To: [log in to unmask] >Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 11:30 AM >Subject: quote > > >I've just blogged this fiercesome quote from George Eliot: “To be a poet is >to have a soul so quick to discern, that no shade of quality escapes it, and >so quick to feel, that discernment is but a hand playing with finely ordered >variety on the chords of emotion—a soul in which knowledge passes >instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of >knowledge.” > >Challenging? > > >Andrew >http://hispirits.blogspot.com/