Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Mary,  sorry to incite a rant! Was using "filthy" tongue-in-cheek-ly.
And Tara does cook, and very well, so I'm all for invading. However,
I'd like youse guys to come over sometime late next week, if possible.
I'll email.

Neil, you are cruel to point out books that cost over a few dollars.
However, from the only review of it on the page:
" The Earl of Rochester lived a life worthy of Tom Jones. "
I'm sold. 
  

    

Thinking of poets "wasting" their talents makes me think of the first Keats
poem I memorized:

"Give me women, wine, and snuff
until I cry out Hold, enough!
You may do so sans objection
'Til the day of resurrection
For bless my beard, they aye will be
my beloved trinity."

Might be slightly inaccurate- was going from memory.
  

    <scribbled by dfowlkes Tue 3 Jul 12 10:14>
  

    
Mary - You can find much of Ms. Millay's work online. Here's a few
sites, in the interest of saving some bookshelf space until/unless you
decide you like her work enough to own a few collection. :)

Some of her work:
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/authors/millay.html

A short bio:
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=161
  

    
Meg -- there are some recordings of Ms Millay reading her verse still
around. Really wonderful stuff. And poets ought to have interesting
lovelifes otherwise they aren't doing their job, I suspect.

Maure - a quick check through bookfinder.com gives us lots of seven
dollar and even a $3.75 edition of the complete rochester...

Mary -- I've always felt that the biggest thing a poet is offer
insight into those things that make us human - not so much the big
themes, as the uniting themes. Death, love etc do that. What fascinated
me about Rochester is the anger and the humour and the disgust which,
no matter where he looks for a target and no matter how much he rails,
always comes back to himself.

It's interesting to see what the various critics regard as cononical
and which they see as apocryphal. Bear in mind that much of his poetry
was destroyed, and that a lot of poems that weren't his were attributed
to him over the next fifty years, with nothing but their sexual themes
to link them (just as all manner of not very good gay poetry and
writing was attributed to Wilde).
  

    
Neil,  found and bought one this morning for about ten dollars with
shipping included. It said it was in acceptable condition, with
underlining and some writing, so if I like it, I'll buy a new clean
copy from amazon. 
  

    
Neil--he is, certainly,unique in that.  He displays a level of
self-revulsion and a willingness to reveal it that we didn't see again
until the twentieth century.  And it isn't religious in nature, for the
most part, either--when Donne lashes himself in verse, it's because
he's failed his God.  When Rochester does it, it's because he's failed
himself, though his standards may well have been formed by his
apparently pious parents.

Is that deathbed conversion founded in any kind of fact?  It seems
like I read somewhere that it was spurious.  Somehow he doesn't seem
like the sort.     

I agree with you that great poetry  should deal with unifying themes. 
 I think that's what I was attempting to get at last night in my
sleep-deprived delirium.  But just because I can't connect with a poem,
or a poet, doesn't make it not  great.   I think I have a difficult
time identifying with that anger & disgust, not because I don't get
angry & disgusted, but because I'm entirely too much a good girl.  It's
interesting--I'm O.K. with musicians being angry & disgusted (Bono,
Costello, the Clash, etc.) but I'm weird elsewhere.  

And I'm sorry to sound so self-absorbed.  I had a suspicion that some
of my issues with Wilmot were me, so I keep picking over my biases.

In an attempt to confirm my belief that the English school system is
"better" than America's,when were you introduced to Wilmot?  

Maure-let me know what you think.  It can go on the unending list of
books I want.  <sigh>  With Millay reading her own stuff.

I'd better go buy a bloody lottery ticket.
  

    
Maure - I'm with you after reading that reviewer's quote on the life
of Lord Rochester, must have!  Time for another visit to The Strand
bookstore. ;>

Neil - Thank you so much.  Another door opened, amen! If poetry class
had included someone with Rochester's wit, I might not have wished
myself elsewhere during those classes.  ;>

Anyway, I hope you're feeling better. That chest congestion was
probably a warning shot across the prow. There's no substitution for a
good night's rest. 
  

    
Ah, yes. Poetry. I used to have to remember things as well. I found my
mother's old Literature book and when told to memorize poems, went to
that since everyone else usually used short one. There was this one: 

TO THE CUCKOO by anon

Oh, blithe newcomer [it starts]

Oh, Cuckoo, shall I call ye bird
Or but a wandering voice? [it ends]

And behold, I have forgotten most of what went in between but it got
me many points since it was rather long.

But my fave was this nonsense thing

I shot an arrow into the air
I don't know where I got it
Perhaps I picked it up somewhere
Perhaps I even bought it
But as it was I shot it
I shot it straight and true
At a polar bear in Washington Square
And hit a policeman's shoe.

Some say it was the left shoe
Some say it was the right
Some say it wasn't a polar bear
But a cinnamon yak died white.

It really doesn't matter
But I know it was a bear
Whoever heard of a cinnamon yak
In the middle of Washington Square

And, of course, the Jabberwocky. But memorizing that with all the
wierd words is difficult. I know, I tried it one time. My preference of
the Lewis Carrol items would still be The Walrus and the Carpenter.
  

    
Neil - That is fantastic, I shall have to find them! I absolutely love
hearing writers read their own work. Thank you :)

I shall likewise have to check out more Rochester. 

Dodge - You know, I never found memorizing Jabberwocky to be a
problem. The strange words made it a lot easier for me to remember, in
part because I love how they roll off the tongue. I don't remember it
half so well now, but in high school I could recite the whole thing. 
  

    
Meg and Dodge--if you find it easier to memorise things to music, it's
worth knowing that Jabberwocky fits beautifully to the first verse of
"Let It Be". Just sing it over and over again. Is lovely accompanied by
guitar. ;>

Tree
Who spends much of her life walking purposefully into rooms and then
thinking, "What did I come in here for?"
  

    
Mary -- well, the best account we have of his life and doings is from
Bishop Gilbert Burnett, who had some long and intense conversations
(and arguments) with him shortly before he died. Burnett was satisfied
that his deathbed repentance etc was real. I think it was real up to a
point -- it satisfied the people he cared for who were there, but that
may well have been the point. Burnett's "Some Account of the Life and
Death of John, Earl of Rochester" is an astonishing book. Copies of it
don't cost too much second hand if you can find them.

And no, they don't teach Rochester in English schools either.

They DO teach Lewis Carroll though, or they did, which is why I can
happily recite Jabberwocky all the way through. 
  

    
While I can not claim anything but an odd mix of memorized Dorothy
Parker, every Beatle lyric ever, random bits of things without authors
attached and "I Sing The Body Electric" for this one stanza

 "Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
exit of the rest, 
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul. 
 The female contains all qualities and tempers them, 
 She is in her place and moves with perfect balance, 
 She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active, 
 She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as
daughters."

This is on my maternal grandmothers tomb stone, and I knew it by heart
before I knew it was a poem.

and then there is the poem that got me suspended from high school.
"When roses cease to bloom, dear,
And violets are done, 
When bumble-bees in solemn flight
Have passed beyond the sun,

The hand that paused to gather 
Upon this summer’s day 
Will idle lie, in Auburn,— 
Then take my flower, pray!"

I am convinced to this day, that Emily Dickinson was writing about the
loss of virginity in the last line and it so angered my English
teacher that I would think such awful things of Miss Dickinson, that an
apple a day couldn't have helped. He got so mad one day, that he threw
a piece of chalk at me, and I threw it back and got suspended. 

Tracey who was really quiet well behaved in high school
  

    
O.K., it's about 9:45 p.m. in California.  Good luck, Neil!
  

    
Well,  seen something today that you don't see every day (and which I've
I've never actually seen before): Neil in a suit and tie accepting the 
Hugo for American Gods.  Congratulations!
  

    
Nice acceptance.  Shiny Hugo.  Nobody in the room surprised excepting
apparently Neil.  He's out there somewhere still but I have a ten a.m. panel
and waved goodnight as I passed them all in the bar.
  

    
Email from Jouni:

Neil -- Congrats about the Hugo!!!

Jouni (back in business)
  

    
Neil - Congratulations on the Hugo!  Well deserved my dear. ;>
  

    
Congratulations, Neil!
  

    
Congratulations, Neil!!
  

    
Thank you all. Very much.
  

    
Great news, Neil!
  

    <scribbled by dfowlkes>
  

    

Email from Christy

Neil --
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just checked the journal for the first time since Friday, and I knew when
Isaw the long bunch of carriage returns.  I almost shrieked in delight,
andwould have jumped up and nearly squeezed you to pieces if you'd been
standing in my office.  (I'd been wondering on and off since late Sunday
night.)  I can't say I'm _too_ surprised, but I'm very excited for you,
Neil.  Good job. You're just amazing, and you deserve it.

A Pleased Christy,
who's a little late but with good reason
  

    

Congratulations, Neil. Well deserved.

A book club I'm a part of is reading American Gods next, and then discussing
it. Maybe we'll be able to figure out who the hell that unmemorable god is.