Number 24: Tony Harrison "Long Distance II"

Long Distance II

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.

--Tony Harrison

Hap Notes: Tony Harrison (Born 1937) has certainly had his share of controversy in his lifetime. His poem, "V", raised hackles when it was read and shown as a film on television in Great Britain. The poem describes visiting his parent's grave site in Leeds during the miners' strike in the early 80s. His vivid use of the language of the graffiti on the graves offended some sensibilities. "V" is an acid slash of images and words. You can see this program on YouTube in several parts. Yep, welcome to the 21st century where poets do filmed projects. Harrison has done several of what he calls "Film Poems."

You have to smile a bit that poetry can still rankle politicians and the media. It's a powerful sword that many think has rusted but this proves otherwise. It may not make you a millionaire but don't forget what Kipling said about words being the most powerful drug on earth. Harrison knew this at an early age. He was one of those kids who stayed inside, read classics and Shakespeare and took a bit of razzing for it.

Harrison is on YouTube reading much of his poetry, holding his frayed and splayed book and speaking in that flat gorgeous Yorkshire accent of his. I wish all poets were so gifted with reading their work aloud, but Harrison certainly is. Read the poetry first, then listen to him so you can hear his emphasis compared to your own. He (as Eliot would say) does the "Police" in different voices. (Is that too obscure a reference? In "The Wasteland" T.S. Eliot refers to a person who reads the paper with different voices for the speakers, with the words "He do the "Police" (Police Gazette, I think) in different voices." Harrison uses different voices and tones. Didn't mean to drop the tranny there.)

Harrison read classics at the university which is a very plain British way of saying he majored in them. He's done award-winning translations of Aeschylus's The Oresteia and (great shades of yesterday's blog!) his The Gaze of the Gorgon won the Whitbread Poetry Award.

Three charming and somewhat unrelated bits: I've always thought it amusing that a recurring character on "The Mighty Boosh", a pink brain with tentacles and a grin, is named Tony Harrison. The poet actually wrote the lyrics for the songs in a movie "The Bluebird," a strange children's film I've always sorta liked. And Thom Yorke from the band Radiohead is a huge fan of Harrison.

Let's talk about the poem, yes? First off, did you even notice that it rhymed? His seemingly effortless way with rhyme is miraculous. Must be his native Yorkshire woodnotes mixed with a healthy dose of the Greek and Roman classics. The poem is a marvel of smooth gorgeous effortless verse which, if you'd ever tried to write you'd know is the complete opposite of those words. One little comment and I'll let you enjoy it for yourself. How long was that number virtually disconnected do you think, from his parents, as opposed to literally? It's a lovely poem, ain't it? Such tender words from the furious spirit who wrote "V."

Here's a good Harrison quote: "I was well read and knew languages, but I didn't want to become Ezra Pound. I wanted to write poetry that people like my parents might respond to."

You can find more Tony Harrison poetry here: www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=7814

Number 23: Rudyard Kipling "When Earth's Last Picture is Painted."

When Earth's Last Picture Is Painted

When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it -- lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.
And those that were good shall be happy; they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets' hair.
They shall find real saints to draw from -- Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only The Master shall praise us, and only The Master shall blame;
Andd no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the thing as he sees it for the God of Things as They are!

--Rudyard Kipling

Hap Notes: Okay, before I begin to talk about Kipling (1865-1936) you may want to wash off a bit of the schmaltz and the treacle residue from the poem. I know you think I've gone off the bend on this one. But it has not been posted exclusively for you but in honor of Mrs. Virginia Edwards, my high school English Literature teacher who adored the poem and because it was a pivotal point in my relationship to her and classic poetry. (AND P.S. Kipling was the first English speaking writer to get the Nobel Prize and still remains its youngest recipient. He was 42).

We moved the summer before my senior year in high school and I was torn from all the friends with which I had gone to grade school and junior high and most of high school and was deposited in a new school where I knew no one. The only bright spot in the whole thing was the new school was very modern (at the time) and allowed you to take courses, much like college, that you could choose yourself. I loaded my schedule with literature classes and Latin (they had Latin!)

When I mentioned to someone that I was going to take English literature with Virginia Edwards, my new classmates filled me in on her. They called her "the Virgin Queen" (although she was married and had grown children) and said she was a "musty powderpuff" of a long bygone era. She always wore a clutch of fake violets at her throat or a large brooch. She was, they told me, ancient (she may have been in her late 60s) and had a humped back. She said "pleezhure" for the word pleasure and "Lehzhure" for the word leisure. She was a gorgon. I, of course, was not repulsed by their friendly warnings but intrigued. I generally like gorgons.

The gorgon turned out to be a diminutive woman with carefully coifed hair and a strong but gentle voice. She wafted lavender and lemon. The first day of class she read this poem aloud. I, being the ginormous goose of literature that I was (am) had it committed to memory and I silently mouthed the words as she spoke. I didn't think she'd notice this, since I was sitting in the back of the room as was my wont (where you can read other things and draw pictures with impunity.) The next thing I knew she had asked me to stand up. "Do you know this poem?" she asked sternly. I said that I did. She said, "Then, recite it." Which I did. She brushed away a tear (!) and said "Thank-you. Thank you, very much. That was lovely." and went on with the class.

After the class she asked me how I knew the poem and I showed her my beat up copy of Palgrave's Golden Treasury. She nodded. That was it. The next day she read Robert Burn's poem "John Anderson My Jo, John" and I wept a little. She deposited a box of kleenex on my desk and said, "I believe we are going to need these this year." We were never fast friends, we were compatriots in the forces of literature. She treated me as a lieutenant to her General. She was never gooey with sentiment- she let the poetry and the literature do what it would. She did give me a new copy of Palgrave's when I graduated. The inscription said, "You need this, I think. Thank you for a most satisfying and enjoyable year."

Now, how did my peers react to this geekiness in me? I couldn't tell you. Being the ginormous goose that I was (am) I didn't notice and didn't give a damn anyway. Just didn't think about it. And I was never teacher's pet. She never asked me to distribute tests or do anything out of the ordinary, She did not let me slide because I knew things. In fact, I think she was a bit repulsed by my wild curly hair and ratty black turtleneck and blunt speaking. She treated me like she was teaching a strange new creature who could possibly bite (a gorgon, maybe?) I told her she should reconsider e.e. cumings. She told me I shouldn't be so disrespectful of Matthew Arnold. I loved her very much. I'm quite sure she's dead, now. But not to me. Hence the Kipling (which, by the by, has some merit, I think, in spite of it's saccharine.)

Kipling, of course, everybody knows whether they think they do or not. He wrote The Jungle Book which has been made into both Disney animated movies and real-life movies. He wrote Captains Courageous, which many people know from the Spencer Tracy film. He wrote Gunga Din which was made into a movie with Cary Grant (and is an okay poem- come on!) and Kim. He wrote that "IF" poem that people send each other at graduations.

Kipling was born in Bombay (now called Mumbai) and didn't go to school in England until he was 5 or 6. He stayed with people who took care of British children whose families lived in India so they could get an English education. He was most grievously abused by them and hated his life there. Kipling always considered himself more Indian than Brit- even though there's always the whiff of British Imperialism about much of his work. It's more than a tad distasteful. I always think of him as a cross between Teddy Roosevelt (adventurous and imperious) and William Wordsworth (romantic)- there's a strange mix, indeed.

And even though much of his work may seem a bit sugary, there's merit in much of it and he is well-loved by lots of people who normally do not read poetry so there you have it. This particular poem was written as a l'envoi to his book The Seven Seas. ( a l'envoi is verse that sort of bless or depict the moral or "christen" if you will, a book.)

Kipling is highly quotable. You know -- "a woman is only a woman but a good cigar is a smoke" and "God could not be everywhere and therefore he created mothers" and just oodles more. Here are a couple of good ones:

"If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten."

and "Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind."

Oh, and here's one very telling about his "foster parents": "Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established. Also, badly-treated children have a clear notion of what they are likely to get if they betray the secrets of a prison-house before they are clear of it".

You can find more Kipling here: www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/kipling_ind.html

Number 22: Galway Kinnell "The Correspondence-School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students"

The Correspondence-School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students

Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me
snapshots of yourself, after definitely hinting
you were beautiful; goodbye,
Miami Beach urologist, who enclosed plain
brown envelopes for the return of your very
“Clinical Sonnets”; goodbye, manufacturer
of brassieres on the Coast, whose eclogues
give the fullest treatment in literature yet
to the sagging breast motif; goodbye, you in San Quentin,
who wrote, “Being German my hero is Hitler,”
instead of “Sincerely yours,” at the end of long,
neat-scripted letters extolling the Pre-Raphaelites:

I swear to you, it was just my way
of cheering myself up, as I licked
the stamped, self-addressed envelopes,
the game I had of trying to guess
which one of you, this time,
had poisoned his glue. I did care.
I did read each poem entire.
I did say everything I thought
in the mildest words I knew. And now,
in this poem, or chopped prose, no better,
I realize, than those troubled lines
I kept sending back to you,
I have to say I am relieved it is over:
at the end I could feel only pity
for that urge toward more life
your poems kept smothering in words, the smell
of which, days later, tingled in your nostrils
as new, God-given impulses
to write.

Goodbye,
you who are, for me, the postmarks again
of imaginary towns—Xenia, Burnt Cabins, Hornell—
their solitude given away in poems, only their loneliness kept.

--Galway Kinnell

Hap Notes: Galway Kinnell (Born 1927) while studying at Princeton University made no bones about how scornful he was of classes that could "teach" one to write poetry. After graduation, he served in the Navy and traveled a good deal. When he got back to the states he got a job as a field worker with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and was heavily involved with the civil rights movement during the 60s. He was arrested, at one point, while integrating a workplace in Louisiana. I believe he is retired now but he still writes and lectures because you never actually retire from writing like you do from, say, driving a cab or making rubber or something. It haunts you forever.

In addition to writing poetry and teaching creative writing, Kinnell has translated the poetry of Rilke and Francois Villon. It's the Villon translations where I first encountered him and I worked backwards, then, to read his poetry. Kinnell was great friends with the poet James Wright and their work has a similar clearly worded symmetry.

Kinnell deals with real life situations in his poetry and his influence seems to be most notably Whitman, without the grandeur of the style which he would, I think, find a bit much. He does celebrate the self, though, almost as much as he makes social commentary in much of his poetry. Kinnell takes a nice big juicy bite out of life, he has an appetite for it as well as a certain amount of horror and sorrow for mankind.

The whimsical humor of the poem at hand is, at first, somewhat light-hearted and funny. One immediately understands the kinds of poetry the narrator has been reading from the description of the senders and it makes you smile a bit, and wince, to think on it. The poet has obviously written criticisms, "in the mildest words" but he's sure that if the students understand his objections they will feel rejected enough to poison him- he's mostly joking about this, though. We understand both points of view here, though- the rejected and the rejector. The descriptions immediately fill us with a sense of superiority.

Then the author (somewhat modestly) says his poem, the one we are reading, the "chopped prose," isn't much better than the poems sent for his instructional perusal, which of course, probably isn't true at all. But then he gets down to the dirt of the poem.

The poems which are "smothering in words" that "will to life" and the pity that he feels for those lonely souls trying to get their feelings on the paper are suspiciously close to the poet himself. His poem, addressed to us, is also from some "imaginary" place, isn't it? His solitude is also shared but his loneliness is his own, pondering the various places the students live, but, reader, where is he from, eh? He's some place we don't see or know- he's giving us his solitude but keeping his loneliness as well.

So while he bids his students goodbye and releases himself from the task of reading more painful verses. He, also, has that "god given impulse" does he not? He, in spite of his poetic prowess, could be mourning for himself as well as them.

And what interesting town names- Xenia (the Greek concept of courtesy to one far from home), Burnt Cabins (like a pioneer town once in flames), and Hornell (more than likely named for some forgotten town founder.) Put those together and see how they add. Subtle but good stuff there.

Here's a good Kinnell quotation: "If you could keep going deeper and deeper, you'd finally not be a person ... you'd be a blade of grass or ultimately perhaps a stone. And if a stone could read, poetry would speak for it."

Here's another: "Maybe the best we can do is do what we love as best we can, perhaps, by trying to bring together one’s art and one’s life with one’s values."

You can find more Kinnell here: www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=2637

Number 21: Robert Louis Stevenson "After Reading 'Anthony and Cleopatra' "

After Reading Antony and Cleopatra

As when the hunt by holt and field
Drives on with horn and strife,
Hunger of hopeless things pursues
Our spirits throughout life.

The sea's roar fills us aching full
Of objectless desire -
The sea's roar, and the white moon-shine,
And the reddening of the fire.

Who talks to me of reason now?
It would be more delight
To have died in Cleopatra's arms
Than be alive to-night.

--Robert Louis Stevenson

Hap Notes: Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (1850-1894) was born in Edinburg, Scotland so don't forget to hear his poetry with that lovely lilt in mind. Think Ewan McGregor.

Here we have another guy who wrote a good deal of "children's poetry." Remember A Child's Garden of Verses? Of course he also penned some mighty famous tales, for example; Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He is said to be in the top 30 of the most translated authors in the world. He was something of a celebrity due to the popularity of his books.

Stevenson packed a good deal into his short, riddled-with-illness, 44 years. He was born to a family of lighthouse builders and I believe his dad thought he would follow in the family biz. Parents of teens may note, with a bit of bemusement, the rules of a club (the Liberty, Justice, Reverence Club) he and a school friend devised, the first of which was "Disregard everything our parents have taught us." He was a great lover of reading as a youth and particularly admired Shakespeare, Walter Scott, and John Bunyan. His father made him at least get a law degree at the University of Edinburg which he did but he never actually practiced with it.

He traveled widely, fell ill a LOT and when he felt better he wrote like a house afire. He was a right handsome fella for being so terribly skinny most of his life. His life is worth several books worth of stuff so let me just tell you he ended up in the South Seas on a Samoan Island where the natives adored him- he was called Tusitala (story teller) and was often involved in politics involving the isles. He married a woman 10 years his senior who already had children.

He has often been relegated to "children's" literature or worse, Neo-Romantic sentimentality, however his admirers include Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Vladimir Nabokov, G,K. Chesterton, J. M. Barrie and French Symbolist Marcel Schwob. Henry James was his dear friend and champion; Stevenson wrote a charming poem about an antique mirror and Henry James, perhaps we'll read it together at some point.

This little poem packs a wallop. Stevenson is telling us that the human race is always hungering and aching for unobtainable, often indefinable things. These mysterious things haunt us throughout our lives. The sea speaks of it to us, the moon fills us with it and watching the firelight and the reddening coals speaks of it. This aching, unrealized desire is past reason. Stevenson imagines himself, after he has read Shakespeare's play, as an Anthony, dying in the arms of Cleopatra- something that can never happen but fills him with a romantic longing.

I believe much of our lives we are yearning for a similar satisfaction; one that can never happen. Like Stevenson's impossible fantasy, its elusiveness makes it all the more appealing and frustrating. Humans do not like to think there is anything that is impossible- this impossibility may be the sadness that mixes with the search.

That ocean image is particularly apt- you know how, standing on the seashore, one is filled with an ache and a longing in addition to admiration and maybe, a bit of fear? What is it we want when we look out upon ocean? Who can specifically name it?

Oh, a "holt" is a wooded area. And remember he's not saying a hunt is full of hopeless desire, he's saying our desires for these hopeless things trail us like a driven hunt. It may be, too, that our desire for the impossible is part of the thrill of the hunt, that it, in itself, is part of the romance of life.

Stevenson probably has the most quoted gravestone of all time; his poem "Requiem."

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Here's a good Stevenson quote: "If your morals make you dreary, depend on it, they are wrong."

You can find more Stevenson here: www.poemhunter.com/robert-louis-stevenson/

Number 20: Stanley Kunitz "The Portrait"

The Portrait

My mother never forgave my father
for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
that spring
when I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name
in her deepest cabinet
and would not let him out,
though I could hear him thumping.
When I came down from the attic
with the pastel portrait in my hand
of a long-lipped stranger
with a brave moustache
and deep brown level eyes,
she ripped it into shreds
without a single word
and slapped me hard.
In my sixty-fourth year
I can feel my cheek
still burning.

--Stanley Kunitz

Hap Notes: Six weeks before Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006) was born, his father walked to a public park in Worcester, Massachusetts, sat down and killed himself by drinking carbolic acid. His father's clothing business was bankrupted, at the time, thanks to a partner's mismanagement/theft.

Kunitz's mother managed to take care of her family (Kunitz had two older sisters) and eventually remarried, but when Kunitz was 14, the stepfather died, too. His sisters married early and died young.

Kunitz went to Harvard where he studied and lectured with the English department. He graduated summa cum laude with a master's degree. He had thought he would be given a lectureship but was told (in 1926) that the department felt that some students would feel "resentful" (interesting euphemism) at being taught English by a Jew. Kunitz said it was "a cruel and wanton rejection.”

Kunitz's life seems to be marked with an extraordinary gentle patience, from his teaching career to his poetry to his life-long love affair with gardening(which is legendary.) He was a steadfast cultivator who waited and waited and watched everything eventually blossom in his life- a complete reverse of his father.

After college Kunitz worked as a reporter for the Worcester Times and as an editor for the H.W. Wilson Co. in New York. He was a C.O. during WWII and served as a noncombatant. After the war he subsequently was offered teaching jobs starting at Bennington in Vermont and ending with Columbia University, where he taught for 22 years. (The poet, Theodore Roethke had Kunitz hired at Bennington; Roethke was going through one of his sad breakdowns when he was teaching there and told the college he'd leave IF they hired Kunitz. So, it's a tale of friendship and how fearful universities are of mental illness.)

Kunitz published his first book of poetry in 1925 but had trouble finding a publisher for the second; Selected Poems: 1928-1959. He finally found a publisher after a bit of struggle- the book went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. If all these struggles seem a bit vexing to you, they should. If graduating summa cum laude from Harvard can't get you a teaching job and if nobody at a publishing house can recognize Pulitzer prize potential poetry what the hell does that say about poetry and merit in this country? I'm mad just writing about it. Kunitz kept his patience.

Okay, I'll simmer down and talk about this poem, so gently told on the surface. There's a lot of slow painful burning going on in this poem. Kunitz's mother still burns with a passion, at the time he finds the picture of his birth-father, passion of anger, betrayal and maybe something else "locked in her deepest cabinet." Kunitz's cheek still burns from the slap his mother gave him, burns with hurt, curiosity for the father with the "brave mustache" he never knew, burns with hurt for his mother, and sadness, among other things. (Just a side note: Carbolic acid, by the way, still burns the esophagus and stomach for weeks after the poison is taken- long after the body is dead. Most Jewish burials require rapid burial- the body is not embalmed.) A rapid slap and a slow burn- and it hurts. One wonders how much Kunitz looked like his father, too. Lots of things to slowly wonder about in this poem.

Kunitz's poetry is often deceptively airy, like this. It breathes by itself but does not crowd you. It patiently waits for you to discover its mysteries. There's a lot of Jungian imagery going on with much of Kunitz's work.

Kunitz believed, since it has relatively little monetary value, that poetry is the last form of uncorrupted art. I heartily agree with this. I don't believe this will be changing any time soon.

Kunitz lived to be 101 and won loads of awards and deep respect in the last 40 years of his life. His tombstone reads "He loved the earth so much, he wanted to stay forever."

Heres' a nice Kunitz quote: "Poetry emerges out of the mystery and secrecy of being, It is the occult and passionate grammar of a life.''

You can find more Kunitz here: www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/2

Number 19: Thomas Hardy "A Christmas Ghost Story"

A Christmas Ghost Story


South of the Line, inland from far Durban,
A mouldering soldier lies--your countryman.
Awry and doubled up are his gray bones,
And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans
Nightly to clear Canopus: "I would know
By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law
Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified,
Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?

And what of logic or of truth appears
In tacking 'Anno Domini' to the years?
Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied,
But tarries yet the Cause for which He died."

-- Thomas Hardy

Hap Notes: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was a poet who wrote novels. It just so happens that his novels, which he started writing to make money while he wrote poetry, often overshadow his poetry, which is a pity, really. Of course, I'd give my eyeteeth to have written Jude, the Obscure. He wrote books that always end up on a college syllabus or list for extra-credit reading and most people have read at least one of the following: Tess of the d'Urbervilles or Far From the Madding Crowd or Return of the Native or The Mayor of Casterbridge or the aforementioned Jude.

But, Hardy considered himself a poet. Good lad.

Hardy started out as an architect's apprentice (his dad was a stone mason) and the notebooks he left after he died show a writer who built a novel somewhat like a peculiar house; the notebooks reveal little newspaper snippets, facts about the natural world, notes on buildings and character sketches from which he "built" novels and poems. He understood masonry and the elements of physical labor although he was a devoted book worm who was either reading or writing most of the time. He had been sickly as a child and was small in stature (How small? I believe it's said that he was a slight bit over five feet tall.) His work, of course, is gigantic.

Hardy's poetry is a sweet and salty mix of Victorian rhythms/words/rhyme with some plain-speaking common English. This is why he's hard to classify as either Victorian or Modern but if we were just sitting around idly chatting about Hardy I would put him in the Moderns. His work has a strong sense of the ironies of life and the mysteries of what often seem to be an uncaring universe. By the way, in spite of his often bitter sounding prose and poetry he was a very gentle man who was a strong anti-vivisectionist and loved animals (and women- just sayin'.)

The poem needs little explication from me outside of my telling you that Canopus is a very bright star. Why did he use Canopus instead of Sirius, the brightest star? Well, he was a scholar of Latin and Greek and he knew that Canopus was the name of Menelaus' pilot for whom the star was named. Canopus steered the ship as Menelaus went to retrieve Helen of Troy after Paris had taken her. So he figures in the Trojan War. Ah ha! He's saying something about how "primitive" wars should have stopped after "that man Crucified." Troy having taken place in B.C. as opposed to A.D. (Anno Domini.) Durban is a city in South Africa. The speaker in the poem probably fought in the Boer Wars which were bloody, brutal and "primitive."

And, of course, a star attended the birth of Jesus, yes? Hence, a "Christmas" ghost story comes full circle with the star he addresses.

Hardy was not a man of action. In fact his wives both (he was married twice; one wife died, the second wife was his much younger secretary) complained that he spent way too much time holed up in his study, writing and reading. The world came to visit him.

Just a cursory glance at the attendees at his funeral will give you a good look at his influence: Prime Minister (at the time) Stanley Baldwin and the Leader of the Opposition Ramsay MacDonald, heads of Oxford and Cambridge colleges (where Hardy was an honorary fellow) and literary figures like James Barrie, Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, Edmund Gosse, A. E. Housman, Rudyard Kipling and George Bernard Shaw. Have we mentioned his influence on D.H. Lawrence, our friend Walter de la Mare (from the Christmas eve poem), William Butler Yeats and Virginia Woolf? There's way more but I'll stop- you get the drift.

Here's a good Hardy quote (we'll see more of him this year, too): "A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible."

Another good one, "“It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in a language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”


You can find more Hardy poetry here: www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/thomas-hardy

Number 18: T.S. Eliot "Journey of the Magi"

The Journey of the Magi

‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

--T.S. Eliot

Hap Notes: Happy Christmas!!!

We'll talk about the St. Louis-Missouri-born British citizen T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) and his enormous influence some other time. Just think on the poem and have a lovely day! (It's one of the three wise men talking about the journey to see the baby Jesus- I know you got that...just summarizing.)