Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category
Time Magazine, 1923:
Has the Reader Any Rights Before the Bar of Literature?
There is a new kind of literature abroad in the land, whose only obvious fault is that no one can understand it. Last year there appeared a gigantic volume entitled Ulysses, by James Joyce. To the uninitiated it appeared that Mr. Joyce had taken some half million assorted words— many such as are not ordinarily heard in reputable circles—shaken them up in a colossal hat, laid them end to end. To those in on the secret the result represented the greatest achievement of modern letters—a new idea in novels.
The Dial has awarded its $2,000 prize for the best poem of 1922 to an opus entitled The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot. Burton Rascoe, of The New York Tribune, hails it as incomparably great. Edmund Wilson, Jr., of Vanity Fair, is no less enthusiastic in praise of it. So is J. Middleton Murry, British critic.
Here are the last eight lines of The Waste Land:
“London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down Poi s’accose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon — O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine a la tour abolie These fragments I have shored against my ruins Why then He fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata
” Shantih Shantih Shantih”
The case for the defense, as presented by the admirers of Messrs. Eliot, Joyce, et al., runs something like this:
Literature is self-expression. It is up to the reader to extract the meaning, not up to the writer to offer it. If the author writes everything that pops into his head—or that is supposed to pop into the head of a given character—that is all that should be asked. Lucidity is no part of the auctorial task.
It is rumored that The Waste Land was written as a hoax. Several of its supporters explain that that is immaterial, literature being concerned not with intentions but results.
The Best Poem about L.A. EVER WRITTEN…
…goes like this:
LA’s fine
but it ain’t mine.
Thinking of putting some words down myself, but these words won’t get out of my head. So I looked them up, thinking they were from a cheesy Neil Diamond song called I am…I said. Problem is, although people quote the above line from the song, this exact line isn’t really there, at least according to my internet research. Oh well.
If any of you know where this line is from, let me know. I bet it came out of the Neil Diamond song, as it is such a simple but universal feeling. Any other good songs/poems/books/anything by people other than us about LA? Let me know.
Also, in case you haven’t noticed, there is a long retroactively posted piece below with the odd title “Catwomen and the Prowling Lion.” For another angle on this topic, go here.
Update
C’mon people, give me the LA references you like in whatever kind of art form! I’m stuck in the same room as Neil Diamond now, and to tell the truth I’m a bit scared.
Good Friday Instapoem
The quote below inspired some instapoetry.
