WILFRED JOHN

Poetry Series

WILFRED JOHN - poems -

Publication Date: December 2008

Publisher: PoemHunter.Com - The World's Poetry Archive

Poems are the property of their respective owners. This e-book was created by WILFRED JOHN on www.poemhunter.com. For the procedures of publishing, duplicating, distributing and listing of the poems published on PoemHunter.Com in any other media, US copyright laws, international copyright agreements and other relevant legislation are applicable. Such procedures may require the permission of the individuals holding the legal publishing rights of the poems.

WILFRED JOHN (30.11.1954) WILFRED JOHN BIRTH.30.11.1954 M A ENGLISH [Litt] 1980 UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT. WIFE. CHILDREN.

MRS. ROSAMMA ASHISH WILFRED ANISH WILFRED

WILFRED JOHN was born in CALICUT, in the state of KERALA. He attended U.P.schooin PERUVAYAL, and was later SAVIO HIGH SCHOOL, Then StJoseph's college Devagiri. As a young man WILFRED JOHN was influenced by modernism and by a growing sense of Indian national identity, giving rise to a uniquely Indian aesthetic. WILFRED JOHN founded the modernist journal The literary Review in 1984 and would later publish poems in WEEKLYS AND OTHER MAGAZINES. In 1980, having already worked IN A NEWS PAPER, he joined the Department of AGRICULTURE published journalistic article as well as his first book of poems. In 1984 WILFRED JOHN moved to CALICUT, continuing in the civil service while adding translations from the ENGLISH and MALAYALAM to his literary work. By this time he had become skeptical about a poetics of national identity; his later work would imply the political only through personal experience. I HAVE PUBLISHED POEMS, SHORT STORIES, ARTICLES ETC IN VARIOS PUBLICATIONS FROM VERY EARLY AGE. I believe that the best to live in accordance with higher principles and trust, that no matter how curving and unusual the road may seem, that so long as people abide by love, patience, honour, truth and kindness, that the outcome will be a good one I value honesty & commitment. I'm sort of outgoing, assertive and clearly independent in term of how I wish to live my life. I’m looking forward to acquaintance with people all over the world. I put my appreciation and honour to loyalty and commitment in relationship. Works: www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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My intention in poetry is to write poetry: to reach and express that which, without any particular definition, everyone recognizes to be poetry, and to do this because I feel the need of doing it. There is such a complete freedom now-a-days in respect to technique that I am rather inclined to disregard form so long as I am free and can express myself freely. I don't know of anything, respecting form that makes much difference. The essential thing in form is to be free in whatever form is used. A free form does not assure freedom. As a form, it is just one more form. So that it comes to this, I suppose, that I believe in freedom regardless of form. The immense poetry of war and the poetry of a work of the imagination are two different things. In the presence of the violent reality of war, consciousness takes the place of imagination. And consciousness of an immense war is a consciousness of a fact. If that is true, it follows that the poetry of war as a consciousness of the victories and defeats of nations, is a consciousness of fact. If that is true, it follows that the poetry of war as a consciousness of fact, but of heroic fact, of fact on such a scale that the mere consciousness of it affects the scale of one's thinking and constitutes a participating in the heroic. It has been easy to say in recent times that everything tends to become real, or, rather, that everything moves in the direction of reality, that is to say, in the direction of fact. We leave fact and come back to it, come back to what we wanted fact to be, not to what it was, not to what it has too often remained. The poetry of a work of the imagination constantly illuminates the fundamental and endless struggle with fact. It goes on everywhere, even in the periods that we call peace. But in war, the desire to move in the direction of fact as we want it to be and to move quickly is overwhelming. Nothing will ever appease this desire except a consciousness of fact as everyone is at least satisfied to have it be. Things that have their origin in the imagination or in the emotions (poems) very often have meanings that differ in nature from the meanings of things that have their origin in reason. They have imaginative or emotional meanings, not rational meanings, and they communicate these meanings to people who are susceptible to imaginative or emotional meanings. They may communicate nothing at all to people who are open only to rational meanings. In short, things that have their origin in the imagination or in the emotions very often take on a form that is ambiguous or uncertain. It is not possible to attach a single, rational meaning to such things without destroying the imaginative or emotional ambiguity or uncertainty that is inherent in them and that is why poets do not like to explain. That the meanings given by others are sometimes meanings not intended by the poet or that were never present in his mind does not impair them as meanings. It takes very little to experience the variety in everything. The poet, the musician, both have explicit meanings but they express them in the forms these take and not in explanation. My own poems - the few that I wrote in my adolescence - were feverish attempts to put 'my feelings' on paper, and little more. Their importance, at least for me, their only reader, was exhausted by the time they were written. In those days, my life was one of constantly shifting weather, and the world within was rarely in sync with the world without.

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A THOUGT OF UNIVERSAL PEACE Peace will recreate in the word The common meaning of Events a constructive unity Of form and content. Poetry is quite Definitely a test of character. It is comparatively easy to Experiment with letters and A few arrangements of words. WILFRED JOHN WILFRED JOHN

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A WILD THING CAREFREE ON THE WIND I’m stepping out of the weeds amongst those wild things I’m planting myself in firm soil turning my head towards the sun allowing rain to wash over my face so I can grow as tall as the sky. How I love those wild things that travel on the wind settle on the harshest grounds and multiply like flies. I’d love to be a wild thing carefree on the wind But wild things are blown away they never put down roots Never grow as tall as trees never reach the sky. I’ve hid amongst those wild things and still managed to grow So it’s time to leave the field of weeds time for seeds to sow For if I can grow the weeds imagine how much further I can go. I’m planting myself in firm soil turning my head towards the sun Allowing rain to wash over my face, so I can grow as tall as the sky. WJ WILFRED JOHN

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ACCIDENTAL

PRISM

Re-glaze the frame’s cracked putty Keep the heat in and our socks off Tape it up with plastic Cut the draught and let us sleep In less than sweaters. But save the old glass, its pocks And ridges make an accidental Prism for the winter sunlight And spread its colours on our bed. 1980 WJ WILFRED JOHN

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ALL PRETENDING So I’m supposed to think like you In order to relate to you My words have got to be just right To save your precious mind some work. Instead of seeing where I am, You’re only looking where I’m not, Expecting me to scurry over Right to where your gaze is fixed. But I don’t want to live in that place, All pretending, imitating, Guessing what’s expected of me Jumping hoops relentlessly. So here’s the deal listen to me Try to stretch your minds a little Break the mould I can’t fit into Set communication free. 1980 WJ XX WILL NOT GO AWAY I will play the part of the wall I will be silent as the wall I will not go away like the wall I will lend a shoulder unlike the wall But I am flesh not stone and at your beck and call You can talk to me as you would the wall I would like you to talk to me for I, too, talk to my wall. WILFRED JOHN XX I ’m Left Without [Published in the literaryspot.com magazine] The purple butterfly is full of meaning. The passionate flower slightly less. The grass has outgrown its meaning. I’m left without. Look, there goes the man whose neighbour we share. Half five, on the way to the meeting place www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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For members of the unreal society: They who live forever. He runs, shaking his bulging head, Runs on a mixture of prehistoric oil And oblivion from thirteen hundred. But he loses a piece of red paper. It falls, no, whirls from his trousers. It is a scent, without rest, without weight, It whirls, starts to tumble, gallops after his trousers. Butterfly, flower, grass, me, we watch the piece of paper go with varying kinds of awe. The night becomes tangible. Copy Right 1994 Wilfred John INDIA Published in the literaryspot.com magazine from u.k. WILFRED JOHN XX WILFRED JOHN I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU When you build bridges you can keep crossing them I'm not loving you, way I wanted to What I had to do, had to run from you I'm in love with you, but the vibe is wrong And that haunted me, all the way home So you never know, never never know Never know enough, til it's over love We lose control, system overload I'm not lovin' you, way I wanted to See I wanna move, but can't escape from you So I keep it low, keep a secret code So everybody else don't have to know So keep ya love locked down, ya love locked down Keeping ya love locked down, ya love locked down Now keep ya love locked down, ya love locked down Now keep ya love locked down, you lose www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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I'm not loving you, way I wanted to I can't keep my cool, so I keep it true I got somethin' to lose, so I gotta move I can't keep myself, and still keep you too So I keep in mind, when I'm on my own Somewhere far from home, in the danger zone How many times did I take for it finally got through You lose, you lose see I had to go, see I had to go No more wastin' time, we can't wait for life We're just wastin' time, where's the finish line WILFRED JOHN XX I AM A VERY EMOTIONAL WRITER Iam a very emotional writer. Poems that are meant to evoke Great feelings among their readers Are the kind of poems that. Flows from my heart Unto the paper and into this site Hope you all enjoy Reading my pieces. WILFRED JOHN

XX I AM ALWAYS JUST ME All the books I read To make myself what I might be No matter how much I try I am always just me. Lost my voice Never heard it again After fifty-four Now I talk like you Now I sing like you. Couple of families To make me think Lost my voice Guess you always knew. WILFRED JOHN www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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XX I AM ALWAYS THINKING OF YOU I love you, Can’t you tell me things I want to know And it’s true that it really only goes to show That I know that I should never, never, never be blue. Now you’re mine, My happiness still makes me cry. And in time you’ll understand the reasons why If I cry it’s not because I’m sad But you’re the only love that I’ve ever had. I can’t believe it’s happened to me. I can’t conceive of any more misery. Ask me why I’ll say I love you and I’m always thinking of YOU. WILFRED JOHN

XX I AM FALLING NOW I'm falling now Will I meet hard stone I'm falling now Will I meet open arms Do you hear the sound of love I can hear you great I'm surrounded by beauty Come and take me to you Let's be forever true in this world Come take me again WILFRED JOHN I am Here A Tree in the Hill, From where do you think it grows That tree in the hill. For there it’s that of a cliff of rock. It is that of heart I guess, to which that tree grows.

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For there lay little dirt on that mountain side so from the root grow It is that of a grace of growth as we are bless each day with that of high. The same as the tree in the hill grows, that to which is a blessing of high. For there in the heart of a mountain roots that of great love. That of a soul we seek as we reach that of great cliffs of love. For it is that of life to which we are inspired. That of a birth of a child or perhaps it’s that a love has pulled from aside. We all know that there is one of high, as we know that it is to be by that of a miracle. That of something of the unexplained, to why you. WILFRED JOHN I AM LOCKED INSIDE I came out lastLearning is a thing of the past The door has opened and closed Real life was never like this The door opened as I fell trough. I'm locked inside this out side world Why the no one knows living on parallel lines Why the am I trapped like this world of forgotten minds Forgotten people of the past in the human race I came out last I've been left behind Left behind with human kind I want to go away I'm with these people every day human sort was left behind And I don't want to be here world of forgotten minds Living on parallel lines forgotten people of the past In the human race I came out last WILFRED JOHN I AM MADLY IN LOVE I'm madly in love with musical words. I fall, in spite of myself sometimes For people who can wield a vocabulary. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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What I want most in my life Is to be your loving and caring wife To look into each other's eyes As we lay beneath the skies. The warm sun, blue skies, and the gentle breeze Makes me feel weak in the knees I want to be with my best friend So, we can grow old together till the end. More deftly than could either sword. I'm interested in this site but don't pretend to Fully understand it yet. WILFRED JOHN I AM MISSING YOU As the silence crept inside my room And loneliness surrounded me My eager eyes searched for you I am missing you. wit and bite find here equivalents Possessing all of the power and ribald Energy of their famous originals. I want to share my feeling with you And hear a word from you Lay my head on your shoulder I am missing you As the waves of memories flash I want those days back And colour my dreams with joy I am missing you Wipe this darkness of loneliness And fill in music of love Can’t bear this pain any longer I am missing you WILFRED JOHN I AM MORE INCLINED It's true that I am older now. I've mellowed quite a bit. This fervor does not come Around as often I admit. I'm more inclined to www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Let things be. They will be anyway. It's time to let the younger Folk get up and have their say. WILFRED JOHN I AM NOT LOVING YOU I'm not loving you, way I wanted to Way I want to go, I don't need you I been down this road, too many times before I'm not loving you, way I wanted toConcentrated masses Of power ahead underneath them a feeling of fear and of dread Masters of all the sky and the weather under no bound of harness Behold the mightiest thunder over the ground they pillege and plunder Never relending to sun or to moon incising the world in their silver Moving ahead over the earth and the sea billowing up WILFRED JOHN I AM THE DREAM OF ANOTHER Prisoner of my head Dream desires to escape And outside of me to prove To all that it is innocent. I hear its impatient voice I see its gesture and its condition Menacing and furious. It is not known that I am the dream of another If I were its master I would already have set it free. WILFRED JOHN I AM THE VALLEY GREEN AND WIDE I could see the sad, distracted face of a little girl. Confusion between being and not being You're my man, my mighty king and I'm the jewel in your crown, You're the sun so hot and bright I'm your light-rays shining down, You're the sky so vast and blue and I'm the white clouds in your chest I'm a river clean and pure who in your ocean finds her rest You're the mountain huge and high I'm the valley green and wide You're the body firm and strong and I'm a rib bone on your side, www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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You're an eagle flying high I'm your feathers light and brown, You're my man, my king of kings and I'm the jewel in your crown Hand that is reluctant to touch the laughter faded away Here nothing but forever the gift of the dream The outstretched hand that does not cross The fast flowing water where memories vanish. WILFRED JOHN I AM VERY SMALL WITHOUT YOU You didn't seem my type And your age just didn't fit right Two years younger than I I wasn't searching for anybody I thought I had it all with her Until you spoke those words That burnt me deep within The face Of my serving spoon is slotted In the shape of an ancient footstep Of an undiscovered extinct relation Of our hummingbird Who let his frantic sole Be traced only once in private. I am very small without you. I am mailed into the incision. Walking toward you I return my remaining Silver in order to forget The interstellar swoosh of you. WILFRED JOHN I ASK AS IT FEELS When I sit here and think Of all the times we had The moments we shared All the good all the bad The thing I remember most Is just laying in bed with you There isn't one thing in the world I'd rather do Just laying there In your bed www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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With me in your arms Not a word needed to be said Is it a dream, being with you I ask as this feels far too good to be true. I'd hoped it was true, that someday I'd feel this way The way you make me feel each and every day. And soon comes the day when with arms open wide Ask me how it feels. When being with you isn't just a dream. WILFRED JOHN I ASK MORE COLOURS Tonight is not the night that I will walk on broken glass and wear the unmistakable face of disbelief. The thunder's growl begins to lose step with the lightning. In the attic rafters sigh and creak like scrawny old men. I lay my head on the last damp cloud where dreams of whirlwinds and flying shingles wait. I sleep like a town wiped off the map. © 1981 WILFRED JOHN WILFRED JOHN I BELIEVE IN LOVE Writers were already standing in line for centuries Hoping to unravel the sleeping habits I spent four years exhuming The remains of all my ancestors searching for connections Intuition the polymaths about their law degrees It will take to become a politician or a general who never receives I believe in love my axle’s teeth have all been wasted. Wearing clothes for Green Peace. It’s not about global warming. It’s about fighting to get certified as a sign language Instructor for plants and getting National Security to stop www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Monitoring steel bands. WILFRED JOHN I CAN FEEL YOUR HEART Make love to me on soft grass Still wet with morning dew Let me feel the trembling Of your fingertips As they reach out to touch And follow across my cheek In the heat of the day Will you lay beside me Whispering words of love And counting storm clouds Waiting for lightning To flash across the sky Late in the afternoon When night is drawing in Pull me close and kiss me In that way you always do Awakening the fire that burns Within my eyes for you I can feel your heart beating next to mine when I wake in the night still cradled in your arms your peaceful sighs a lullaby that sing me back to sleep. WILFRED JOHN I CAN STILL FEEL YOU You are so far away but I can still feel you. The essence of your being is in everything I say and do The nearness of your spirit takes my breath away I feel you in every beat of my heart as I go throughout my day. When I close my eyes I get such feelings of bliss. I can see your gentle face and feel the fire in your caress You tiptoe across my mind in the gentlest ways You’re in the softness of a rose and the warm wind on my face. You’re the sunbeams from heaven shining brightly in my soul A sweetness of serenity that fills my heart with gold. You’re always inside my mind even though we are far apart. I can feel you with me always tugging gently at my heart. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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There is the sweetest devotion I know you love me too. We’ll be together in spirit and I’ll be forever loving you. WILFRED JOHN I CANNOT DIGEST IT I told the lady on the phone That tomorrow I’d like to go to Day Then maybe go to Morrow tonight If you could find a way. She then said, “Pardon me, I fear we have one of those bad connections, Because I did not understand a word you said And cannot give directions.” Well, tomorrow I still need to go to Day. Perhaps to go to Morrow today, I need to return to Calicut tomorrow To finish what I started yesterday. “Well sir”, she said 'I’ve heard you twice, And still I can’t digest it’ So don’t call us, we’ll call you. WILFRED JOHN I CANNOT FIND A BETTER WAY I cannot find a better way Or anything I'd rather do Than spend what time I have each day Just standing here to look at you. Your constant smile can warm the heart And bring such joy to everyone I hope that you can see a part Of all the good that you have done. I only wish that you could see How you've inspired so many here And knowing you has set them free From all their doubt, despair, and fear May all your best years be ahead. WILFRED JOHN www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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I CANNOT FLY Even though I am the son of poem and songs My poem was novice and broken My autonomous twig did not recognize I am caged in this corner Full of melancholy and sorrow My wings are closed and I cannot fly. WILFRED JOHN I CANNOT REAVEL I Can't Reveal every day I go about doing the things I do... Then all of a sudden I remember, somewhere out there is 'you.' My insides feel so hollow, then, afeeling hard to share Because it's of senselessness And, yes, it's hard to bear... Is there no way we'll meet again, Even if by chance? Will I be left to wonder if... you shared that 'knowing' glance? You're always on my mind, now And, yes, you're in my heart... But, it just seemed to be that way Right from the very start This poem comes from deep within, Yes, my soul to bear I'm sorry I can't reveal to you WILFRED JOHN I Can't Cross There is the melody I can't play for you, There is the song I can't sing for you. I want to be with you, Touch, feel your heart. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Between us There is the line I can't cross. WILFRED JOHN I Can't Explain I can only imagine What it's like to sacrifice How it feels to do without What it takes to pay To offer all I have to others. I can only imagine What it's like to be alone How it feels to be rejected How to get by on my own To never share a secret To feel empty deep inside What it's like to know such pain How it feels to wake each morning With a past I can't explain. WILFRED JOHN I CHOSE TO WALK WITH YOU As we walk this strange path we see that everyone is on one The difference between us is with whom we choose to walk Those who have gone before return to tell what they have found Yet, when we round the turn we find our own path Our own resources and delights. To rely upon other eyes is to miss the sights right in front of us Distracted by what others said would be here They have their ways they have their wherefores I chose to walk with you and share this adventure together I chose to walk with you we had some fun, didn't we. WILFRED JOHN I climbed the stairs My heart was suspect. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Wired to an ECG, I walked a treadmill that measured my ebb and flow, tracked isotopes that ploughed my veins, looked for a constancy I've hardly ever found. For a month I worried as I climbed the stairs to my office. The mortality I never believed in was here now. They say my heart's ok, just high cholesterol, but I know my heart's a house someone has broken into, a room you come back to and know some stranger with bad intent has been there and touched all that you love. You know she can come back. It's her call, his house now. WJ WILFRED JOHN I could find Please take the time to find me. I'm not sure I want to be found. I'm not sure I'm worthy to be found. but I want someone to care enough to find me. I'm not sure I matter enough to be found, but I want someone find me. Until then, I want to drink enough, and take enough pills to go to sleep because tomorrow, I might find myself. Find myself. That would be the ultimate. to find myself. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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If I could find myself then I wouldn't have to worry about being found. wj WILFRED JOHN I could find myself Please take the time to find me. I'm not sure I want to be found. I'm not sure I'm worthy to be found. but I want someone to care enough to find me. I'm not sure I matter enough to be found, but I want someone find me. Until then, I want to drink enough, and take enough pills to go to sleep because tomorrow, I might find myself. Find myself. That would be the ultimate. to find myself. If I could find myself then I wouldn't have to worry about being found. WILFRED JOHN I COULD HEAR THE RAIN DROPS I could hear the raindrops plopping up The buckets and kettles, scattered out Like little ponds around the room. It was night and I was a boy, alone And left to listen to that old music I liked it temporal memories Loose bestrew a mind’s www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Street corners If hail should Pass – it will thaw quickly as we do This blood tight in its arteries second by I've liked it ever since. I loved the helpless people That's what a little boy will do. Somewhere in the vast seas of eternity There is one person only one Who could understand me and love me And you are it so get with it. WILFRED JOHN I couldn't make it You tell me How much it hurts you When you hurt me You always show me. You're always there for me When anyone wrongs me How people try to make me do things Their way, and explain to me How your way is my own You helped me see How that friend of mine Was trying to change me Make me be what they wanted When I thought They were letting me be myself. You tell me how much you love me You understand me Like no one else could ever do None of my friends Know me like you You explain to me How we were meant to be Together And it all sounds so right And I tell you I love you I couldn't make it Without you.

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© copy right 1998 wJ WILFRED JOHN I Decide to Get a Haircut Do I try to keep busy Stay occupied until I die I’ve been in cheap bars Gulped cheap beer from Palakkad. I’ve written letters to famous authors. I’ve tried to intensify my experiences. I want to give up everything, give up everything. I’m tired of being grumpy all day, whether I’ll make my income taxes, Why I’m stuck in this place Why I walk a tiny bit slower every day. I peek from the garage door, wary about entering the way Of the world, having second thoughts About a woman that repeats a catch phrase a bit too much And works in bulk discount sales. It’s a trap, I mouth, Some pyramid scheme, or direct sales ploy. I decide to get a haircut Go to an absurdly expensive restaurant Where the waiters dress like kings Drink a bottle of wine, Pretend the woman forgot our date and leave. WILFRED JOHN I DIDNOT DID NOT EVEN KNOW IT Somewhere I had lost it and I'm really not sure how I didn't even know it at least not till now. Then you came into my life never knowing what you had found That thing that I had lost you found it on the ground I could never thank you for bringing it back to me because since that day my smile is what you gave back, you see My smile is never ending and that's because of you You brought it back into my life with all the things you do. WILFRED JOHN

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I discover the house Empty Waking from a nap to answer the phone, I discover the house empty, the sun setting over the windowsill, over the trees waving by the river, its light full in my face. Rosamma was here when I fell asleep; the sound of gears winding down on still comes through the window. I lift myself up on my arms to look outside: the Appu a boy from across the street, five years old I guess, is walking slowly, walking backwards, I've said 'yes' maybe a dozen times to whoever it is I'm talking to just so they'll know I'm here. 1993 wj WILFRED JOHN I DO IT IN FRONT OF YOU Leave me as I am If sleep between those trees Even though I am only half-dressed leave me as I am. The trees and I love to dress and undress They do it in front of the sun I do it in front of you. WILFRED JOHN I DO NOT SLEEP I do not sleep. Do not stand at my grave and weep I am not there; I do not sleep I am a thousand winds that blow I am the sun on ripened grain I am the gentle autumn rain When you awaken in the morning I am the swift uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circled flight I am the soft stars that shine at night www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Do not stand at my grave and cry I am not there; I did not die. WILFRED JOHN I DONOT CROSS THE ROAD I walk across the highway I don’t cross the street. The red lane lines grow larger I become weak and cold I grow faint and limp Down the road Not across the street Tainted by a traditionalist society Because I'm a cloudy liberal. Wishing I were dead But no one would care Because that's what's cool I think. Maybe I'll starve myself You know, for attention Goodbye. WILFRED JOHN I DON'T WAIT LONG The creation from the heart The things that tear us apart They all create something pure They tend to remind you Remind you of the fantasy Remind you how you see society Faces that you can see but not hear Faces that we enjoy but yet fear Feelings intent inside eternally Feelings that make us tremble All expressed on a paper Art not heard but seen Art that seems in between Painting the rain and sun shines Painting even a couple of lines No one knowing what it really means No one even realizing what it seems www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Everyone only can guess and think My world where I tend to stay Great things are also where I come from So I draw or write I even paint until it’s time So I sit and wait for someone to be mine Right can also be wrong Right here is where I hope I don’t wait for long Considering and loving me Considering what he hears and what he can see © 2001 Wilfred John WILFRED JOHN WILFRED JOHN

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ALWAYS WANT TO GROW AS A WRITER 'Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.' -Robert Frost I’ve only been writing poetry for a couple years. I also like to write short stories. About 10 years ago I won an award for a short story that I wrote called’ HOW GOVERNMENT SERVENT MR. ALFRED D'IZUZA BECAME A VEGETABLE VENDER’ I’m a fairly upbeat person and I think my poetry reflects that. Sometimes I write about my own feelings and experience. I have an awesome fiancé, so I write about her quite frequently. Sometimes I just write to goof around. I’m just starting to experiment with fantasy and different structures. I Always want to grow as a writer. So, if anyone has any constructive criticism, please feel free to let me know. WILFRED JOHN

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AS YOU DO NOT ALWAYS CARRY UMBRELLA You could stay in one static place And have no dynamics in your life. You could never struggle and You could never face strife. You could be as still as waters Where the wind never blows Or you can be a success story Step out into the unknown, spend some money Don’t worry about how much will be spent. What hasn’t occurred, even though it might You can fix and learn from what went wrong, It won’t always be alright Don’t be afraid of the terror by night Face it with boldness and smile in it’s face You can never win if you don’t even attempt the race Take a deep breath, relax, release and relate Tread confidently as you go through the gate What’s on the other side. Just can’t take those learning Experiences away from you Discover and reveal it for yourself. Step out into the unknown, Do it bravely and don’t look back. March on upwards lift your head and look up And then launch your attack. You don’t always need to know where Before you step on that train As you don’t always carry umbrella When you know there will be rain Showers of blessings out there still remain. WILFRED JOHN

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AT SOME POINT IN A PERSONS LIFE At some point in a person's life There are hard decisions These hard decisions End up as divisions Of your moral character. For example, let's think That you walked into your room And found a stack of 1000 Rs All crumbled up Quick in thinking what to do, you debate on taking one, and then think about taking two. If you play it off really well, But if not - she'll raise hell. It's situations such as that Which give you an idea That spark for crime or not. WILFRED JOHN

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BE HAPPY Whenever you see the hearse go by And think to yourself that you're going TO die, Be merry, my friends, be merry. They put you in a big white shirt And cover you over with tons of dirt, Be merry, my friends, be merry. They put you in a long-shaped box And cover you over with tons of rocks, Be merry, my friends, be merry The worms crawl out and the worms crawl in, The ones that crawl in are lean and thin, The ones that crawl out are fat and stout, Be merry, my friends, be merry. Your eyes fall in and your hair falls out And your brains come tumbling down your snout, Be merry, my friends, be merry. WILFRED JOHN

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COMPOSITION There is a kind of slowness that comes from seeing everything in detail. A way to slow up perception is to be more aware of every little happening. This can be quite beautiful. No one knows what a hand is until the motion of a hand is seen in slow motion: everything in the hand seen, all the muscles - and then we see the mighty event! We come to see that the moving of a hand is like a derrick, like a mighty force rising in the air. The majesty of motion makes motion slower. The poem 'This Summer Morning Mariana Has' is about every detail looked on as an event in itself. The only thing it really is about is a girl walking. But the motion of her feet is seen as a happening, an historical happening. And because everything is seen for itself, the effect is slow - just as if one were looking at a painting, or studying a chord in music. The fact that the detail is seen for itself, can give the whole composition a depth and a slowness it wouldn't have otherwise. WILFRED JOHN

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DEATH IS IN MY SIGHT TODAY To whom shall I speak today? I am laden with misery Through lack of an intimate... Death is in my sight today Like the clearing of the sky, Like a man attracted thereby to What he knows not. Death is in my sight today, Like the longing of a man to see home When he has spent many years held in captivity. WILFRED JOHN

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DERRIDA'S LEGACIES Derrida's Legacies Literature and Philosophy Edited by Simon Glendinning, Robert Eaglestone Price: $39.95 ISBN: 978-0-415-45428-5 Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback) Published by: Routledge Publication Date: 16th January 2008 Pages: 192 WILFRED JOHN This volume brings together some of the most well-known and highly respected commentators on the work of Jacques Derrida from Britain and America in a series of essays written to commemorate the life and come to terms with the death of one of the most important intellectual presences of our time. Derrida’s thought reached into nearly every corner of contemporary intellectual culture and the difference he has made is incalculable. He was indeed controversial but the astonishing originality of his work, always marked by the care, precision and respect with which he read the work of others, leaves us with a philosophical, ethical and political legacy that will be both lasting and decisive. The sometimes personal, always insightful essays reflect on the multiple ways in which Derrida’s work has marked intellectual culture in general and the literary and philosophical culture of Britain and America in particular. The outstanding contributors offer an interdisciplinary view, investigating areas such as deconstruction, ethics, time, irony, technology, location and truth. This book provides a rich and faithful context for thinking about the significance of Derrida’s own work as an event that arrived and perhaps still remains to arrive in our time.

Contributors: Derek Attridge, Thomas Baldwin, Geoffrey Bennington, Rachel Bowlby, Alex Callinicos, David E. Cooper, Simon Critchley, Robert Eaglestone, Wilfred John, Marian Hobson, Christopher Johnson, Peggy Kamuf, Michael Naas, Nicholas Royle Table of Contents Preface Simon Glendinning 1. Derrida: The Reader Simon Critchley 2. Derrida’s Singularity: Literature and Ethics Derek Attridge 3. In the Event Geoffrey Bennington 4. Derrida’s Event Nicholas Royle 5. Metaphor and Derrida’s Philosophy of Language, David Cooper 6. Derrida and Technology Christopher Johnson 7. Derrida and Legacies of the Holocaust Robert Eaglestone 8. Derrida One Day Rachel Bowlby 9. Derrida and the New International Alex Callinicos www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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10. Derrida’s Irony? Marian Hobson 11. Presence, Truth and Authenticity Thomas Baldwin 12. Derrida’s America Michael Naas 13. The Affect of America Peggy Kamuf 14.Derrida’s Deconstruction Wilfred John Calicut WILFRED JOHN

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DESIRLITERARYSPOT.COM MAG DESIRE -PUBBLISHED, LITERARY MAG JULY 2008 Desire Iam the still rain falling Too tired for singing pleasur Be the green fields calling Be me for the earth. Iam the brown bird desire To leave the nest and fly Is the fresh cloud shining Be for me the sky. 1989 Wilfred John INDIA Published in the Literaryspot.com magazine July 2008-issue 13 WILFRED JOHN WILFRED JOHN

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Detailed Study Of Twelfth Night William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night A Sourcebook Edited by Sonia Massai Price: $26.95 ISBN: 978-0-415-30333-0 Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback) Published by: Routledge Publication Date: 17th December 2007 Pages: 224 This title is available at our discretion as an Examination Copy to qualified adopters:

WILFRED JOHN William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (c.1600) is one of his most captivating plays. A comedy of mistaken identities, it has given rise to thought-provoking debates around such issues as gender identity and role-playing, manipulation and deception. Taking the form of a sourcebook, this guide to Shakespeare's spirited play offers: extensive introductory comment on the contexts, critical history and performance of the text, from publication to the present annotated extracts from key contextual documents, reviews, critical works and the text itself cross-references between documents and sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism suggestions for further reading. Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of Twelfth Night and seeking not only a guide to the play, but a way through the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds Shakespeare's text. About the Author(s) Sonia Massai is a Lecturer at King’s College London. She has published widely on Shakespeare and drama and has edited several original plays and a collection of essays on World Wide Shakespeares (Routledge,2005) . WJ WILFRED JOHN

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Distilling Illicit Vodka Joseph Rotblat was born in Warsaw, Poland's capital city, in 1908. He remembers the good days before World War 1: his father ran a successful transporting business, young Joseph had a pony to ride, and there were idyllic summer holidays in the countryside. But when war came, Joseph's father was driven to distilling illicit vodka in the basement to make money for his family to survive. But Joseph was determined to get an education. He had discovered what would become his life-long love of science, and was determined to become a physicist. So he worked as an electrician by day and studied by night, and in 1932 graduated from the Free University of Poland with a degree in science. He was immediately offered a research post in the Radiological Laboratory of Warsaw. He gained a doctorate in physics from Warsaw University in 1938. By then he had met and married Tola Gryn. The British physicist James Chadwick, meanwhile, had discovered the neutron. (He was awarded a Nobel Prize for this work in 1935.) Chadwick worked at the University of Liverpool; when he heard of Joseph Rotblat he invited him to join the physics team there in 1939. Rotblat was delighted: the equipment at Liverpool was far better than anything in Warsaw. He was particularly interested in the physics laboratory's cyclotron (a machine for making particles move faster) and dreamed of building one in Warsaw one day. He went to Liverpool - the first time he had travelled outside Poland - with high hopes. Turning points 1939 was the year in which two German scientists split the uranium atom, and set other scientists around the world on the pursuit of nuclear fission and the valuable energy it would release. Joseph Rotblat was among the first to realise that this reaction could be very fast and explosive, and could be used to make a massively powerful bomb. 'As soon as I had this idea, I tried to push it out of my mind. But I had the feeling that other scientists might not have the same moral scruples.' But in September 1939 German troops invaded Poland. Joseph Rotblat had made a visit to Poland in August to arrange for his wife to join him in England. Because of a news blackout in Poland, the European war situation wasn't in the headlines of the Polish press, so the young couple weren't sufficiently aware how urgent the situation was. When Joseph Rotblat returned to work in Liverpool, he had no idea that his train was one of the last to leave Poland. After the September invasion, which was followed by a brutal suppression of Polish resistance, he tried repeatedly to get his wife out of the country, but each time the borders were closed ahead of her. He learned later that she was among the many Poles who lost their lives during the German occupation. It was the invasion of Poland that made Joseph Rotblat suggest to James Chadwick that they should start work on developing an atomic bomb. He now realised the extent of Germany's military strength and brutality. He was afraid that the handful of physicists who had stayed in Germany might already be developing such a bomb, which Hitler would then use to force Nazism on the world. 'It was a terrible time for me, perhaps the worst dilemma a scientist could experience. Working on a weapon of mass destruction was against all my ideas - all my ideas of what science should do but those ideas were in danger of being eradicated if Hitler acquired the bomb.' It was the belief of Joseph Rotblat and many other scientists that the bomb would never be used. It would, they thought, be created for only one reason: to deter www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Germany. 'Later on, I realised that this concept of nuclear deterrence is flawed. For a start, it won't work with unreasonable people, and even reasonable people behave irrationally in war, especially if they face defeat.' The atom bomb project in the UK began at once. The work was done in secret, under cover of other projects. 'We already had a good idea of the destructive power of the bomb. We knew about the blast effect. We also knew about radioactive fallout. But even so, we didn't believe an atom bomb could bring about the end of the human race. We calculated that up to 100,000 nuclear bombs would be needed to do that. And even in our most pessimistic scenarios we couldn't imagine that human society would be so stupid. But it turned out that they could.' Building the atomic bomb in America In 1942 it was agreed between the governments of Britain and America that work on developing the bomb should be combined, and carried out in America, far away from the theatre of war. At the beginning of 1944 Joseph Rotblat went to New Mexico to work - with deep feelings of unease - on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. The project, however, was run not by scientists but by the US army. As Rotblat said later, 'possibly the worst mistake we made was to trust the military'. The Project's military director, General Leslie Groves, had his own agenda, which by no means ruled out using the bomb once it had been made. He said openly that 'Russia was our enemy and the project was conducted on that basis' - despite the fact that Russia was fighting Germany too. And it was Groves who ordered the bomb-building project to continue even when it was clear there was no German bomb. As far as the US military was concerned the atom bomb would be a useful weapon - and now could be used against the Japanese. As soon as Joseph Rotblat heard confirmation, supplied by scientific intelligence reports towards the end of 1944, that the German scientists had abandoned their atomic bomb programme, he left the Manhattan Project and returned to Britain. As a fellow scientist said, this was 'to his everlasting credit'. He had already tried to get his fellow scientists to think twice about pressing ahead with building a bomb. Some of them agreed with him, and tried to raise the matter with the President. But others couldn't resist seeing whether the bomb could be made and what was the extent of its power. And US physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific head of the Manhattan Project, wrote uncompromisingly to Groves in October 1944: 'the laboratory is acting under a directive to produce weapons; this directive has been and will be rigorously adhered to'. Yet others, who had at first agreed with Joseph Rotblat, changed their minds when Japan entered World War 2 and news came of the cruel treatment of prisoners of war. 'It's the psychology of war, ' said Joseph Rotblat. 'Once we enter war, our moral values are thrown overboard. We are encouraged to kill people. Even people who in the past had been friends became, in our minds, our mortal enemies.' The Los Alamos military authority threatened Joseph Rotblat with arrest if he discussed with anyone his reasons for leaving. A condition of his departure was that he made no contact at all with his colleagues on the Project. And indeed he said nothing, either in the USA or when he got back to Liverpool early in 1945 (which was also the year he www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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applied to become a British citizen, and his mother and sister and one of his brothers who had survived the war, were later able to join him) . But in August came the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and he could not remain silent then. 'I didn't know anything until I heard the BBC announcement on August 6. It came as a terrible shock. My idea had been to make the bomb to prevent it being used, and here it had been used immediately after it was made, and against civilian populations.' Starting to speak out Joseph Rotblat saw that atomic bombs were only the first step on a potentially terrible path. People would now look for even more powerful bombs - the idea of the hydrogen bomb had already been conceived; an arms race would begin. He at once began his life-long campaign against nuclear weapons - and against war. He started by giving talks all over Britain, trying to persuade fellow physicists to halt nuclear research. In 1946 he co-founded the Atomic Scientists Association of Britain, whose members were opposed to the military use of nuclear power. It worked with the newly-formed Federation of Atomic Scientists (now the Federation of American Scientists) to introduce a world policy for nuclear energy and weapons. Influenced by scientists, the very first resolution of the United Nations General Assembly was to set up a commission to deal with this issue; sadly, the hostility between the USA and the USSR prevented any commission from being set up. 'When we failed at government level, I thought I'd go to the people.' In 1947 Joseph Rotblat organised the 'Atom Train' touring exhibition (two railway carriages filled with exhibits and demonstration experiments)) which aimed to educate the public about nuclear energy and its risks, whether used militarily as a weapon or peacefully as a power supply. 'Scientists like me, who believe in the proper development and application of science, felt that the great discovery of nuclear energy was first known to the public as something destructive, and that gave a bad name to science. At the beginning we worked hard to show the beneficial aspects of nuclear energy, and it was taken up by industrialists.' As far as Joseph Rotblat's own work was concerned, he immediately changed direction. He began to study radiation and its application to health, and from 1950 to 1976 was the much-respected Professor of Physics at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Here his researches contributed to further understanding of nuclear hazards: he was able to show that the fallout from hydrogen bombs (thought to be 'clean') was in fact highly radioactive, and that radiation was a direct cause of cancers in fallout victims. WILFRED JOHN

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DOMESTIC DAILY CRUELITY My father beats me up Just like his father did And grandad, he was beaten by greatgrandad as a kid From generation to generation A poisoned apple passed along Domestic daily cruelty No-one thinking it was wrong

Not the cursing and the bruising The frustration and the fear A normal child can cope with that It grows easier by the year But the ignorance, believing That the child is somehow owned Property paid for Violence condoned. WILFRED JOHN

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DOUBLE U

=W

A packet of lonesome smile You feel the bitter cold on your cheek Try and find a remedy to cover the tears With a handkerchief that removes the pain Brings you to the top of the slope And scream what you have lost. The ways of existence to be alive For the pain is still in me Like a very particular inoculation into my body Of the performance of life to endure this pain But I will be okay very soon. In this life, the thing for you never lost But sometimes, they are really lost forever Poorest country still do have rich people within Man has its own ground of success Come closer to me and guide me on. 1980 WILFRED JOHN

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Down The Air Slides Into a Dip Surf ignites across granite singeing the continent's edge. Water, slow worker, scrapes at cliffs that revealed their wrinkles to coracle and caravel as weapon and word began to circle the planet. On the swell a dinghy swerves to the waves. We find six white petals, Latin to follow. Gulls glide to their established ledges. Wind, the malingerer, breezes in at intervals.

We are reading our instruments as ambition assaults the beach like thrust on trees at a runway's end. It vaporizes on slate for as good as infinity while sand relocates in seconds. To mark the tides, wetsuits and boards swarm out to the crests where control is peripheral. They, too, are conducting tests. Will water insulate the skin? Hair drip back into place? Form is pulled on, stretched, zipped.

A whistling man pins a day's left-behinds, binbagging papers, picnic debris. Dragging black plastic in warm wind he finds what would otherwise wait for the sea. Lamps on the cafes diode the daylight darkening in the sunset's blush. They shine in the final tries of the tide that sags in the sand, softens its crush. On the evening agenda: methods, collaborations, rivals and funding, friendships undone, distant news of machine guns in the sun, valleys flooded with incinerations. Whistling he pins the day's left-behinds, as the surf on the sand grinds and grinds.

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the constant advance, the multiple avalanche of flotsam and foam into their foraging zone. Six legs kick them headfirst into mini-dunes they burst out from to scurry again. Wind and high-tide hurled, they have settled the sand. Translucent and bloodless, their bodies are ours.

Air designs the dunes with revocable gusts. Descending footprints dent their sides. Durram and thistle tug life from sand. Down the air slides into a dip, then to rise. Grass mimes the snow on a mountain spine. Our eyes live for surprise, to pattern the coal scattered like a stranded shoal. Back and forth mandibles bear leaf and twig. WILFRED JOHN

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EMERGED AS PRECIOUS Something so complex could not have been or else. Though an academic sign, it partook in its final form With one leg held out extended to the rear And the equiponderant forefinger pointing demonstratively Like the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. So that the gesture might indicate a food-based conceit Accessible to students and yet also evincing The virtue of requiring a good deal of commentary Before what looked simple even if capricious Emerged as precise even if complex And ultimately unfathomable. WILFRED JOHN WILFRED JOHN

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ENJOY CHEERS SHARING GOOD NEWS Say HELLO, share a smile Whenever neighbors passing by Find out who they are Inviting home for tea or cider Exchange holiday greetings Respect religious beliefs Ignore political views Enjoy cheers sharing good news Celebrate occasions together Taste new food and culture! Spice your life with whatever differs Feel the joy of united hearts! Buy champagne or cake Bake some cookies or bread As neighbors leave or come afresh Extend good-bye or welcome to celebrate Busy with chores, schedule too tight Not so well or passing hard time Just say hello or wave hands high So they feel at home harmonized! Be always nice to fellow beings Known or just new in town site seeing Show your kind heart and gentle smile Lest you never see them again in lifetime WILFRED JOHN

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EVERY DAY I SEE A NEW PAGE Every day, I see a new page, a page of life that I have never experienced before, it comes with anxiety, anticipation and the fear of choosing a journey I’m not sure where it may lead me. The submission to another soul, where you submit not only yourself but you shred all you clothing (not in actual but in poetic terms) to another human-being for the sake of love and unity of marriage. Sure its put in many terms, the definition of marriage but as I walk towards it, I’m confused of how it can be termed. So I ask what has been not touched of me, my inner being. “Oh soul! Is all of you primed to walk on marriage endeavor. Walk slowly like a bride, smile in anticipation that you are afraid but lovingly accepting the terms of this entire journey. Grow wisely with its waves, embrace all its tides, and when there are times passes you, gasp for air to exist and to excel of who you are. Yet, there are times just gasp for love, an air that you must inhale as if it runs amiss how you can survive. Keep thoughts in mind that when its all low tides, raise the waves so it can skirt ashore.” A soul conversing. So, you can see that even though seeing my feet walking on the aisle. Yet I’m taking the journey empowered with love, not only his love but my family who have been so courageous to survive wedding symptoms and let me assure you that there are many of those. I can not explain such family love cause it has translated in each member of my family, I can not be lucky than I am for being granted with such love …To you my family, I’m all gratified to your love and kindness.. Though it remains here as the last line, but I kept it for you my friend so it will remain till the end in your mind. Thank you for being all you can be ….a friend of mine in this new journey. You friendship, did not move me, but it made me who I am now walking on love. Thank you for being a friend.

Saturn bright in the southern sky After a gradually mellowing sunset. At the dinner, I watch you carefully place The trout's skin over its dull eyes. Our flesh ages day-by-day, Changing us into other beings entirely. A menu of all the meals we've taken together; Only one thing nourishes us. Deep in your eyes I glimpse silence waiting to receive me again. Every sound this evening, a lover's touch, Sweet & brief, lingering resonance. Signs of age surface in our flesh, Drifting tints of sorrow & absence. Venus blazes beyond your west window; In your bed, our limbs spell joy. WILFRED JOHN www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Everybody should have a friend like you Everyone should have A friend like you You are so much fun to be with And you are such a good person. You crack me up with laughter And touch my heart with your kindness You have a wonderful ability To know when to offer advice. And when to sit in quiet support Time after time You“ve come to my rescue And brightend so many. Of my routine days And time after time I“ve realized how fortunate I am that my life includes you. I really do believe that Everybody should have a friend like you But so far it looks like You are one of a kind. WILFRED JOHN

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EVERYTHING WAS GOING RIGHT At the moment I'm pensive, Reflecting on times in the not too distant past When I was just so happy. Everything was going right. Now I'm not sad. Things happen. I try to do what's right But nobody teaches life, We just live it. We learn by our own mistakes. We call it experiance I often think I'm not good enough. I'm uncertain about some of the paths. What happened to the confident. I've withdrawn from the world a little, Guarded now, and quiet Instead of being so impulsive. I keep my feelings private Instead of sharing them and Being open for the world to see. Some people close to me say I'm complicated. I can't see how. I think I'm very easy to understand. I'm fun loving, caring and Very dedicated to those I love And to things I believe in. I'm righteous and loving, Just a normal person. I don't care for people' opinions about me. I'm who I am, The best I can be. 1980 WJ WILFRED JOHN

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Long-necked birds elongate the season into Deepening shadows, temperature dropping. Migratory instincts and the magnetic north honing their persuasive flight judiciously A push-pull pattern discernible. There they are, pruning and bobbing right outside My window, murky through the frosted glass iIAn artificial season all in mine own world. They have left one and I have arrived at neither Why is it that I am tracing their route Orthinologist and authority Fixed and butterfly-pinned their flight seventy years ago Enough to allow us to accommodate our visitorsIin The wider eye casts and finds no respite. Our visitors bob their heads once more, convinced more from An eternal cycle than of the transient human interest that moves from season to season, whichever, practical. And to this end, I snap shut my book, reaching for my camera bag, I slip. He said “I like only the princess. Rapunzil let down your long hair.” She was desperate years from happiness, A maiden not majestic, but fair. A monument of incongruous intentions, which might stay together if forced. The air of the bar, of needs- superstitions, Sincerity cannot be coerced. “My favorite person, ” she beckoned the sun “grant me a dusk before noon.” Twice in one day, she “sang Solomon of the ladder- the dormer- the moon.” If the fox chased the hound absent Aesop to morph it, would either rebuke the finality. But when Job’s cave was found and his candle stayed lit, He must have held the pain and the pedigree. White queen as the other ups pawns The devotion to King might equate She said “I need only a savior My prince I’ve let down my long hair. WILFRED JOHN

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FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE AND POETRY Who knows why we call it figurative language? Because you have to figure out what it means! Peggy Smith: Cut out newspaper headlines and titles of articles- especially from the sports section. Paste them on a posterboard and number them. Have students identify the figure of speech by number and explain in concrete terms what the line is saying. Some examples from today's Plain Dealer: 'Buckeyes clip ice-cold Gophers', 'New Crop of Garden Catalogs', 'The Heat is Back on Steel Makers'. These are pretty lame, but usually there are some good pickings in the daily newspaper. Allegory Alliteration Allusion Amplification Anagram Analogy Anaphora anastrophe Anthropomorphism Animal related words Antithesis Aphorism Apostrophe/Authorial Intrusion Archetype Assonance Asyndeton Bibliomancy Bildungsroman Cacophony Caesura Characterization Chiasmus Circumlocution Conflict Connotation Consonance Denotation Deus ex Machina Diction Doppelganger Ekphrastic Emulation Epilogue Epithet Euphemism Euphony Faulty Parallelism Flashback Foil Foreshadowing Hyperbation Hyperbole www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Imagery Internal Rhyme Inversion Irony Juxtaposition Kennings Malapropism Metaphor Metonymy Motif Mood Negative Capability Nemesis Onomatopoeia Oxymoron Paradox Pathetic Fallacy Periphrasis Periodic Structure Personification Point of View Plot Polysyndeton Portmanteau Prologue Puns Rhyme Scheme Rhythm & Rhyme Satire Setting Simile Spoonerism Stanza Stream of Consciousness Syllepsis Symbol Synecdoche Synesthesia Syntax Theme Tone Tragedy Understatement Verisimilitude Verse

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[email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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Filtered Through Mosquito Netting Leaves of Rubber Trees the room was made of a summer evening champagne air filtered through mosquito netting above a child’s bed its wood painted dark green like the bottom of a canoe or the leaves of rubber trees the child paddled her canoe to the room in her grandfather’s house leaves brushed her skin mosquito netting waved lightly as a sail above her face so still she could almost hear his heartbeat she dipped her hands in the river of her grandfather’s life the Magdalena rolled in a constant rain of evening dying before she realized evenings die and she paddled to where there was no such solitude always the gliding through the green world’s pale light WILFRED JOHN

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FIRE TO THE BEDROOM LETTERS In five minutes you can have Any of these secrets working For you even if you're shy or embarrassed And even if you've tried everything But failed miserabley So if you're ready to add more Fire to the bedroom, then keep reading It may be the most important Letter you've ever read. WILFRED JOHN

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For God-Sake Don't Call Me A Poet Welcome inside the dappled mind of a wandering soul...together we can journey through history or spend a quiet moment surrounded by the splendor that is the Rocky Mountains. Through these pages its hoped that your day will be painted with a bit more color from my rainbow word-brush. I was born into a ranching and rodeo family, have lived the life and while some of my work centers around the cowboy lifestyle, I do not consider myself a 'Cowboy Poet'. I'll leave that genre to those with a better handle on meter. I do write about real life - the beauty, the hardships and the laughter. I am an accountant by trade, and not so redneck as one might stereotype me to be, but I am fiercely proud of my country background and strive to portray the cowboy and others in real life situations and with real life humor and humility. I love history, and often write pieces that tell of historical events or people. In particular, I love to read and study on Native American history and culture. I also love Nature, and write of her beauty and powers often. When my time has passed, and my breath has silenced, the mountain winds can carry my ashes over this wonderful land that I call home. I am Canadian by birth, Albertan by choice and a lifelong resident of the Rocky Mountains by destiny. I was influenced at a young age by the writings of Robert Service, Banjo Patterson and Robert Frost, and therefore developed a love for rhyme and rhythm. A lot of my work tends to rhyme, although I do try to write some free verse and prose as well. As Service proclaims, 'For God-sake don't call me a poet, For I've never been guilty of that.'

Alas! I am only a rhymer, I don't know the meaning of Art; But I learned in my little school primer To love Eugene Field and Bret Harte. I hailed Hoosier Ryley with pleasure, To John Hay I took off my hat; These fellows were right to my measure, And I've never gone higher than that. The Classics! Well, most of them bore me, The Moderns I don't understand; But I keep Burns, my kinsman before me, And Kipling, my friend, is at hand. They taught me my trade as I know it, www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Yet though at their feet I have sat, For God-sake don't call me a poet, For I've never been guilty of that. A rhyme-rustler, rugged and shameless, A Bab Balladeer on the loose; Of saccharine sonnets I'm blameless, My model has been - Mother Goose. And I fancy my grave-digger griping As he gives my last lodging a pat: 'This guy wrote McGrew; 'Twas the best he could do'... So I'll go to my maker with that. I am always looking for ways to improve my writing and would appreciate any constructive feedback on my poetry. I promise I won't be offended. WILFRED JOHN

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FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manner of thine own Or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee. These famous words by John Donne were not originally written as a poem - the passage is taken from the 1624 Meditation 17, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and is prose. The words of the original passage are as follows: John Donne Meditation 17 Devotions upon Emergent Occasions 'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee...'

For whom the bell tolls poem (No man is an island) John Donne A poem can stir all of the senses, and the subject matter of a poem can range from being funny to being sad. We hope that you liked this poem and the sentiments in the words of For whom the bell tolls by John Donne you will find even more poem lyrics by this famous author by simply clicking on the Poetry Index link below! Choose Poetry online for the greatest poems by the most famous poets. WILFRED JOHN

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GIVE ME BLUE AND GREEN Blues and greens are my delight Set in garlands of the white. When God made the violet He made nothing better yet. Lilac and the lavender Fit for queens of Heaven to wear. Many russets and the rose, God be praised for these and those. For the silvers and the greys Likewise ye shall give Him praise. Scarlet is a King's colour That the King of Kings once wore. Yet when everything is said, Bring me neither rose nor red. Give me blue and green below, Apple bloom and cherry snow. WILFRED JOHN

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GLIMPSE AT AN ENTIRE WORLD OF CREATION The child of both poetry and the visual arts, Visual poetry has a double set of interests And its forms are myriad. Some visual poets continue to write. Traditional poems that require a certain Visual context in which to properly mean A context so important that it serves As a critical component of a unified text. Other visual poets focus entirely on letter shape, Drawing out the beauty of these pieces of Language either in isolation Swirling clouds of characters. But together they provide an instructive Glimpse at an entire world of creation. WJ WILFRED JOHN

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HAVE I STILL YET TO TELL YOU Have I ever told you That I would give everything up Just for one night To be able to lay near you To feel your chest rise and fall With each breath you take Just to know that you are real Have I ever told you That I dream of you often I dream of you reaching out And touching my hand Simply to let me know That you are there, And everything is okay Have I ever told you, Have I still yet to tell you That I love you? WILFRED JOHN

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Her Twisted Body Boneless surrounded by her movements her twisted body boneless eyelids beat burning iris the lathe of wings the silent darkness of sleep again and again longing dusk and dew follows with grace the fine-boned skull and flesh-warmed tongue white flash a snowflake pale kindling flushed heart dark-blooded mists of hanging light there are ghosts after music tomb black silence beyond sleep websoft the opening body it slips and falls away to a shimmering breath pure sunlight her hand and silence offers torn leaves of white light opening mouths in the raw spring naked the voice walks the corridor in a dark coil of hair the grave of her empty house withdrawn passage on her belly her suffering eyes broken symphony of breath soft fillet the hair of graves and polished stones her body flowers silence flooded grey vapour voice echoing spread my passing I kissed the other against himself fallen beyond cold stars www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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coils of sucking lips veins burn a flame sliding space WILFRED JOHN

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Homosexuality Through Study Of Aesthetic Realism I have a great deal to say concerning the whole hoard of lies about Aesthetic Realism, propagated by a few people. But for now I want to address one particular, huge invention: the lie about how Aesthetic Realism sees homosexuality. I’ll comment first in my capacity as Executive Director of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, and then more personally. Michael Bluejay writes: “AR says that homosexuality is a mental illness” and “AR professed to have the ‘cure’ for homosexuality.” This is completely untrue. Aesthetic Realism most certainly does not consider homosexuality a mental illness; in fact, Eli Siegel always objected to homosexuality’s being seen that way. Similarly, Aesthetic Realism never saw homosexuality as something to “cure, ” and—whether through Mr. Siegel or any Aesthetic Realism consultant, whether in writing or in speech—Aesthetic Realism never presented itself as having a “cure.” Not only does Bluejay misrepresent Aesthetic Realism on the subject, but he actually puts the word “cure” in quotation marks to make readers think he’s directly quoting some statement of Aesthetic Realism, when he is not. Then Bluejay says, about “positions” he has made up: “AR no longer takes these positions publicly—a wise move for them considering the increasing acceptance of homosexuality in society.” He wants people to think that there is something hidden going on. So for the record, I quote the following statement by the Aesthetic Realism Foundation; it is what anybody inquiring about this matter has been told since 1990, and people have found it very clear: “It is a fact that men and women have changed from homosexuality through study of Aesthetic Realism. Meanwhile, as is well known, there is now intense anger in America on the subject of homosexuality and how it is seen. Since this subject is by no means central to Aesthetic Realism, and since the Aesthetic Realism Foundation has not wanted to be involved in that atmosphere of anger, in 1990 the Foundation discontinued its public presentation of the fact that through Aesthetic Realism people have changed from homosexuality, and consultations to change from homosexuality are not being given. That is because we do not want this matter, which is certainly not fundamental to Aesthetic Realism, to be used to obscure what Aesthetic Realism truly is: education of the largest, most cultural kind. “Aesthetic Realism is for full, equal civil rights for everyone.” In his next sentence, Bluejay extends his misrepresentation (and I’m not even discussing the fact that he uses the completely inaccurate yet charged word “members”) . He says: “One supposes that long-term AR members who were around when this was a hot AR topic in the 70’s still retain this antigay prejudice privately even if it’s not part of their current literature.” First he makes up an “antigay prejudice” and then “supposes” that it’s still hiddenly “retain[ed]”—even though it never existed in the first place. This is a lie Adam Mali also has tried to work. Now I’ll comment on this lie about “antigay prejudice” simply as a person. In the process, I can’t help also refuting the lie that you can’t take vacations and the lie that Aesthetic Realism breaks up the family: Just last year, my husband, Robert Murphy, and I flew thousands of miles to celebrate my sister’s life on her 50th birthday and to visit with her and her partner, who happens to be another woman. We had an exciting and rewarding time, which all of us hold very www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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dear and continue to talk about. They and their young daughter are welcome in our home any time. Politically and otherwise, I myself have always supported gay rights. That’s because, as a result of my Aesthetic Realism education, I’m for justice to everyone. Aesthetic Realism is, in fact, the education which can really change the prejudice and racism still rampant in America. Studying with him, I saw firsthand that Eli Siegel himself didn’t have a jot of prejudice as to race, religion, gender, economic position, sexual orientation, age, educational background, etc.—as anyone reading his written work will clearly see, including “The Equality of Man, ” published in 1923 in the Modern Quarterly. [The Modern Quarterly Beginnings of Aesthetic Realism, Definition Press,1997] As a Southerner who was ashamed for years of how I saw people, my own prejudice towards human beings with a skin color or religion different from my own changed profoundly as I studied Aesthetic Realism. I now have a passion for every person’s getting the understanding, economic justice, and respect all people deserve. What do I feel about the cause of such a pride-giving change? —enormous gratitude to Eli Siegel and my Aesthetic Realism education. I can’t conclude without commenting on the lies by Bluejay and Mali, and “Anonymous” that “Aesthetic Realism is a cult” and “Eli Siegel wanted to be worshipped.” Aesthetic Realism is education, scholarly and solid. And Mr. Siegel was true to its principles and had good will for people. It is a complete LIE that he wanted to be “worshipped” or to “control.” Mr. Siegel asked his students to be critical—to give the ideas of Aesthetic Realism a practical, even fierce, logical workout; to test them. That is what I saw he wanted, from the first class taught by him that I attended, a lecture on “Complaint and Hope in World Poetry, ” to the last in 1978. He loved it when a person honestly disagreed with something and asked him critical questions to see what was true. Is that how to make people “worship”? This lie is immense. But some people—including certain liars—got angry that Mr. Siegel couldn’t be successfully flattered or bought. How Eli Siegel saw people and reality itself is apparent to anyone in his books, poetry, lectures—many lectures can be found online at EliSiegel.net. Take these lines from his 1925 Nation prize-winning poem, “Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana”: WILFRED JOHN

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How Language Colours And Partly Foucault welded hermeneutics, Freudian psychiatry and Saussurian semiotics into a powerful and idiosyncratic attack on rationalism. Though Foucault overstated the case for political repression through language, metaphor theory has independently developed some of his insights — how language colours and partly controls our outlooks, how social attitudes may be regulated by binary opposites. Michel Foucault wrote challengingly on psychiatry, medicine and the human sciences. Despite the width of reference, his subject is discourse, which he regarded as the only reality. His baroque, glittering, and apocalyptic style is unconcerned with referents (the signified) or the usual narrative of explanation. Also immaterial is the author, Foucault himself, who is generally regarded as a Poststructuralist but in fact rejected all such labels. The text writes itself. Driven by the power and sexuality inherent in all human beings, text wells out of any gaps in discourse, creating itself in a free play of words that is only constrained by what society will permit. Society is the law-maker. Its power permeates all levels and all discourse, showing itself in such distinctions as sane-insane, natural-unnatural, sickness-health, truth-error. Also important were figures of speech, the tropes that control discourse, which dominated certain epochs of intellectual behaviour. Underlying our historical view of madness we have successively metaphor (resemblance) , metonyny (adjacency) , synecdoche (essentiality) and irony (doubling) . Madness in the sixteenth century loses its sign of sanctity and becomes identified with human wisdom, the Wise Fool. Two centuries later, madness is set against reason, and the insane are incarcerated with paupers and criminals. Come the nineteenth century and madness is regarded as part of normal humanity, a phase in its development, and the insane are given special treatment in lunatic asylums. Today, after Freud, the similarities with the sane are stressed, and the mad are encouraged to understand the sources of illness, under the watchful control of a psychoanalyst. In the seventies, Foucault turned to the themes which made his name: sexual repression and the relationship of power to knowledge. Society is a mosaic of power relationships, with multiple points of resistance and competing strategies of resistance. What these strategies were, Foucault did not explain, though much of his life was spent fighting for various social and political causes. But power also suppresses truth, or at least controls the truths that we can recognize. Knowledge and power are therefore inextricably enmeshed: truth, like sexuality, is historically conditioned. Hermeneutics returns: there is no privileged position from which to obtain an objective view of truth, and we are inside any society we choose to study. Practices that use truth as a weapon against power — e.g. Marxism and psychoanalysis — should beware: their procedures may be self-defeating. The 1968 students strike in Paris, which brought Foucault to prominence, and bewildered the French Communist Party, showed only that Marxists were no different from the ruling elites in falsely viewing society as one unified whole. WILFRED JOHN

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HOW MY HEART IS SUPPOSED TO BEAT Bleeding love Waiting for your phone call is killing Pain of a lover My arms are longing for you arms I take a deep breathe My thoughts are sinking in the environments noises Do you love me I am eager to know Minutes become hours Hours become eternity How my heart is supposed to beat While it does not still know If you heart is beating for mine Someone told me you worked in an Employment agency, placing lives Into a semblance of dignity All very good, of course, pigeonholing That after several years, reams of cyclostyled journals After rising from the humanistic depths of dead You would board your clockwork train Sighing, humming, generously producing Productive nine hours worth of job analysis A plastic card, imprinted with your voice, your image, Your astrological significance now appears in your hand to be given over. A life to be given over a sum to be computed. Campus-green, a long anachronistic time ago A cry of, 'cigarettes and alcohol! ' would rouse The most fervent of those sweating, bullying Swearing, pushing white-mice crowd of you. Shelter harbouring minds, amidst frozen café lattes Idle chit-chat, droning on like fashionable bees One eye on the clock at lunchtime for the next welcome into patient lectures, had suddenly Metamorphosed into two, now nailed straight at the hand to five. Your chrysalis is still glistening. Drawing your shades further inwards, I merge into you In a drawn-out journey out of a glass tunnel. WILFRED JOHN

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HOW MY HEART IS SUPPOSED TO BEAT Bleeding love Waiting for your phone call is killing Pain of a lover My arms are longing for you arms I take a deep breathe My thoughts are sinking in the environments noises Do you love me I am eager to know Minutes become hours Hours become eternity How my heart is supposed to beat While it does not still know If you heart is beating for mine Someone told me you worked in an Employment agency, placing lives Into a semblance of dignity All very good, of course, pigeonholing That after several years, reams of cyclostyled journals After rising from the humanistic depths of dead You would board your clockwork train Sighing, humming, generously producing Productive nine hours worth of job analysis A plastic card, imprinted with your voice, your image, Your astrological significance now appears in your hand to be given over. A life to be given over a sum to be computed. Campus-green, a long anachronistic time ago A cry of, 'cigarettes and alcohol! ' would rouse The most fervent of those sweating, bullying Swearing, pushing white-mice crowd of you. Shelter harbouring minds, amidst frozen café lattes Idle chit-chat, droning on like fashionable bees One eye on the clock at lunchtime for the next welcome into patient lectures, had suddenly Metamorphosed into two, now nailed straight at the hand to five. Your chrysalis is still glistening. Drawing your shades further inwards, I merge into you In a drawn-out journey out of a glass tunnel. WILFRED JOHN WILFRED JOHN

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HOW TO LIVE HERSELF FULLY IN HER LIFE Wherever the feminine has been honored Women have kept a special time for being Together as women A time to share To support and teach each other In living empowered and fulfilled A time for sharing their strength Their vulnerability and their deep dark mysteries How to live herself fully in her life Her sexuality and in relationship to man She was initiated into becoming The goddess that could meet the god. WILFRED JOHN

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Humanistic Informatics Programme There are a number of different opportunities for international students and researchers to study and research digital culture with the humanistic informatics program the University of Bergen. We particularly encourage undergraduate or master’s students who are studying related subjects at their home institutions in Europe to spend a semester or a year here while taking advantage of the ERASMUS program. We are also working on specifically articulated exchange agreements with other digital culture programs in Nordic countries and in the USA. All international students must have a high level of competency in English in order to study in our program. Some information about the different types of opportunities for international students and researchers follows. Undergraduate and Master’s students at institutions participating in the EU-sponsored Erasmus program are encouraged to apply to study at the University of Bergen for one or two semesters. Erasmus students receive guaranteed housing, as well as funding for return travel from their home country and a small monthly stipend in addition to the support they receive from their home country. We particularly welcome undergraduate and master’s students studying digital culture at their home institutions to apply. Students or faculty at European institutions where digital culture is studied may contact Scott Rettberg ([email protected]) about making arrangements to establish ERASMUS exchange agreements between UiB humanistic informatics and a program at their home institution. See our curriculum page for information about which courses are taught in English. Applications must be received by UiB by May 15th for Fall semester enrollment or October 15th for Spring semester enrollment. In addition to ERASMUS, students from institutions with which UiB has a bilateral exchange agreement may take courses in humanistic informatics as exchange students. Faculty at other institutions abroad where digital culture is an important aspect of the curriculum interested in developing a bilateral exchange can contact Scott Rettberg ([email protected]) about establishing an agreement. International students wishing to complete a Master’s degree in our program are also encouraged to apply. Foreign students completing an M.A. at UiB are not eligible for state support of their living expenses and must be self-financed, however no tuition is charged for guest students. We particularly encourage students interested in writing theses in our principle research areas such as digital textuality, electronic literature, gender and technology, social networks and MMOGs, and ICT and learning to apply. Additional support might be available for students students from developing countries and countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia applying under the quota scheme. Applications for Fall admission to the MA program must be received by February 1. Applications under the quota scheme must be received by December 1. Ph.D. Applicants International students may apply to complete a doctoral degree in humanistic informatics at the University of Bergen. Ph.D. stipends are awarded through an annual competitive process across the humanities faculty. Guest Researchers www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Ph.D. students studying at other institutions and faculty wishing to research at UiB humanistic informatics are encouraged to contact individual faculty members who they are interested in working with. Visiting Ph.D. students may attend classes without paying tuition, and access to research facilities can be arranged. There are also funding opportunities for distinguished researchers from other institutions to visit UiB as a guest researcher, for example, Stuart Moulthrop was a visiting researcher here in 2007. Applications for guest researcher funding may be submitted by UiB faculty April 1 for Fall and October 1 for Spring each year. UiB has a website with useful information for foreign researchers. WILFRED JOHN

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I DONT DISCIPLINE EQUALS CREATIVITY I'm not a big believer in disciplined writers. What does discipline mean? The writer who forces himself To sit down and write for seven hours Every day might be wasting those Seven hours if he's not in the mood And doesn't feel the juice. I don't discipline equals creativity WILFRED JOHN

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I BELIEVE IN LOVE Writers were already standing in line for centuries Hoping to unravel the sleeping habits I spent four years exhuming The remains of all my ancestors searching for connections Intuition the polymaths about their law degrees It will take to become a politician or a general who never receives I believe in love my axle’s teeth have all been wasted. Wearing clothes for Green Peace. It’s not about global warming. It’s about fighting to get certified as a sign language Instructor for plants and getting National Security to stop Monitoring steel bands. WILFRED JOHN

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I CAN FEEL YOUR HEART Make love to me on soft grass Still wet with morning dew Let me feel the trembling Of your fingertips As they reach out to touch And follow across my cheek In the heat of the day Will you lay beside me Whispering words of love And counting storm clouds Waiting for lightning To flash across the sky Late in the afternoon When night is drawing in Pull me close and kiss me In that way you always do Awakening the fire that burns Within my eyes for you I can feel your heart beating next to mine when I wake in the night still cradled in your arms your peaceful sighs a lullaby that sing me back to sleep. WILFRED JOHN

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I FINALL GAIN COURAGE TO CALL YOU I don’t know what it is Whenever I miss you too much And my mind becomes very eager To see you or just talk to you I seemed to slow down And hesitate to call you Doubts overshadow my feelings Lest you don’t appreciate my call Or I cannot express my true feelings And may end up offending you As time goes by I feel even more hesitant and stiff And feel stress from the notion of calling you. Someone from inside asks me To go for a long walk To regain my thoughts and feelings As I come back from a long walk I finally gain courage to call you With my heart pounding Each time the phone rings And then suddenly, I hear your voice Which I hear from within almost all the time That sweet, simple, lovely and caring voice Firm yet encouraging and affectionate My soul gets very high As if taking shower in the first rain After a long drought summer. WILFRED JOHN

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I FIND MYSELF IN LOVE ALL THE TIME I felt in love with you every time And I couldn't let you know that immediately People say that when you fall into love It can never last They say that true love grows but it takes a long time But from the time I first felt in love with you My love has grown immediately. I wish now that if I had the choice To do it all over again I would, without a moment hesitation There may be regrets There may be disappointments There may be uncertainty. And I know you are not perfect After all, no one is perfect And there may be things about you which get to me I love you, despite all of them And I am sure there may be others Considered more beautiful, more lovely, more charming There are none considered by me. For you, my love, you are the loveliest in spirit The most charming in personality The most beautiful person I have ever known in my life. I love you so much, in a way no one can imagine I said I felting love with you every time Every time you look me in the eye And smile that smile of yours Use to fill my deep sorrows. I find myself falling in love with you all over again No matter what has happened in my life No matter how I feel I find my heart opening to you all over again. No matter what has happened in the past No matter what may or may not happen in the future I find myself in love all the time And I will always find myself like this way What is love without you. Its simply nothing. WILFRED JOHN

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I Gather All My Memory In A Basketful the prestidigitator's wand in a top hat I break your pate out a cuckoo transpires with my wand in my hand the hot sun stops and glares

apple of my eye what word is this preaching the gospel on a streetcorner with a megaphone stand down the staircase that I may walk upon you is all there is to what he is saying like the shopman shouting his wares from an open door

lascivious things these try my patience says my lady furiously vacuuming the rug I gather all my memory in a basketful and shoo it out my window let it fall as the tender rain on any below WILFRED JOHN

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I Grew In Pain With Eyes Beneath Your Eye A real man is defined My Father taught me How to be a man And not by instilling In me a sense By what’s in his heart Not his pants If only you could draw in every night Like stars drew beauty on the vicious sky Your glance in shapeless thoughts and say Happiness, I grew in pain with eyes beneath your eye Dragonfly dances off my forehead this morning. I mean glances Freeform Your words are enriching and all but bewitching. They scratch @ my itching and attach to my thinking. You don’t know how much your words mean to me. But for us we are both where it hurts to agree. Your syllables, your similees, your verbs and your nouns. Your metaphors and parodies in service to sounds. A whiff of your words comes in worthy amounts. WILFRED JOHN

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I Have A Small Pain In My Chest The boy was sitting calmly Under that tree. As I approached it I could see him beckoning to me. The battle had been long and Hard and lasted through the night And scores of figures on the Ground lay still by morning's light. I wonder if you'd help me He smiled as best he could. A sip of water on this morn Would surely do me good. We fought all day and fought All night with scarcely any rest A sip of water for I have a small pain in my chest As I looked at him I could see the large stain on his shirt All reddish-brown from his warm Blood mixed in with dirt 'Not much', said he I count myself luckier than the rest They're all gone while I just have a small pain in my chest. Must be fatigue he weakly smiled I must be getting old. I see the sun is shining bright And yet I'm feeling cold. We climbed the hill two hundred strong but as we cleared the crest, The night exploded and I Felt this small pain in my chest.' 'I looked around to get some aid The only things I found Were big, deep craters in the earth Bodies on the ground. I kept on firing at them, sir. I tried to do my best, But finally sat down with this small pain in my chest.' 'I'm grateful, sir', he whispered, as I handed my canteen And smiled a smile that was, I think, the brightest that I've seen. 'Seems silly that a man my size so full of vim and zest, Could find himself defeated by a small pain in his chest.' 'What would my wife be thinking of her man so strong and grown, www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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If she could see me sitting here, too weak to stand alone? Could my mother have imagined, as she held me to her breast, That I'd be sitting HERE one day with this pain in my chest? ' 'Can it be getting dark so soon? ' He winced up at the sun. 'It's growing dim and I thought that the day had just begun. I think, before I travel on, I'll get a little rest And, quietly, the boy died from that small pain in his chest. I don't recall what happened then. I think I must have cried; I put my arms around him and I pulled him to my side And, as I held him to me, I could feel our wounds WILFRED JOHN

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I HAVE BEEN IN LOVE MANY TIMES I have been in love many times And I have been hurt many times. I would not trade the tempering ache When my desire over reaches itself For the purple tinge At the edge of an orange-red oak leaf Or the secret whispers of the gods In the darkness before creation Or the hesitancy of time itself As the moon decides to recede. WILFRED JOHN

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I Have Never Organized or Stated This Approach Before One way I judge art is to critique its true value. I believe there is value in things independent of their being observed. However, our ability to know true value is limited by our knowledge and skill. So, true value is discovered by critics with varying degrees of accuracy. True value depends on the measure of three qualities: innovation, execution and purpose. Innovation refers to how new a method, structure, or mode of an art work is. Innovation is measurable against history, and we may determine what specific innovations a work brought, how important those innovations are to subsequent art, how different those innovations were from previous innovations, and to what degree those innovations assist music in achieving its aesthetic goals. Execution refers to how effective an art work is in achieving its aesthetic goals. Flawless execution can be called formal perfection. Purpose refers to how valuable those aesthetic goals are. For example, a target aesthetic of creating awful, derivative art is not very valuable. Think of it this way. Psychologists use True Score Theory to measure unobservable constructs like love or self-esteem. Basically, True Score Theory states that any observable score we gather is the sum of a construct's true score and some measuring error, because we are not measuring the construct but some operationalized behavior we think is related to the construct. We're not measuring love, but displays of affection. We're not measuring self-esteem, but a self-reported scale of desire to harm oneself. We can never know a construct's true score or the amount of our error, but we theorize that constructs do have a true score we could observe with magical powers. Similarly, I believe art has a true value based on the criteria in the previous paragraph, but because we cannot know the amount of our error (due to incomplete history, incomplete understanding of relevant subjects, critic bias, etc.) , we cannot know the true value of an art work. But I theorize a true, or 'absolute', value of an art work exists. When I rate something with a number, or apply labels like 'greatest' or 'bad', I am usually referring to my best guess of its true value. I also critique art's personal value: how does it affect me? A work of art's personal value may be good if it informs me, improves my mood, inspires me, etc. Its personal value may be bad if it deceives me, hurts my mood, etc. I can usually ascertain a work of art's personal value when I try, but a trained psychologist or God may occasionally be less wrong about a work's personal value to me than I am. Personal value is certainly more important than true value. I also critique art's social value: how does it affect society? A work of art's social value may be good if the sum of its effects on society are positive and bad if the sum if its effects on society are negative. I am least interested about social value because causation is so difficult to determine, and because the aesthetics of the work rarely bear upon its social value. True value is positive: high value makes it very good, no value simply makes it valueless (though I often use 'bad' to describe a valueless thing) . Personal value and social value may be positive or negative in varying degrees, or of no value (neutral) . Also, true value is static after creation and modification has ceased, but personal and social value may change. Any of these critiques may be applied specifically to a segment of an art work, generally to an art work, or generally to a body of many art works, with decreasing accuracy and increasing efficiency & consumability. Note that the value of an art work can be considered separate from www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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the value of its artist(s) . Personal value obviously says nothing about the artist(s) , and social value (effects) may be unintended by the artist(s) , or out of their control. An artist may create something that is a great innovation to him, but was actually innovated years earlier by someone whose work the artist never observed, and therefore the work is derivative even though the artist is a creative genius. Even execution may be an accident; it's possible that MC5 did not intend to record a masterpiece with Kick Out the Jams. I'll illuminate my approach with three examples. First, 'Clocks' by Coldplay. Even the most naive music fan understands there is nothing innovative about the music. Its target aesthetic is one that will sell records: safe, familiar prettiness. This aesthetic is of marginal value. So the song is of little true value. However, the song's beat energizes me. Its music - I don't usually listen to lyrics, which hinders my analysis, but even the best lyricists are mediocre poets at best - tells me that though there is sorrow and melancholy, life is beautiful. It reinforces positive emotions with the few lyrics I can't miss: 'Home, home: where I wanted to go.' I mentally finish 'Nothing else compares...' with 'to you, God', and thusly use it as worship. So the song has some positive personal value to me. The song's social value is probably negligible or neutral: though popular, its 'message' approaches neither extreme of positive or negative effectiveness, and it has not been adopted by any powerful group for wide influence, positive or negative. Second, The Birth of a Nation by D.W. Griffith. It brought many technical innovations and elaborated many previous innovations by Griffith. Its execution is often impressive with regard to scale and camera technique, and often weak or muddy with regard to story, character, and structure. It is probably of moderate true value. Released in 1915 and set in the 1860s, its racism had little relevance or influence for me. I was happy to see it once for its historical significance, but don't care to see it again. It is of no personal value. Wildly popular and effective in showing prejudice as heroic, Birth of a Nation is credited with helping to revive the murderous Klu Klux Klan and racism in general across the United States. It has immense negative social value. Third, Harmonielehre by John C. Adams. Its particular use of unmelodic, atonal minimalism to achieve Beethovenian Romanticism is slightly innovative. I think it is quite effective in achieving this target aesthetic, with few major weaknesses. I'd guess that it is of good or very good true value. Perhaps no other piece of music has such power to awaken my soul and draw tears of emotional rapture, so it is of great positive personal value. It is only popular among fans of contemporary classical music, and communicates little 'message', so apart from generally contributing to 'the arts' (which many believe make life worth living) , it has no social value. I have never organized or stated this approach before, so none of my previous criticism may be held to this standard. Most apparent inconsistencies in my future criticism will likely spawn from language confusion or incompleteness on my part, which are inevitable. WILFRED JOHN

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I Long To Refill Her My pen is my love I long to refill her Over and over again. I search for her When I am in the mood, to express my urgings Removing her from One set of her Many drawers. She dances with me Across a bleached White rectangle As I press the tiny Button on her end. Then she comes with me, In long slashing strokes On exquisite journeys. We stain the sheets With shared passion, She bleeds ink, Into which I Blend thought. She lies comfortably Nestled in my hand, Smooth and slender, Copying my every move. My pen is my lover, Laced between my fingers, Sharing my most Intimate secrets With her every arch Each 'O' and 'G.' Lost in the 'Y' of her, Till my mind grows weary Of her pleasure Then I offer her A nightcap, And stagger off To my bed Alone again. Most people join poetry or literature circles for pleasure. They have always enjoyed poetry, and now have the time — through retirement, unemployment or the children leaving home — to try their own hand at this absorbing genre. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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How to get started, find like-minded friends, engage in collaborative associations and publications? Discussion The pursuit can hardly be bettered. Poetry is the most versatile and wide-ranging of literary forms, enabling things to be said that cannot be encompassed in prose. It can be finished in odd moments, unlike the novel, which takes long years of effort. Whatever its standard or style, a poem can usually be published somewhere, given the determination, the research and the contacts. Poetry forms a good introduction to more commercial types of writing, and is usually included in creative writing courses. Nonetheless, poetry is not easy. The medium is a compact one, needing great concentration to read, and even more to write. First efforts are not always rewarding. Nevertheless, even the most pedestrian poem occasionally lifts into the vivid and memorable, and kindles a warm response in its reader. And that is worth a great deal, despite what poetry has become in recent years. With the Modernists' love of experimentation, anti-realism, individualism and intellectualism came a great narrowing of aims and accomplishments. Poetry was not writing at its highest pitch, but something fabricated altogether differently. With Postmodernism these trends were accentuated. Writers became the self-appointed spiritual guardians of language, championing its creative and arbitrary nature over its more prosaic powers to represent, analyse and discover. Those writing simply for pleasure can ignore these subtleties. At least at first, the opportunities seem boundless. Despite all the advantages enjoyed by contemporary plays and films — the technology, the 'real-life' dramas, modern idiom in speech and attitudes — Shakespeare is still the most performed of dramatists, giving us a gallery of recognisable characters that no one has rivalled. Dante provides us with a sharp-etched picture of fifteenth-century Italian politics. Byron manages to work in slang and details of a water pump into Don Juan, and Ezra Pound incorporates views on capitalist economics in the Cantos. Philip Larkin paints the domestic nihilism of the contemporary welfare state, and Ted Hughes's animals are exactly observed. What are these but the smallest examples of what lies open to talent, honesty and determination? Success brings pleasure, and pleasure may be the truest mark of a writer. Without talent, nothing of importance can be achieved. But without increasing absorption, fascination and sheer pleasure in literary craftsmanship, that talent will never see the light of day. Native ability and hard work are both essential to poetry, and pleasure is the stimulus to both. Suggestions 1. Join a local poetry writing group or literature circle. Writing is a lonely enough activity, and moral support and shared aims will help you through the barren stretches. 2. Be realistic. Good poets are not household names, and earn little or nothing from their efforts. The pleasure of writing has to be sufficient reward. 3. Develop some street sense. Like all the arts, poetry is a world of sharp infighting, excellent achievements and a good deal of chicanery, hypocrisy and plain madness. Carry on just the same. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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4. Read biographies of poets. You will understand their work more, and the struggles they faced. 5. Consult books or attend classes on poetry appreciation. Your style will be different, but the underlying principles remain the same. You can't write well without thoroughly understanding what poetry is about. 6. Enjoy the literary life. Curl up with books. Sit with notebook in hand at local cafés. Join literature circles and societies. Poetry is an excellent way of making friends, for all that writers are competitive and fretful creatures. WILFRED JOHN

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I looked Into His Eyes [McCabe quotes the lines that begin '' and end 'old scratched isinglass.'] What she discovers is not identity but difference, the eyes impenetrable and layered – mediated and distanced by the speaker’s language. That she describes his yes as 'seen through the lenses / of old scratched isinglass' implicates both her vision and that of the fish as blurred and imperfect. Isinglass, a transparent gelatin from the bladders of fish and used, ironically, as a clarifying agent, only diminishes and reduces her ability to see the fish … [McCabe quotes the last twelve lines in 'The Fish.'] Only after seeing the fish can she see 'the little rented boat, ' which, like the fish, becomes dynamized, its deficiencies metamorphosing to matter for exultation. The fish is only ugly or grotesque to the untrained or unempathic eye. As the small space of the boat expands, her multiple prepositions override 'thwarts' and tie 'everything' into relationship. The poem takes us two ways: into recognizing difference and into apprehending unity, into perceiving connection and its frailty. But to comprehend, to totalize would be to underrate. We recall that this is a poem about a visionary moment: it can’t keep, but must be let go. This poem, looser than others in this volume and preferring internal rhymes until its final couplet, highlights how fragile and unpredictable are our joinings and communions. … [from Susan McCabe, 'Artifices of Independence, ' Chapter 2 in Elizabeth Bishop: Her Poetics of Loss (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,1994) ,95,96.] WILFRED JOHN

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I MARWEL AT THE IRONY Neither you nor I Had a tough leather hide Or immunity to pointy things And days in the cactus garden of ‘us’ Just took it’s toll My love. And as I tenderly hold Last memories of you There between the puncture holes Left by the incisors of your puppy On a soft place of me I marvel at the irony That what I need To replace that mutt Is a tetanus injection In my butt. Life Good or bad Everything is just so pointy. WILFRED JOHN

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I See All These Things When I look into a mirror I see shattered dreams And rebuilt fear A broken Clock A dragon's tear A blood red moon A shining star A fiery mind A run down car I see all these things And in the middle I see myself So small and little WILFRED JOHN

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I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER Dancing flakes, the texture of dust We marvel at our first snow Pecan trees dressed in pearly silk Cardinals flutter in their new bed Garbage can blackened through years of abuse Stands regal and proud in its new domain The old barn door inviting guests With a youthfulness not seen in my time Smelling of warm cedar smoke rising from the chimney Horseshoe gracing her front door she approaches Becoming clearer as we watch bundled in her shabby Black coat and gold mitten hat she walks with her cane Her left palm caresses the delicate flakes Her white teeth with gold fillings smile A punctured dime gleams from her anklet We gaze through our window Our breaths shine on the pane and we smile We could rush out and greet her but that might erase The spell she holds over us love you so deeply, I love you so much I love the sound of your voice And the way that we touch I love your warm smile And your kind, thoughtful way the joy that you bring To my life every day I love you today As I have from the start and I'll love you forever With all of my heart we're awed by her magic Her cane her support and her wand beautiful caregiver Our ebony magician changing our season of gray to white Our hearts to pure love. 1980 WILFRED JOHN

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I WILL STAY SINGLE WAITING FOR YOU These lone words of chilled desire are on Scroll unravel them when your skin is dry Your secret past unfolds before your limbs to surge again Back to the thrill of the crackling fire Sit here and think how much I want to be with you Wondering will I ever have a chance A chance to hold you, kiss you and to be with you I think about you every day every night before I sleep I dream how it would be to have you as my own I dream to see how it feels to see you before I sleep How it would feel to cuddle with you at night I dream about how wonderful it would be to wake up and see you Laying next to me in bed but its all a dream till the time comes I will stay single waiting for you. 1978 WILFRED JOHN

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If I Were The Rain If I were the rain I would dropp fast I would make a loud sound. Everything would be wet. If I were the sun I would dry out Everything that the rain did. WILFRED JOHN

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I'll pass codes allowing it a way up here is the picture I have cut off from me say it you the hausfrau and the bitter seed let it gibber in a Bath chair I'll pass codes allowing it a way up the silken ladder from gutter to kerb

this is the station this is the station fixed in advance all who alight here do not by chance what comes and goes in and out does so haphazard in a pig's snout that snuffles the baggage and writes home again with the pen in its lips for more and more men

end of the line rubber baby buggy bumper with a red light if I die before I wake and the great nothing here daily only the rapscallions dreamily making mincemeat of Giotto's O WILFRED JOHN

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I'm Wilfred John And I Love Poetry I'm Wilfred John and I love poetry “If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst! ” 'The great only appear great, because the rest of us are on our knees' James Connolly WILFRED JOHN

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In the cabbage patch the radio broadcasts ah hear ye hear ye once and for all and free speech is the chiefest of sprees woe unto ye attend to us all whatsoever the mind is like cheddar cheese ripening under a leaf in the cabbage patch beside a rabbit munching vigorously all day and night WILFRED JOHN

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In The Traps Set For A Million Dollars tour de force flambéed lamb chops on the majolica ware with the best sauce money can buy in the traps set for a million dollars in the bank outside the fountains of Bernini silently the purposes filter out the stream of words spoken up and written out the poker-players ramble out to the hill and scream as loudly as it may be with the chips in their ears clip me out their coupons who ran the valued trade on their marts under klaxons in an air-raid the newsboys buzz the empty town at night policemen follow the stream of traffic on the quiet you can sleep now the discourse is done the lamp out let the cat be born under the wheels of the juggernaut and the frantic ply the nightwinds for a dream of day you can suppose it is here the street and all its candied apples WILFRED JOHN

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Influence Of New Criticism The Oxford Concise Dictionary raises the issue immediately. Literature, says the dictionary, is writing whose value lies in beauty of form or emotional effect. Nothing about truth or social value. Nothing about how such beauty or emotional effect is to be judged. In its early day as an academic subject, English Literature was little more than connoisseurship: genial essays that offered rational enthusiasm for certain authors and their works. Of course it was impressionistic, and under the influence of New Criticism, the study of literature passed from a recreation to a profession and finally to an industry. A reaction was inevitable once the postwar education boom came to an end. Did the study of English Literature make the world today a more fascinating, meaningful and morally accountable place? Did it help students to write better themselves, and give them the tolerance and flexibility needed in a changing world? Did it enable them to see through the coercions of authority, and the blandishments of politicians and advertisers? Very few argued so. What had academics been producing? Increasingly they wrote analyses for other academics in a style that bore no relation to the works studied. Their language passed insensibly from the technical to a metalanguage that only fellow specialists could understand. Eventually the style turned in on itself. The more radical critics asserted that nothing of any finality or objectivity could be said in any language whatsoever. If previous criticism was dull, it was generally clear, but the new radical criticism took pleasure in illustrating and exaggerating the very opacities claimed to be present in all language. But the strategy was not entirely nihilistic, nor seeking to strengthen their tenure prospects. However negatively, it did raise the difficulties of truth and meaning in literature, and suggested that what was said was contingent on how it was said. A standard English was a fabrication, existing by virtue of social agreements, the work of grammarians and compilers of dictionaries. Rationalists who employ Chomskian deep grammar approaches to establish a 'basic meaning' overlooked the features of language encountered by Anglo-American schools of philosophy — its polymorphous, creative and ad-hoc nature, the way we continually paraphrase across individual usages. Hermeneutics Hermeneutics stresses the continual adjustment we make in interpretation, how each sentence must be assembled to make a coherent whole, and the assembly then checked against the constituent parts. Such a procedure, which we follow in bridging social usages, takes into account not only abstract meaning, but an individual's experiences, affections, character, social and historical setting. Gadamer talks of the dialogue between old traditions and present needs. Habermas criticizes the grey language of science, which alienates man from his better nature. Truth is not grounded in evidence but consensus, and languages are shared ways in which societies understand themselves. Is there no one correct interpretation of some act of speech or writing? Clearly not, though Ingarden suggests we examine literary texts for the acts of consciousness that they preserve, which we must partly reanimate in reading. Brain Functioning Advances in computers, communications and experimental psychology have naturally focused interest on the brain. Its activity is astonishingly varied, employing physical, chemical and electromagnetic processes. Far from inert, the brain is an active and www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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developing organ, repairing damage, growing new functions as the need arises. Moreover, its memory is phenomenal, though much is not immediate accessible, or well explained by present theories. Given this, the brain could not escape behaving in a complicated manner. Mental activity need not mimic brain structure, of course, any more than a computer program faithfully follows the hardware layout. Furthermore, if sensory perception and understanding are not only interrelated but have developed piecemeal in answer to biological needs (as seems only too likely) , then we have possible reasons for gaps and inconsistencies in our modes of understanding. Metaphor Theory But the larger suggestion, obvious but consistently overlooked, is that aesthetic language is not simply beautiful and affective, but the language closest to our human functioning. It is the most authentic, most expressive, most precise, most — if truth be returned from its abstract sense — truthful. The reductive approaches of the sciences employed in linguistics, for example, are not more precise for being more abstract and general: they are simply more abstract and general. Indeed they are not even more general: results have been as varied as the theories employed — more so, in fact, as schools of practitioners have split over interpretation differences. The literary world is complex: a network of alliances and understandings continually in search of reputation in the cannon's mouth. But even established poets — those winning literary competitions and promoted by leading publishers — often express an ambivalent attitude to the rules of their exclusive club. They pay lip service to the tenets of Postmodernism, but can also be found expressing views not out of place in the eighteenth century. Sometimes it must seem that Modernism and Postmodernism have been largely negative in their effects — that its writers, critics, academics and journalists are setting up obstacles to what is a demanding but natural activity, creating an orthodoxy as ill-founded and stultifying as that of the medieval Church. It need not be so. Poetry is not an arbitrary, solipsist, individual creation, but a way of more fully understanding ourselves and the world around. WILFRED JOHN

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Innovations Assist Music In Achieving Its Aesthetic Goals I wouldn't call my approach to intrinsic value, or even just to innovation, scientific. But I would call it objective because it's closer to that than it is to 'subjective'. You can't really measure and calculate how much more innovative Beethoven's 9th is than the madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo. Carlo Gesualdo (they are both great, I think) , but someone knowledgeable about such things could estimate what specific innovations each brought (according to available human knowledge) , how important those innovations are to subsequent music (this is where Beethoven really pulls ahead) , how different those innovations were from previous innovations, and to what degree those innovations assist music in achieving its aesthetic goals. WILFRED JOHN

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INTERFACES ARE EVERYTHING IN GROWTH The fact that I'm an ecologist, as well as a ‘lapsed poet', might explain why I'm forever delving into the interfaces between poetry and other disciplines. In growth, interfaces are everything. A potato plant can sprout from peelings, but never from that starchy bulk we tend to focus on as food. Interfaces hold the key - or at least the imprint of the key - to grappling with the tragedies and opportunities of what is a fast, interwoven, techno-social world. Science and Poetry? Well, poetry certainly has a lot to do with anatomy. It's easy to forget how its sound is launched from flaps of skin in the throat, that it is a sustained, modulated vibration of a gaseous fluid. I love the idea that the most intense experiences of poetry can be pheromonal, filling a room with the sweet, subliminal scent of aroused communication. When that happens, audiences help to make the poem. Their response can become an organic hologram within you, storing in your bones (and in your ear) the shape and smack of genuine human interaction. A poem is shared breath. After all, it both shapes - and is shaped by - breath. If inspiration is the breath in, then the poem is the breath out. It is somatic as well as intellectual. It has to be tested out on your personalised drum-kit of inner ear. Talking of inspiration, I'm an idiot Benjamin Franklin forever launching my kite into the cloudless blue (and, too often, holding my breath as I do so!) . Those internal processes of composition often seem inexorably meteorological a kind of spontaneous condensation in the dark interstices of consciousness. The poem: a thick vapour that creeps under the door of your brightly lit life, demanding that you investigate and experiment. The rest is trying to get the blasted door to open. But, as when I was a physicist, I thrive on unexpected results. During one of my classroom visits, for example, after asking a class to invent a futuristic voice, a disgruntled student raised a heavily-ringed hand and (with a face brimming with Anglo-Saxon feeling) encouraged me (shall we say, euphemistically) to ‘do' my own exercise. I did; and the resulting poem (entitled Gene) helped me towards a new voice. Angels often come disguised as devils. Since my first book, Shrapnel and Sheets, I've been trying to gauge, and span, the supposed arts-science duality. I've been keen to write poems that move the listener, yet address the problems and possibilities of technology; that encapsulate individual corpuscles of scientific perception whilst sending ‘waves' through an audience with their performance and resonance. I believe science and poetry can successfully co-exist in this way, but not through the injection of science into poems in an arbitrary manner, or as a kind of technological name-dropping. The science has to be fully absorbed into the creative writing process, so that the poems achieve a negotiated co-habitation, an organic balance. That was my intention with the book-length poem/ sequence on Chernobyl, Heavy Water and my current collection with Enitharmon, Flowers of Sulphur. I try, however, not to obsess over technology or our eco-social sins. History (say) can be just as important. Indeed, the media (and our entertainment culture more generally) seem so focused on topicality and the present, I'm concerned for the past's future... But, yes, I do keep an on-going eye on science. Science inspires me because I experienced it at the coal face; but also because I've found that the rigour and precision of the scientist is not foreign to the poet, just as the faith-leaps of poetry are far from excluded from the drawing-boards of science. Poetry and science do not resemble tribal arch-rivals, but kissing cousins. They both ask deeper questions of what is superficially observed and, by the same token, both adopt www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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a hypothetical and provisional stance towards what they try to understand. They each demand that we pay full, plural attention. And, as someone versed in quantum physics, I'm fascinated by metaphor, the way everything (as in the quantum world) can become everything else. That's the engine-room of my writing, one of its major subjects. Finally, science provides not just interesting things to write about; it also feeds one of my key creative concerns: to discover novel perspectives, new ways of perceiving and processing ‘ordinary' experience. As that prolific writer, Anonymous, has said: a physicist is the atom's way of thinking about atoms. Perhaps, then, a poet is the poem's way of thinking about words. WILFRED JOHN

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Into Their Holes for the Tory how I would like to build says the eminent guest speaker a long bold build of castaway nets to fright my balls into their holes in the proper event of the day I reek and my manuals are very dry stuff WILFRED JOHN

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INTRINSIC VALUE IN ART I believe there is intrinsic value in art, so I want to find a way to uncover that intrinsic value. Innovation and execution seem to me the most sensible way to discover that intrinsic value. I suspect that most people who disagree with my approach to art criticism really just don't believe art has intrinsic value, in which case I consider their valuation of an art work under 'personal value', which those people probably take to be a belittlement of their opinion. But I would much rather live without a work of great intrinsic value than a work of great personal value. I didn't list intrinsic value first because it is more important. There are few pieces of art whose execution can be judged with a decent mix of objectivity and subjectivity. 'A judgment on execution can be objective only when a target aesthetic is unemotional' does not mean that all unemotional aesthetics can be judged with objectivity. But I want to emphasize the difference between 'I dunno, I just like it, and art is subjective so my opinion is just as valid as yours, ' and a well-thought, well-studied, well-informed opinion of an expert on the art. US culture has recently diminished the value of expertise, and increased the value of personal experience, far too much in my opinion. I've never tried to rank the difficulty in crafting art works; indeed, I say that Trout Mask Replica, which I value greatly, may have been an accident. Social value is indeed totally independent of aesthetic quality, and also my least favorite aspect to discuss I shudder at the thought of using popularity to uncover intrinsic value, as you suggest with polling. That would end badly, with The Eagles and Michael Jackson at the top of the list. Is red our blue prettier? If we're speaking of intrinsic value, I think you know my judgments of execution are a little more quantifiable than that, even moreso for someone who has studied music theory extensively. If we're talking about personal value, blue is definitely prettier. Finally, Scaruffi knows himself as a historian and not a critic (I call him a critic) : I consider myself a historian, not a critic... I tend to study the way a phenomenon, movement or product is created and develops. Some of my most controversial 'opinions' (e.g., Presley and Beatles) are simply due to being 'too' aware of the way they were created, established and propagated. I know the record industry too well to be trapped into thinking that a star deserved any credit for becoming famous and selling millions of albums. It is not terribly intriguing for an historian that a highly publicized (i.e., marketed) musician becomes a best-seller. On the other hand, the Velvet Underground benefited from almost no marketing, and still managed to become the most influential band of all times. Needless to say, this is a very intriguing fact for a historian. Therefore, in principle, I am more interested in the flow of ideas, and tend to focus on how those ideas originated and how those ideas propagated. My statement that a certain musician did not invent anything is often taken as a negative judgement of his music when it is, in fact, a simple statement about what happened. My statement that a certain musician invented something is often taken as a positive judgement of his music when it is, in fact, a simple statement about what happened. The 'negative' and 'positive' values are often added not by me but by the reader, who www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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compares the 'fortune' of that artist with the role that s/he had according to my history of music. Yet, he does make many artistic judgments, but that's because his approach to art criticism depends on history. Art does not exist outside of time. WILFRED JOHN

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IS INDISPUTABLE HAS AUTHORED IT New Poems gives us reason to celebrate not only Because a poet whose mastery is indisputable has authored it. But because it may very well deepen our understanding of What poetry is and what it’s been up to lately. I can speak truth openly without thought of humiliation Because I don’t belong to an institution No one paid me to act honest in sophistication Certainly not gaining anything for self gratification Have no intention to campaign for future election Why can express myself before media characterization Unconcerned with worries of journalistic speculations Not lobbying on behalf of any platform with affiliation Finally, speech is not my professional transaction We are taught to be truthful throughout childhood But we learn the adjustments reaching adulthood Soon get used to diplomacy embedding falsehood Often knowingly withhold truth for livelihood Cautiously avoid inquisitive child throughout parenthood Nation’s intelligence hides truth to save Nationhood Elected officials forget hands still on the holy book When people get used to lying under condition An honest and just society only lives in imagination Guarding truth is a game in corporate competition Military ensures national security blacking out documentation Celebrities learn to lie looking smart with fashion Religious leaders make stories Truth seekers try in vein to remind implication Avoiding truth only leads to eventual self destruction. WILFRED JOHN

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It Felt Surreal I can't narrate how it feels As I looked into her eyes It felt surreal. I liken it to a trip your mind might take all manner of possibilities occur like fate. Her eyes they grab hold and grip you real tight, lord I feel lost in her light. Her eyes are beautiful Anyone can see. when I look into them I wonder are They waiting for me WILFRED JOHN

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It Is Nice To Be Two You are two It is nice to be two Two eyes Two ears Two eyebrows Two nostrils Two cheeks Two liP upper and lower Two sets of teeth, upper and lower Two Two Two Two Two Two Two

hands palms elbows wrists legs toes knees

WILFRED JOHN

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It Makes Me Glow The kiss of a rose, The touch of a knife, The pain that runs through me, Most of my life. The hug I recieve, When I'm feeling low, If only for a moment, It makes me glow. The tear of a dragon, Under a blood red sun, Reminds me that maybe, my life is done. WILFRED JOHN

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It Ts vaguely Approbative

T.S. Eliot

- A STUDY

IN English writing we seldom speak of tradition, though we occasionally apply its name in deploring its absence. We cannot refer to 'the tradition' or to 'a tradition'; at most, we employ the adjective in saying that the poetry of So-and-so is 'traditional' or even 'too traditional.' Seldom, perhaps, does the word appear except in a phrase of censure. If otherwise, it is vaguely approbative, with the implication, as to the work approved, of some pleasing archæological reconstruction. You can hardly make the word agreeable to English ears without this comfortable reference to the reassuring science of archæology. Certainly the word is not likely to appear in our appreciations of living or dead writers. Every nation, every race, has not only its own creative, but its own critical turn of mind; and is even more oblivious of the shortcomings and limitations of its critical habits than of those of its creative genius. We know, or think we know, from the enormous mass of critical writing that has appeared in the French language the critical method or habit of the French; we only conclude (we are such unconscious people) that the French are 'more critical' than we, and sometimes even plume ourselves a little with the fact, as if the French were the less spontaneous. Perhaps they are; but we might remind ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing, and that we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it, for criticizing our own minds in their work of criticism. One of the facts that might come to light in this process is our tendency to insist, when we praise a poet, upon those aspects of his work in which he least resembles anyone else. In these aspects or parts of his work we pretend to find what is individual, what is the peculiar essence of the man. We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet's difference from his predecessors, especially his immediate predecessors; we endeavour to find something that can be isolated in order to be enjoyed. Whereas if we approach a poet without this prejudice we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously. And I do not mean the impressionable period of adolescence, but the period of full maturity. Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, 'tradition' should positively be discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historica sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity. No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of æsthetic, not merely www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new. Whoever has approved this idea of order, of the form of European, of English literature, will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. And the poet who is aware of this will be aware of great difficulties and responsibilities. In a peculiar sense he will be aware also that he must inevitably be judged by the standards of the past. I say judged, not amputated, by them; not judged to be as good as, or worse or better than, the dead; and certainly not judged by the canons of dead critics. It is a judgment, a comparison, in which two things are measured by each other. To conform merely would be for the new work not really to conform at all; it would not be new, and would therefore not be a work of art. And we do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but its fitting in is a test of its value—a test, it is true, which can only be slowly and cautiously applied, for we are none of us infallible judges of conformity. We say: it appears to conform, and is perhaps individual, or it appears individual, and may conform; but we are hardly likely to find that it is one and not the other. To proceed to a more intelligible exposition of the relation of the poet to the past: he can neither take the past as a lump, an indiscriminate bolus, nor can he form himself wholly on one or two private admirations, nor can he form himself wholly upon one preferred period. The first course is inadmissible, the second is an important experience of youth, and the third is a pleasant and highly desirable supplement. The poet must be very conscious of the main current, which does not at all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations. He must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same. He must be aware that the mind of Europe—the mind of his own country—a mind which he learns in time to be much more important than his own private mind—is a mind which changes, and that this change is a development which abandons nothing en route, which does not superannuate either Shakespeare, or Homer, or the rock drawing of the Magdalenian draughtsmen. That this development, refinement perhaps, complication certainly, is not, from the point of view of the artist, any improvement. Perhaps not even an improvement from the point of view of the psychologist or not to the extent which we imagine; perhaps only in the end based upon a complication in economics and machinery. But the difference between the present and the past is that the conscious present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past's awareness of itself cannot show. Some one said: 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.' Precisely, and they are that which we know. I am alive to a usual objection to what is clearly part of my programme for the métier of poetry. The objection is that the doctrine requires a ridiculous amount of erudition (pedantry) , a claim which can be rejected by appeal to the lives of poets in any pantheon. It will even be affirmed that much learning deadens www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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or perverts poetic sensibility. While, however, we persist in believing that a poet ought to know as much as will not encroach upon his necessary receptivity and necessary laziness, it is not desirable to confine knowledge to whatever can be put into a useful shape for examinations, drawing-rooms, or the still more pretentious modes of publicity. Some can absorb knowledge, the more tardy must sweat for it. Shakespeare acquired more essential history from Plutarch than most men could from the whole British Museum. What is to be insisted upon is that the poet must develop or procure the consciousness of the past and that he should continue to develop this consciousness throughout his career. What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. There remains to define this process of depersonalization and its relation to the sense of tradition. It is in this depersonalization that art may be said to approach the condition of science. I shall, therefore, invite you to consider, as a suggestive analogy, the action which takes place when a bit of finely filiated platinum is introduced into a chamber containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide. II Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry. If we attend to the confused cries of the newspaper critics and the susurrus of popular repetition that follows, we shall hear the names of poets in great numbers; if we seek not Blue-book knowledge but the enjoyment of poetry, and ask for a poem, we shall seldom find it. In the last article I tried to point out the importance of the relation of the poem to other poems by other authors, and suggested the conception of poetry as a living whole of all the poetry that has ever been written. The other aspect of this Impersonal theory of poetry is the relation of the poem to its author. And I hinted, by an analogy, that the mind of the mature poet differs from that of the immature one not precisely in any valuation of 'personality, ' not being necessarily more interesting, or having 'more to say, ' but rather by being a more finely perfected medium in which special, or very varied, feelings are at liberty to enter into new combinations. The analogy was that of the catalyst. When the two gases previously mentioned are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum, they form sulphurous acid. This combination takes place only if the platinum is present; nevertheless the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected; has remained inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum. It may partly or exclusively operate upon the experience of the man himself; but, the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates; the more perfectly will the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material. The experience, you will notice, the elements which enter the presence of the transforming catalyst, are of two kinds: emotions and feelings. The effect of a work of art upon the person who enjoys it is an experience different in kind from any experience not of art. It may be formed out of one emotion, or may be a combination of several; and various feelings, inhering for the writer in particular words or phrases or images, may be added to compose the final result. Or great poetry may www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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be made without the direct use of any emotion whatever: composed out of feelings solely. Canto XV of the Inferno (Brunetto Latini) is a working up of the emotion evident in the situation; but the effect, though single as that of any work of art, is obtained by considerable complexity of detail. The last quatrain gives an image, a feeling attaching to an image, which 'came, ' which did not develop simply out of what precedes, but which was probably in suspension in the poet's mind until the proper combination arrived for it to add itself to. The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together. If you compare several representative passages of the greatest poetry you see how great is the variety of types of combination, and also how completely any semi-ethical criterion of 'sublimity' misses the mark. For it is not the 'greatness, ' the intensity, of the emotions, the components, but the intensity of the artistic process, the pressure, so to speak, under which the fusion takes place, that counts. The episode of Paolo and Francesca employs a definite emotion, but the intensity of the poetry is something quite different from whatever intensity in the supposed experience it may give the impression of. It is no more intense, furthermore, than Canto XXVI, the voyage of Ulysses, which has not the direct dependence upon an emotion. Great variety is possible in the process of transmution of emotion: the murder of Agamemnon, or the agony of Othello, gives an artistic effect apparently closer to a possible original than the scenes from Dante. In the Agamemnon, the artistic emotion approximates to the emotion of an actual spectator; in Othello to the emotion of the protagonist himself. But the difference between art and the event is always absolute; the combination which is the murder of Agamemnon is probably as complex as that which is the voyage of Ulysses. In either case there has been a fusion of elements. The ode of Keats contains a number of feelings which have nothing particular to do with the nightingale, but which the nightingale, partly, perhaps, because of its attractive name, and partly because of its reputation, served to bring together. The point of view which I am struggling to attack is perhaps related to the metaphysical theory of the substantial unity of the soul: for my meaning is, that the poet has, not a 'personality' to express, but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways. Impressions and experiences which are important for the man may take no place in the poetry, and those which become important in the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality. I will quote a passage which is unfamiliar enough to be regarded with fresh attention in the light—or darkness—of these observations: And now methinks I could e'en chide myself For doating on her beauty, though her death Shall be revenged after no common action. Does the silkworm expend her yellow labours For thee? For thee does she undo herself? Are lordships sold to maintain ladyships For the poor benefit of a bewildering minute? Why does yon fellow falsify highways, And put his life between the judge's lips, To refine such a thing—keeps horse and men To beat their valours for her? ... www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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In this passage (as is evident if it is taken in its context) there is a combination of positive and negative emotions: an intensely strong attraction toward beauty and an equally intense fascination by the ugliness which is contrasted with it and which destroys it. This balance of contrasted emotion is in the dramatic situation to which the speech is pertinent, but that situation alone is inadequate to it. This is, so to speak, the structural emotion, provided by the drama. But the whole effect, the dominant tone, is due to the fact that a number of floating feelings, having an affinity to this emotion by no means superficially evident, have combined with it to give us a new art emotion. It is not in his personal emotions, the emotions provoked by particular events in his life, that the poet is in any way remarkable or interesting. His particular emotions may be simple, or crude, or flat. The emotion in his poetry will be a very complex thing, but not with the complexity of the emotions of people who have very complex or unusual emotions in life. One error, in fact, of eccentricity in poetry is to seek for new human emotions to express; and in this search for novelty in the wrong place it discovers the perverse. The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all. And emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as well as those familiar to him. Consequently, we must believe that 'emotion recollected in tranquillity' is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor, without distortion of meaning, tranquillity. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration, of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not 'recollected, ' and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is 'tranquil' only in that it is a passive attending upon the event. Of course this is not quite the whole story. There is a great deal, in the writing of poetry, which must be conscious and deliberate. In fact, the bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious. Both errors tend to make him 'personal.' Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. III

This essay proposes to halt at the frontier of metaphysics or mysticism, and confine itself to such practical conclusions as can be applied by the responsible person interested in poetry. To divert interest from the poet to the poetry is a laudable aim: for it would conduce to a juster estimation of actual poetry, good and bad. There are many people who appreciate the expression of sincere emotion in verse, and there is a smaller number of people who can appreciate technical excellence. But very few know when there is expression of significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet. The emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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WILFRED JOHN

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JERK IS SARCASTIC Jerk is sarcastic, Mean, unforgiving and never misses An opportunity to make a cutting remark. Jerk's repulsive personality quickly Alienates other Warriors, and after Some initial skirmishing he Is usually ostracized. Still. Jerk is very happy to participate In electronic forums because in Cyberspace he is free to be himself Without the risk of getting a Real-time punch in the mouth WILFRED JOHN

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John Barth-Wilfred John John Barth 1998 Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award John Barth’s novels include Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera; The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor; Tidewater Tales; Sabbatical: A Romance; Giles Goat-Boy or, The Revised New Syllabus; and The Sot-Weed Factor. His two short story collections are On with the Story and Lost in the Funhouse. Mr. Barth has written, “We tell stories and listen to them because we live stories and live in them. Narrative equals language equals life: To cease to narrate…is to die.” Mr. Barth, who is professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University, received the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998. WILFRED JOHN POET AND JOURNALIST [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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JOHN DON E

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METAPHYSICAL POETRY-

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JOHN DONNE MARVELL VAUGHAN TRAHERNE, though other figures like ABRAHAM COWLEY are sometimes included in the list. Although in no sense a school or movement proper, they share common characteristics of wit, inventiveness, and a love of elaborate stylistic manoeuvres. Metaphysical concerns are the commonsubject of their poetry, which investigates the world by rationaldiscussion of its phenomena rather than by intuition or mysticism. DRYDEN was the first to apply the term to 17th-centurypoetry when, in 1693, he criticized Donne: 'He affects theMetaphysics... in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations ofphilosophy, when he should engage their hearts.' He disapprovedof Donne's stylistic excesses, particularly his extravagant conceits(or witty comparisons) and his tendency towards hyperbolicabstractions. JOHNSON consolidated the argumentin THE LIVES OF THE POETS, where he noted (with reference to Cowley) that 'about the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race ofwriters that may be termed the metaphysical poets'. He went on todescribe the far-fetched nature of their comparisons as 'a kind of discordiaconcors; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occultresemblances in things apparently unlike'. Examples of thepractice Johnson condemned would include the extended comparison oflove with astrology (by Donne) and of the soul with a dropp of dew (byMarvell) . Frans Hals. Young manwith a Skull. c.1626 Reacting against the deliberately smoothand sweet tones of much 16th-century verse, the metaphysical poetsadopted a style that is energetic, uneven, and rigorous. (Johnsondecried its roughness and violation of decorum, the deliberate mixtureof different styles.) It has also been labelled the 'poetry of stronglines'. In his important essay, 'The Metaphysical Poets' (1921) , whichhelped bring the poetry of Donne and his contemporaries back intofavour, T. S. ELIOT argued that their work fusesreason with passion; it shows a unification of thought and feelingwhich later became separated into a 'dissociation of sensibility'. WILFRED JOHN

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John Ernst Steinbeck John Ernst Steinbeck WJ Novelist, Story Writer, Film Writer, Travel Writer, \Letter Writer. Born 1902; died 1968. Active 1929-1968 in USA, North America American novelist, story writer, playwright, and essayist. John Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. He is best remembered for THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1939) , a novel widely considered to be a 20th-century classic. The impact of the book has been compared to that of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Steinbeck's epic about the migration of the Joad family, driven from its bit of land in Oklahoma to California, provoked a wide debate about the hard lot of migrant laborers, and helped to put an agricultural reform into effect. 'Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up in the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.' (from The Grapes of Wrath) John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California. His native region of Monterey Bay was later the setting for most of his fiction. 'We were poor people with a hell of a lot of land which made us think we were rich people, ' the author once recalled. Steinbeck's father was a county treasurer. From his mother, a teacher, Steinbeck learned to love books. Among his early favorites were Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Le Morte d'Arthur. Steinbeck attended the local high school and worked on farms and ranches during his vacations. To finance his education, he held many jobs and sometimes dropped out of college for whole quarters. Between 1920 and 1926, he studied marine biology at Stanford University, but did not take a degree-he always planned to be a writer. Several of his early poems and short stories appeared in university publications. After spending a short time as a laborer on the construction of Madison Square Garden in New York City and reporter for the American, Steinbeck returned to California. While writing, Steinbeck took odd jobs. He was apprenticehood-carrier, apprentice painter, caretaker of an estate, surveyor, and fruit-picker. During a period, when he was as a watchman of a house in the High Sierra, Steinbeck wrote his first book, CUP OF GOLD (1929) . It failed to earn back the $250 the publisher had given him in an advance. In Pacific Grove in the early 1930s, Steinbeck met Edward Ricketts. He was a marine biologist, whose views on the interdependence of all life deeply influenced Steinbeck's thinking. THE SEA OF CORTEZ (1941) resulted from an expedition in the Gulf of California he made with Ricketts. PASTURES OF HEAVEN (1932) and THE LONG VALLEY (1938) were short story collections, in which the Salinas valley played similar mythical role as the imaginary Yoknapatawpha County in Faulkner's works, based largely on his hometown of Oxford, in Lafayette County, Mississippi. In the novel TO A GOD UNKNOWN (1933) Steinbeck mingled Ricketts' ideas with Jungian concepts and themes, which had been made familiar by the mythologist Joseph Campbell. The novel www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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depicts a farmer, Joseph Wayne, who receives a blessing from his pioneer father, John Wayne, and goes to build himself a new farm in a distant valley. Joseph develops his own beliefs of death and life, and to bring an end to a drought, he sacrifices himself on a stone, becoming 'earth and rain'. Steinbeck did not want to explain his story too much and he knew beforehand that the book would not find readers. Steinbeck's first three novels went unnoticed, but his humorous tale of pleasure-loving Mexican-Americans, TORTILLA FLAT (1935) , brought him wider recognition. The theme of the book-the story of King Arthur and the forming of the Round Table- emained well hidden from the readers and critics as well. However, Steinbeck's financial situation improved significantly-he had earned $35 a week for a long time, but now he was paid thousands of dollars for the film rights to Tortilla Flat. IN DUBIOUS BATTLE (1936) was a strike novel set in the California apple country. The strike of nine hundred migratory workers is led by Jim Nolan, devoted to his cause. Before his death Jim confesses: 'I never had time to look at things, Mac, never. I never looked how leaves come out. I never looked at the way things happen.' One of the characters, Doc Burton, a detached observer, Steinbeck partly derived from his friend Ed Ricketts. Later Steinbeck developed his observer's personality with changes in such works as CANNERY ROW (1945) , which returned to the world of Tortilla Flat. The novel was an account of the adventures and misadventures of workers in a California cannery and their friends. Its sequel, SWEET THURSDAY, appeared in 1954. The events of THE RED PONY (1937) take place on the Tiflin ranch in the Salinas Valley, California. The first two sections of the story sequence, 'The Gift' and 'The Great Mountains', were published in the North American Review in 1933, and the third section, 'The Promise, ' did not appear in Harpers until 1937. With 'The Leader of the People, ' the four sections are connected by common characters, settings, and themes. Through each story, the reader follows Jody's initiation into adult life, in which the pony of the title functions as a symbol of his innocence and maturation. A movie version, for which Steinbeck wrote the screenplay, was made in 1949. Among Steinbeck's other film scripts is The Pearl, the story for Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944) , and the script for Elia Kazan's Viva Zapata! (1952) , starring Marlon Brando. OF MICE AND MEN (1937) , a story of shattered dreams, became Steinbeck's first big success. Steinbeck adapted it also into a three-act play, which was produced in 1937. George Milton and Lennia Small, two itinerant ranchhands, dream of one day owning a small farm. George acts as a father figure to Lennie, who is large and simpleminded. Lennie loves all that is soft, but his immense physical strength is a source of troubles and George is needed to calm him. The two friends find work from a farm and start saving money for their future. Annoyed by the bullying foreman of the ranch, Lenny breaks the foreman's arm, but also wakes the interest of the ranch owner's flirtatious daughter-in-law. Lenny accidentally kills her and escapes into the hiding place, that he and George have agreed to use, if they get into difficulties. George hurries after Lenny and shoots him before he is captured by a vengeful mob but at the same time he loses his own hopes and dreams of better future. Before he dies, Lennie says: 'Let's do it now. Le's get that place now.' For The Grapes of Wrath- the title originated from Julia Ward Howe's The Battle Hymn of the Republic (1861) -Steinbeck traveled around California migrant camps in 1936. When the book appeared, it was attacked by US Congressman Lyle www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Boren, who characterized it as 'a lie, a black, infernal creation of twisted, distorted mind'. Later, when Steinbeck received his Nobel Prize, the Swedish Academy called it simply 'an epic chronicle.' The Exodus story of Okies on their way to an uncertain future in California, ends with a scene in which Rose of Sharon, who has just delivered a stillborn child, suckles a starving man with her breast. 'Rose of Sharon loosened one side of the blanket and bared her breast. 'You got to, ' she said. She squirmed closer and pulled his head close. 'There! ' she said. 'There.' Her hand moved behind his head and supported it. Her fingers moved gently in his hair. She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.' John Ford's film version from 1940, produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, dismissed this ending-the final images optimistically celebrate President Roosevelt's New Deal. 'We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out. They can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa, 'cause we're the people, ' says Ma Joad. Steinbeck himself was skeptical of Hollywood's faithfulness to his material. However, after seeing the film he said: 'Zanuck has more than kept his word. He has a hard, straight picture in which the actors are submerged so completely that it looks and feels like a documentary film and certainly has a hard, truthful ring.' Orson Welles did not like Ford's interpretation because he 'made that into a story about mother love.' Fleeing publicity followed by the success of The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck went to Mexico in 1940 to film the documentary Forgotten Village. During WW II, Steinbeck served as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune in Great Britain and the Mediterranean area. He wrote such government propaganda as the novel THE MOON IS DOWN (1942) , about resistance movement in a small town occupied by the Nazis. Its film version, starring Henry Travers, Cedric Hardwicke, and Lee J. Cobb, was shot on the set of How Green Was My Valley (1941) , which depicted a Welsh mining village. 'Free men cannot start a war, ' Steinbeck wrote, 'but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars.' Steinbeck had visited Europe in 1937 after gaining success with Of Mice and Men, and met on a Swedish ship two Norwegians, with whom he had celebrated Norway's independence day. In 1943 Steinbeck moved to New York City, his home for the rest of his life. His summers the author spent at Sag Harbor. He also travelled much in Europe. Steinbeck's twelve-year marriage to Carol Henning had ended in 1942. Next year he married the singer Gwyndolyn Conger; they had two sons, Thom and John. However, the marriage was unhappy and they were divorced in 1949. Steinbeck's postwar works include THE PEARL (1947) , a symbolic tale of a Mexican Indian pearl diver Kino. He finds a valuable pearl which changes his life, but not in the way he did expect. Kino sees the pearl as his opportunity to better life. When the townsfolk of La Paz learn of Kino's treasury, he is soon surrounded by a greedy priest, doctor, and businessmen. Kino's family suffers series of disasters and finally he throws the pearl back into ocean. Thereafter his tragedy is legendary in the town. Thematically Hemingway's novella The Old Man and the Sea from 1952 has much similarities with this work. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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A RUSSIAN JOURNAL (1948) was an account of the author's journey to the Soviet Union with the photographer Robert Capa. Steinbeck's idea was to describe the country without prejudices, but he could not move freely, he could not speak Russian, and the Soviet hosts, perhaps by the order of Stalin himself, took care that there were more than enough vodka, champagne, caviar, chickens, honey, tomatoes, kebabs, and watermelons on their guest's table. The director Elia Kazan met Steinbeck when the author had separated from Gwyn and was drinking heavily. 'I don't think John Steinbeck should have been living in New York, I don't think he should have been writing plays, ' Kazan wrote in his autobiography A Life (1988) . 'He was a prose writer, at home in the west, with land, with horses, or on a boat; in this big city, he was a dupe.' Their most famous film project, East of Eden, covered the last part of the book. James Dean made his debut in the film. Kazan originally wanted Marlon Brando to play the role of Cal. He sent Dean to see Steinbeck, who considered him a snotty kid, but said he was Cal 'sure as hell'. Dean received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, but Lee Rogow in the Saturday Review was not satisfied (March 19,1955): 'Kazan has apparently attempted to graft a Brando-type personality and set of mannerisms upon Dean, and the result is less than successful... this artful construction of a performance is not, to get Stanislavskian about it, building a character.' In 1950 Steinbeck married Elaine Scott, the ex-wife Randolph Scott, a Western star. Steinbeck's son John had problems in later years with drugs and alcohol; he died in 1991. EAST OF EDEN (1952) , the title referring to the fallen world, is long family novel, is set in rural California in the years around the turn of the century. In the center of the saga, based partly on the story of Cain and Abel, is two families of settlers, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, whose history reflect the formation of the United States, when 'the Church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously...' The second half of the story focus on the lives of the twins, Aron and Caleb, and their conflict. Between them is Cathy, tiny, pretty, but an adulteress and murderess. 'It doesn't matter that Cathy was what I have called a monster. Perhaps we can't understand Cathy, but on the other hand we are capable of many things in all directions, of great virtues and great sins. And who in his mind has not probed the black water? ' Steinbeck wrote thousands of letters, sometimes several a day. To Pascal Covici, his friend, he confessed that he wanted to write the work to his sons, the story of good and evil, love and hate, to demonstrate to them how they are inseparable. His writing process Steinbeck recorded minutely in JOURNAL OF A NOVEL (1969) . 'But tell me, ' he wrote to Covici, 'have you ever been this closely associated with a book before? While it was being written.' In 1959 Stenbeck spent nearly a year at Discove Cottage in England, working with Morte d'Arthur, the first book he had read as a child. After returning to the United States, he travelled around his country with his poodle, Charley, and published in 1962 TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY IN SEARCH OF AMERICA. His son John wrote in his memoir that Steinbeck was too shy to talk to any of the people in the book. 'He couldn't handle that amount of interaction. So, the book is actually a great novel.' www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT (1961) , set in contemporary America, was Steinbeck's last major novel. The book was not well received, and critics considered him an exhausted. Not even the Nobel Prize changed opinions. The New York Times asked in an editoria, whether the prize committee might not have made a better choice. Steinbeck took this public humiliation hard. In later years he did much special reporting abroad, dividing his time between New York and California. For a while, Steinbeck served as an advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson, whose Vietnam policies he agreed with. At Camp the President asked Steinbeck to go to Vietnam to report on the war. Steinbeck wrote for the newspaper Newsday a series of articles, which divided his readers. The New York Post attacked him for betraying his liberal past. John Steinbeck died of heart attack in New York on December 20,1968. In the posthumously published THE ACTS OF KING ARTHUR AND HIS NOBLE KNIGHTS (1976) , Steinbeck turned his back on contemporary subjects and brought to life the Arthurian world with its ancient codes of honour. Steinbeck had started the work with enthusiasm but never finished it. For further reading: The Wide World of John Steinbeck by P. Lisca (1958): John Steinbeck by W. French (1961): John Steinbeck by F.W. Watt (1962): Steinbeck: The Man and His Work, ed. by R. Astro and T. Hayashi (1971): John Steinbeck by J. Gray (1971): Steinbeck: A Life in Letters by John Steinbeck, Elaine Steinbeck, Robert Wallsten (1975): Steinbeck and Covici: The Story of a Friendship by T. Fensch (1979): John Steinbeck by P. McCarthy (1980): John Steinbeck's Fiction by John H. Timmerman (1986): Conversations With John Steinbeck, ed. by Thomas Fensch (1988): John Steinbeck by Jay Parini (1994) John Steinbeck: A Centennial Tributeed. by Stephen K. George (2002) Selected bibliography: CUP OF GOLD,1929 THE PASTURES OF HEAVEN,1932 - Taivaan laitumet (trans. by Liisa-Maria Piila) TO GOD UNKNOWN,1933 - Tuntemattomalle jumalalle (trans. by Marjatta Kapari) TORTILLA FLAT,1935 - Ystävyyden talo (trans. by Jouko Linturi) - film: 1942, dir. by Victor Fleming, starring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, John Garfield, Frank Morgan IN DUBIOUS BATTLE,1936 - Taipumaton tahto (trans. by Kai Kaila) SAINT KATY THE VIRGIN,1936 NOTHING SO MONSTRUOS,1936 OF MICE AND MEN,1937 (also play) - Hiiriä ja ihmisiä (trans. by Jouko Linturi) - opera adapted by Carlisle Floyd,1970 - films: 1939, dir. by Lewis Milestone, starring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney Jnr, Betty Field; 1962 (Ikimize bir dünya) , dir. by Nevzat Pesen, screenplay by Orhan Elmas; 1972 (Topoli) , dir. by Reza Mirlohi; 1981 (television film) , dir. by Reza Badiyi, starring Randy Quaid, Robert Blake; 1992 (television movie) , dir. by Gary Sinise, starring John Malkovich, Gary Sinise THE RED PONY,1937 - Punainen poni (trans. by Veli Sandell) - film: 1948, dir. by Lewis Milestone, starring Myrna Loy, Robert Mitchum, Petr Miles THEIR BLOOD IS STRONG,1938 THE LONG WALLEY,1938 - Pitkä laakso: novelleja (suom. Tuomas Anhava et al.) THE GRAPES OF WRATH,1939 (the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award) - Vihan hedelmät (trans. into Finnish by Alex Matson) - film: 1940, dir. by John Ford, written by Nunnally Johnson, starring Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin. 'Johnson's script also has some advantages over the novel, presenting a www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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simpler, leaner narrative line in place of Steinbeck's often repetitious structure and keeping the biblical simplicity of his dialogue while jettisoning his preachy rhetorical interludes. And what Zanuck and Johnson muted in the screenplay, Ford and cinematographer Gregg Toland compensate for with searingly eloquent imagery.' (Joseph McBride in Searching for John Ford,2001): television film 1991, dir. by Kirk Browning, Frank Galati, starring Gary Sinise A LETTER TO THE FRIENDS OF DEMOCRACY,1940 THE SEA OF CORTEZ,1941 (with Edward F. Ricketts, who was model for Doc in Cannerry Row and Sweet Thursday) THE FORGOTTEN VILLAGE,1941 - film: 1941, dir. by Herbert Kline, Alexander Hammid, narrated by Burgess Meredith BOMBS AWAY! ,1942 THE MOON IS DOWN,1942 (also play) - film: 1943, dir. by Irving Pichel, starring Henry Travers, Cedric Hardwicke, Lee J. Cobb HOW EDITH MCGILLICUDDY MET R.L.S.,1943 STEINBECK,1943 (ed. by Pascal Covici) CANNERY ROW,1945 - Hyvien ihmisten juhla (trans. by Jouko Linturi) - film: 1982, dir. by David S. Ward, starring Nick Nolte and Debra Winger THE WAYWARD BUS,1947 - Oikutteleva bussi (trans. into Finnish by Alex Matson) film: 1957, dir. by Victor Vicas, starring Joan Collins, Jayne Mansfield, Dan Dailey, Rick Jason THE PEARL,1947 - Helmi (trans. by Alex Matson) - films: 1946 (La Perla) , dir. by Emilio Fernandez, starring Pedro Armendariz, Maria Elena Marques; 2001, dir. by Alfredo Zacarias A RUSSIAN JOURNAL,1948 (photographs by Robert Capa) - Matkalla Neuvostoliitossa (trans. by Olli Mäkinen) BURNING BRIGHT,1950 (also play) EAST OF EDEN,1952 - Eedenistä itään (suom. Jouko Linturi) - film: 1954, dir. by Elia Kazan, starring Raymond Massey, James Dean, Julie Harris, Jo Van Fleet; TV mini-series 1981, dir. by Harvey Hart, starring Timothy Bottoms, Bruce Boxleitner, Jane Seymour, Soon-Tek Oh SHORT NOVELS,1953 SWEET THURSDAY,1954 - Torstai on toivoa täynnä (trans. by Jouko Linturi) - musical: Pipe Dream, adapted by Oscar Hammerstein II, with music by Richard Rogers THE SHORT REIGN OF PIPPIN IV,1957 - Päivä kuninkaana (trans. by Jouko Linturi) THE CRAPSHOOTER,1957 ONCE THERE WAS A WAR,1958 THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT,1961 - Tyytymättömyyden talvi (trans. by Jouko Linturi) TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY,1962 - Matka Charleyn kanssa: Amerikkaa etsimässä (trans. by Liisa-Maria Piila) - television film: 1968 LETTERS TO ALICIA,1965 AMERICA AND AMERICANS,1966 - Amerikka ja amerikkalaiset (trans. by Jouko Linturi) - television film: 1967 JOURNAL OF A NOVEL,1969 STEINBECK: A LIFE IN LETTERS,1975 THE ACTS OF KING ARTHUR AND HIS NOBLE KNIGHTS,1976 THE COLLECTED POEMS OF AMNESIA GLASSCOCK,1976 (as Amnesia Glasscock) JOHN STEINBECK,1902-1968,1977 LETTERS TO ELIZABETH,1978 contributor: FAMOUS AMERICAN PLAYS OF THE NINETEEN THIRTIES,1980 THE SHORT NOVELS OF JOHN STEINBECK,1981 THE HARVEST GYPSIES,1988 www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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WORKING DAYS,1989 WILFRED JOHN

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JOY IN THE PROCESS My poetry flows from the winds of light that brush across my soul. Words that come as the divine breath brings them. Hoping it will grace others with joy in the process WILFRED JOHN

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JUST ONE APOLOGY Our words screaming inside My head drowning all Sane thoughts One more comment One crueler sentence Spills out of your mouth. They seem to be never ending Each one breaks me A little bit more With each biting word you Become more and more Why was I so sure You were different All the ways you've hurt me You still have my heart. Just one apology and I would forgive you. But you would never oblige Me in that way You have too much fun Playing this game. You've made me sick I can't see the difference Between right and wrong I will never have you The way that I want you This game is all that you want Form me and nothing more. Maybe because You are always winning. WILFRED JOHN

Gothic Romanced Consumption, Gender and Technology in Contemporary Fictions By Fred Botting Price: $35.95 www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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ISBN: 978-0-415-45090-4 Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback) Published by: Routledge Publication Date: 23rd June 2008 Pages: 232 WILFRED JOHN The dark, destructive and monstrous elements of gothic fiction have traditionally been seen in opposition to the rose-tinted idealism of Romanticism. In this ground-breaking study, Fred Botting re-evaluates the relationship between the two genres in order to plot the shifting alignments of popular and literary fictions with cultural theories, consumption and representations of science. Gothic Romanced traces the history of gothic and romantic writings from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the present day. It examines the ways in which these genres were aligned with the historical process of modernity – with the Gothic representing the negative aspects of vice and barbarism that accompanied the changing parameters of civilisation, while Romance clung on to traditional values, manners and feelings. The book demonstrates how these genres have evolved together alongside cultural shifts and postmodern theories, blurring the binary between the sacred and the profane. Botting considers Romance and the Gothic from Mary Shelley, Anne Rice and Alasdair Gray through to Alien and Star Trek. He manages a fluid and extensive exploration of generic boundaries, including gothic fiction, romantic poetry, literary pastiches, popular horror fiction, cyberpunk and science fiction. Introduction: From Gothic to Romance 1. Romance, Ruins and the Thing: from the romantic sublime to cybergothic 2. Romance Consumed: death, simulation and the vampire 3. Poor Things as They Are: Political Romance from Gray to Godwin 4. Flight of the Heroine: from Female Gothic to Postfeminism 5. Monsters of the Imagination: Science, Fiction, Romance 6. Resistance is Futile: Romance and the Machine Bibliography About the Author(s) Fred Botting is Professor in the Institute for Cultural Research, Lancaster University. He has written extensively on Gothic fiction and Cultural Theory and his books include Gothic (Routledge 1996) , Sex, Machines and Navels (Manchester University Press 1999) and, with Scott Wilson, Bataille (Palgrave,2001) and The Tarantinian Ethics (Sage,2001) . WILFRED JOHN

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Just Remember To Not Get Caught I may be in your house I may be very near Look around Up and down Here the groaning Fear I may be getting closer I may be far away Just remember to not get caught And you'll live to see another day. WILFRED JOHN

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Kant’s Relegation Of The Palate To The Bottom From Plato’s dismissal of food as a distraction from thought to Kant’s relegation of the palate to the bottom of the hierarchy of the senses, the sense of taste has consistently been devalued by Western aesthetics. Kant is often invoked as evidence that philosophers consider taste as an inferior sense because it belongs to the realm of the private and subjective and does not seem to be required in the development of higher types of knowledge. From a gastrosophical perspective, however, what Kant perceives as a limitation becomes a new field of enquiry that investigates the dialectics of diet and discourse, self and matter, inside and outside. The essays in this book examine the importance of food as a pivotal element – both materially and conceptually – in the history of the Western avant-garde. From Gertrude Stein to Alain Robbe-Grillet and Samuel Beckett, from F.T. Marinetti to Andy Warhol, from Marcel Duchamp to Eleanor Antin, the examples chosen explore the conjunction of art and foodstuff in ways that interrogate contemporary notions of the body, language, and subjectivity. WILFRED JOHN

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Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award John Barth 1998 Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award John Barth’s novels include Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera; The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor; Tidewater Tales; Sabbatical: A Romance; Giles Goat-Boy or, The Revised New Syllabus; and The Sot-Weed Factor. His two short story collections are On with the Story and Lost in the Funhouse. Mr. Barth has written, “We tell stories and listen to them because we live stories and live in them. Narrative equals language equals life: To cease to narrate…is to die.” Mr. Barth, who is professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University, received the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998. John Barth Bio and Cross Links WILFRED JOHN

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LET US GO THEN YOU-T.S.ELIOT LET us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats 5 Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10 Oh, do not ask, “What is it? ” Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20 And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

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And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 25 There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and dropp a question on your plate; 30 Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.

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And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare? ” and, “Do I dare? ” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— 40 [They will say: “How his hair is growing thin! ”] My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— [They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin! ”] Do I dare 45 Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all: — Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50 I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume?

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And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare [But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair! ] It is perfume from a dress 65 That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? . . . . . Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …

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I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. . . . . . And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 75 Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep … tired … or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 80 But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85 And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, 90 To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: “That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.”

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And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, 100 After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more? — It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 105 Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.” . . . . . 110 No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, 115 Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old … I grow old … 120 I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.

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I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

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LIBERTY AND HAPPINESS Because it does, and it doesn't. It is ia Jungian dilemma of epic Proportions, endowed by the poem's creator With certain unalienable Rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness Here is bigger and more bold than anyone could imagine Yet opposite directions Any educated person knows this The battle continues to this day Each side digging in for the 'long haul', Bringing in the big siege guns Laying waste to women and children Not heeding the honorable truce The war must continue until there is no one left to fight. WILFRED JOHN

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life can sometimes be cut short Before I left for work this morning, I wrote a note that said: 'Honey, before you go to work, will you pick up some milk and bread? ' I signed it, 'Love Ya', and put some swirls around my name, then headed outside as the dawn was awakening the day. When lunchtime came around, a friend talked about her husband of 10 years. She talked of how suddenly he was gone, it was a sad story to hear. I started thinking of how, life can sometimes be cut short. How once a picture of two can become one, when it is torn. We get so caught up. We're just another rat in the rat race. We let ourselves become numb to our emotions, and tuck them away in a secret place. Then I thought of you, thought of my note. Thought of all the notes I've left you over time. How I always saw a message there you left for me under mine. I thought of the times we said, 'Love Ya! ' to each other. Usually me coming home, you leaving home, a quick hug and kiss, not like lovers. How is it that 3 little words, can be so powerful and yet, become so common, so everyday, that it almost becomes meaningless? We shouldn't wait, until someone we love, is there no more. To feel regret not being able say, 'I love you' just once more. The old saying is true, we should live each day as if it was our last. But we forget so quickly, as time moves so fast. I try to stop, and remember, that wise old passage. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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'I love you' means everything, means more than anything, and is everlasting. WILFRED JOHN

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life is even more solitary 'The proper view of evolution is of co-evolution of organisms and their environments, each change in an organism being both the cause and the effect of changes in the environment. The constructionist view of organism and environment is of some consequence to human action. Clearly, one does not want to live in a world that smells and looks worse than at present, in which life is even more solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short than it now is. But that wish cannot be realised by the impossible demand that human beings stop changing the world. Remaking the world is the universal property of living organisms and is inextricably bound up in their nature. Rather, we must decide what kind of world we want to live in and then try to manage the processes of change as best we can to approximate it.’ R C Lewontin, professor of population sciences and biology at Harvard University ’We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes – one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximal freedom to thrive, or fail, in our own chosen way.’ Stephen Jay Gould, teacher of biology, geology and history of science at Harvard University

Nowadays it is biologists who remind us of our freedom to make choices. Science shows the extent to which environments and organisms interact to change each other, a state of affairs which can be applied to human society in particular. It is more important than ever before that everyone has some understanding of where scientific discovery and technological development are taking us, and what the implications of travelling with them might be. Evolutionary developments are not to be equated with ‘progress’; scientific developments are not necessarily progress for the community, either, as the links between science, technology, and war make clear. WILFRED JOHN

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Like A Clown Who Stays In Costume love Is a Testable Statement Spontaneous from the start; love is a testable statement an educated guess a brave hypothesis left to rot in the bare hands of an unknowing child. Like a clown who stays in costume, you disconcertingly painted a smile onto your ensemble for the day not caring if you missed a spot or if it matched your aura. The colors blended, the patterns faded a melted mask won’t do. So wash your face and dry your eyes because we’ve got theories to test WILFRED JOHN

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Limitless Imaginations limitless imaginations what do you have we suppose that's worth may have a tinker's dam there she is on the footsteps of the morning lighting her fires of dull indignation rataplan goes the tiny set of hammers the saw electric upon the flowers the ivy trimmed to nothingness the appliances that spit back at you you the Jew counting the rhymes that do not pay WILFRED JOHN

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Literary Realism -WILFRED JOHN Literary realism The need to represent or bear witness enters into most art, but literary realism usually means a portrayal of life in all its immediately-given ways, good and bad. Crabbe, Kipling, Frost, Hardy and Larkin, for example, wrote a down-to-earth poetry of sobriety rooted in actual perception, one that refused to sentimentalize, idealize or transfigure the everyday, and distrusted mythologizing, heightened emotions or rhetorical flourish. With modification and many exceptions, such aims may lie at the heart of much of today's poetry. [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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Literary Realism Today -WILFRED JOHN Literary realism today But what happened to the older, idealistic concepts? Fine to subscribe to a contemporary norms, but poetry once expressed a richer experience of being human. Poetry modified our experience of the world, and in turn the way we represented it — heightening, clarifying and illuminating in both directions, making sense of our surroundings and so of ourselves. Postmodernism deploys anything to hand, but the older poetry wanted established verities, rescuing or devising expressions for their embodiment of essentially human qualities. Contemporary poetry is engaging, but in what way does it differ from fragmented prose? [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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Literary realism today -WJ The need to represent or bear witness enters into most art, but literary realism usually means a portrayal of life in all its immediately-given ways, good and bad. Crabbe, Kipling, Frost, Hardy and Larkin, for example, wrote a down-to-earth poetry of sobriety rooted in actual perception, one that refused to sentimentalize, idealize or transfigure the everyday, and distrusted mythologizing, heightened emotions or rhetorical flourish. With modification and many exceptions, such aims may lie at the heart of much of today's poetry.

But what happened to the older, idealistic concepts? Fine to subscribe to a contemporary norms, but poetry once expressed a richer experience of being human. Poetry modified our experience of the world, and in turn the way we represented it — heightening, clarifying and illuminating in both directions, making sense of our surroundings and so of ourselves. Postmodernism deploys anything to hand, but the older poetry wanted established verities, rescuing or devising expressions for their embodiment of essentially human qualities. Contemporary poetry is engaging, but in what way does it differ from fragmented prose?

-------------------Poetry and science Until recently there were two answers. We could distinguish the factual and practical (prose) from the personal and emotive (poetry) . And poetry was a branch of literature, a fine art, which existed for its own sake, without utilitarian purpose. But we express our feelings well enough in prose most of the time, and poetry can be impersonal and effective — even great poetry, e.g. Dante and Pope. And art that serves no practical purpose hardly pulls its weight in a modern society. Perhaps we should make literary realism an important aspect of cognition. The fine/applied art distinction, a Romantic notion, is side-stepped, and financial resources become available to improving art itself rather than to marketing an oversupplied product. Poetry loses its opposition to science, which in turn accepts the parts played by mind and social context. Such would be a new realism in poetry, beyond the usual confines of social comment, literary criticism and theory. A helpful magazine is Philosophy And Literature. The professional section of PoetryMagic provides preparatory notes and references, but non-subscribers may find these useful as starting points: How Literature Works by K. Quinn (1992) , Barlow, Blakemore & Weston-Smith's Images and Understanding (1990) , G. Edelman's On the Matter of Mind (1992) , G. Lakoff's www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Women, Fire and Dangerous Things (1987) , A. Kernan's The Death of Literature (1990) , D. Donoghue's The Pure Good of Theory (1992) , G. Graff's Literature Against Itself (1979/95) , and D. Gioia's Can Poetry Matter? (1992) . WILFRED JOHN

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LOLITA-Vladimir Nabokov

BOOK REVIEW WJ

Lolita Vladimir Nabokov

(Putnam, $5.00)

First issued in 1955 by an unorthodox Paris press after being rejected by a string of American publishers; Banned by the French government, presumably out of solicitude for immature English-speaking readers pronounced unobjectionable by that blue-nosed body, the U. S. Customs office; and heralded by ovations from writers, professors, and critics on both sides of the Atlantic. The novel's scandal-tinted history and its subject—the affair between a middle-aged sexual pervert and a twelve-year-old girl—inevitably conjure up expectations of pornography. But there is not a single obscene term in Lolita, and aficionados of erotica are likely to find it a dud. Lolita blazes, however, with a perversity of a most original kind. For Mr. Nabokov has distilled from his shocking material hundred-proof intellectual farce. His book is slightly reminiscent of Thomas Mann's Confessions of Felix Krull; but Lolita has a stronger charge of comic genius and is more brilliantly written. Mr. Nabokov, a Russian émigré now working in his second tongue, has few living equals as a virtuoso in the handling of the English language. A mock sententious foreword explains that the manuscript which follows is the confession of one Humbert Humbert, who died in captivity in 1952 just before his trial was due to start. Humbert introduces himself as a European of mixed stock who, at the age of twelve, 'in a princedom by the sea, ' loved and lost a petite fille fatale named Annabel Leigh, and has thereafter remained in sexual bondage to 'the perilous magic' of sub teen sirens—he calls them 'nymphets.' There follows a sketch of his tortured career up to the time when, in his late thirties, he settles in a quiet New England town (an American uncle has left him a legacy, and he dabbles in scholarship) under the same roof as a fatally seductive nymphet, Dolores Haze—a mixture of 'tender dreamy childishness and eerie vulgarity.' This 'Lolita' is the daughter of his landlady, whom he marries with murderous intent. But an accident eliminates Mrs. Haze, and Humbert the Nympholept finds himself the guardian of his darling, who, on their first night together, turns out to be utterly depraved and plays the role of seducer. Their weird affair—which carries them on a frenzied motel-hopping trek across the American continent—is climaxed by Lolita's escape with a playwright and Humbert's eventual revenge on his rival. What is one to make of Lolita? In a prickly postscript to the novel, Mr. Nabokov dismisses this question as a problem dreamed up by 'Teachers of Literature': he rejects the satiric interpretations which critics have put upon Lolita and asserts, in effect, that it is simply a story he had to get off his chest. That all of this is too ingenuous by half is evident from the parodic style in which Lolita is written: a combination of pastiches of well-known styles, spoofing pedantry, analysis of passion à la français, Joycean word games, puns, and all kinds of verbal play. Wild, fantastic, wonderfully imaginative, it is a style which parodies everything it touches. It surely justifies, at least in part, those critics who have seen in Lolita a satire of the romantic novel, of 'Old Europe' in contact with 'Young America, ' or of 'chronic American adolescence and shabby materialism.' But above all www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Lolita seems to me an assertion of the power of the comic spirit to wrest delight and truth from the most outlandish materials. It is one of the funniest serious novels I have ever read; and the vision of its abominable hero, who never deludes or excuses himself, brings into grotesque relief the cant, the vulgarity, and the hypocritical conventions that pervade the human comedy. WILFRED JOHN WRITER [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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Longing For The Warmth Of Bed Sheets Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary, System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor, Longing for the warmth of bed sheets, still I sat there doing spreadsheets. Having reached the bottom line I took a floppy from the drawer, I then invoked the SAVE command and waited for the disk to store, Only this and nothing more. Deep into the monitor peering, long I sat there wond'ring, fearing, Doubting, while the disk kept churning, turning yet to churn some more. But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token. 'Save! ' I said, 'You cursed mother! Save my data from before! ' One thing did the phosphors answer, only this and nothing more, Just, 'Abort, Retry, Ignore? ' Was this some occult illusion, some maniacal intrusion? These were choices undesired, ones I'd never faced before. Carefully I weighed the choices as the disk made impish noises. The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting, baiting me to type some more. Clearly I must press a key, choosing one and nothing more, From 'Abort, Retry, Ignore? ' With fingers pale and trembling, slowly toward the keyboard bending, Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored, Praying for some guarantee, timidly, I pressed a key. But on the screen there still persisted words appearing as before. Ghastly grim they blinked and taunted, haunted, as my patience wore, Saying 'Abort, Retry, Ignore? ' I tried to catch the chips off guard, and pressed again, but twice as hard. I pleaded with the cursed machine: I begged and cried and then I swore. Now in mighty desperation, trying random combinations, Still there came the incantation, just as senseless as before. Cursor blinking, angrily winking, blinking nonsense as before. Reading, 'Abort, Retry, Ignore? ' There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted. Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor. And then I saw a dreadful sight: a lightning bolt cut through the night. A gasp of horror overtook me, shook me to my very core. The lightning zapped my previous data, lost and gone forevermore. Not even, 'Abort, Retry, Ignore? ' To this day I do not know the place to which lost data go. What demonic nether world us wrought where lost data will be stored, Beyond the reach of mortal souls, beyond the ether, into black holes? But sure as there's C, Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate and more, You will be one day be left to wander, lost on some Plutonian shore, Pleading, 'Abort, Retry, Ignore? ' WILFRED JOHN

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LOSE SOMETHING YOU NEVER HAD Lose Something You Never Had How can you lose something you never had How can something so insignificant hurt so bad Why build it all up when it just falls down Head out of the clouds, I’m keeping my feet on the ground Why can’t I erase it from my thoughts Sadness and hurt are all that it’s brought It’s no one’s fault, I do it to myself I’ll never be free from the problems I have Screaming inside while I smile and laugh I don’t deserve the people in my life I can never seem to get it right Inadequate and weak, I suffer alone Because I can’t show myself, on my own WILFRED JOHN POET JOURNALIST WILFRED JOHN

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Lost Like Some Forgotten Dreams Broken heart is such a cliché! It drives me crazy, though, because you're using it in an untraditional sense. You're not really talking about your heart, but rather, your locket. I see the metaphor though, and I don't think it's a good enough one to be getting this much attention for so long. I see 'glue' and 'chewing gum' and their symbolism- that you want any quick fix to hold your heart together. 'Tears' is out of place here, I think, it comes too close to falling off the side of the metaphor.

All my little plans and schemes Lost like some forgotten dreams Seems that all I really was doing Was waiting for you Just like little girls and boys Playing with their little toys Seems like all they really were doing Was waiting for love. Don't need to be alone, No need to be alone. It's real love, it's real. WILFRED JOHN

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LOVE IS THE ONLY LUGGAGE WE CARRYINTO HEAVEN KISS IS SEDUCTIVE The wind, Who was my summer friend Now rails against me Winter's kiss is cruelly twisted, Burning in its coldness. Winter's passion whips Through the abandoned months, Howling, then hesitating, A guest loathing to leave. Winter's kiss is seductive, Beautiful in its whiteness, Murderous under its innocence. I felt winter's icy lips brush mine. And we bonded Now I know When the world is an inferno I'll live with winter inside me Winter's kiss is mine WILFRED JOHN

Believe in yourself, the mind will override your fear of failure' 'See the beauty in everything, then all shall see the beauty in you' 'Make sure you let everyone you know that you love them, as love is the only luggage we carry into heaven' 'Honesty may not make you wealthy, but it will enrich your soul' 'Don't waste your energy trying to find that one true love, it is more likely to find you when you are not looking' (Don't ask me who said them I no longer remember) . Just understand their truths. WILFRED JOHN

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MANNERISM Mannerism was an art style that focused on the human form, depicted in intricate poses and in exaggerated, not always realistic settings. The term Mannerism was derived from the Italian word maniera, translated as “style.” It developed in Florence and Rome between 1520 and 1600, as a style that rejected the balance of the Renaissance period in favor of a more emotional and distorted point of view. This art style reflected the tension in Europe at the time of its popularity. The movement eventually gained favor in northern Italy and most of central and northern Europe. Paintings contained artificial colour and unrealistic spatial proportions. Figures were often elongated and exaggerated, positioned in imaginative and complex poses. Works of the movement are often unsettling and strange, probably a result of the time period’s upheaval from the Reformation, the plague, and the sack of Rome. In 1600, Mannerists were accused of disrupting the unity of Renaissance classicism. However, in retrospect, the Mannerist movement supplied the link between Renaissance perfection and the emotional Baroque art that later developed in the 17th century. WILFRED JOHN

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MAN'S LIFE

REALLY WAS

REMAKABLE

The Book of Saladin by Tariq Ali historical fiction 367 pages As you might have guessed, I'm into medieval history. You can't be all that into medieval history and not know at least a little about the Crusades. In fact, I've read a fair number of non-fictional accounts of the various Crusades, but.... But, of course, they've all been about the European experience in the Holy Land, even when the author is not painting the Western knights as heroes. One of the few Muslim leaders you hear about if you know even a little about the Crusades (even if your only exposure was, say, the historically inaccurate mess that was Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven*) is Sultan Yū suf Ṣ alā ḥ ad-Dī n ibn Ayyū b, better known to Westerners as Saladin. Sadly, aside from reading his wikipedia article, I know very little about Saladin from sources other than Western authors. In legend, he is, along with Richard I (of England, aka the Lion-Hearted) one of the great chivalrous leaders of the Crusades and the only 'Saracen' respected by the other side. Since most of those legends aren't at all accurate about Richard, I tend to take them with a grain of salt. The Book of Saladin is written from the point of view of Isaac ibn Yakub, a Jewish scribe selected by Saladin to write his biography. Along the way, ibn Yakub also talks to a couple of the women of Saladin's harem and Saladin's oldest friend. He also travels with the Sultan from Cairo to Damascus and finally, to Jerusalem, which Saladin takes back from the Christians. The result is a fascinating look at life on the other side of the Crusades. Ali sticks to history when it comes to things like Saladin's accomplishments; the man's life really was remarkable and there isn't any need to embroider it. However, he invents the the various women in the book because medieval Islamic historical accounts don't even give us the names of the mothers of Saladin's sixteen sons. And while he does a good job at showing us how extraordinary Saladin was, you never really feel that you're getting into his head. He remains a distant figure for most of the book, while the invented women of his harem feel very real and interesting. In a way, however, the fact that Saladin is distant actually works; he is, after all, the Sultan, the figure around whom everyone else in the book revolves. It's a good book and is a lot more readable than many historical novels; Ali is an excellent storyteller. Apparently this is the second of Ali's Islamic Quintet-although it certainly stands alone-and I intend to get my hands on the rest of them. Next up, something that isn't historical fiction, probably either Keeping it Real by Justina Robson or Lies of Locke Lamorra by Scott Lynch. *Don't get me wrong, I love Kingdom of Heaven, as incredibly flawed as it is. Where else could you hear Liam Neeson say: 'I once fought for two days with an arrow in my testicle.' WILFRED JOHN www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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MARJORIE PERLOFF Marjorie Perloff Although the mode of 'Man and Wife' is essentially realistic, there are a number of local metaphors. The 'rising sun' of line 2 becomes, in the diseased imagination of the poet who fears passion and vitality, an Indian savage in 'war paint' who 'dyes us red, ' the pun on 'dyes' intensifying the death-in-life existence of the couple. The image of neurotic fracture is intensified in the second half of the line: the nuptial bed has been replaced by 'Mother's bed'; her shadow, as it were, lies between husband and wife. In lines 8-12, moreover, it becomes clear that the poet's wife must act the role of mother to him; for the 'fourth time' she has had to hold his hand and drag him home alive. In the second section (lines 8-22) , the poet addresses his wife directly. The phrase 'Oh my Petite, / clearest of all God's creatures, still all air and nerve' sounds mawkish when detached from the poem, but within the context it defines the speaker's wish to let his wife know that he still admires and loves her even if his love is impotent and destructive. Although she must act the role of Mother to him, he wants to think of her as his 'Petite.' And now he recalls the night, so different from this 'homicidal' one, when he first met her. Again the focus is on setting rather than on emotion. The scene is diametrically opposed to that of Marlborough Street: it is the noisy, hot, alcoholic, left-wing Greenwich Village of Philip Rahv, the editor of Partisan Review. The poet wryly recalls his former self, 'hand on glass / and heart in mouth, ' trying to outdrink the Rahvs and 'fainting' at the feet of his future wife, the Southern-born lady intellectual whose 'shrill invective' denounced the traditionalism of the Old South. .... The turn in the final section is quietly ironic: 'Now twelve years later, you turn your back.' Husband and wife no longer even try to touch. 'Sleepless, ' she holds not him but her pillow to the 'hollows' of her unsatisfied body. As in the past, rhetoric is her weapon, but whereas at the Rahvs the attack was good-humored and academic, now on 'Mother's bed' life itself is at stake. But this is not to say that the poem is wholly pessimistic. The first water image in the poem the image of the ocean wave breaking against the speaker's head - marks a turning point. The life-giving water rouses the poet from his Miltown-induced lethargy, a lethargy in which he envies the thyrsus-like bed-post, and brings him back to reality. WILFRED JOHN

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Marvel Of The Age Equine bulk supports a Colossus, conspicuous Marvel of the age. Less horse though, perhaps, Than house, postcode that’s one of town’s most wantable, most wanted. These words ‘an empire is’ That arcs triumphant from Thames to Tigris, And those who are about to do PR salute you, For statement’s in fashion: Statements of suasion, of Kleenex and big-up, The poetry of Prozac, of praise and of blame, Statements to tease you, making you want since you’re wanting. Leave me occasions then, some little recordings Of weddings, bar-mitzvahs and funerals. But what statement is better than the image that’s right, That’s launched a thousand stomachs? Like the admen say in Soho, I'll leave you still wanting. This little porn kinema will stick to your shoes

II Epithalamial congratulations: your marriage evokes Emotions (quite unmixed) in me: My words If not quite aere perennius Will last until the next mortgage rates rise.

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Manilius Vopiscus had, so you once said, A Tiburtine villa with ‘lovely high ceilings’. I think you just meant ‘big’ (reading ‘ingentia’ for ‘iugentia’ in line 56) , Remortgage on your mind.

IV Rutilius has pushed his body too far this time: A & E followed by a week, a week at least, of fluids and rest. Thank God they’ve upgraded GHB to Class C. He’s never fought a war, any army would discharge him Sooner than he’d discharge himself. His lifestyle’s a disgrace When there’s others whose limbs lie scattered and spattered in Parthia. And yet.

V A week is a long time in the dog days, and I pass from the headlines’ discussion Of PFI projects, bringing everything to all, and invoke the soft Naiads, Tutelary spirits of this Tooting Bec lido. Underwater goggles for breasting OAPS, A can-top fizz of bubbles as someone shatters the deep-end. They’ve closed plenty others, but my fortunate friends and I, Fortunati ambo, kick back in the sun, Thanks to glorious councillors whose names (In conjunction with preferred private-sector partners) Butterfly proudly end to end of the pool. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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VI The Kalends of December With a Dome to remember: Another day, Another dollar, Things can ONLY get better.

V: IV I can't get no sleep. “Prudence, prudence”, scold pre-dawn pigeons, Reproving time lost and the feud with health As even the torment seeks downtime and shut-eye. Better the pathetic if long hallowed erotic Countryside fallacies than this lostness, this absence, This pre-doomed arc that reaches and reaches, Then descends and dissects. WILFRED JOHN

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ME ALONE I start up the engine of my car And begin the three miles home To my house, where no one Will greet me or say 'Hello', Where no one lives but me: alone. Two people on the pavement Chatting flash by me; Postman and his cycle and a wave; Schoolchildren and satchels; Lawnmower and a man wiping sweat. Horse and cart overtaken; Down a hill and over a bridge; Hedge flickering past; Someone running and kicking a ball; Two people with tennis racquets. Man reading on a bench; Driver resting on his steering wheel; Boy catching butterflies in the lay-by; Children playing 'he' together; Boy and girl holding hands, walking. A turn to the left and home To my house, where no one Will greet me, where no one Will say 'Hello' to me Where no one lives but me: Alone. WILFRED JOHN

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MEMORABLE LOVEMAKING EXPERIENCE Some people are embarrassed To talk about lovemaking Especially with their partners How the man or the woman Views this experience Is often programmed into them From an early age by the perceptions Of a parent or caregiver and confirmed Through life’ experiences. But like anything in life, If you want to achieve enjoyment And fulfilment from it, You must be prepared to talk about it. Like any other art, You need to practice the art of Lovemaking in order to become really good at it. In this regard, Men and women have different Perceptions of what being A “good lover” ia all about. If you ask a man, He will focus on technique and results, Such as “she had multiple orgasms”. But if you ask a woman, She will remember the setting and Atmosphere leading up to the lovemaking. So if we want the most memorable Lovemaking experience, We need to take both the Above into account. The secret is to become creative. Music, smells, lighting and colours All combine to produce the most sensually Arousing setting for the Most memorable lovemaking. The art of lovemaking is about Intimacy and this comes from Openness and trust. It is so important to communicate With each other. When you feel a heart-to-heart Connection with your partner, Your lovemaking can be pure ecstacy. So we have to learn to be honest www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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And let your partner know Exactly how you feel. WILFRED JOHN POET WRITER WILFRED JOHN

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Metaphysical Poets Metaphysical Poets metaphysical poets, the name given to a diverse group of 17th‐ century English poets whose work is notable for its ingenious use of intellectual and theological concepts in surprising conceits, strange paradoxes, and far‐ fetched imagery. The leading metaphysical poet was John Donne, whose colloquial, argumentative abruptness of rhythm and tone distinguishes his style from the conventions of Elizabethan love‐ lyrics. Other poets to whom the label is applied include Andrew Marvell, Abraham Cowley, John Cleveland, and the predominantly religious poets George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and Richard Crashaw. In the 20th century, T. S. Eliot and others revived their reputation, stressing their quality of wit, in the sense of intellectual strenuousness and flexibility rather than smart humour. The term metaphysical poetry usually refers to the works of these poets, but it can sometimes denote any poetry that discusses metaphysics, that is, the philosophy of knowledge and existence WILFRED JOHN

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Metaphysical Poets

WJ

A Brief Guide to Metaphysical Poets JOHN DONNE John Donne (1572 – 1631) was the most influential metaphysical poet. His personal relationship with spirituality is at the center of most of his work, and the psychological analysis and sexual realism of his work marked a dramatic departure from traditional, genteel verse. The term 'metaphysical, ' as applied to English and continental European poets of the seventeenth century, was used by Augustan poets John Dryden and Samuel Johnson to reprove those poets for their 'unnaturalness.' As Goethe wrote, however, 'the unnatural, that too is natural, ' and the metaphysical poets continue to be studied and revered for their intricacy and originality. John Donne, along with similar but distinct poets such as George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, and Henry Vaughn, developed a poetic style in which philosophical and spiritual subjects were approached with reason and often concluded in paradox. This group of writers established meditation—based on the union of thought and feeling sought after in Jesuit Ignatian meditation—as a poetic mode. The metaphysical poets were eclipsed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by romantic and Victorian poets, but twentieth century readers and scholars, seeing in the metaphysicals an attempt to understand pressing political and scientific upheavals, engaged them with renewed interest. In his essay 'The Metaphysical Poets, ' T. S. Eliot, in particular, saw in this group of poets a capacity for 'devouring all kinds of experience.' His early work, collected in Satires and in Songs and Sonnets, was released in an era of religious oppression. His Holy Sonnets, which contains many of Donne’s most enduring poems, was released shortly after his wife died in childbirth. The intensity with which Donne grapples with concepts of divinity and mortality in the Holy Sonnets is exemplified in 'Sonnet X [Death, be not proud], ' 'Sonnet XIV [Batter my heart, three person’d God], ' and 'Sonnet XVII [Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt].' George Herbert (1593 – 1633) and Andrew Marvell (1621 – 1678) were remarkable poets who did not live to see a collection of their poems published. Herbert, the son of a prominent literary patron to whom Donne dedicated his Holy Sonnets, spent the last years of his short life as a rector in a small town. On his deathbed, he handed his poems to a friend with the request that they be published only if they might aid 'any dejected poor soul.' Marvell wrote politically charged poems that would have cost him his freedom or his life had they been public. He was a secretary to John Milton, and once Milton was imprisoned during the Restoration, Marvell successfully petitioned to have the elder poet freed. His complex lyric and satirical poems were collected after his death amid an air of secrecy.

For further resources, consult a site devoted to Seventeenth Century British Poetry and a site dedicated to classic English poetry and poets. [email protected] www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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WILFRED JOHN

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MIDDLE AGE IS WHEN YOUR MEMORY IS SHORTER 'Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the sky.' Carl Sandburg I've read some of your modern free verse and wonder who set it free. John Barrymore Ordering a man to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child. Carl Sandburg 'If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have left him alone.' Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo. Don Marquis Middle age is when your legs buckle - and your belt doesn't. 'Middle age is when your memory is shorter, your experience longer, your stamina lower, and your forehead higher.' Middle age is when you start eating what's good for you instead of what you like. Middle age is when you've given up all your bad habits and still don't feel good. Middle age is when you realize that your get-up-and-go has got up and went. WILFRED JOHN

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Mingled With Comfort From The Furnace Trodding on crushed gravel road On a cold November evening I watched in awe As the sun descends Retreating Into the cascading shadows A man sitting beneath a tree Spoke in a forsaken voice 'The world deserted me Just over And I shall never see The flowers again. The staff that I held Glowed in the twilight For such pain penetrates Even the raw A horse carraige rattled by With its merry and laughter And the promised bliss Enveloping its occupants My feet are worn My eyes heavy The staff shimmers As I grow weary An inn ahead beckons With its hearty warm glow And the din of haven Mingled with comfort from the furnace A corner I chose And sit did I To fill a tankard of mead And drink away the past The thunderheads frowned Squeezing the rain from their brow Pods of crystal dropped And enchanting music did they make I stood at the doorway www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Cold gale did it breathed Lifting a foot onto the muddy path I stepped out on the road again, alone. WILFRED JOHN

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Minutes To Catch Our Breath 'I could feel my cock ready to explode deep inside of her. I let out a cry as she removed her ass from my cock and quickly turned around. She took my shaft and began to massage it while she sucked passionately on my head. She then swallowed me whole and squeezed my balls firmly in her hands. Every time she stroked and sucked my cock it sent me over the edge. I came down the back of her throat as we looked deep into each other’s eyes. We collapsed onto the scattered papers and tried for a few minutes to catch our breath. We laid there for about an hour and then decided to clean each other off. We dressed one another and tried to straighten up all of the mess that we had made. Alexis and I then walked hand in hand out the back door. I walked her over to her car and gave her another passionate kiss. Just as she pulled out of her parking space she yelled out, “Hey, wanna bump into me again next week Saturday? That is if you have some extra work to do and need a little help? You know where to find me! I love you! ” I smiled and replied, “Same time and same place then. I love you too! ” She blew me a kiss and drove away. I now look forward to every Saturday as the week comes to an end. I can still feel her lovely body and smell the sweet perfume that she uses. I can’t wait to make love to her again WILFRED JOHN

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MISUNDERSTANDING Think of a modern home, a suburban family, a mother, father, son and daughter. Like occasionally in every other house, something has brought disarray to the normal life. It may have been a tiny mistake or a trifle of a misunderstanding, but the mother and father can’t seem to agree. The children are watching. The daughter is confused, almost in tears and wants it to stop; the son initially thought it was hilarious but now thinks it’s going out of hand. The peace of the household has shattered. This episode will have an effect on all members of the family, whether they know it or not. Ever since we can remember, man has always had or found the requirement to start a fight, and it never mattered if the war was for a necessity or a craving. Not just man, even animals aren’t subtle negotiators when there is a threat around. Brute force is what most of them resolve to, and in the end when the verdict is out we have bloodied carcasses that are prey for flies and vultures. Wherever we look nowadays, something always hints at a line crossed, a trust defiled - so a skirmish seems unavoidable. And the skirmish, which may have been just due to a petite rivalry, may end up as an unstoppable battle – finally a cataclysm where lives are lost in hordes.

For example the death of Archduke Ferdinand, that triggered a World War. Some may argue that if it wasn’t that something else would have caused a mighty war, and though it might be true, history cannot be rewritten. But the only consolation we may have, if I can dare to call it that, is that everyone, no matter how blood and conquest thirsty they are, they ultimately seek peace. Even Genghis Kahn or Hitler, in their trysts for world dominion, must have gotten frustrated at a point and wished they had already accomplished their cravings, and brought about the new world order they raved about. Today the stirrings of protest and initiations of battles are scattered worldwide, the Indo – Pak situation, the Koreas, British occupied Ireland, Serbia, Bosnia, Israel and Palestine, the US’s ‘want a piece of bitter cake of every stake’ policy, etc. In India too we have discrepancies from the LTTE and the Naxalites to the Kashmiri militants. When the burgeoning of these may take place we can’t expect.

But we can’t console ourselves, for we are not to be compared to animals since we have many characteristics that can help us make wiser decisions, the most prominent one being the gift of gab, or to put it sublimely – we can express ourselves with the art of words. Words and intelligence makes us superior, and it is something that we must, and do take advantage of. When words are put into verses, in a sequence of rhythm and rhyme, they are expressed in a beautiful way, one that people are all ears for. Songs and dances have been there for centuries, as not just a form of entertainment, but also a method of distributing knowledge. When a kid learns his alphabets, it is taught with a rhyme and rhythm, so the child not only learns it quicker, but also enjoys singing it. Poetry has many forms, and its artistic manner of conveyance of knowledge is undeniable. Etymologically, poetry has a Greek origin, meaning ‘making’, and a poet is a ‘maker’. So can a poet ‘make’ peace? Peace poems have been written for generations, and many have touched a heart.

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World brotherhood and peace has been a dream for civilizations. Some say, true peace or moksha can be attained only after death, some that it is in the realm of infinity - unattainable. But is it possible? Will our world evolve to a totalitarian dystopian future or peace loving utopia? What if now, today the borders were erased? And people were known as a part of the clan of earth rather than a nationality of a particular country? What if racial prejudice, caste, creed, religious and status discrimination were abolished; or better – eradicated? The world is our country. Would the world be a better place or just a harder place to govern because of the lack of boundaries? It isn’t that we haven’t tried our hand at civilities, trying our best to resolve issues by peace talks. The United Nations was a brave step for us, an international body that tries to provide solutions so the worst can be abated. But does it really work? Or is it just a puppet of a superpower, which has always tried to resolve matters by butting in? Recently when North Korea went forward with their nuclear test, the world was just a spectator that watched through and gasped later. Efforts to stop them were futile, so it basically brings us to one trait, one characteristic that is the root of all causes - war or peace. Trust. Nations lack trust; if the US and Russia have conducted hundreds of such tests, and have such weapons of mass destruction in storage, why aren’t the Koreans at liberty to do so? They’ve been at war once, what if the next time they end up as Hiroshima or Nagasaki? Every country wants to go nuclear, wants to stay prepared – even India and Pakistan were urged to sign the CTBT in order to stop their tests. Even if the international peace keeping body is given ultimate power, would it succeed in restoring peace? This is something we can never know, unless we make an effort, and many will try this using words; many are trying so, words of meaningful beauty, maybe in the form of songs, of poems or just speeches. Today when a patriotic song - it maybe our national song or a film song, or the national anthem, but when those familiar words about raising our flags high our uttered, our hearts soar with pride. Similarly, if peace is spread through poems or songs, people tend to listen more avidly, letting the words touch them, wash through them – for these words are divine in their own sense. Like in the Bible, when the lord God said “Let there be light, ” and there was light. Words are the basis of any expression. Even the Bhagwad Gita, where the Lord Krishna stood in all divinity to tell the Pandav prince Arjun, the necessity of a war – but a war for peace. It was narrated in such beautiful verses, and it preaches love, peace and brotherhood – that today millions of people around the globe read and get enlightened. Today though, the purest form of poetry is in decline. With television and cinema, the number of book readers is in a rapid decline, and poetry seems to be written only for other poets. Literature is vast, and it seems to be compressed to entertain, not enlighten. But we can’t give up, we won’t give up, because no matter how small the number, poets are still emerging, and with the right form of publicity the right message can be spread. Hope is one of the most magical feelings in the world. So, roughly quoting Arthur C. Clarke -what we can do is hope, and wish for a new era of intelligence; where there is wisdom over force. And a future of invention and prosperity that brings us peace. WILFRED JOHN

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Modernist Lliterature NEW WRITERS-WJ Modernist Literature Who's writing it? Most serious poets today write in some aspect or offshoot of Modernist literature, at least in western societies. The founding fathers were Ezra Pound, TS Eliot, WB Yeats, and to some extent William Carlos Williams – and these are still recalled in doctrinal disputes. An introductory grouping of aims might be: experiment/open form (Ezra Pound, Charles Olson) , critical intelligence (TS Eliot, William Empson) , contra-civilisation (DH Lawrence, Robinson Jeffers) , counter-culture Frank O'Hara, Robert Bly, Allen Ginsberg) , and social comment (Randall Jarrell, Philip Larkin) . [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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Modernist Literature -WJ Why so successful? For a long time it wasn't. Only in the 1940s and 50s did modernist literature become acceptable to the academic and literary establishment, and in turn popular with a wide reading public. Now you can read contemporary examples in all the better ezines and Internet literary magazines. For listings try the poetrykit, poetrymachine, poetrymagic, or the LHS Poetry Online listings box. Among the more popular of ezines are: Archipelago, Beloit, Brown Critique Missouri Review and Oyster Boy Review. [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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Monkey Kiss Not to forget that we had wooden guns once Just as the Germans did when they invaded The Ruhr in 1936 and likewise We abandoned wallpaper for paint And there was an army of 500,000 monkeys Who carried wooden rifles over their heads When they crossed the Delaware and how The Hessians applauded and how George Washington Ordered grog for everyone there and since it Was a Christian holiday they built The largest fire in New Jersey history And even burned their beautiful boat whose curves Anticipated the helical waves and whose bottom Unfolded, as it were, or shot through water Something like a bottle or just skimmed The surface like a stone and everyone sitting stood up, not only Washington, and shouted Just above Trenton almost the shortest night The person to his right although the left was not out of the question and we said, “Peace, ” we always say it, the way they said it on the Rhine, the way they said it on the Danube, and now the Ohio, and now the Mississippi, the Batsto, the Allegheny, hug your monkey, kiss the nearest Romanian, kiss the nearest Greek. WILFRED JOHN

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Morality - the existence of moral things Morality Yesterday I had a very interesting conversation about morality and whether evolution is an adequate explanation for morality. Many of you know that I have argued for a long time that morality - the existence of moral things, 'oughts', the notion of moral actions and moral motives, the reality of morality - is a very powerful evidence for the existence of a moral God, whose character is the moral standard of the universe. I won't suggest that this is without problems, but I think it best answers the existence of morality. Those who are physicalistic, naturalistic, or empiricistic in nature - physicalistic are those people who want to define everything in purely physicalistic terms that can be understood by chemistry and physics; those who are naturalistic want to explain everything solely in terms of natural law without any appeal to transcendent law or supernatural things or beings; those who are empiricistic want to explain everything in terms of that which you can access by the five senses - are going to try to find ways of understanding morality that falls within the purview of their belief system without having to make an appeal to a divine being. But I don't think that works. One way to go about this is to argue from effect back to cause, looking at effects and asking ourselves what is the simplest, most elegant solution that is an adequate explanation for the effects that we see. Not the simplest solution, but the simplest which is also adequate. This is also known as Ockam's Razor. I don't think the evolutionary explanation is adequate. That goes something like this: In order to survive, animals develop. Through the process of natural selection, naturalistic forces mold certain behavior that we call moral behavior which simply functions to allow the organism to exist and continue to survive. Actually, not the organism, but the species, because in some cases it requires sacrificing individual organisms so that the larger species can survive. This is all that morality ends up being. That which we think is morality, or that which we call morality, turns out to be a description of animals conditioned by their environment to act in certain ways that benefit the survival of the species. We have just given that conduct a label. We call it morality. That is offered as a sufficient, adequate and complete description of how the behavior that we call moral behavior actually came about. My response to that is it isn't an adequate explanation at all, because the category of things that we call moral is not adequately engaged by mere descriptions of past behavior. That morality entails a look forward to the future, not just to the past, not just looking backwards to what we have done, or what was done by certain individuals, which they happen to call moral. But it is a look forward into the future about how we ought to behave. Since morality is prescriptive, not descriptive, and if it is normative if it talks about how we ought to behave - and the evolutionary description of moral behavior doesn't engage that very fundamental, core element of morality, then it hasn't explained it and morality still needs to be explained.

So all of this so-called description of where morality comes from, gets reduced to this ludicrous statement: I morally ought to be unselfish so that I can be more thoroughly selfish. That is silly.

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There was another bit of step by step reasoning that I used to show, I think, very clearly that what evolution might describe couldn't possibly be what we understand morality to be. My basic point is this: what naturalists explain when they seek to explain morality in naturalistic, evolutionary terms is not morality at all. They are explaining something different. I get to that by asking a series of questions. Instead of looking backward, I look forward, and I ask a question of moral behavior like 'Why ought anyone be unselfish in the future? ' for example. The question came up yesterday regarding an observation that was done with chimpanzees. There was a group of chimpanzees which had, in a sense, punished one member for being selfish by withholding food from that member and therefore teaching that member moral behavior. Apparently, the moral rule that undergirded the lesson was that the other chimpanzee ought not be selfish. That's a moral statement and the question I'm going to ask is 'Why ought the chimp (or human) not be selfish? ' I'm looking for a justification there. The answer is going to be that when we're selfish, it hurts the group. But you see, that answer isn't enough of an answer because that answer itself presumes another moral value that we ought to be concerned about the health of the group. So, I'm going to ask the question, 'Why ought we be concerned about the health of the group? ' The answer is going to be because if the groups don't survive, then the species doesn't survive. Then you can imagine the next question. 'Why ought I care about the health of the species and whether the species survives or not? ' You see, the problem with all of these responses that purport to be justifications or explanations for the moral rule, is that all of these things that are meant to explain the moral rule really depend themselves upon a moral rule before they can even be uttered. Therefore, it can't be the explanation of morality. When I ask the question 'Why ought I be concerned with the species? ', the next answer ends the series. The answer is, 'I ought to be concerned with the species because if the species dies out, then I will not survive. If the species is in jeopardy, then my own personal self interests would be in jeopardy.' So, in abbreviated form, the reasoning goes like this: I ought to be unselfish because it is better for the group, which is better for the species, which is better for me. So why ought I be unselfish? Because it is better for me. But looking at what is better for me, is selfishness. So all of this so-called description of where morality comes from, gets reduced to this ludicrous statement: I morally ought to be unselfish so that I can be more thoroughly selfish. That is silly. Because we know that morality can't be reduced to selfishness. Why do we know that? Because our moral rules are against selfishness and for altruism. They are against selfishness and for the opposite. When you think about what it is that morality entails, you don't believe that morality is really about being selfish. Morality is about being unselfish, or at least it entails that. Which makes my point that this description, based on evolution, does not do the job. It doesn't explain what it is supposedly meant to explain. It doesn't explain morality. It is simply reduced to a promotion of selfishness which isn't morality at all. Morality is something altogether different. We may debate about all that moral views and understandings entail, but one thing we can all agree on, I think, is that when we are looking for a definition of morality, we know it isn't about selfishness. It is about not being selfish, just the opposite. That's why these explanations don't work. They either smuggle morality into the equation by describing the behavior that is meant to be explained by evolution so they depend upon morality to do the job, or else the descriptions and explanations end up being reduced to selfishness, which isn't what we're trying to explain. We're trying to explain why one ought not be selfish, not why www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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one ought to be selfish. WILFRED JOHN

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More People Write Poetry Than Go It reminds us who we are, argues Neil Astley - but only if we shake off academic elitism and celebrate voices from our communities and around the world Poetry in Britain is both thriving and struggling: it is flourishing at grass-roots level while poetry publishing is floundering. Bookshops have drastically reduced their ranges of poetry. Publishers have scrapped or shortened their poetry lists and are taking on very few new authors. Small presses have folded. Yet, paradoxically, public interest in poetry has never been higher. More people write poetry than go to football matches, and poetry is popular in schools, at festivals and at the hundreds of readings staged every week in pubs, theatres, arts centres and even people's homes. Poetry has reached a wider audience through films, radio, television and the internet, as well as through initiatives such as London's Poems on the Underground, which has been imitated around the world. More people than ever believe, as Jackie Kay wrote in her National Poetry Day blog, that 'poetry makes us think about who we are'. And this is not just a British phenomenon. Big names in world poetry read to full houses at Scotland's poetry festival, StAnza in St Andrews, every March, and at Ledbury in July. This month, hundreds of poetry enthusiasts will flock to the biennial Poetry International at the South Bank Centre in London (24-29 October) , where the international line-up includes Elizabeth Alexander, Martin Espada and Jane Hirshfield (US) , Michael Longley and Paul Muldoon (Ireland) , Tua Forsström (Finland) , Tomas Tranströmer (Sweden) , Arundhathi Subramaniam (India) and Gabeba Baderoon (South Africa) . The following weekend (3-5 November) , Aldeburgh Poetry Festival will fill the town's Jubilee Hall with readings by writers from Kurdistan and Catalonia to the US. Despite this obvious diversity and vitality, all the talk in poetry publishing is of crisis. The bookshops are blamed for declining sales - but this is not the whole story. The major chains have vigorously promoted poetry books aimed at a broader readership, with books such as my anthology Staying Alive selected for displays and offers. Yet broader-based initiatives are not working either. While in the US National Poetry Month helps sell thousands of poetry books, our annual National Poetry Day is far less successful in bookselling terms. Poetry is both flourishing and floundering in Britain because it has a split identity. If bookshops ignore their customers, they go out of business. When poetry publishers and reviewers ignore their readership, this is called 'maintaining critical standards'. And they still expect the public to defer to their judgement and accept their offerings, because they know best. The producers of poetry aren't in tune with the lovers of poetry. Many poets and publishers are actually hostile to the promotion of poetry - as the poet Michael Hofmann put it in the Times: 'promotion violates the innocence and defencelessness of poetry'. They see marketing as a dirty word instead of simply the means by which their books are made available to more readers. This reluctance to engage with readers comes at a heavy price. As bookshops stock less and less poetry, concentrating on safe bets such as anthologies and selected poems by big-name authors, publishers reduce their output of new titles. Cover prices rise as print runs fall, which further affects sales. Major bookshops derive 94 per cent of their income from 25 per cent of their stock. In accountancy terms, three-quarters of their stock is a waste of capital, taking up valuable shelf space - and that includes all www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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the poetry. Given the large potential market, poetry publishers could stake a claim to some of that space - but only if they are publishing a range of books and authors that people actually want to read. Continuing to package their books to appeal only to an intellectual elite has severely disadvantaged them. If readers find a book visually unappealing, they won't pick it up. And if the back-cover blurb is a piece of turgid literary criticism, new readers will be scared off. Readers don't have access to the diverse range of work being produced, not just in Britain, but from around the world, because much of the poetry establishment is narrowly based, male- dominated, white Anglocentric and skewed by factions and vested interests. Too often, poetry editors think of themselves and their poet friends as the arbiters of taste, selecting only writers they think people ought to read. They are unresponsive to much poetry by women (who comprise more than two-thirds of poetry's readership) as well as to writing from Britain's rapidly growing ethnic minorities. Ignoring the readership would be commercial suicide in any other field, but this malpractice in poetry publishing and reviewing has survived into the 21st century thanks to 'academic protectionism'. This is something that has also tainted poetry reviewing: the few reviews that do appear are mostly of books by the same small group of mostly male, white British poets who also judge the main poetry prizes and are often either poetry editors or academics in university departments of English or creative writing. Editors' 'personal taste' is too often an excuse or disguise for elitism and arrogance. In my view, my responsibility as an editor is to be responsive to writers and readers, and to give readers access to a wide range of world poetry. Publishers and writers who address a broader readership (as Bloodaxe has done with Staying Alive and other anthologies) are attacked by elitist critics for 'dumbing down' - but receive overwhelming support from readers as well as from intelligent poets. Contemporary poetry has never been more varied, but what the public gets to hear about are the new post-Larkin 'mainstream' and the 'postmodern avant-gardists' (with their academic strongholds in Oxford and Cambridge respectively) . More broad-based poetry expressing spiritual wisdom, emotional truth or social and political engagement is of little interest to either camp. Exciting new work by major American, European and Caribbean writers, from Martin Carter, Galway Kinnell and Yusef Komunyakaa to Jane Hirshfield, Mary Oliver and Adam Zagajewski, has been almost totally ignored by national-press poetry reviewers. But where print editors or their reviewers lag behind, radio producers, who have to be responsive to their audience, are much more in touch with the full range of what's current. Black and Asian poets with large grass-roots followings are frequently heard on national radio programmes. Radio has realised that modern English-language poetry is in fact a set of multiple interconnected traditions, including the oral-based and literary traditions of African-American, black British, Caribbean and south Asian poetry. The same changes in our idea of the novel have transformed fiction publishing - the recent success of Monica Ali, Zadie Smith and Kiran Desai would have been unthinkable a generation ago - and it is time for those changes to extend to poetry. The establishment must be responsive not to literary and academic cliques, but to readers, especially at a time when public interest in poetry is growing so rapidly. Poetry's dinosaurs have to realise that our country, culture and economic climate have www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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changed, and so have their res ponsibilities. Their wake-up call needs to come before poetry publishing self-destructs. Internet sites are not enough. We need books. wilfred john is a freelance journalist and poet [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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More People Write Poetry Than Go To Football Matches In these sixty-five first-person poems, Americans-some who really lived, some who might have lived-tell it like it is. In the process they illuminate and personify the American experience and the history of the United States. Here are Americans from five centuries, from all walks of life, from presidents to pioneers, from indentured servants to freedom fighters, from regular kids to astronauts...What are they talking about? What would you talk about? Perfect for sharing, for reading aloud, for reading alone, for performing, for memorizing, for investigating...here is a splendid collection of poems, an original and compelling chorus of voices. You can be sure that someone has something to say on each and every page. Poetry in Britain is both thriving and struggling: it is flourishing at grass-roots level while poetry publishing is floundering. Bookshops have drastically reduced their ranges of poetry. Publishers have scrapped or shortened their poetry lists and are taking on very few new authors. Small presses have folded. Yet, paradoxically, public interest in poetry has never been higher. More people write poetry than go to football matches, and poetry is popular in schools, at festivals and at the hundreds of readings staged every week in pubs, theatres, arts centres and even people's homes. Poetry has reached a wider audience through films, radio, television and the internet, as well as through initiatives such as London's Poems on the Underground, which has been imitated around the world. More people than ever believe, as Jackie Kay wrote in her National Poetry Day blog, that 'poetry makes us think about who we are'. And this is not just a British phenomenon. Big names in world poetry read to full houses at Scotland's poetry festival, StAnza in St Andrews, every March, and at Ledbury in July. This month, hundreds of poetry enthusiasts will flock to the biennial Poetry International at the South Bank Centre in London (24-29 October) , where the international line-up includes Elizabeth Alexander, Martin Espada and Jane Hirshfield (US) , Michael Longley and Paul Muldoon (Ireland) , Tua Forsström (Finland) , Tomas Tranströmer (Sweden) , Arundhathi Subramaniam (India) and Gabeba Baderoon (South Africa) . The following weekend (3-5 November) , Aldeburgh Poetry Festival will fill the town's Jubilee Hall with readings by writers from Kurdistan and Catalonia to the US. Despite this obvious diversity and vitality, all the talk in poetry publishing is of crisis. The bookshops are blamed for declining sales - but this is not the whole story. The major chains have vigorously promoted poetry books aimed at a broader readership, with books such as my anthology Staying Alive selected for displays and offers. Yet broader-based initiatives are not working either. While in the US National Poetry Month helps sell thousands of poetry books, our annual National Poetry Day is far less successful in bookselling terms. Poetry is both flourishing and floundering in Britain because it has a split identity. If bookshops ignore their customers, they go out of business. When poetry publishers and reviewers ignore their readership, this is called 'maintaining critical standards'. And they still expect the public to defer to their judgement and accept their offerings, because they know best. The producers of poetry aren't in tune with the lovers of poetry. Many poets and publishers are actually hostile to the promotion of poetry - as the poet Michael Hofmann put it in the Times: 'promotion violates the innocence and www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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defencelessness of poetry'. They see marketing as a dirty word instead of simply the means by which their books are made available to more readers. This reluctance to engage with readers comes at a heavy price. As bookshops stock less and less poetry, concentrating on safe bets such as anthologies and selected poems by big-name authors, publishers reduce their output of new titles. Cover prices rise as print runs fall, which further affects sales. Major bookshops derive 94 per cent of their income from 25 per cent of their stock. In accountancy terms, three-quarters of their stock is a waste of capital, taking up valuable shelf space - and that includes all the poetry. Given the large potential market, poetry publishers could stake a claim to some of that space - but only if they are publishing a range of books and authors that people actually want to read. Continuing to package their books to appeal only to an intellectual elite has severely disadvantaged them. If readers find a book visually unappealing, they won't pick it up. And if the back-cover blurb is a piece of turgid literary criticism, new readers will be scared off. Readers don't have access to the diverse range of work being produced, not just in Britain, but from around the world, because much of the poetry establishment is narrowly based, male- dominated, white Anglocentric and skewed by factions and vested interests. Too often, poetry editors think of themselves and their poet friends as the arbiters of taste, selecting only writers they think people ought to read. They are unresponsive to much poetry by women (who comprise more than two-thirds of poetry's readership) as well as to writing from Britain's rapidly growing ethnic minorities. Ignoring the readership would be commercial suicide in any other field, but this malpractice in poetry publishing and reviewing has survived into the 21st century thanks to 'academic protectionism'. This is something that has also tainted poetry reviewing: the few reviews that do appear are mostly of books by the same small group of mostly male, white British poets who also judge the main poetry prizes and are often either poetry editors or academics in university departments of English or creative writing. Editors' 'personal taste' is too often an excuse or disguise for elitism and arrogance. In my view, my responsibility as an editor is to be responsive to writers and readers, and to give readers access to a wide range of world poetry. Publishers and writers who address a broader readership (as Bloodaxe has done with Staying Alive and other anthologies) are attacked by elitist critics for 'dumbing down' - but receive overwhelming support from readers as well as from intelligent poets. Contemporary poetry has never been more varied, but what the public gets to hear about are the new post-Larkin 'mainstream' and the 'postmodern avant-gardists' (with their academic strongholds in Oxford and Cambridge respectively) . WILFRED JOHN

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Muscle Man For Big Business The United States proudly styles itself as the leader of the Free World. The common perception of the common American is that the United States is that it is an open society with a good historical record in defending freedom around the world. Nonetheless when one reviews the history and present condition of America one will find that it is one constructed upon deceptions, oppression and inhumanities. American history begins with slavery of the coloured race. American slavery that lasted well over one hundred and fifty years and did not end until the mid eighteen hundreds that continued to echoed the effects of racial oppression well after a century after the Emancipation of Proclamation. Then oppression continued throughout American history with the genocidal extermination of the Native American Indians that where brutally slaughtered, maimed, and alienated the native aboriginal population away from their land and into Reservation Camps. Official estimates range from twelve to twenty million Native Americans were officially slaughter by the American government. While Americans eventually grew to adapted the policy of Manifest Destiny, in where American foreign policy shifted to pursue the expansion of American imperialism into Mexico, Puerto Rico, Canada, the Philippines, and various other nations. The conquering, steeling, and exploiting of any other nation it could manage to extract anything from by brutal means of possible. United States history continues with consistent inhumanities in Cuba. In 1912 there was a Cuban revolutionary uprising against the American puppet government of Jose Miguel Gomez in where with the assistance of American forces the Cuban government executed thousands of revolutionary activist and sympathizers with the full fledge support of the United States government and big business. In the early nineteen hundreds the American economy inflated with corporate monopolies springs one of the most unequal societies that have ever existed, everything from children working twelve hour shifts in inhuman conditions to horrible sweatshops. In the nineteen twenties the government and corporate system consistently oppose and eradicate by any means possible, usually in very hostile ways, the growing formation of Unions and workers Socialist movements. Then thorough the recession of the nineteen twenties there is violent repression of workers rights groups and organization of unions. Freedom of speech was at a brink of demise at this time when several leftist leaders where incarcerated for supporting Communistic and Anarchist idealisms. Then of course you all know the wretched legacy left by the Woodrow Wilson administration. Wilson did everything from violently suppress honourable World War One veterans to the conduction of international conspiracies. Then World War Two comes in where the Japanese where bombarded with atomic explosions that constitute an international War Crime in where the American government has even until now refused to decree an apology. Then comes the imperialist invasion of Vietnam, in where the American government had send over sixty thousand good young American men to their deaths for no justifiable reason, also causing over four million Vietnamese deaths. Leaving the providence of South West Asia in an episode of rubble. American Imperialism and crimes against humanity then continues in Nicaragua. For more than 40 years, Nicaragua's government and economy were controlled by the Somoza family dictatorship, which enriched itself and its supporters at the nation's expense. Marxist revolutionaries known as the Sandinistas, who promised social and economic reforms, overthrew the Somozas, who enjoyed strong United States support, in 1979. Their government attempted to change Nicaragua's economic and political structure, and it made some relatively promising progress on social, political and economic issues. When the Sandinistas were finally in government by fairly winning the democratic election, everything was done by the America Government to demonise them with accusations of genocide, drug trafficking and www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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undemocratic practices. The United States media intellectuals keep silent about the very apparent documented facts of the Sandinistas remarkable reforms. Then these efforts declined as the Sandinistas government fought a devastating civil war through the nineteen eighties against rebels, known as Contras, who were directly supported by the United States and Nicaragua's neighbour Honduras. In the nineteen nineties the Sandinistas lost the presidential elections, a peace settlement with the contras was reached, and democratically elected governments succeeded each other. Nevertheless, the nation continues to struggle with serious problems of damage to its economy, disagreements among political factions, and social inequalities. After the American imposed war, Nicaragua laid in complete ruins, the countryside devastated with an estimated forty eight thousand Nicaraguan killed. All because the United States government with direct intervention plotted the over through of the Sandinistas very progressive Socialistic Democratic reforms in fear that that Socialist modelled Nicaraguan government would serve as a great model for their neighbouring third world nations. Then there are the all the countless American backed tyrannies of Latin American, in where America directly supported dictatorships instead of democracies. The present backward totalitarian states of Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru and various other totalitarian States in Latin American countries are all direct results of American intervention, support, and funding. In the early nineteen eighties and nineties the United State government conducted some of the most inhumane political involvements of all time. With the support of the backward governments of East Timer in where more than three hundred thousand of East Timers population was openly slaughtered. Then there is the American economical exploitation of Third World countries like Granada, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, which has been happening for over decades. While eighty-nine percent of all the residents of Haiti live in abject poverty. Somehow with all of this impoverishment, Haiti with American support manages to export over ninety percent of all of its gross products to The United States. This form of economical exploitation by The United States on the developing nations has stained American history for centuries and continues horrendously even today. Along with that, there are the harsh economical sanctions that United States policies have continuously imposed on much weaker state, like the draconian sanctions of Iraq that have estimated to have killed well over one million blameless Iraqi woman and mainly children in less than one decade. Today the United States continues its inhumane intervention around the world, around Iraq, Aghanistan, Asia in Latin America just as it did decades ago. Advocating Fascism, Totalitarianism and Dictatorships around the world, helping counties like Turkey by selling them American manufactured weapons so that Turkish government can conduct their ethnic cleansing of the their Kurdish population. One will find and continue to find after closely reviewing and examining the present and past of America to be flooded with strict deceptions, oppressions, and upright inhumanities. Then one will also discover that the United States of American has been one of the principal enemies of freedom, equality and democracy around the globe. 'I spent 33 years in the Marines. Most of my time being a high-classed muscle man for Big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street....' WILFRED JOHN

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My Lyric Life I might Prolong My name's a dud amid poets I'm A leek among asparagus Yet let me make a lilt of rhyme And publish it anonymous Sweet, simple, short, a snatch of song Anthologists might prize, and thus My lyric life I might prolong. WILFRED JOHN

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My Thoughts Which Still Persists Just the words remain motionless On parchment all alone And centuries on it still exists My thoughts which still persists A part of me that's known. No intriguing biography have No date of birth or place to die Just poetry I've sown. Will you build me a statue shrine with bold features that were mine Paint my portrait on canvas Use my name when naming streets. Many times my words you'll see Yet not once have they paid me Nor spoken promises of fame Or even the mention of my name. Was it all in trick And dare not I to role the cube Between the critics vicious vice On subjects not fit for me The poet they deemed me to be. Wilfred John WILFRED JOHN

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NEW PUBLISHING TECHNOLOGY- WJ NEW PUBLISHING TECHNOLOGY WILFRED JOHN Connect Compilations enable publishers to assemble 'virtual' publications from their existing content on connect. Compilations are given titles, descriptions, links and logos such that they look similar to conventional publications. They may be organised in familiar serial and monograph formats. At ingentaconnect Compilations may be purchased and subscribed to in the same way as other publications. Crucially the publisher has control over the Compilation, it is available to amend and augment whenever they please. From an end user perspective Connect Compilations will be quietly integrated into the search and browse facilities on connect. For publishers the changes are more marked, a whole set of administration tools have been introduced. To provide powerful administration tools we've increased our adoption of client side plugins (based on Jquery) and paradigms like AJAX. Both have been on the list of 'must have' technical buzz words for a some time, but we've taken care only to employ them where there is tangible benefit. Most significant is the introduction of semantic technologies; an RDF triple store for data, SPARQL to query it, Jena and our own framework to represent data to the application. One may well ask what immediate benefit does semantic technology bring, beyond exciting programmers and web luminaries? The first benefit we'll see on ingentaconnect is tighter integration, both inside the site and with the wider web. RDF enables us to make assertions about resources (like articles, authors and references) without imposing constraints on the assertions made, or how they will be used. Crucially we can use the assertions to draw conclusions, or inferences, to fill in gaps, and really 'understand' the data. All of this is achieved with little redundancy or repetition. The factors combine to produce a store on which services to cater for varying requirements and perspectives can readily be built. The benefits I've mentioned thus far could of course be realised with a relational database, but we're laying our new foundations at present, and more will grow out them. In down to earth speak, all this means ingentaconnect, and close relation pub2web, will increasingly provide accurate linking, interesting ways to splice together content and, as Connect Compilations demonstrates, put control into the hands of online Publishers. Labels: connect compilations, ingentaconnect, pub2web, publishing, publishing technology, semantic, technology posted by Wilfred John at 8: 55 AM [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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'No Man is an Island'-JOHN DONNE 'No Man is an Island' No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Olde English Version No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. MEDITATION XVII Devotions upon Emergent Occasions John Donne WILFRED JOHN

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No One's Picking Up The Phone No one's picking up the phone Guess it's me and me And this little masochist She's ready to confess All the things That I never thought that she could feel. WILFRED JOHN

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Olfactory With The Past parcel the term the Debussy played on the stage echo'd in the wings dark unwindowed olfactory with the past achieved at last and it was gone in the sound of hands muffled for the nonce mohair and asbestos hanging from the flies and a single light what is there from the left and right but the green glow of exit signs if anything WILFRED JOHN

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On 'The Fish'-Elizabeth Bishop On 'The Fish' Readers of Elizabeth Bishop's 'The Fish' commonly pose objections which concern opposite ends of the critical spectrum. One objection is to the integrity of Bishop's fish: it does not seem realistic; it is too ugly; what kind of fish is it supposed to be anyway? Another objection is to the conceptual limitations of the poem: the imagery is admirable, but that is not enough. The first objection, which Richard Moore touches upon en passant in an essay published twenty-five years ago, is the easiest to deal with. Noticing the lack of fight in the huge fish, Moore flirts with the notion that must occur to many sophisticated readers of poetry upon encountering this poem: 'perhaps the fish seems so realistic and factual because it is not a 'real' fish at all. Moore adds, parenthetically, that 'indeed, the reader never learns what species of fish it is.' Of course some will immediately argue that the species of fish, whether identifiable or not, is irrelevant to the meaning of the poem; but it seems to me that considering Elizabeth Bishop's close associations with the sea (she had moved to Key West in 1938 after a childhood spent in a fishing village in Nova Scotia and in Boston) , the fish might be supposed to be representative of an actual species. At any rate, as a quondam Florida fisherman I have always supposed that Bishop's fish emerged from the salt waters of actual experience (the poem first appeared in Partisan Review in 1940, while she was living in Key West, and Bishop did enjoy fishing) and that it must be some sort of grouper. The Fisherman's Field Guide describes grouper as 'broad-headed, thick-bodied, bottom- or reef-dwelling, predatory sea basses with very large mouths, protruding lower jaws, caniniform teeth, and scales that typically extend onto the bases of some or all fins.' The fact that the grouper is a bottom feeder would likely account for the 'rags of green weed' which cling to Bishop's fish (I.21) , and the hook-pierced 'lower lip' (I.48) is appropriately prominent. More specifically, the fish's coloration suggests that it is a large red grouper (Epinephelus morio) , a type common to Florida and Caribbean waters. Weighing up to forty pounds, the red grouper is described as having a 'squarish tail and a brownish-red or rusty head and body, darkly barred and marbled. Often, it has scattered white spots.' Did Elizabeth Bishop mistake these spots for 'tiny white sea-lice'(I.19) ? At that point, I think, the literal description of the fish interferes with the fish as the poet re-creates it. She wants the sea-lice in order to emphasize the ambiguous image created by the fish, which is simultaneously ugly and beautiful, a point to which we will return herafter. Rube Allyn's Dictionary of Fishes, an angler's guide, adds some information about the grouper which is pertinent to the fifth and sixth lines of the poem, about which most commentators have something to say (more, perhaps, than is necessary) . 'In the traditional battle between man and fish, ' Nancy L. McNally writes, 'the old and decrepit fish... has simply refused to participate.' Moore insists that the lines reinforce the size of the fish 'by explaining how so huge a thing could be caught' and that they also 'make the fish more interesting and mysterious.' In his anglers' dictionary Allyn observes of the red grouper that they offer little resistance when hooked and are not considered a 'gamey' fish.' Of its big brother (the largest on record weighs 735 pounds) , commonly called the 'jewfish, ' a modification of 'jaw' similar to that in 'jew's-harp, ' Allyn writes, 'They immediately sulk when hooked and use all their www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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energy in pulling straight down.' One other observation about the grouper is worthy of note: 'They have bladders that are adjusted to depths they inhabit and when hauled in these bladders often expand and burst.' Did Bishop know of this when she drew attention to 'the pink swim-bladder/like a big peony'(II.32-33) ? If so, those lines, and indeed the whole poem, acquire a special significance - the marriage of beauty and death. This, like the blending of the beautiful with the ugly, is implicit at various times in the poem. Death is at the edges of Bishop's poem if only because the speaker has the power of life and death over the fish. Her portrait of the entrails, after all, is probably based upon actual fish-cleaning experience. (I am assuming a female persona in the poem, though nothing in the poem demands it. As a rule I think the speaker's sex should be identified with that of the poet, unless there are grounds to think otherwise.) As Wallace Stevens wrote in a quite different context, 'Death is the mother of beauty.' I take it that Stevens's provocative phrase means that beauty is definable at least partly in terms of its evanescence. Such beauty as Bishop's fish possesses is certainly waning. [From 'Some Observations on Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘The Fish’' Arizona Quarterly ] WILFRED JOHN

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OUR IMOTIONAL LIFE We take our vitality for granted The strength of our life force impacts Not only our overall physical health But often acts as a primary filter for Our emotional life and how we interpret The events that make up our days. Often we also bear witness to the strength Of our life force in our sexual lives. When we are feeling vitally alive, colours are brighter, our thinking is more acute And our emotional life is stable. Our sexuality is heightened and Readily available for exploration. Many things eat away at the life Force that makes us who we are. Stamina and energy can start to feel like A zero sum game as the demands for our Attention mount and the resources that We have to deal with life’s challenges diminish. Our bodies reflect this waning energy In physical weakness and strange symptoms From a range of heretofore unknown illness. Our thinking and decision making process Gets stuck more often, without the energy To re-think and re-imagine life obstacles. We are emotionally off, sometimes Without knowing why. It is no wonder that our sexual life mirrors The life force we are working with. And no wonder too, when you consider The sexual dysfunction issues that Plague at least one third of our Population, both male and female. ©1980 WJ WILFRED JOHN

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Our Lips Are So Awkward We know through hearsay that love exists. Seated on a rock or under a red parasol, Lying in the field buzzing with insects, Our hands clasped behind our necks, Kneeling in the cool darkness of a church. Or settled on a straw chair within The four walls of the bedroom, Head lowered, Eyes fixed on a rectangle of white paper, We dream of estuaries, Tumultuous surf, clearing weather and tides. We listen to the inexhaustible Chant of the sea within us, As it rises and falls in our heads, Like the approach and retreat Of the strange desire we have for heaven, For love, and all that We cannot touch with our hands. Within us the sea tries out sentences. From time immemorial, The same voice spells the same Alphabet in the same child's brain. It mutters words which quickly fly off, Snagged on the sea grasses, On the bathers' browned skin, On the bows of boats, on the masts. Ordinary words, for nothing and no one in particular. It is only about love. This is why we hardly know What to say and we suffer When someone's gaze fixes on our face, When we would like it to look into our heart. Our lips are so awkward Our body invisible in the opaque night, And our hands inept, Yet lightening flashes or Wings are at our fingertips. WILFRED JOHN

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PIANO The Jazz RealBook Comes Alive and Delivers on Its Potential! This Revolutionary New Computer Software Makes You a Better Musician, Almost Overnight. Find Out How There is absolutely no better way to learn the 'jazz language' than by seeing and hearing the music created by famous jazz artists. The EASIEST WAY to do that is by running through jazz charts while listening to the recordings. Now, as you may already know, the Real Book has been an essential part of every aspiring jazz musician's arsenal since the spiral bound, soft cover fake book came out in the 70's.It's right up there in importance with your instrument and your albums. Sure, there have been other jazz fake books - but none match the importance of the original jazz fakebook - The Real Book Volume 1 Fifth edition. 'Face it, if you don't own The Real Book, then you really aren't for real when it comes to playing jazz and jazz improvisation.' Having said all that There is a massive breakdown in the system... A big fly in the ointment.... THE HUGE, FATAL FLAW....... Unless you have a massive library of jazz albums available to you, then you won't have a clue when it comes to how those songs are supposed to sound or be played. You are just shooting in the dark and hoping to hit something. That means that a good portion of the RealBook will be of little or no value to you. For you to solve this problem on your own, you would have to spend huge amounts of time and money to locate and buy all of the recordings needed. I'm going to save you the pain, effort, time and expense of all that... Announcing, The Real Book Software

'The 'Real Book Software' is an all out, full blown, self contained jazz studies course, brought to life in an easy to use software program for Windows and Mac.' In jazz improvisation, you are required to know how to play through hundreds of jazz standards, jazz blues, latin jazz charts etc. My Real Book Software will not only provide you with thousands of essential jazz chord charts and melodies but will also familiarize you with how these charts should sound. This is critical in helping you understand the language of jazz and building a superb jazz vocabulary. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Hearing these essential jazz standards is a critical component to the advancement of any jazz musician. 'The Real Book is Now Reborn As Software But That's Only Part Of The Story...' WILFRED JOHN

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Poetic Obligation Poetic Obligation Ethics in Experimental American Poetry after 1945 By G. Matthew Jenkins

282 pages,3 photos,5 3/4 x 9 1/4 inches,2008 $42.50 cloth,1-58729-635-7,978-1-58729-635-2

'This is a very fine study of the complex issues surrounding an ethical practice of American avant-garde poetry. In both its theoretical model centering on ethics and its attention to a range of authors from Oppen to Hejinian, Poetic Obligation has something important to say 'This is an interesting and important project. That reading poststructuralist poetries challenges prior ways of construing the relation of ethics to poetics-to the extent that it is construed at all! —is an exciting starting point for an inquiry into a different understanding of how changes in conceptualizing ethical categories might elucidate new poetics, and vice versa.'—Joan Retallack, author, Memnoir and The Poethical Wager Since at least the time of Plato's Republic, the relationship between poetry and ethics has been troubled. Through the prism of what has been called the 'new' ethical criticism, inspired by the work of Emmanuel Levinas, G. Matthew Jenkins considers the works of Objectivists, Black Mountain poets, and Language poets in light of their full potential to reshape this ancient relationship. American experimental poetry is usually read in either political or moral terms. Poetic Obligation, by contrast, considers the poems of Louis Zukofsky, Charles Reznikoff, George Oppen, Edward Dorn, Robert Duncan, Susan Howe, and Lyn Hejinian in terms of the philosophical notion of ethical obligation to the Other in language. Jenkins's historical trajectory enables him to consider the full breadth of ethical topics that have driven theoretical debate since the end of World War II. This original approach establishes an ethical lineage in the works of twentieth-century experimental poets, creating a way to reconcile the breach between poetry and the issue of ethics in literature at large. With implications for a host of social issues, including ethnicity and immigration, economic inequities, and human rights, Jenkins's imaginative reconciliation of poetry and ethics will provide stimulating reading for teachers and scholars of American literature as well as advocates and devotees of poetry in general. Poetic Obligation marshals ample evidence that poetry matters and continues to speak to the important issues of our day. G. Matthew Jenkins is an assistant professor in the Department of English and director of the writing program at the University of Tulsa. CONTENTS www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Preface Introduction: The Double-Double Turn Part 1: Objectivist Poethics 1. Saying Obligation: George Oppen's Of Being Numerous 2. A Phenomenology of Judgement: Charles Reznikoff's Holocaust Part 2: Excess and Eros 3. The Ethics of Excess: Edward Dorn's Gunslinger 4. The Body Ethical: Robert Duncan's Passages Part 3: An Ethics of Sexual Alterity 5. The Nearness of Poetry: Susan Howe's The Noncomformist's Memorial 6. Permeable Ethics: Lynn Hejinian's The Cell Conclusion: What Difference Does Poetic Obligation Make? WILFRED JOHN

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POETRY-

Aesthetic Realism

“It's a lie, and not a well told one at that. It grins out like a copper dollar.” —Abraham Lincoln Aesthetic Realism, which have been put forth on the Internet by a few individuals. As everyone knows, there's a great deal of lying, including in cyberspace, at the present time; and these are as deep-dyed falsehoods as we have seen anywhere. They've appeared chiefly on the web pages of two persons. They’re an attempt to tarnish and discredit the philosophy Aesthetic Realism, its founder, the great American poet and critic Eli Siegel, and every person who has shown respect for this knowledge and for him. To learn what the wide, cultural, kind education of Aesthetic Realism is, and the many different ways it can be studied, visit the website of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation: AestheticRealism.org. The method of those attacking it is to create lies so numerous and massive that a reader would feel, “There must be something to this.” It’s the “Big Lie” approach, which has been around often in history. Most of that falsification is being purveyed on the web pages of a Michael Bluejay. He is someone who, on his personal website, has published naked pictures of himself—including photos of himself in full frontal nudity, and riding a tricycle naked. He also points as a source of pride to his having worn 'a dress to a strip club' without having gotten 'beat up.' Then there are the utterances of Adam Mali. For the last decade, he and his mother, Ellen Mali, have worked hard trying to hurt Aesthetic Realism and also trying to get others to join them. She was for a time a director of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, but became exceedingly angry when people objected to her desire to turn this not-for-profit educational foundation into a personal fiefdom (many details can be given) . Neither she nor her son liked it that Aesthetic Realism is large education—a philosophy that shows the relation of all the arts and sciences to the self of everyone: they wanted to water down its principles to suit themselves and change a cultural institution into something that would serve them. They were furious when they weren’t permitted to do so. About the Writers on Our Website The statements that will be appearing on this Friends of Aesthetic Realism website are by people who have looked closely at Aesthetic Realism. They live in different parts of America and the world. They are (for example) educators, parents, computer specialists, artists, doctors, musicians, architects, business persons, labor leaders. The writers are in different relations to Aesthetic Realism: Some teach it or are studying to do so. Some have taken courses in the diverse curriculum offered at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation. Some attend public seminars and dramatic events at the Foundation occasionally; some often; some rarely. Some study in individual consultations, including by telephone from various parts of the country and abroad. Some studied Aesthetic Realism in the past. We’ve started this website because, even though dishonesty on the internet is frequent, we hate the lies about Aesthetic Realism and Eli Siegel that have been put www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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forth there. On the one hand, they’re so ridiculous they’re not worth commenting on at all. But on the other, we want to tell the true story. We want people to know what Aesthetic Realism really is and not be misled by an effort to hurt it, an effort by persons bent on revenge because they take the ethics of Aesthetic Realism as an affront to their egos. LEARN WHAT'S TRUE — Read statements by many individual men and women Read reviews from the NY Times, Smithsonian, Saturday Review, Library Journal, Harlem Times, Popular Photography, and more The lie about how Aesthetic Realism sees homosexuality On the effort to make trouble about homosexuality A Note on Aesthetic Realism Consultations; or, More Weirdness from an Attacker of Aesthetic Realism A letter by Ralph Hattersley, noted critic of photography...not only counters the lies, but is a means of showing something of their history and motivation. Read poetry by Eli Siegel so greatly respected by William Carlos Williams and many others Read lectures by Eli Siegel on subjects as diverse as literature, love, & economics About classes for Aesthetic Realism consultants and associates taught by Ellen Reiss Poetic criticism by Eli Siegel and Ellen Reiss Scribner's Magazine book reviews written by Eli Siegel

A Little Anthology of Comments (Some Funny We Hope) on Further Misrepresentations — including: 'If You Don't Want Such Persons to Exist, They Don't... ' 'When You Attack It, It Defends Itself! ' 'On the Pleasures and Advantages of Anonymity: An Ode'—which begins: Isn't being Anonymous wonderful? I can say anything ugly and dishonest I choose... >continued 'The Incredible Aesthetic Realism Deadlock...' 'A Public Service for Conceited Males...' — and more A Dramatic and Cautionary Tale about an Unknown and Very Unimportant Person 'There once was a young man of ancient Greece named Milos. And Milos knew Socrates. He did not like Socrates...'— continued www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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The individual statements will say more, too, about the motives behind the lies. But for now we’ll quote this from the Aesthetic Realism Foundation’s website, because we agree with it: “In the history of thought it has repeatedly happened that knowledge which brings new justice, accuracy, and beauty to the world has been met, not only with gratitude and love, but also with the resentment and anger of narrow, conceited people. So it was with the great work of persons as different as Galileo and Keats, Spinoza and Martin Luther King, and yes, Darwin. And so it has been too in the history of Aesthetic Realism.... Aesthetic Realism makes for tremendous respect for the world and people, and therefore someone who feels entitled to have contempt for everything can become angry with it. “Meanwhile, history shows this about Galileo, Keats, Spinoza, King: as years passed, those who opposed and denigrated them came to be seen as disgraceful and ignorant. So it will be in relation to Darwin, who, amazingly, is still under attack; and in relation to Aesthetic Realism. Aesthetic Realism is safe in history.” The Liars’ Purpose and Technique The purpose of the liars is to stop people from wanting to learn about Aesthetic Realism—from attending, say, a dramatic presentation about Shakespeare’s Othello at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, or a public seminar like the recent one titled “Classic Mistakes in Marriage & How Not to Make Them.” And their purpose is to have you feel that if you like Aesthetic Realism (as it is so beautifully easy to do) , if you have a high opinion of it (as a person with a careful mind will) , it’s because you’ve been somehow taken in. So they use the scare-word of our time: cult. Everybody knows that if you give people the idea something is a cult, they won’t come near it. The technique of the liars is: 1) they find out what characteristics a cult is supposed to have; 2) then they say Aesthetic Realism has them (though of course it doesn’t) . Also, since there are so-called “cult experts” who have a stake, including financial, in the existence of cults—if you tell one of them that Aesthetic Realism has those characteristics, he’ll then tell you, anyone you send to him, anyone who asks him, including a press person, that Aesthetic Realism is a cult. This kind of fakery is called in journalism “circular sourcing.” The lies on the web pages referred to go all the way from the pip that somehow Aesthetic Realism is against higher education (despite the fact that persons with graduate degrees, and persons who attend college, and college teachers study it!): to the disinformation about Eli Siegel’s death; to a repulsively false picture of what it means to study Aesthetic Realism—with a wide array of fabrications in between. Before we comment on them, we're going to quote ten statements by some eminent people, where Eli Siegel and his work are described truly. A True Description 1) There is William Carlos Williams, one of America’s most famous poets, who wrote this about Eli Siegel’s poem “Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana”: www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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“I say definitely that that single poem, out of a thousand others written in the past quarter century, secures our place in the cultural world.... We are compelled to pursue his lead. Everything we most are compelled to do is in that one poem.” Williams says that the way of seeing in Mr. Siegel’s poems makes for “great pleasure to the beholder, a deeper taking of the breath, a feeling of cleanliness, which is the sign of the truly new. The other side of the picture is the extreme resentment that a fixed, sclerotic mind feels confronting this new.” 2) There is Kenneth Rexroth, who wrote, for instance, in the New York Times Book Review: “It’s about time Eli Siegel was moved up into the ranks of our acknowledged Leading Poets.... His translations of Baudelaire and his commentaries on them rank him with the most understanding of the Baudelaire critics in any language.” 3) There is Martin O’Malley, former Mayor of Baltimore, now Governor of Maryland, who wrote of Eli Siegel in 2002: “His scholarship and historic comprehension are in his books, ... the classes he taught..., his thousands of lectures on the arts, sciences, and history.... This education he founded, enabling people to see the world and others with the respect and kindness they deserve, including people of different races and nationalities, is continued by... the faculty of the not-for-profit Aesthetic Realism Foundation.” 4)

There is Selden Rodman, who wrote in the Saturday Review about Mr. Siegel:

“He comes up with poems that say more (and more movingly) about here and now than any contemporary poems I have read.” 5) There is Hugh Kenner, who, in Poetry magazine, wrote that the literary criticism in Mr. Siegel’s book on Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw “reduces most previous discussion to willful evasiveness.” 6)

And art historian Meyer Schapiro, who wrote:

“I admire Eli Siegel as a true educator as well as a poet.” 7) And author Walter Leuba, who said so eloquently of Mr. Siegel as writer and person: “He travels into the common darknesses, where he sheds uncommon light.” 8) There is Donald Kirkley, writer for the Baltimore Sun, who knew Mr. Siegel as early as the 1920s. In this passage from a 1944 article, Kirkley is writing about Mr. Siegel at the time he won the Nation Poetry Prize, in 1925: “Baltimore friends close to him at the time will testify to a certain integrity and steadfastness of purpose that distinguished Mr. Siegel.... He refused to exploit a flood of publicity which was enough to float any man to financial comfort.... He took a job as www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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a newspaper columnist at a respectable salary, and quit it when he found that he would not be allowed to say what he wanted at all times.” 9)

There is Huntington Cairns, who was Secretary of the National Gallery, and said:

“I believe that Eli Siegel was a genius. He did for aesthetics what Spinoza did for ethics.” 10) And there is Elijah E. Cummings, who is Immediate Past Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and who, in his lengthy Congressional Tribute to Mr. Siegel, said: “Eli Siegel died in 1978, but his poetry and the education of Aesthetic Realism will be studied in every English, literature, and art classroom across the nation for years to come.... I am proud to offer this tribute.” [US Congressional Record, July 29,2002] So we begin. — Joseph Spetly, Richita Anderson, Arnold Perey, PhD, Nancy Huntting, Dan McClung, Pauline Meglino of the Steering Committee for Friends of Aesthetic Realism Also see the Aesthetic Realism Online Library • the Aesthetic Realism Foundation • Terrain Gallery • What scholars, writers, artists & teachers are saying • the Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company • & Links WILFRED JOHN

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Poetry-

WILFRED JOHN

Plato: *poetry is a product of emotions and born of divine inspiration; thus at odds with rationality. *poetry is the third remove from the Truth; poetry as imitation 1) our recollection of the form; 2) the made thing; 3) the artists rendition *poetry is not a skill (techne) which can be learned or from which we can learn Aristotle: *philosophy acts judiciously in relation to poets/poetry *poetry is a skill (techne) which can be learned with rules comprehensible by reason *poetry is imitation (mimesis) , but useful rather than destructive *poetry does appeal to the emotions; catharsis Nietzsche: *denunciation of Forms; the focus of the ancient quarrel is no longer a moral one, but one pertaining to human existence. *poetry/art as necessity *Apollonian/Dionysian “….a new language which in turn expresses the very inseparability of intellect and emotion. After all emotional experiences are expressed in intellectual correlatives, and the intellect interprets the emotional event! ”….Richard Exner.

“Here when the danger to his will is greatest, art approaches as a saving sorceress, expert at healing. She alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live” Nietzsche (Birth of Tragedy)

”The sphere of poetry does not lie outside the world of fantastic impossibility spawned by a poet’s brain: it desires just the opposite, the unvarnished expression of the truth…” Nietzsche (Birth of Tragedy)

“For a genuine poet, metaphor is not a rhetorical figure but a vicarious image that he beholds in place of a concept. A character is formed out of particular traits, picked up here and there, but an obstrusively alive person before his very eyes, distinguished from the other wise identical vision of a painter only by the fact that it continually goes on living and acting” Nietzsche (Birth of Tragedy) www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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1) Can we really separate intellect from emotion? 2) What is the benefit of isolating reason from emotion? What is the detriment? 3) Must something be articulated to be agreed that is learned? 4)

If poetry/art are not philosophical, then what are they?

WILFRED JOHN

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Poetry And Neo-Platonic Thought Katherine Philips: Friendship, Poetry and Neo-Platonic Thought in Seventeenth Century England Journal Article Excerpt Katherine Philips: Friendship, Poetry and Neo-Platonic Thought in Seventeenth Century England. By WILFRED JOHN In her book on English women's poetry from the execution of Charles I to the death of Queen Anne, Carol Barash argues convincingly for a politicized reading of Katherine Philips's verse, including the friendship poetry. Referring to the establishment of Philips's Society of Friendship and its relationship with contemporary politics, Barash writes that: [i]nitially, Philips's 'Society of Friendship' was part of a discourse about literary and political alliances during the interregnum. Women's friendship provided a model of political loyalty (friendship could, in this sense, transcend marriage) . At the same time, if we take its political implications seriously... women's friendship also poses explicit threats both to heterosexual marriage and to the very myth of political stability it initially figures. (1) Whilst it is easy to agree with the first aspect of Barash's argument, particularly that the Society was as much about the literary relationships between its members as their politics, to draw the conclusion that 'women's friendship' in this context is as subversive as Barash and others attest implies a misreading of the very literary contexts of Philips's coterie. (2) Indeed, in reading the friendship poems we should be aware that these texts formed not so much communications between individual women but rather 'verse essays' on the nature of friendship itself. (3) As such the poems must be viewed as part of a much larger discourse which existed before, during, and after the foundation of the Society. Although the precise nature of the Society of Friendship cannot be known outside Philips's writing and that of its members, what we can do is look at the way in which she and her coterie were viewed, both from within and outside its ranks, and place those views into the wider context of seventeenth century philosophical ideas about friendship. The fact that Philips's circle was part of a larger social idea surrounding the philosophy of friendship is seen in the breadth of literature on and amount of interest in friendship during the period. (4) That Philips actively engaged with this body of literature is testified to by the seventeenth century divine, Jeremy Taylor, who wrote a Discourse of the Nature, Offices and Measures of Friendship, with the Rules of conducting it. Written in answer to a Letter from the most ingenious and vertuous M.K.P. (1657) . From reading Taylor's text it is possible to try to piece together the contents of the 'ingenious and vertuous' Philips's letter. This is made surprisingly easy for us because of Taylor's style in taking each of Philips's questions point by point, presenting his views. © WJ [email protected] www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Poetry And Science -WILFRED JOHN Poetry and science Until recently there were two answers. We could distinguish the factual and practical (prose) from the personal and emotive (poetry) . And poetry was a branch of literature, a fine art, which existed for its own sake, without utilitarian purpose. But we express our feelings well enough in prose most of the time, and poetry can be impersonal and effective — even great poetry, e.g. Dante and Pope. And art that serves no practical purpose hardly pulls its weight in a modern society. Perhaps we should make literary realism an important aspect of cognition. The fine/applied art distinction, a Romantic notion, is side-stepped, and financial resources become available to improving art itself rather than to marketing an oversupplied product. Poetry loses its opposition to science, which in turn accepts the parts played by mind and social context. WILFRED JOHN POET AND FREELANCE JOURNALIST [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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Poetry as Experience Poetry as Experience The question of a lyric language that would not be the expression of subjectivity. In his analysis of the historical position of Paul Celan s poetry, Lacoue-Labarthe defines the subject as the principle that founds, organizes, and secures both cognition and action a principle that turned, most violently during the twentieth century, into a figure not only of domination but of the extermination of everything other than itself. This thoroughly universal, abstract, and finally suicidal subject eradicates all experience, save the singularity of this experience of voiding. But what is left, as Paul Celan insisted, is a remainder to the lyric voice alone: Singbarer Rest. Lacoue-Labarthe s detailed analyses of two decisive poems by Celan, T bingen, JSnner and Todtnauberg the one a response to Holderlin, the other to Heidegger and his sustained reading of The Meridian present Celan s verse of singularity as the movement at and beyond the border of generalizable experience, i.e., as an experience, a traversing of a dangerous field, in which language no longer dominates anything, but rather commemorates the voiding of concepts and the collapse of the constitutive powers of the subject. For Lacoue-Labarthe, poetry after the Shoah, the poetry of bared singularity, is no longer a poetry that would correspond to the concept of the subject or, for that matter, to the concept of poetry but is rather the language of the decept. Only by being disappointed of the heroic language of idealistic poetry, and of the mytho-ontological tendencies of philosophy, can Celan s poetry keep open the possibility of another history, another future. Synopsis Lacoue-Labarthe's 'Poetry as Experience' addresses the question of a lyric language that would not be the expression of subjectivity. In his analysis of the historical position of Paul Celan s poetry, Lacoue-Labarthe defines the subject as the principle that founds, organizes, and secures both cognition and action a principle that turned, most violently during the twentieth century, into a figure not only of domination but of the extermination of everything other than itself. This thoroughly universal, abstract, and finally suicidal subject eradicates all experience, save the singularity of this experience of voiding. But what is left, as Paul Celan insisted, is a remainder to the lyric voice alone: Singbarer Rest. Lacoue-Labarthe s detailed analyses of two decisive poems by Celan, T bingen, JSnner and Todtnauberg the one a response to Holderlin, the other to Heidegger and his sustained reading of The Meridian present Celan s verse of singularity as the movement at and beyond the border of generalizable experience, i.e., as an experience, a traversing of a dangerous field, in which language no longer dominates anything, but rather commemorates the voiding of concepts and the collapse of the constitutive powers of the subject. For Lacoue-Labarthe, poetry after the Shoah, the poetry of bared singularity, is no longer a poetry that would correspond to the concept of the subject or, for that matter, to the concept of poetry but is rather the language of the decept. Only by being disappointed of the heroic language of idealistic poetry, and of the mytho-ontological tendencies of philosophy, can Celan s poetry keep open the possibility of another history, another future. WILFRED JOHN

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Poetry Fits In With Their Preconceptions Publishing your poetry is easier if you understand the publishing process: who is looking for what, and where your efforts fit into the general scheme of things. Most literary magazines want poetry, but they want poetry of a type that fits in with their preconceptions as to what contemporary poetry is and should be doing. What those preconceptions are can be gauged by reading what is published, and by such policy statements as appear in the magazine or in directories of publishing outlets for poets. Sending a carefully-crafted sonnet to an avant garde magazine is a nonsense, and editors continually complain that two thirds of their time is wasted in reading material of the wrong style or content, wrong length, no covering letter addressed to them by name, no publishing history, no SAE for response, etc. Guidelines are given for a reason, and have to be read. Indeed the whole magazine should be read before submission. Literary magazines are usually labours of love, perilously short of funds and subsisting on grants, competition receipts and the personal generosity of friends. It helps to first send for a trial copy, to read it carefully, and at least take out a year's subscription if the submission is accepted. Editors feel their efforts are truly rewarded if each issue contains a few poems that are really good, and what they ask in publishing your poetry is the financial means to continue providing a platform for new work. There are still many magazines that have less worthy aims. Some dream of publishing only nationally famous poets, and assess each submission by name rather than by work. Unless well-known on the poetry circuit — and editors are very knowledgeable here — your poetry goes into a slush pile, to be picked over if space unexpectedly appears when selections have been made from submissions by big names and personal friends. Some Magazines accept practically everything, and follow up their flattering words of 'exceptional talent' etc. with offers of overpriced anthologies or conferences of 'selected poets'. Some magazines are the in-house journals of university English departments, and their young editors do not always have the reading and experience to tell the good from the merely fashionable. Remember also that the book trade can still be amateurish, especially in impoverished areas like poetry. Keep copies of everything sent. Allow a few months before sending the polite follow-up. Be systematic in submissions, making them one of the regular chores of writing. Treasure your successes, but don't expect all doors to open thereafter. Publishing your poetry takes time and patience, an immense quantity of both, but you will eventually see some pattern and reward. Publishing on the Internet There are now thousands of literary ezines on the Internet, many with excellent articles, bulletin boards and workshops where poems and writing matters are discussed and encouraged. Most accept submission by email, which is an enormous www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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boon for poets submitting from overseas: no more SAEs and International Reply Coupons. In general, publishing your poetry through these channels is no different from submission to the conventional magazine, and your efforts will be more favourable received if the guidelines are followed. A few words of praise don't go amiss, if perceptive and sincere: 'I admire the range of work you publish, and particularly liked so-and-so's poem in the last issue, which seemed to me...' etc. Editors are human, and like to feel their efforts are appreciated. Unfortunately, caveats apply also to the less scrupulous ezines. Ask around, and beware of expensive if 'handsomely produced' anthologies where your work will feature with other leading poets.' Everyone has to earn their daily bread, but featuring in these outlets will not help you later on, but quite the reverse. Bulletin Boards If you'd like feedback on your work, consider submitting to one or more of the 45 poetry bulletin boards listed by TextEtc. On the same page are listings for online workshops and critiquing services. Writing Groups Many publishing opportunities come through literary associations and networking. Your local poetry or writing group probably issues a yearly anthology, and you may find yourself on its steering committee. In fact you should take a full part in its activities, including the less pleasant tasks of maintaining the books and chasing up subscriptions. Poems read in local groups may not be critiqued in great depth, but the comments are usually genuine and helpful. The feedback can help you fix problems that magazine editors simply don't have the time to point out. Two final suggestions. Don't submit your collection to a prestigious publisher until you have built up a decent reputation in the better-known literary magazines. And take your time when publishing your poetry, submitting when you're fully satisfied that you cannot improve on the work. You'll find more information, and Internet references on WILFRED JOHN

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Poetry Is To The Ends Of Beauty? One must let the arguement take its course. One will say that Poetry is to the ends of beauty While Philosophy is to the ends of wisdom. These are fine conclusions. And then we must adress it on those termsWhich is superior the true, or the beautiful. Then when one states that philosophy Is the pursuit of wisdom and the most lofty, Venerable pursuit, it must be addressed in those terms. I allow the participants to define the Premises to an extent. WILFRED JOHN

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Poets And Philosophers Poets And Philosophers Poets Reading Philosophy Philosophers Reading Poetry To explore questions of method, aim, and substance relevant to both philosophical and poetic practice. We hope the conference will provide a constructive counterweight to a tradition that has often cast philosophy and poetry too simply as representing competing norms-of reasoned argument, generality, and objectivity on the one hand, and of expression, particularity, passion, and subjectivity on the other. To this end we have invited poets who count the philosophical tradition as an inspiration and whose work offers many routes into engagement with philosophers. The philosophical substance of poets’ work will be discussed, as well as such overarching concerns as relations between imagery and abstraction, the role of emotion and personal expression in philosophical inquiry, the role of imagination in reasoning, and conceptions of poetic and philosophical achievement. The conference programme will include poetry readings as well. [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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Poets Are Born Liars And Aren't Known For Worrying There's more of his autobiography in A Midsummer Night's Dream than in My mistress's eyes. And because I think he was inventing on every couplet, his sonnets strike me as essentially true. When the questions How much of this really happened? and How close is what the poet says happened to what really happened? don't have to be asked, then naturally their possible answers don't pop up to complicate your enjoyment of a poem. Poets are born liars and aren't known for worrying about getting their facts straight when a rhyme or a metaphor is at stake. The answers to those questions are almost certainly Not much and Not very and once the lies are on the table it's hard to care about the poetry. Back in Shakespeare's day it was assumed poets were making it up. Even when the circumstances of a poem seemed to match the circumstances of the poet's life the poem's audience wasn't expected to think that the speaker of the poem and the poet were the same person. Poets depended on readers making this distinction, particularly aristocratic readers with legal authority and whimsical ideas about freedom of the press, to keep themselves out of prison and away from the block. In our time, poets are reflexively autobiographical. If a poet writes a poem that sounds like a suicide note, the odds are good it is a suicide note, which is why Ted Hughes was racked with guilt over his wife's sticking her head in the oven until the day he died himself. But in defense of Hughes and everybody else who read Sylvia Plath's last poems and missed the obvious clues, like I said, even when they're not supposed to be making it up poets tend to make it up anyway. They can't help themselves. I don't trust autobiographies of any kind. They demand that we accept a preposterous premise-that the author remembers everything just the way they happened. Nobody remembers anything. They remember the last time they remembered something. Try to remember what you were like when you were five. You're making it up. You're remembering what you are like now only picturing yourself shorter. Louise Gluck is a good poet. I like this poem, Snow. Late December: my father and I are going to New York, to the circus. He holds me on his shoulders in the bitter wind: www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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scraps of white paper blow over the railroad ties. My father liked to stand like this, to hold me so he couldn't see me. I remember staring straight ahead into the world my father saw; I was learning to absorb its emptiness, the heavy snow not falling, whirling around us. But I only like it when I convince myself that she made it all up, that she made up this preternaturally insightful and resentful small child and the father the child thought didn't like to look at her or was too obtuse to know she needed to be looked at. Naturally, I'm on the father's side here. It's hard for me to imagine a non-acrophobic child who felt that riding on her father's shoulders was a form of punishment or a sign of neglect. When my boys were small enough to ride on my shoulders they did a great deal of their traveling up there. I'm pretty sure they liked it. They used to ask to be lifted up. I hope I wouldn't have put them up there if they hadn't enjoyed it, if it scared them or made them feel anxious or taken into custody in some way. I liked to do it because they liked it. But I also liked to do it because it made me feel strong and protective and in charge-made me feel like their father. And I liked to do it because often it was the quickest way to get from one place to another. It meant that I did not have to slow my pace to match theirs so they could keep up when I was in a hurry. They might have guessed that. I might have told them outright sometimes. Maybe there were times when they weren't in a hurry that they resented being lifted up and plopped on my shoulders, trapped up there and unable to touch or smell or chase the things three and four year olds need to touch, smell, and chase in order to get to know the world. Maybe they will write accusatory poems about it when they get old enough. I just don't believe Gluck thought what she portrays herself as thinking when she was riding on her father's shoulders. Those feelings aren't a child's. They're the feelings of a bitter and depressive adolescent who thinks she can lay the blame for her own temperament on her father's aloofness, on his unwillingness to let her see him, on his forcing her to face an emotional emptiness when she was barely more than a baby. She has made a metaphor out of a memory. Nothing wrong with that, poetically, artistically. If this was a scene from a short story or a movie it would be a wonderfully symbolic moment. But is it a scene from a fiction or a scene from Gluck's real life? If it's meant to be real, why should we trust that Gluck is remembering it correctly? Why should we trust that there was an actual moment like that for her to remember? www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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People routinely fill their mental attics with false memories. They unconsciously doctor the real memories that they do posses. And how good a self-analyst is she anyway? Why should be believe that her current gloom has a cause that reaches back to when she was a child and why should we just accept that she has correctly identified that cause? I like the poem better when I think that it's made up. When I suspect it's the truth-Gluck's version of the truth-it feels like a lie. I think that Gluck has a streak of perversity in her that allows her to 'remember' the past in ways that appeal to her vanity. I think she is vain about being gloomy and withdrawn, vain about being a person who responds to affection and emotional claims upon her by going cold and turning mean. I think she is nursing a grudge that has no cause but her own self-loathing. I think she is a female, poetic Dr House. You know why I think this? Because I have read other poems by her in which she presents herself as just this kind of person. She has a poem called Brown Circle that begins, My mother wants to know why, if I hate family so much, I went ahead and had one. I don't answer my mother. What I hated was being a child, having no choice about what people I loved. Once again Gluck is claiming that when she was a child she had feelings and insights into herself and the people around her that would have been remarkably precocious in a teenager and she is portraying herself vain about what a precociously bitter and perverse little girl she was and vain about her cold, stubborn, self-defensive self-centeredness now. But I don't really know if Gluck is writing about herself or about a person like herself. If she's expecting us to believe that this is the way she is, that this is what really happens, then her poems are a pack of lies. But if she's making it up, if her poems are fiction, then I believe she is telling us the truth about life. The poet and the juggler, a post-script brought on by some serendipitous afternoon reading. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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This is critic and essayist Clive James writing about W.C. Fields: Though he exaggerated his early deprivations when he told tales of his upbringing, Fields was certainly the man out of place, one of those people who are born exiles even if they never leave home. I read that and thought, That's Louise Gluck! Or that's how she presents herself as the speaker of her poems. A person out of place. A born exile. W.C. Fields and Louise Gluck? Kindred spirits? Not so far-fetched. In his essay, James makes the case the case that Fields was in his way a verbal and visual poet. He says of Fields, but could be talking about Gluck, just as well: For some reason such misfits seem to favour the notion of verbal economy, as if turning ordinary language into the kind of compressed code that unfolds into a wealth of meaning when you have the key. Could have come from an essay analyzing Gluck's poetry. This is the last poem in one of her books. It's called, as a sly joke, First Memory: Long ago I was wounded, I lived to revenge myself against my father, not for what he wasfor what I was: from the beginning of time, in childhood, I thought that pain meant I was not loved. It meant I loved. [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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POETS MUST FEEL THEIR POETRY IS GREAT I don't know about ego, but for me the best poem I have ever written is usually the one I have just finished The most trashy is the one before that. I think many poets must feel their poetry is great, Otherwise they'd have no confidence to send work out. I must admit there are journals which I read and think 'pah my work is much better' But then there are others that Make me feel totally insignificant. I know too that what i write is at Odds with much that is popular or Fashionable in the current poetry world WILFRED JOHN WILFRED JOHN

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Posing an alternate view of Poetry-WJ Posing an alternate view to high stakes educational models, the thoughts, opinions and practices of four poetry educators are used to provide critical insights as how to infuse creative outlets in the educational process. In gathering the motivations of these poetry educators, a goal of this project is to encapsulate their philosophies through researcher observation and participation. Engaging such work with social justice at the center creates a particular disposition. It can be subjective in the sense that an understanding of improvement requires an explicit commitment to the improvement of the lives of young people in education through a participatory process. WILFRED JOHN

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Post mMdernism Definitions ---WJ Postmodernism & Poetry Post modernism definitions and contemporary literary theory don't always make for easy or convincing reading, but good places to start are: B. Bergonzi's Exploding English: Criticism, Theory, Culture (1990) , C. Belsey's Critical Practice (1980) , W.V. Harris's Literary Meaning: Reclaiming the Study of Literature, J. Sturrock's Structuralism and Since: From Lévi-Strauss to Derrida (1984) , R. Seldon's The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism Vol 8 (1995) , and John Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. For the poetry try: A History of Modern Poetry Vol 2 (1987) by D. Perkins and Contemporary Poetry and Postmodernism: Dialogue and Estrangement (1996) by I. Gregson. Recent anthologies are Up Late: American Poetry Since 1970 by A. Codrescu (1990) and Postmodern American Poetry by P. Hoover (1994 WILFRED JOHN

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Postmodernist Poetry Is Not Poetry At All? Postmodernist techniques To many readers, Postmodernist poetry is not poetry at all, And they are not to be persuaded by Any post modernism definition. Yet its styles are simple and Indeed enjoy a distinguished ancestry. Cultivation of inward states of mind Is a Symbolist legacy. Imagery drawn from a contemporary, Sometimes tawdry urban, Setting derives from Modernism. Ezra Pound's Cantos replaced stanzas With rhythmic phrasing. William Carlos William's poems ('chopped up prose') Employed everyday language, Breaking lines arbitrarily for unusual effects. The Black Mountain School phrased their lines On a natural tendency to draw breath. Concrete poetry and experimental Llayouts go back to Apollinaire's Calligrammes. And so on: Postmodernism is perhaps Only a step towards a more Consumerist and proletarian view of the world. WILFRED JOHN

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POSTMODERNIST THEMES WJ Postmodernist Themes WILFRED JOHN As is shown more clearly in the visual arts, Postmodernism is iconoclastic, groundless, formless and populist. What does that mean? An introduction to John Ashbery and J.H. Prynne is given in PoetryMagic's Advanced section, but you'll need to consult the PoetryMagic Professional section for argued theory with references. Of course, you may prefer to simply read the poetry, which you'll find in the periodicals and newspapers listed under the Book News sidebox. Though classified simply as contemporary, you'll find many of the poems in Electronic Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets, Light and Dust Anthology or the magazines listed by PoetryKit and The PoetryMachine exhibit Postmodernist techniques, even if their content can be fairly traditional. [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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PRONOUNCED A SMILE One side therein a garden grew, Of petal soft and pleasant hue, Against which fence its stem did pose, To towering, bowering heights, a rose. Dawn's shadows upon its leaves assailing, Sun's rays through slats of white availing; Sitting in for moon pro temps, Dawn's early morning recompense. And as it happened, day by day, There paused a child, a girl, named May; And would pass her tiny hand within, To touch that rose of petals thin. Through rain inclement you'd find her there, In humid reflection and dampened hair, Clutching her books and caressing that rose, And be off all a'smiling though soaked to her toes. And thus did she in that rose's season, While within her breast most sacred reason Pronounced a smile, and off she strode, From home to school on that selfsame road. Then came most certain, when rouge wends grey, When fragrance but memory, and beauty passe', Our heroine, undaunted, took that rose from its nook, And sauntered off smiling, rose pressed in her book. Tonight by her board lies a simple covered tome, Neath lace draped windows, in a house she calls home; Her Mother-angel's picture and rose therein pressed, Neath angel's wings slumbers, her longing addressed. WILFRED JOHN

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Reading Jane Austen He stealthily felt his way down to Find out what was his body’s view of this constatation, but all was quiet there, as though he were calmly Reading Jane Austen. He was impotent with her every other night and, at weekends, in the mornings too… Sometimes, when the Tulls’ schedules conspired, he would be lazily impotent with her in the afternoon. Nor did the bedroom mark the boundary of their erotic play. In the last month alone, He had been impotent with her on the stairs, On the sofa in the sitting room and on the kitchen table. WILFRED JOHN

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REALISM -Even Photographic Detail Classicism Realism Romanticism BY WILFRED JOHN All deal with the outside world, but Realism shows the world as it is, Romanticism as the heart tells us it should be, and Classicism as it would be in some ideal but public incarnation. Contemporary literature, by contrast, is commonly a retreat into the writer's consciousness — to make autonomous creations that incorporate diverse aspects of modern life (Modernism) , or free-wheeling creations constructed of a language that largely points to itself (Postmodernism) . In varying degrees, REALISM or the realistic NATURALISM 1. faithfully represent life as it is: aims for a pleasing and convincing structure of reality presents a normal rather than intensified perceptions of reality emphasizes accurate, even photographic detail is objective: showing rather than telling mutes or removes the author's commentary reinforces the socially responsible view 2. reject idealizing conventions and formulae: apparently represents direct, unmediated experience avoids artifice, the visionary and theatrical returns to simpler, past conventions employs images in preference to symbols simplifies or reduces rhetorical devices avoids epic themes, exercises in the pastoral tradition, etc. 3. take subjects from contemporary life: Emphasizes the experienced commonplace deals with social/political issues of the day focuses on the regional or local scene 4. represent middle class attitudes: Focuses on character more than events or plot avoids the sensational: plausible events employs a natural, everyday diction promotes morality without overt moralizing 5. Refer to work of a particular period: examples: www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Late Augustan poetry socially committed poetry of the Auden generation 'kitchen sink' and contemporary styles magic realism Realistic Attitudes Though Realism would seem the easiest attitude to understand and maintain, it throws into relief many philosophic problems. How can words properly represent reality? Doesn't any representation, with its tacit codes and conventions, distort the true picture, perhaps replace it all together? Perhaps not entirely. The philosophic journey is a long and tangled one, from Kant's demonstration that reality is fundamentally unknowable, through nineteenth-century attempts at the absolute, to today's fundamental divide between those who work at ad-hoc solutions (theories of meaning) and those who believe the unconscious (Lacan) or language wholly isolates us (Derrida) . Poets are not philosophers, but the differing outlooks still divide poetry world into antagonistic and mutually uncomprehending movements. Amateur poetry generally follows a watered-down Romanticism. Poetry in mainstream publications adopts a Modernist approach. Postmodernist poetry plays with with the 'insight' of Derrida and critical theory. And whereas popular and mainstream poetry usually has a large dash of realism, Postmodernist poetry typically does not — or, more exactly, its poetry does not lie in any accurate representation of the world. Hence the incomprehension, if not downright hostility, with which many readers greet contemporary poetry. They are unimpressed by the clever games with language, and are bored by a haphazard portrayal of plain life. They expect some aspects of Classicism: sense, shaping, beauty. They expect Romanticism's sense of the unfathomable, one that will clear the wellsprings of their emotional lives. And these expectations expose the shortcomings of Realism. As a corrective to poetry's tendency to inbreed and create its own conventions, Realism plays a vital part, widening its remit and making it more relevant to its common readers. But the attitude alone cannot create poetry, since poetry is an art form governed by aesthetic requirements. Indeed, at least till recently, poetry with the more realistic subject matter has generally felt the need to balance that freedom by increased attention to form. Representatives Realism is strongly marked in these poems. Though not necessarily the writers Geoffrey Chaucer: The Miller's Tale William Shakespeare: My Mistress's Eyes Jonathan Swift: A Description of the Morning George Crabbe: Peter Grimes Robert Browning: Porphyria's Lover John Drinkwater: The Carver in Stone Thomas Hardy: Friends Beyond Rudyard Kipling: Danny Deaver www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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References and Internet Resources 1. Realism. Michael Winkler. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Princeton Univ. Press,1993) ,1016-7. A European perspective. 2. Realism. http: //www.artlex.com/ArtLex/r/realism.html. Brief Artex entry illustrated with examples of 19th and 20th century painting. 3. Realism. http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism. Wikepedia article outlining varied uses of the term. 4. Artists by Movement: Social Realism. http: //www.artcyclopedia.com/history/social-realism.html. Short Art Cyclopedia entry relating to '30s America. 5. Realism in American Literature,1860-1890. Donna M. Campbell. May 2004. http: //guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/realism.htm. Useful and detailed article. 6. Late Nineteenth Century: American Realism - A Brief Introduction. Paul P. Reuben. Sep 2003. http: //www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap5/5intro.html. Extended treatment: part of the Perspectives on American Literature series. 7. Realism and the Realist Novel. C. Keep, T. McLaughlin and R. Parmar.2000. http: //www.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0254.html. Realism brought up to date. 8. The History and Theory of Magical Realism. Jeb Barnett. Jan.2001. http: //www.southern.ohiou.edu/realmagic/JebB1.html. Good number of articles and references. 9. Nominalism, Realism, Conceptualism. M. de Wulf.2004. http: //www.newadvent.org/cathen/11090c.htm. Readable introduction in the Catholic Encyclopedia. 10. Realism. Alexander Miller. Jul.2002. http: //plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism/. Detailed Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry. 11. Semantic Challenges to Realism. Drew Khlentzos. Jan.2001. http: //plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism-sem-challenge/. Good overview in this Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry. 12. Geoffrey Chaucer. The Miller's Tale. http: //www.librarius.com/cantales.htm. Full text of The Canterbury Tales online. 13. William Shakespeare. Sonnet 130. http: //www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/ Excellent collection online. 14. Jonathan Swift. A Description of the Morning. Jonathan Swift. http: //eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poet318.html. Short biography and 9 poems online. 15. George Crabbe. Peter Grimes. http: //eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poet80.html. Two (longish) poems online. 16. Robert Browning. Porphyria's Lover. http: //www.bartleby.com/people/BrowningR.html. Short biography, articles and anthologized verse. 17. John Drinkwater. The Carver in Stone. http: //www.theotherpages.org/poems/gp2_4a.html#window. Site is an excellent source for less-fashionable poems. 18. Thomas Hardy. Friends Beyond. http: //www.bartleby.com/121/. Wessex Poems & Other Verses online. 19. (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling. Danny Deaver. [email protected] www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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REALISM IN POETRY IS AN AESTHETIC ATTITUDE REALISM IN POETRY Introduction Realism is an aesthetic attitude stressing the truthful treatment of material, the normal and everyday, life as it truly is. {1} {2} {3} {4} {5} {6} {7} {8} Terms overlap, but to repeat a simplification: Classicism, Realism and Romanticism all deal with the outside world, but Realism shows the world as it is, Romanticism as the heart tells us it should be, and Classicism as it would be in some ideal but public incarnation. Contemporary literature, by contrast, is commonly a retreat into the writer's consciousness — to make autonomous creations that incorporate diverse aspects of modern life (Modernism) , or free-wheeling creations constructed of a language that largely points to itself (Postmodernism) . Features In varying degrees, Realism or the realistic (and sometimes Naturalism) has these aims: {1} {5} {8} 1. faithfully represent life as it is: aims for a pleasing and convincing structure of reality presents a normal rather than intensified perceptions of reality emphasizes accurate, even photographic detail is objective: showing rather than telling mutes or removes the author's commentary reinforces the socially responsible view 2. reject idealizing conventions and formulae: apparently represents direct, unmediated experience avoids artifice, the visionary and theatrical returns to simpler, past conventions employs images in preference to symbols simplifies or reduces rhetorical devices avoids epic themes, exercises in the pastoral tradition, etc. 3. take subjects from contemporary life: emphasizes the experienced commonplace deals with social/political issues of the day focuses on the regional or local scene 4. represent middle class attitudes: focuses on character more than events or plot avoids the sensational: plausible events employs a natural, everyday diction promotes morality without overt moralizing 5. refer to work of a particular period: examples: www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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late Augustan poetry socially committed poetry of the Auden generation 'kitchen sink' and contemporary styles magic realism Realistic Attitudes Though Realism would seem the easiest attitude to understand and maintain, it throws into relief many philosophic problems. How can words properly represent reality? {9} {10} Doesn't any representation, with its tacit codes and conventions, distort the true picture, perhaps replace it all together? {11} Perhaps not entirely. The philosophic journey is a long and tangled one, from Kant's demonstration that reality is fundamentally unknowable, through nineteenth-century attempts at the absolute, to today's fundamental divide between those who work at ad-hoc solutions (theories of meaning) and those who believe the unconscious (Lacan) or language wholly isolates us (Derrida) . Poets are not philosophers, but the differing outlooks still divide poetry world into antagonistic and mutually uncomprehending movements. Amateur poetry generally follows a watered-down Romanticism. Poetry in mainstream publications adopts a Modernist approach. Postmodernist poetry plays with with the 'insight' of Derrida and critical theory. And whereas popular and mainstream poetry usually has a large dash of realism, Postmodernist poetry typically does not — or, more exactly, its poetry does not lie in any accurate representation of the world. Hence the incomprehension, if not downright hostility, with which many readers greet contemporary poetry. They are unimpressed by the clever games with language, and are bored by a haphazard portrayal of plain life. They expect some aspects of Classicism: sense, shaping, beauty. They expect Romanticism's sense of the unfathomable, one that will clear the wellsprings of their emotional lives. And these expectations expose the shortcomings of Realism. As a corrective to poetry's tendency to inbreed and create its own conventions, Realism plays a vital part, widening its remit and making it more relevant to its common readers. But the attitude alone cannot create poetry, since poetry is an art form governed by aesthetic requirements. Indeed, at least till recently, poetry with the more realistic subject matter has generally felt the need to balance that freedom by increased attention to form. Representatives Realism is strongly marked in these poems (though not necessarily the writers) : Geoffrey Chaucer: The Miller's Tale {12} William Shakespeare: My Mistress's Eyes {13} Jonathan Swift: A Description of the Morning {14} George Crabbe: Peter Grimes {15} Robert Browning: Porphyria's Lover {16} John Drinkwater: The Carver in Stone {17} Thomas Hardy: Friends Beyond {18} Rudyard Kipling: Danny Deaver {19} References and Internet Resources 1. Realism. Michael Winkler. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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(Princeton Univ. Press,1993) ,1016-7. A European perspective. 2. Realism. http: //www.artlex.com/ArtLex/r/realism.html. Brief Artex entry illustrated with examples of 19th and 20th century painting. 3. Realism. http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism. Wikepedia article outlining varied uses of the term. 4. Artists by Movement: Social Realism. http: //www.artcyclopedia.com/history/social-realism.html. Short Art Cyclopedia entry relating to '30s America. 5. Realism in American Literature,1860-1890. Donna M. Campbell. May 2004. http: //guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/realism.htm. Useful and detailed article. 6. Late Nineteenth Century: American Realism - A Brief Introduction. Paul P. Reuben. Sep 2003. http: //www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap5/5intro.html. Extended treatment: part of the Perspectives on American Literature series. 7. Realism and the Realist Novel. C. Keep, T. McLaughlin and R. Parmar.2000. http: //www.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0254.html. Realism brought up to date. 8. The History and Theory of Magical Realism. Jeb Barnett. Jan.2001. http: //www.southern.ohiou.edu/realmagic/JebB1.html. Good number of articles and references. 9. Nominalism, Realism, Conceptualism. M. de Wulf.2004. http: //www.newadvent.org/cathen/11090c.htm. Readable introduction in the Catholic Encyclopedia. 10. Realism. Alexander Miller. Jul.2002. http: //plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism/. Detailed Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry. 11. Semantic Challenges to Realism. Drew Khlentzos. Jan.2001. http: //plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism-sem-challenge/. Good overview in this Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry. 12. Geoffrey Chaucer. The Miller's Tale. http: //www.librarius.com/cantales.htm. Full text of The Canterbury Tales online. 13. William Shakespeare. Sonnet 130. http: //www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/ Excellent collection online. 14. Jonathan Swift. A Description of the Morning. Jonathan Swift. http: //eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poet318.html. Short biography and 9 poems online. 15. George Crabbe. Peter Grimes. http: //eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poet80.html. Two (longish) poems online. 16. Robert Browning. Porphyria's Lover. http: //www.bartleby.com/people/BrowningR.html. Short biography, articles and anthologized verse. 17. John Drinkwater. The Carver in Stone. http: //www.theotherpages.org/poems/gp2_4a.html#window. Site is an excellent source for less-fashionable poems. 18. Thomas Hardy. Friends Beyond. http: //www.bartleby.com/121/. Wessex Poems & Other Verses online. 19. (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling. Danny Deaver. http: //www.theotherpages.org/poems/poem-kl.html#kipling. Good selection of verse.

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RIPPLES COME IN MANY WAYS FROM From the stone skipped on the water Ripples eminate beyond From the bouquet, gladly given Ripples, yes, and common bond In the storm-tossed voyage onward Breaking waves on bow and shore Consequence of stones and roses Ripples of our lives and more Words that seem so clear and certain Scandalize with angry splash Unconsidered when first written Sullied page screams truth as trash. Some with unprotected beaches Disappear beneath the wave When the tide of dreams mis-spoken Steals the land; leaves naught to save. But the shoreline girded rocky Takes the angry ripples well Insight or blight, waters amble Equally to breaking swell. Ripples come in many ways from Love and spite and joy and pain, Shaping who we are, exchanging What we lose for what we gain. In the quest for life’s safe harbor Fortress-building on the shore, Come the waves from hearts in motion: Ripples of our lives and more. WILFRED JOHN

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Robert Frost - The Egg and the Machine

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He gave the solid rail a hateful kick. From far away there came an answering tick And then another tick. He knew the code: His hate had roused an engine up the road. He wished when he had had the track alone He had attacked it with a club or stone And bent some rail wide open like switch So as to wreck the engine in the ditch. Too late though, now, he had himself to thank. Its click was rising to a nearer clank. Here it came breasting like a horse in skirts. (He stood well back for fear of scalding squirts.) Then for a moment all there was was size Confusion and a roar that drowned the cries He raised against the gods in the machine. Then once again the sandbank lay serene. The traveler's eye picked up a turtle train, between the dotted feet a streak of tail, And followed it to where he made out vague But certain signs of buried turtle's egg; And probing with one finger not too rough, He found suspicious sand, and sure enough, The pocket of a little turtle mine. If there was one egg in it there were nine, Torpedo-like, with shell of gritty leather All packed in sand to wait the trump together. 'You'd better not disturb any more, ' He told the distance, 'I am armed for war. The next machine that has the power to pass Will get this plasm in it goggle glass.' WILFRED JOHN

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Robert Frost (1874-1963) Robert Frost (1874-1963) Poet. Born 1874; died 1963. Active 1894-1963 in USA, North America WILFRED JOHN Robert Frost’s poetry has the rare distinction of being both popular and profound. Recognized as one of the United States’ great poets, his work’s impact has traveled far from home. In 1996, more than thirty years after his death no less than three Nobel Laureates – the Russian poet, Joseph Brodsky, the Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, and the Caribbean poet, Derek Walcott – jointly published an homage to Frost’s influence, a tribute to a poet they believe belongs to the world tradition of great literature. That book-length homage is but one of a long list of honors accorded to the poet. Already in the 1920s, he was acknowledged as one of the country’s most important poets. By then, his work had been chosen as a selection of The Book of the Month Club (the only poet ever granted that distinction) , and it regularly sold in mass marketed editions. Altogether, Frost published regularly from 1913 to 1962. Along the way, he received four Pulitzer Prizes (the most given to any writer) , and by the end of his life he had received so many honorary degrees (including honorary degrees from Oxford, Harvard, and Yale) that someone eventually stitched his many academic robes together into a quilt. Frost, however, kept it in a closet. Of all the many honors accorded to the poet, by far the most important, with regard to his influence and significance, was the request by President John F. Kennedy that he read a poem at the 1963 inauguration. In so doing, Frost became the first poet ever to read at an American inauguration, an event that symbolizes both his work’s high seriousness and its broad appeal. One explanation for such appeal was the fundamentally new approach to poetry he offered. Reading a Frost poem, one does not find oneself overwhelmed with difficulty in the manner of work by his contemporaries: Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and T.S. Eliot. Unlike them, Frost’s work weaves intricate allusions to science, literature, philosophy and art into patterned rhymes; also, his work adheres to the metrical tradition. On the one hand, then, to read his work is to come across apparently simple tales of rural life written in the plain-spoken language of everyday speech. On the other hand, a close reading of that same work reveals the subtle and complex allusions, as well as an enormous facility and clever play with both the rhyming and metrical traditions of English verse. In his work, Frost incorporates both the intricate play of thought, an intellectual fireworks typical of modernist poetry in general, as well as a seemingly simple story about everyday people often inhabitants of rural New England towns. Ever since the poet Randall Jarrell found in Frost’s work a dark and mysterious, even haunting poetics, readers have been surprised to learn that Frost rarely offers anything like a complete vision of the universe, or even a fully formed poetic world. WJ WILFRED JOHN POET JOURNALIST WRITER www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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[email protected] All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors. To read about membership, please click here. First published 13 December 2004 WILFRED JOHN

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Robert Lee Frost And Philosophical Dimensions Robert Lee Frost Was one of America's leading 20th-century poets and a four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. An essentially pastoral poet often associated with rural New England, Frost wrote poems whose philosophical dimensions transcend any region. Although his verse forms are traditional - he often said, in a dig at arch rival Carl Sandburg, that he would as soon play tennis without a net as write free verse - he was a pioneer in the interplay of rhythm and meter and in the poetic use of the vocabulary and inflections of everyday speech. His poetry is thus both traditional and experimental, regional and universal. After his father's death in 1885, when young Frost was 11, the family left California and settled in Massachusetts. Frost attended high school in that state, entered Dartmouth College, but remained less than one semester. Returning to Massachusetts, he taught school and worked in a mill and as a newspaper reporter. In 1894 he sold 'My Butterfly: An Elegy' to The Independent, a New York literary journal. A year later he married Elinor White, with whom he had shared valedictorian honors at Lawrence (Mass.) High School. From 1897 to 1899 he attended Harvard College as a special student but left without a degree. Over the next ten years he wrote (but rarely published) poems, operated a farm in Derry, New Hampshire (purchased for him by his paternal grandfather) , and supplemented his income by teaching at Derry's Pinkerton Academy. In 1912, at the age of 38, he sold the farm and used the proceeds to take his family to England, where he could devote himself entirely to writing. His efforts to establish himself and his work were almost immediately successful. A Boy's Will was accepted by a London publisher and brought out in 1913, followed a year later by North of Boston. Favorable reviews on both sides of the Atlantic resulted in American publication of the books by Henry Holt and Company, Frost's primary American publisher, and in the establishing of Frost's transatlantic reputation. As part of his determined efforts on his own behalf, Frost had called on several prominent literary figures soon after his arrival in England. One of these was Ezra Pound, who wrote the first American review of Frost's verse for Harriet Munroe's Poetry magazine. (Though he disliked Pound, Frost was later instrumental in obtaining Pound's release from long confinement in a Washington, D.C., mental hospital.) Frost was more favorably impressed and more lastingly influenced by the so-called Georgian poets Lascelles Abercrombie, Rupert Brooke, and T. E. Hulme, whose rural subjects and style were more in keeping with his own. While living near the Georgians in Gloucestershire, Frost became especially close to a brooding Welshman named Edward Thomas, whom he urged to turn from prose to poetry. Thomas did so, dedicating his first and only volume of verse to Frost before his death in World War I. The Frosts sailed for the United States in February 1915 and landed in New York City two days after the U.S. publication of North of Boston (the first of his books to be published in America) . Sales of that book and of A Boy's Will enabled Frost to buy a farm in Franconia, N.H.; to place new poems in literary periodicals and publish a third book, Mountain Interval (1916): and to embark on a long career of writing, teaching, and lecturing. In 1924 he received a Pulitzer Prize in poetry for New Hampshire (1923) . He was lauded again for Collected Poems (1930) , A Further Range (1936) and A Witness Tree (1942) . Over the years he received an unprecedented number and range of literary, academic, and public honors. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Frost's importance as a poet derives from the power and memorability of particular poems. The Death of the Hired Man (from North of Boston) combines lyric and dramatic poetry in blank verse. After Apple-Picking (from the same volume) is a free-verse dream poem with philosophical undertones. Mending Wall (also published in North of Boston) demonstrates Frost's simultaneous command of lyrical verse, dramatic conversation, and ironic commentary. The Road Not Taken, Birches (from Mountain Interval) and the oft-studied Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (from New Hampshire) exemplify Frost's ability to join the pastoral and philosophical modes in lyrics of unforgettable beauty. The poetic and political conservatism of Frost caused him to lose favour with some literary critics, but his reputation as a major poet is secure. He unquestionably succeeded in realizing his life's ambition: to write 'a few poems it will be hard to get rid of.' Biography by: Biography written by The Academic American Encyclopedia, © 1995 Grolier Electronic Publishing. Compiled and hyperlinked by Gunnar Bengtsson,2000. WILFRED JOHN

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Science Fiction vs Reality Science Fiction vs Reality Sites like technovelgy that farm old scifi texts for evidence of imaginative foresights that become reality are pretty cool, but memristors may take the recent award for what apparently may be a relatively close future for artificial intelligence stuff, ala bladerunner and almost every other kind of quasi-sentient AI. Now thats cool. WILFRED JOHN

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Science of poetry-wj science poetry Waste of Time? Ok, being one of those condemned to live with an old degree in English Literature, (not Olde Englishe Literatoor) , I spend most of my time running from the fact. But a friend recently sent me her essay on Science Fiction and Poetry to proofread, and got me cranking the old wheels again. I was aware of the Rhysling Anthology, an arm of the dedicated folks at sfpoetry, but outside of that, I was under the impression Science Fiction and Poetry were like Oil and Water. So I took it upon myself to plod through the dregs of the internet and find a couple combinations of science fiction and poetry that could be seen as at least palatable, if not tolerable. And what did I find? Theres some interesting Science Fiction Poetry out there, but its not being listed under Science Fiction Poetry. First off, and bringing the women to the front, was Karen Solie. The two collections I looked at were Modern and Normal and Short Haul Engine. And they kicked skater.... Biology, math, physics, and blood. Modern and Normal was by far my fave. This interview gives some good gory details. Especially Invariants. Second, Ache Outre, whom I couldnt find out much about aside from coming up under Science Fiction Poetry on Amazon. Quebecian, wherever that is. He has one volume out called Songs of the Purple Fungus, and there were some good ones in there. Not as truthful sounding as Solies, more mechanical, but in some ways much stranger. Ok: bizarro moment, Ive read intros to books before, but this one has an intro by A.J. Specktowsky about a coming science fiction type technocracy poetry apocalypse? Heavy textual analysis for a poetry book. I particularly enjoyed Guy Lives in a Pool, and Frankly... lost robot poems. Cool. Aside from these two Canadians, the other science fiction poets I found out there were either way too weird or formulaic, boring, or plain old cheese ball. Next month Im going to look deeper into this interesting fondue. Overall, it appears that, when it comes to Science Fiction and Poetry, Canada dominates the world. I, for one, welcome our new overlords. Posted by Wilfred John freelancewriter and poet Post a Comment [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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Seducing Me Wth Your Suicidal Kisses doomed soul died A doomed soul was gone Then you came closer touching me kissing me drenched in blood a body lay breathless on the floor A desperate cry Came from inside But your animal instinct craved for more, Again you brutalized my body Seducing me with your suicidal kisses forcing me to ask for more, But today... a doomed soul died, a doomed soul was gone tortured, used, abused to kill solitude that killed us all. WILFRED JOHN

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She Flows Gracefully Through The Door She flows gracefully through the door back to see the doctor once more her third and last this week, we hope arms full of holes, from needle pokes A ritual learned well by now endures so much, I don't know how hospital halls, we've walked them thin NICU, admitted again You see, they say, her brain's awry must stop the seizures, before she dies the medicines, been through them all so far none work, we hit a wall Diets, surgeries, all have failed the cure for her, remains unveiled but to give up or to relent we will not do, we will lament Until a cure, her brain made right no more seizures or hellish nights to live a life, as you or me for her to be, seizure free. I dedicate this poem to my beautiful daughter WILFRED JOHN

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She Is Charming She! She gives a kiss to anyone’s offered hand Her teeth are like ships are in a bliss when at last in fog they spot the land To her the Moon is Sun then she repents about all she wished and might and tears actors with claws out of fun red as blood is her ruff white This is cat, or lion is it not? snow is now her howl! her fur’s rotting as a float inside eye of sleeping owl No, she asks not for a wise advice tables with her jump she pushes with her nostrils full of rice in alcohol just like fishes And company of the cats is one she appreciates or for it she’s only prone veins to stones with fornication she recreates to observe from her new throne Around island of the poppy bud trace of innocent powder chasing there her flag gets wet of blood – then she swallows it like icing! Of her own place she is fearing – for her the spot may be a well known ilk peacock’s army she’s breast-feeding with the eyes as soft as silk In theatre she’s stiffening the bleeding in nose in hospital she’s projecting she’s dear universally – more, or less, who knows? Soot of walls is raving they love her the least to them means nothing – she is charming nor her naked paws released But only by dream they’re trotting butlers, they are good dogs piously at stars they’re looking saying: it’s served, tea and togs Blood-stained is already tie – damn this bows white nonetheless www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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teeth – still they are dry hoofs crushing the doors nevertheless Blood is her new child and true hamlet now it is white-faced and it is mild doesn’t saying what wishes and how With no introduction to good manners book makes her nature wet, this heir by the light of lampions took in her black and painful hair Why everywhere is like sludge? she did play with her a lot but her ruby grief could judge and dig her the grave at spot Like wasp angry all she keeps in mind and knows all gulps from the babyhood in hand of hers trembles, glows gift of her late motherhood And although to blood her name she owes mother is she gentle, pure in her bosom everyone to her flows but only to some, the stick shines for sure... So large is the sea that it even falls as well in soup spoons astonished burning free... – Applause for the stupid mob in loop Ooze is everywhere, slippery is all shown it seems to be so for the old cat free of glove but the gifted one – with the youth alight is she glad of crises of her own? or with foot of mountain she’s in love? ... on gutter-pipe she stands with delight (Weird as well as sliding that rug is red and nice and while to hell it’s closest seems to all as paradise) WILFRED JOHN

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SHE RECOLLECTS THE SMILES Looking into the windows She sinks faster and faster Constantly falling deeper Trying to cling to something stable. To stop the endless free fall She recollects the smiles and embraces And stops fighting the urge To cascade downward. The descent becomes all she can think of She is free and becomes Absorbed in the sensation All of a sudden she slows And floats weightlessly into the air. She is basked in light and warmth And the sun awakens unto a new day. And her smile brightens the world a Little more with moment it stays. WILFRED JOHN WILFRED JOHN

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She was sSill Beautiful He didn’t sleep much himself, but he’d married a woman who did. He loved that. It had always been good. He still looked at her while she slept. She was still beautiful WILFRED JOHN

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SINCE NOW WE DO NOT LIVE ALONE Our paths have Crossed long time ago For I recall and this I know. I was your wife You sculptured stone. A marble villa was our home But time moves On and bodies die.beneath The ground these bodies lie Then from the body we arise To live again in other lives

Through many lives We may forget The many times that we have met But we're eternal and live on To meet again another dawn

Feelings that exist this strong Through time and space continue on. This explains the reasons why It's hard to meet, then say goodbye. Since now we do not live alone Be yours in marble home. But closeness felt should not just end For I will always be your friend. 1980 WILFRED JOHN

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Smile And the World Smiles With You. Your eyes speak volumes of a big shot Who is bestowed with a heart of gold Giving of herself with love Never asking anything in return. Leaving you with nothing but Beautifully etched mem So no one told you life Was going to be this way It's like you're always stuck on second gear. When it hasn't been your day Your week your month. Still in bed at ten Your work began at eight You burned your breakfasts so far Things are going great. It's like you're always stuck on second gear.

Smile. Because to smile is to be ''happy''. Flexing those muscles near both ends of the mouth, Stretching from the listening ear to the Listening ear to the listening ear. Be happy. The perfect concealment for pain and grief, For aguish and regression, For that which others never actually Understand yet always know best. Smile and the world smiles with you. The perfect, prim, pristine definition, of pretending. For the real definition is one that contradicts, As it means to smile AT the world, And to pretend to the world that you are ABSOLUTELY ok. To be wrapped in a smile... Is to be laminated in a very truthful lie. WILFRED JOHN

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SOFTLY THEN LOUDER AT THE TOP OF HERVOICE The first leaf falling far related to the grave As a system of myriad rays including A quadrant of the moon to clear thousands With a retinue of no idea what the hell. She was flappers of its bareness not Twisted into designs as dancing easterly Winds at this altitude generally carry The clouds sensible discerning never. Very sanguine save at hiding places She had dug throughout the house Once locked herself in the pantry At particular times of year if certain Lunar phases are visible the dark Portion of the switchboard pulled out Shiny black pegs through a hole in Shell plating it did not matter when sparks On the measuring apparatus as sitting On an orange crate if harbour fog Approaches and singing at first Softly then louder at the top of her voice. WILFRED JOHN

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SOME OF MY FEELINGS WERE COMING OUT Have you ever wanted to travel back in time I don’t want to go back to change what has been done, I want to go back to relive in that moment before Everything became so complex. It’s summer now, it was spring when this all began. It would seem that with the change of the Season comes a change of my heart. I wish to never go back to the way I was but I was not to be what I am headed straight for. Her touch was like an iron against my skin. Kiss was awkward, it was strange and tasteless, and yet so bitter like a bitter apple from a sweet pear tree. I had no time to react. I later found that I was just a quick harbour from the storm. With every passing second momentum gained. With every moan, scratch, And bead of sweat my heart started to show through. Sex was becoming more than just a pleasure full act, Some of my feelings were coming out. Every sweaty curve of my frame. I wanted to be needed, and all I felt was used. WILFRED JOHN

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Some Problems Of Imagination

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Imagination: some problems So what are creative writing classes, in school and later, attempting to achieve by stimulating the literary imagination? Can close reading, which detaches poetry from contemporary events, really demonstrate an imaginative unity? What do we say to our latter-day Dadaists, the Postmodernists, who see imaginative power as rooted in language itself and not in any supposed author's intentions? How do we explain the imaginative flowering of the arts that so often marks the onset or heady first years of social revolution? Or reply to the anti-capitalists, who see the economics of global exploitation as a failure in social imagination? On answers to these questions depends our view of poetry, its aims and challenges. WILFRED JOHN

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Something Else Should Die Something Else Should Die A Poem with Rhymes In April 1865 Abraham Lincoln died. In April 1968 Martin Luther King died. Their purpose was to have us say, some day: Injustice died. The purpose of art and of politics, in the long run, can be described as the same: the defeat of ugliness. Ugliness is the failure of a good general meaning or possibility of the world to be the same as the attitude, the motion, the intent, the doing of an individual or individuals. John Wilkes Booth seemed to override the intent of America with his intent: the killing of Lincoln made for a while an ugly individual attitude supreme. It was so with the killing of Martin Luther King. Is it not felt by the contemporaries of John Wilkes Booth and by the contemporaries of the unascertained killer of Martin Luther King that these killers are ugly? Ugliness is interference with beauty as large by the narrow which, for the while, is stronger. Injustice will die only when an individual no longer can feel that individuality is more served by injustice than by justice; by ugliness rather than non-ugliness. Certainly the lessening of injustice looks good-as a tree does or a paragraph may. WILFRED JOHN

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STANDING BEYOND OBSCURITIES Appreciate at each step that carries me forward A stand that holds me keeping me walking Despite the uncertainties with all my trembling You see me standing so I learn that my feet Keeps me walking Standing beyond obscurities I stand and take steps forward Today, Im all appreciating for the feet that keeps me standing, I Crossed many miles because my feet keeps me walking.. Be tender to your feet, care for them immensely, As they are the one that keeps you standing. WJ WILFRED JOHN

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Standing on the Observation Deck surrounded by a cloud of velvet softness sounds heard dimly as if the hooves were wrapped in cotton muffled footsteps echo slowly, brite sprites of light star the sky red, blue, green at random, to stir the white and gold a cyclone of fairy dust a question mark makes. The edge draws one closer, peering over the vastness, void, stretching out to the unknown far and wide from where we all come to linger and dream the edge of a time forgotten remembered deje vu for some, rebirth for some, dawning of age, a new beginning for some, or refounding of old, totally brand new and amazing, the wealth of the future broad based history, the majik of the technology floats freely a web unseen, continents drifting closer and closer, people from eons of time meet together, and exchange thoughts, wishes and dreams. Poetry becomes a language the land invokes a spirit of feeling words, thoughts are translated into languages of letters and punctuation symbols are created, communicate emotions, we *are* really here, a truer self in dreamscape, speaking feelings freely, sharing souls long hidden voice, burdens of external trappings, fears, constraining inhibitions all were lost at sea transversed by Argo, most times for good, but at times evil, worlds growing pains felt round. Legends are forming in the spaces we create and populate with our beings time stands still in this world, night and day exist in locales, night here, day there, in our worlds as well, day here, night there, the land is a collage of seasons, snow, garden, green and growing, sun, blasted heath, surrounded by a cloud of velvet softness sounds heard dimly as if the hooves were wrapped in cotton muffled footsteps echo slowly, Unicorns roam free WILFRED JOHN

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Underneath them a feeling of fear and of dread. Masters of all the sky and the weather, Under no bound of harness or tether. And behold the mightiest thunder, Over the ground they pillage and plunder. Never relenting to sun or to moon, Incising the world in their silver cocoon. Moving ahead over the earth and the sea, Billowing up into that which they be. Unleashing the power held deep inside, Sending out floods from which no one can hide WILFRED JOHN

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Steps To Re-Assembly ... dissolutions ov order and their re-emergences / mindstates and memories / the whole resembling a graphic score, performed gutteral / movements painterly – a white canvas, black ink blots / swerves and curves choreographed / steps to re-assembly / improv-music is this centurys true demos that we must build on...

da du du t t t

da da da t t

ti ti t

t t t t t t t

da di t da da t ti da da deey ig ya dungzheee dun gzheee dunn g zheee huuccsh bbu daoo t

t

t t t

gadergder gadu gdaa huv ccshu da ti

no uhh p eee

pee yan puuuuuuh p p ee y a

yaya y aaaa

ya

anno nnn nn o www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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paean o crisp a

s

o

i

g

g

e

a p

a r

ov desire

in marilyn crispells revising ov coltranes dear lord and other sonic collages all depth-charging standards as well the free apocrypha

fall

ov trans(sed) itions da du du

da da da

ti ti t

di di dyi i gayuw eeya o yeah wz saccharine love machine dream-turned www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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near mare tho more surreal schmaltzer

wandering syncopated nights and daze-crazed rhythms rag time a ragged time waltzing an un-des-rez dancing trancelike skipping cracks swinging all ways sounding both sides the curved tracks ... sex... this is better than crashing off the calories sweatburn fuckwinded as punching concrete yu struck a chord meta

morph o

yu changed my life

sis

and the hands crazy dancing as heavies persist-insisting till smacked out at the buzzing www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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snatch mishmash ov crush notes in a rush sirens passing and the sound slips back to familiar dung kha chee i'm no imagining tchk tchk tchk ta chk chk chk footsteps behind

pstvca tcoo ysys ysys

chk doo mind states bubbling troubling

welling

dun

kha chee

dung kha chee

dun kha chee kha jeeeee rouwah

we been here before carving out the same territories ov paranoia dagadadoo kutchi kha jeeeee geyouwaiwah voices well droit de seigneur climbing outta pasts bangbang yr bled www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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chords ov fingercrush lording it over dark keyboard fist insistent black notes screamprints hung on the howling night yu asked for it – their words no ours

the blows are too too easy but i'm no deleted cheating yr turmoil the boiling points and ponts ov enemies bridge burnt and all that jazz zzi

az iz aaa bai aj grr

az az iz

one all

az iz

iz

graphic scores peeyoy yoiyouu a a huuu iuiu iu haaaaaa

find the order in chaos the order dis solution and www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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re sembling applause in stereo handclaps ccck ch shh cccckchssh before slipsoloing codas to dun g hzeee

cccccckchchssssh

dun ghzeee

huv ccksh huv ccksh bb dao ma mari

ma

linc rispa ee yel me me mmmmmm mar el rel in sin in inc n see eye ris ice rise crisp el e yell ee

misspell

in

ms m s ssssssssh eee l rly inc i n c r is

crisis www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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pee yell peee yell plis du dah du dah uh ah ah ah ha ha ccksha ha ha h i uh ah cpaah laughing dada so long mind dancing theatre where we draw back curtains look on tears welling thru three seasons no answers save the struggle to remember the improv w/in paintboxes all colours dancing footprints muddying how world wz from my shoulders butterfly who floated away tick ov nectarine wing increasing fuse cut butterfly explodes sun iridescent www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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burning up light as military screams overhead i failed

remember

kitescraps flight scraps tail flaying torn from many worlds even then yu wanting to stormwinds scarified blues the news slow rolling waves ov salt bu be di yu wa surprised there is no pain warrior jagged from light sculptures to honour my dead learning hard way some things we never forget i wz yr vindication

no indications ov penalties yu paid www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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wz z z z yr oua ya o eu o e u trembling glass eyed staring on trouble in capitals i'm drowning sleepless hyperventilating the past the fly-past fear the fall thru deeps carved outta bones foreboding and sinking even as i'm thinking dis: location /s reap percussions pop ov finger clicking

snap

snap

snap

a one a two a one two three a one two three a one two three oh so lazy bird ov prayer flapping in on coltrane time needlestuck needle stuck needle struck spaced out looping www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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coming in after the rain cells ov sync noise shifting out shifting in one two three one bu ba di huv ca shi

two

three

landing sometime after the reign ov knocking it down and its out the question whose waves are bigger than t.v. scream as lost and found chords die out in reverberate spacing ia ay

yu

ai

uu i ... ... ... gu zh ee ee yu i

we distortion adds where rhythms return overlapping no longer crisp as glaciers pirouetting sound ov water www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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under bridges turbulent hard to hole and crack even as another vessel goes glorious down and resurrect fiddling as beat-empire burns-it-up picks clean bone percussions ov life lived beyond the lasso crackling electric polaroids ov paranoia echoing e i

n

c g

h

o i e

n g c

h

o

the down down down ov l amen tation

its way thru yr scape and after f a l l i n www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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g and the sting ov a comrades tears da da t du da t ti do da do da ti youi yo w yawu ccckchssssh

drum

az

peeyanohh

then some

and

WILFRED JOHN

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Still You Surround Me love with You. A long time erupts into minutes tears with You These moments almost baptismal I am Your sworn allegiance Lord You have felt me fall hard on my face creeping; scattered; groans Hear this cry… Undo this tie; so many times I cry. Still You surround me Oh these moments with You Infinitely too short I am wholly Yours With all these cuts all these bruises You have felt me fall… in love with You. WILFRED JOHN

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Teach Aesthetic Realism I am proud to be studying to teach Aesthetic Realism. I can say, based on my experience studying in Aesthetic Realism classes, that the statement on Michael Bluejay’s web page, that “the overwhelming majority” of people who teach and study Aesthetic Realism are Jewish, is simply untrue and bizarre. Of course there are many people studying Aesthetic Realism whom I don’t know (I’m sure I know many more than Michael Bluejay does): but even if this statement were true, what significance does it serve? The persons I attend classes with are diverse and representative human beings, from different parts of the country and the world, from different walks of life and backgrounds. One of the reasons I love Aesthetic Realism is because it is completely democratic, non-prejudiced or biased in any way. If this were the worst lie on the Bluejay site it would just be silly, but the web page has ugly, hurtful lies from beginning to end; and I take personal offense at being accused of being a cult member. I hate it that a person who hasn’t been in an Aesthetic Realism class since the age of two considers himself an expert on the subject! And in the second website, the accusations that Aesthetic Realism discourages bettering oneself in “non-Aesthetic Realism ways, ” and is against ambition and accomplishments, are the farthest things from the truth. I have had the pleasure to study Aesthetic Realism for the past 17 years. Other than the classes I’ve taken over these years—which include poetry, acting, anthropology, the visual arts, music, and education—at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, I’ve also taken classes in Italian at the New School, architecture at Pratt University, as well as cooking, drumming, and dance. Aesthetic Realism has expanded my mind—strengthening my previous loves for art and architecture, and widening my interest in the world as such. I’m interested in things I never imagined I would be and am more interested now in what’s happening in the world and current events than I ever was—and that includes my wanting justice to come to other people. Since the age of 18, I wanted to join the Peace Corps and do some good in the world, but I never took the desire too far. This ambition of mine was encouraged and propelled into action as I learned that wanting to be fair to things and other people was not just altruistic, but the one way to take care of myself. I grew to have a passion against homelessness and now have a job that has been a dream of mine since college: working at a not-for-profit housing organization in behalf of justice to people. This is not to say, nor does Aesthetic Realism say in any way, that every person should have a job such as this, but for me, as an individual, it was a hope finally achieved. Commenting on just one more of the ridiculous lies on the web: it is absurd to say that people who study Aesthetic Realism are watched—“check[ed] up” on “during work hours.” I am a single woman living alone and my workday is very busy. The only people who “check up” on me (if one chooses to call it that) are my work colleagues. Occasionally, I speak with family or friends during work hours, some of whom study Aesthetic Realism, some of whom don’t. It is usually to confirm or make plans, which I imagine most of America is in the habit of doing—how strange! ! ! A person with a certain purpose can twist just about anything they wish and present it as sinister; but in this case, lying about a person and body of knowledge that has done nothing but benefit people’s lives in big and beautiful ways, including mine, is the most despicable thing I know. WILFRED JOHN www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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THANKS FOR TAKINGYOUR TIME TO READ MY POEMS Love to write poems I have put a lot of emotions into These poems so please dont dream to see How it feels to see you before I sleep How it would feel With you at night I dream about how wonderful It would be to wake up and see you Laying next to me in bed them because they are mine So please leave comments and reviews on here I willl try and get back to you if you are an author too I will become a fan of yours if you leave the link to it Thanks for taking your time to read my poems. 1979 WILFRED JOHN

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That Brush Across My Soul My poetry flows from the winds of light That brush across my soul. Words that come as the divine breath brings them. Hoping it will grace others with joy in the process. WILFRED JOHN

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That Caused Your Heart To Bleed Protection through lonely nights Softly they become the pillow, That puts purpose in your sights. Hold tight the memories, The heart pain that burns, For the one who wins, Is the one who remembers and learns. Care for the moments Handle with care For destiny states Each heart there`s a pair. Throw off the irritation And its deep rooted seed, Remember t'was anger That caused your heart to bleed Nestle each memory A warm blanket held tight Bringing you vision direction, sunlight. But the only way out Is to hold fast to dreams. WILFRED JOHN

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That One Day They Thought It We have all thought at some time or someone I myself think it now For those who do not know That one day they thought it that the shadows that Form the night of every day fall silent, furtive Hiding themselves Behind themselves, from the sky Snowflakes of shadow. Because shadow is dark snow Unthinkable quiet black snow Snow falls on the night What light of incredible evening Made of the finest dust Full of mysterious coolness Announces the apparition of snow. Then, invisible Or loose threads like a mane of hair Descend in the air Feathery flakes, flakes of froth. And something of sweet dream And a dream without throes Childish, tender, a light Unremembered pleasure Assumes the miraculous For of night and its fall of White silent shadows of snow. Graveyard Under Snow Nothing compares to a graveyard under snow. How to name whiteness on white? The sky has dropped unfeeling stones of snow on the tombs, and now there is nothing but snow on snow like a hand eternally poised over itself. The birds prefer to cross the sky, to cut unseen corridors of air, to leave the snow alone, leaving it untouched, leaving it snow. For it is not enough to say that a graveyard under snow is like a dreamless sleep or like eyes glazed over. If it is partly like an unfeeling and sleeping body, like the fall of a silence upon another and like the white persistence of oblivion, yet nothing compares with a graveyard under snow For snow is above all silent, more silent even on the bloodless tombstones, www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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lips that now cannot say a word. WILFRED JOHN

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The Bird's Nib dimpled fosending. The bird's nib alternation and alfresh air window robs and hides The cheesy frowith a grain WILFRED JOHN

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The Aesthetic And Intellectual Dimension Engines of the Imagination Renaissance Culture and the Rise of the Machine By Jonathan Sawday Price: $33.95 ISBN: 978-0-415-35062-4 Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback) Published by: Routledge Publication Date: 29th November 2007 Pages: 424 Wilfred John

At what point did machines and technology begin to have an impact on the cultural consciousness and imagination of Europe? How was this reflected through the art and literature of the time? Was technology a sign of the fall of humanity from its original state of innocence or a sign of human progress and mastery over the natural world? In his characteristically lucid and captivating style, Jonathan Sawday investigates these questions and more by engaging with the poetry, philosophy, art, and engineering of the period to find the lost world of the machine in the pre-industrial culture of the European Renaissance. The aesthetic and intellectual dimension of these machines appealed to familiar figures such as Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, Montaigne, and Leonardo da Vinci as well as to a host of lesser known writers and artists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This intellectual engagement with machines in the European Renaissance gave rise to new attitudes towards gender, work and labour, and even fostered the new sciences of artificial life and reason which would be pursued by figures such as Descartes, Hobbes, and Leibniz in the seventeenth century. Writers, philosophers and artists had mixed and often conflicting reactions to technology, reflecting a paradoxical attitude between modern progress and traditional values. Underpinning the enthusiastic creation of a machine-driven world, then, were stories of loss and catastrophe. These contradictory attitudes are part of the legacy of the European Renaissance, just as much as the plays of Shakespeare or the poetry of John Milton. And this historical legacy helps to explain many of our own attitudes towards the technology that surrounds us, sustains us, and sometimes perplexes us in the modern world. Reviews 'This is a magisterial work of myth-busting, and a marvellous demonstration of how art and literature may be used to reanimate the material imagination of an historical period. The old idea of the Renaissance as a pretechnological pause, or paradise, is gone for good.' - Steven Connor, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK 'Jonathan Sawday has written another big, beautiful, brilliant book that will change the way we all see (and hear) the Renaissance.' - Gary Taylor, Florida State University, USA www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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'This is a brilliant achievement… It has huge intellectual and imaginative range and is written with great vitality… This could be the book of the decade in Renaissance Studies.'- Neil Rhodes, University of St Andrews, UK 'Jonathan Sawday’s pioneering and thoughtful work can change the course of the study of the Early Modern period… This illuminating book enlarges our sense of the Renaissance, redirects our focus, and shows us a world elsewhere we have not seen before.' - Arthur Kinney, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA ‘Engines of the Imagination offers a fascinating picture of Renaissance encounters with technology. Engaging and entertaining, Sawday's book will become required reading for all students of the period’. - Mary Poovey, New York University, USA 'While few books can truly lay claim to the achievement of crossing disciplinary boundaries, Sawday’s impressive Engines of the Imagination must certainly be numbered as one of them.' - The British Society for Literature and Science Jonathan Sawday’s immensely enjoyable and learned Engines of the Imagination is...a careful examination of the literal and figurative function of all manner of ‘engines’ prior to their coding as ‘automatic’, necessarily ‘inorganic’, ‘inhuman’machines.' - Julian Yates, The Review of English Studies About the Author(s) WILFRED JOHN

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THE BICYCLE THIEVES -Vittorio de Sica. The Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di Biciclette) Directed by

Vittorio de Sica.

Written by Cesare Zavattini. Starring Lamberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiola. Have you ever watched people on the street and tried to decipher them from the clues your eyes gather, to make up life stories for them? At the beginning of The Bicycle Thieves a man emerges from a crowd of unemployed workers, and after we have contemplated his working-class tragedy, he blends back with the masses as the movie comes to its end. Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani) is one man among thousands trying to find a way to survive with his young family in the chaos of post-war Rome. He is offered a job hanging posters as the movie begins, but to keep the job he will have to get his bicycle out of hock. To do this, his wife Maria - a fiercely protective proletarian madonna - offers to pawn some bed linens that comprise her dowry. Their happiness and security don't last long. One day while Antonio is struggling to smooth out a poster of an impossibly nubile Rita Hayworth on a rough stone wall, a shifty-eyed passerby jumps on his bike and rides it away. Antonio and his young son Bruno (Enzio Staiola) begin a desperate odyssey through the neighborhoods of Rome to find the bike, without which he will lose his job.

While his father is the protagonist of this story, Bruno serves as its moral center. At first he seems prone to be one of those insufferably perky little monsters who populated so many Hollywood movies of the 1930s and '40s. But Bruno endures a lot through the course of this film, and when Antonio has completed his descent into hell, it is Bruno who takes him by the hand and leads him back out. The Bicycle Thieves is one of the crown jewels of neorealism, the post-war Italian philosophy of filmmaking that permanently reinvigorated our world of cinema. Rejecting the illusory glamour and set-bound artificiality of conventional filmmaking, neorealism took its stories from the struggles of the working class, went out into the streets to record them, and used non-professional actors to tell them. This style borne of scarcity is also typified by a grainy, almost documentary cinematography, and frequent use of hand-held camera. Cesare Zavattini, the script writer for Bicycle Thieves, was the most important theoretician of neorealism. He wrote his screenplay in just four days after watching an attempted theft while sitting at an outdoor Roman cafe. 'My fixed idea is to deromanticize the cinema, ' he said. 'I want to teach people to see daily life with the same passion they experience in reading a book.' A committed Marxist, he spread his ideas in polemical essays and critiques as well as in many screenplays and collaborations with Vittorio de Sica and other directors. Vittorio de Sica, director of The Bicycle Thieves, was also an accomplished actor. The courtly graciousness and romantic tenderness of his characters in the films of other artists like Rossellini or Ophuls reveal both the strengths and the weaknesses of his www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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style of filmmaking. At its best his work is suffused with a tender love for his characters, which overrides the melodrama to which he is a little too prone. He has also made too many films full of empty stylishness and very little else. The Bicycle Thieves holds a secure place among his finest accomplishments. This movie was released in Italy with the title Ladri di Biciclette, which is a plural construction. For American release it was given the simplified singular title, The Bicycle Thief, which is the way most people in this country now know it. Recently there has been a movement among serious writers about film to use the more correct plural, a movement in which I am a participant. Other LSC movies this weekend include: Six Degrees of Separation on Friday; Walt Disney's Aladdin on Saturday; and the beloved classic Casablanca on Sunday. A $3 Classics Double Bill ticket will get you into both The Bicycle Thieves and any other one of these excellent features. WILFRED JOHN WRITER [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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The Diary of Virginia Woolf-Aesthetics and Politics Politics and Aesthetics in The Diary of Virginia Woolf By Joanne Tidwell Price: $95.00 ISBN: 978-0-415-95817-2 Binding: Hardback Published by: Routledge Publication Date: 13th December 2007 Pages: 130 WILFRED JOHN In this critical study, Tidwell examines the conflict of aesthetics and politics in The Diary of Virginia Woolf. As a modernist writer concerned with contemporary aesthetic theories, Woolf experimented with limiting the representative nature of writing. At the same time, as a feminist, Woolf wanted to incorporate her political interests in her fiction, but overt political statement conflicted with her aesthetic ideals. Her solution was to combine innovative narrative techniques and subject matter traditionally associated with women. Tidwell analyzes several of Woolf’s novels, including To the Lighthouse, Jacob’s Room, and Between the Acts to elucidate the diary’s technique and form, as well as to cast it as a valuable contribution to Woolf’s canon. About the Author(s) Joanne Campbell Tidwell currently teaches at Peace College in Raleigh, NC. She earned her PhD from Auburn University in Auburn, AL. WILFRED JOHN

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THE FISH -ANOTHER STUDY The poet does not simply relinquish her desire for imaginative contact with the fish. But her attention shifts from spatial to historical imagining. History is no longer distant and figurative but 'still ' attached' in the form of 'five old pieces of fish-line, or four and a wire leader with all five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth.' Five wounds on a fish make him a Christ figure, but the epiphany he brings the poet has nothing otherworldly about it. The domestic images at the beginning of the poem, followed by the battered body of the fish, evoke the poet’s unconscious life, the uncanny return of the repressed which can 'cut so badly.' But Bishop can entertain such self-reflection now within the larger context of the life of nature and the beholder’s tentative grasp of it. She no longer has to define a discrete interior space through dream or symbolic abstraction in order to explore her subjectivity; she has brought the self out of nocturnal seclusion and explored its relation to everything under the sun. There is also a pervasive but ambiguous sexual quality to the fish. An untamable, corporeal energy violates the domestic world of wallpaper and roses. The fish, a he, hangs like a giant phallus, yet as the beholder imagines his interior, its 'pink swim-bladder / like a big peony, ? He takes on a female aspect. Indeed, the hooks in his mouth suggest that phallic aggression is the fisherman’s (woman this time) part. This hermaphroditic fish challenges the conventional hierarchical antithesis of female nature and male culture. Here there is no struggle, and the victory is not exclusive. For Bishop, nature mastered as static knowledge is a fish out of water. Its beauty and venerability belong to time. Yet it can be entertained, with a certain humility and lightness (such as simile registers) , for its figurative possibilities. The poet 'stared and stared' even though the fish did not return her stare. Her imagination transforms a 'pool of bilge / where oil had spread a rainbow' into an ecstatic (and perhaps deliberately excessive) 'rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! ' Such an epiphany, set as it is in the highly ephemeral space of the rented boat with its rusted engine, must be of mortality. The grotesque is the style of mortality not because it makes us turn away in horror but because it challenges the rigid frames of thought and perception through which we attempt to master life. [All the conceptual and emotional contradictions that emerge within the description of the fish point to the letting go. from Bonnie Costello, 'Attractive Mortality, ' Chapter 2 in Elizabeth Bishop: Questions of Mastery (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1991) ,63-64.] WILFRED JOHN

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'The Fish' to Bishop’s poem Whereas Moore’s 'Fish' emphasizes the product and meaning of observation, Bishop’s 'Fish' foregrounds the process of observation and the essential gap between subject, representation, and world. Moore appropriates the fish into an imaginative order that gives rise to ethical insight. Bishop begins with an act of appropriation – 'I caught a tremendous fish' – but ends by returning the fish to the experiential flux from which the fish, Ver 'vision, ' and the poem arise. The ultimate focus of Moore’s poem is aesthetic and moral, revealing a natural providential order of permanence and value. The focus of Bishop’s poem is epistemological and visionary, suggesting temporality, transcience, and the subjectivity of value. If Moore’s poem is 'about' the values of adaptability, endurance and natural heroism, Bishop’s poem is 'about' the experience of living in an alien, mutable and ultimately mystifying world. Like her vision of Darwin – 'his eyes fixed on facts and minute details, sinking or sliding giddily off into the unknown' [as quoted by Anne Stevenson] – Bishop’s Moore-like concentration on the object slips 'giddily' off into the unknown, the strange, the surreal, unfixing traditional notions of a bounded self and world and collapsing the traditional distinction between conscious and unconscious, subject and object, self and world. From Betsy Erkkila, 'Differences that Kill: Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore, : Chapter 4 in The Wicked Sisters: Women Poets, Literary History and Discord (New York: Oxford University Press,1992) ,122-123. WILFRED JOHN

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The golden-rod is yellow 1 2 3 4

The golden-rod is yellow; The corn is turning brown; The trees in apple orchards With fruit are bending down.

5 6 7 8

The gentian's bluest fringes Are curling in the sun; In dusty pods the milkweed Its hidden silk has spun.

9 The sedges flaunt their harvest, 10 In every meadow nook; 11 And asters by the brook-side 12 Make asters in the brook, 13 14 15 16

From dewy lanes at morning The grapes' sweet odors rise; At noon the roads all flutter With yellow butterflies.

17 18 19 20

By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer's best of weather, And autumn's best of cheer.

21 22 23 24

But none of all this beauty Which floods the earth and air Is unto me the secret Which makes September fair.

25 26 27 28

'T is a thing which I remember; To name it thrills me yet: One day of one September I never can forget.

By Helen Hunt Jackson WILFRED JOHN

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The Ones Who Are Mad To Live The only people for me are the mad ones The ones who are mad to live Mad to talk Mad to be saved Desirous of everything at the same time The ones who never yawn or Say a commonplace thing, But burn, burn, burn like fabulous Yellow roman candles exploding Like spiders across the stars WILFRED JOHN

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The Problem With Historical Novels See, the problem with historical novels, particularly the ones about visionaries and rebels, is that even if you know little about the period or person, you can pretty much count on them ending badly. The author can also be a clue about the relative happiness of the ending and when you read Sharon Kay Penman, whose first novel was a sympathetic account of the life of Richard III, you can bet that she picked a heroic but ultimately tragic figure for follow. Falls the Shadow is a tragedy, even the name gives it away. It follows the life of Simon de Montfort and Llewelyn of Wales. This isn't Llewelyn Fwar (the Great) who was one of the main characters of Here Be Dragons, rather, it's his grandson, who is trying to hold together his grandfather's dream of a free or at least a united Wales against the treachery of his brothers. But for all this trilogy is ostensibly about Wales, the main character of this book is Simon de Montfort. He's one of those men who crops up in history from time to time, someone who is just plain ahead of his time in many ways. Penman shows us a man who truly believed that his God-given duty as a knight was to look after people more helpless than himself. In the course of his life, he managed to force the King of England-Henry III, son of King John and not much better a ruler than his father-to not only honor the Magna Carta but also the Provisions of Oxford, a much more democratic outline for governing. Deposing a king was srs bizns back in those days and Simon claimed he did everything in the King's name, that his quarrel wasn't with Henry, who was his brother-in-law-Simon married Eleanor, Henry's sister-but with Henry's useless advisors. During Simon's period of control, the first elected parliament met in England. Granted, the only people who could vote were those men who held property worth 40 shillings or more, but still, we're talking about the middle of the 13th century here. And in the end, of course, that was the problem. Instead of giving more power to the barons and other nobles, Simon's Provisions favored the very small, nascent middle-class-the Provisions of Oxford was the first legal document published in English since the Conquest. It was just too early for this kind of thing, plus, in the end, Simon faced a much more serious opponent than the dithering Henry: Henry's warrior son, Edward, later known as Edward I or Edward Longshanks. And Wales? It gets very short shrift in this book, but at the end of the book, Llewelyn is still free and trying to hang onto his country. Even without reading it, I know that the next book in the series-The Reckoning-will see the end of his fight and not in a good way. After all, these days the Prince of Wales is an Englishman, not a Welshman. So why read something when you're pretty sure going in that it'll all end in tears? To know how it happened, and to see one version of what the people involved might have been thinking. After all, look at how many versions of the Arthurian legends have been written and how popular Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series is. Without Simon de Montfort and the Provisions of Oxford, which didn't last long after his death, the history of English democracy and eventually US democracy might have been very different. Which would be why, even though very few people have heard of him, there's a plaster relief of his head in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives. I get the feeling that de Montfort, or at least Penman's version of him, would be honored. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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WILFRED JOHN

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THE SEVENTH SEAL (2007) Reviewed by WILFRED JOHN

Don't fear the Reaper: Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece centres on a meeting between Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow) , a knight returning from the Crusades and Death (Bengt Ekerot) . Cowled, pasty-faced and vaguely sardonic, Death is tricked into staying his scythe when Block challenges him to a game of chess. Full of haunting, iconic images and a touch of hopeful humanity, The Seventh Seal is cinema at its most artful, a philosophical meditation on the meaning(lessness) of this mortal coil. Taking its title from the Book of Revelation, The Seventh Seal could be a horror movie, perhaps even the ultimate horror movie. It's set during the Black Death, a Gothic dark age where women are burned as witches, drunken tavern brawls lead to bloodletting and a lone knight grapples with the slaughter he's seen committed in the Lord's name. Von Sydow excels as the haunted, burdened crusader desperate for a sign: 'I want God to stretch out His hand, uncover His face and speak to me, ' he whispers. In this film, though, there's no God, no Devil... only Death. The indifference of the universe is laid bare. 'ITS ENDING IS INEVITABLE' Bergman has little interest in moving his camera, long takes and static shots adding to the sense of desolate gravitas, until it feels like a medieval morality play. Yet for all its starkness there's a warm compassion to be found here. Plog the Blacksmith (Åke Fridell) , squire Jöns (Gunnar Bjornstrand) and buxom Lisa (Inga Gill) band together, finding comfort in playful arguments, lustful clinches and snatches of song. Even Death has a sense of humour, sawing away at a tree trunk to claim one victim. The film's ending is inevitable, but there's also (bitter) optimism. The Reaper may be grim but life's rich pageant will go on, with or without us. WILFRED JOHN [email protected] WILFRED JOHN

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THE THE DELIGHTS OF PROTECTED LIFE If the frontiers of tranquility Are affectionately spread From one continent to another The delights of a protected life Reflect in every human face. No doubt, the rays of delight Would spread the desired light To enlighten one and all At every corner of the world. Like a devoted gardener Who blissfully watch Each leaf and bud unfurl. With equal devotion and spirit We should all ensure Peace blossoms for sure In every garden of heart Thoughts of peace Should we cultivate in each Thoughts of compassion Should we nurture in each. Like the endless dawns Should our endless efforts be To the best possible extent That the seeds of harmony Would sprout with deep roots To have an everlasting impact. WILFRED JOHN

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Their Limbs Twisting Sleek girls danced In the heat of the samba, Their limbs twisting Like wisps of smoke To the whistles That mimic the African sounds of the Amazon But I could not see them. Overpriced beer not fit for the favelas Swilled as golden brown as their arms. Caiparinhas with hardly a suggestion of cachaca Chinked, Cloudy like their almond faces. Kisses that smelt of strawberries Were exchanged. But I could not taste them. For I tread a path that is not there And speak words that you wish not to hear And raise from the dead Ghosts long-forgotten Even by the dead gods that begat them WILFRED JOHN

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THOUGHT I HAD BEEN IN LOVE BEFORE Don't need to be afraid, No need to be afraid. It's real love, it's real. Yes it's real love, it's real. Thought I'd been in love before But in my heart, I wanted more. Seems like all I really was doing Was waiting for you. Don't need to be alone Yes its real love, it's real. 1980 WILFRED JOHN

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THREE TYPES OF PLEASURE Art seems to present itself as an autonomous, self-enclosing entity. Immediately, before we have grasped its full nature, it seizes our attention. We find it arresting and engrossing, but also separate from us. Though we cannot master or possess it, art stirs us as other things cannot. And not always by argument since there can be few arguments to follow. Not wholly by truth, or accuracy of depiction, since we can be delighted by manifest absurdities. Not by its potential applications, as art is not generally useful in any direct way. By what then? The way it presents itself — by its coherence, balance, shape, rightful order: what an earlier age called 'beauty' and we call aesthetic qualities. Kant distinguished three types of pleasure — in the agreeable, in the good and in beauty. The first was a matter of gratification, and here our preferences were simply matters of taste. Our pleasure in the good was important but not disinterested. Beauty, however, was an immediate and disinterested pleasure. To find something beautiful we must respond to it as it presents itself, without reasoning or analysis. There is nothing more fundamental we can appeal to, though we justify our feelings by pointing to aspects of that beauty. The aesthetic response relies on a certain attitude, a detachment that Schopenhauer saw as loss of the individual will or self, and which Edward Bullough called the detachment or 'psychical distance'. We suspend belief. We know from the picture frame, stages, story title that these are not 'real life' but something where greater wholeness and clarity will provide a more than compensating aesthetic pleasure. Not only do the picture frames, stage, etc. signal to us that the art-object is 'not for real' but the elements inside, the whole matter composing the object, are not representations of the real, but a complex series of codes that we learn to interpret and apply. This view, developed by Nelson Goodman, links traditional aesthetics with linguistics and Structuralism, and questions any naive view of art as representation.

But art at the cutting edge today, whether the performing, visual or literary arts, often seems a rejection of much of what previously characterized the enterprise. Meaning is indeterminate, fragmented or shifting. There is no message as such, or even subject matter beyond what the artwork creates. Previous art-forms, concepts and terminology are combined playfully, as a collage or montage of images that are not required to make sense of the outside world. Even the artist is self-effacing, leaving his productions to speak as their audience pleases. But if such art appears democratic, inviting audience participation, its appeal is nonetheless to a fashionable minority who have the use of wide cultural reference.

So the professional art scene. We are often uncertain at a poetry reading as to whether the introduction is continuing or the poem begun. And exhibits in galleries have become so inconsequential as to be sometimes thrown out by cleaners, gallery staff or even fellow artists. Clearly, much of contemporary art is non-aesthetic. It aims to broaden the concept of art, to make it an everyday, democratic and unsettling experience. If the specific pleasures of art disappear, so be it. Those pleasures were often elitist, calling on a privileged education to appreciate previous artforms and an unearned leisure to indulge their further development. And where art leads, philosophers, critics and social commentators must follow. It is extraordinarily www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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difficult to discern the significant in the diversity of contemporary activity, and theories which attempt to do so are often unconvincing or parasitic. The 'But is it art? ' jibe may linger, but the artists themselves are serious, as must be the gallery-owners and publishers to induce a sophisticated public to part with hard-won cash. Does this reduce art to entertainment, a distraction for a restless, easily-bored urban society? Possibly so, but art is only reflecting its times, the plurality of a consumer society. For its creation and appreciation, art requires exorbitant amounts of time, and time in bustling western democracies is a scarce commodity. Naturally, with so much on offer, the public needs guidance — hence the streamlined criticism, shallow advertising, artistic fads and fashion. WJ WILFRED JOHN

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'To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage Marjorie Perloff Although the mode of 'Man and Wife' is essentially realistic, there are a number of local metaphors. The 'rising sun' of line 2 becomes, in the diseased imagination of the poet who fears passion and vitality, an Indian savage in 'war paint' who 'dyes us red, ' the pun on 'dyes' intensifying the death-in-life existence of the couple. Paradoxically, from the poet's point of view only inert object receive the sun's life-giving warmth: the 'gilded bed-posts' of line 3, which evidently have an antique floral motif, are seen as thyrsi, the phallic staffs carried by the Bacchantes in their rites honoring Dionysus. The magnolia blossoms, further reminders that April is the cruelest month, are murderous creatures that set the morning air on fire. And finally, the tirade of the poet's wife bombards his ear like an ocean wave breaking against a rock. But the condition which causes the poet to see the sun as a feared savage and the white magnolia blossoms as 'murderous' is defined by a larger metonymic sequence of alliterating nouns: 'Miltown' - 'Mother's bed' - 'Marlborough Street' - 'our magnolia.' The first line of the poem looks casual and matter-of-fact until certain connections become apparent. The reference to Miltown, the first and most famous of the tranquilizers that came on the market in the fifties rather than to, say, Equanil or Valium, is not coincidental. For one thing, liquids and nasals ('Tamed by Miltown, we lie on Mother's bed') point up the speaker's torpor and lassitude, but, more importantly, the name Miltown metonymically suggests such terms as Mill town, mill stone, and small town. The poet's state of anxiety is thus immediately seen as somehow representative of a larger American dilemma, of a crisis that occurs in Small Town or Any Town, U.S.A. The image of neurotic fracture is intensified in the second half of the line: the nuptial bed has been replaced by 'Mother's bed'; her shadow, as it were, lies between husband and wife. In lines 8-12, moreover, it becomes clear that the poet's wife must act the role of mother to him; for the 'fourth time' she has had to hold his hand and drag him home alive. In the second section (lines 8-22) , the poet addresses his wife directly. The phrase 'Oh my Petite, / clearest of all God's creatures, still all air and nerve' sounds mawkish when detached from the poem, but within the context it defines the speaker's wish to let his wife know that he still admires and loves her even if his love is impotent and destructive. Although she must act the role of Mother to him, he wants to think of her as his 'Petite.' And now he recalls the night, so different from this 'homicidal' one, when he first met her. Again the focus is on setting rather than on emotion. The scene is diametrically opposed to that of Marlborough Street: it is the noisy, hot, alcoholic, left-wing Greenwich Village of Philip Rahv, the editor of Partisan Review. The poet wryly recalls his former self, 'hand on glass / and heart in mouth, ' trying to outdrink the Rahvs and 'fainting' at the feet of his future wife, the Southern-born lady intellectual whose 'shrill invective' denounced the traditionalism of the Old South. .... The turn in the final section is quietly ironic: 'Now twelve years later, you turn your back.' Husband and wife no longer even try to touch. 'Sleepless, ' she holds not him but her pillow to the 'hollows' of her unsatisfied body. As in the past, rhetoric is her weapon, but whereas at the Rahvs the www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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attack was good-humored and academic, now on 'Mother's bed' life itself is at stake. But this is not to say that the poem is wholly pessimistic. The first water image in the poem - the image of the ocean wave breaking against the speaker's head - marks a turning point. The life-giving water rouses the poet from his Miltown-induced lethargy, a lethargy in which he envies the thyrsus-like bed-post, and brings him back to reality. Stephen Yenser In 'Man and Wife' the setting and the landscape are vividly colored by the filter of tranquilized derangement through which the poet sees them. The initial lines, which in effect if not in intention parody Donne's 'The Sunne Rising, ' owe much of their power to just this kind of distortion: Tamed by Miltown, we lie on Mother's bed; the rising sun in war paint dyes us red; in broad daylight her gilded bed-posts shine, abandoned, almost Dionysian. The submerged violence rises to the surface of the poem in the description of the magnolia blossoms that 'ignite / the morning with their murderous five days' white.' A few lines later, where the speaker sees himself as having been 'dragged... home alive' from 'the kingdom of the mad' by his wife, Lowell glances back at the confinement in McLean's Hospital and the incarceration in the West Street jail, each of which testifies to both the poet's isolation from the world and the problems of living in that world. ''To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage, '' which seems to have begun with a translation of Catullus, shifts to the wife's point of view and reiterates the possibility of violence: ''This screwball might kill his wife, then take the pledge.'' Her own febrile temperament, as well as her husband's tortured mind, is implied in her conception of his moonlighting: ''free-lancing out along the razor's edge.'' WILFRED JOHN

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TOUCHING YOUR NAME Have I ever told you that if I sit really still And silent sometimes I like to think I can hear Your heart beating in time with mine. Have I ever told you that when I watch you speak to me Through lines and cords and bytes and ram I imagine your voice whispering into my ear. Have I ever told you that I wait out each day In anticipation wanting only an hour or two Just a second in space and time to feel close to you Have I ever told you that there has been times When I ached for you ached for you so badly That the emotions overwhelmed me and so I sat and cried Have I ever told you that sometimes I will reach out Touching your name on this cold screen before me Wishing I could reach in and pull you to me. 1980 WILFRED JOHN

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TOUCHING YOUR NAMEON THIS COLD SCREEN I can hear your heart beating in time with mine Have I ever told you that when I watch you speak to me Through lines and cords and bytes and ram I imagine your voice whispering into my ear? Have I ever told you that I wait out each day In anticipation wanting only an hour or two Just a second in space and time to feel close to you. Have I ever told you that there has been times When I ached for you ached for you so badly That the emotions overwhelmed me and so I sat and cried Have I ever told you that sometimes I will reach out Touching your name on this cold screen before me Wishing I could reach in and pull you to me Have I ever told you that after the first time I heard The sound of your voice thousands of miles away I sat up all night turning the conversation over and over In my mind examining it like some newly Discovered species of flower. WILFRED JOHN

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Towards A Centre Dance Twisted in a dance step Transfiguring the diabolical nature of the lion to a symbolic allusion to higher things: which side of the celestial battle I do not know. Twisted as in a dance Their long bony hands raised, fingers Splayed like wings, And like wings were their hair and beards. Stirred by the prophetic wind, the folds of the long garments sweeping, giving life to waves and scrolls opposed to the lion but breathes the same substance. A dance twisted in half-step The body contouring to fit the image, casting A pale shadow back to where it resides waiting, in the nexus. The dancer skimmed, alternating The sameness of equivocation, decoration and vicissitudes Freed by impetuous winds to wing Towards a centre. The feet stopped twisting A packet of red between the green splash Marginally, a compromise is met WILFRED JOHN

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'Tremendous Fish' Perhaps many readers would take 'The Fish, ' one of Bishop's most admired poems, as her most conclusively confident poem. There she catches a 'tremendous fish' and surveys it closely in one of the finest of those precise descriptions she is famous for. Then, she says, 'I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat, ' 'until, ' in the poem's final words, 'everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow And I let the fish go.' Here suddenly she catches what she wished for, and so no longer needs to wish. To preserve the edge of wish, then, she must give up what she has, so she can have again more truly by not having. It recalls Faulkner's claim that Hemingway failed by sticking to what he already knew he could succeed at, instead of daring the failures that, by overreaching, make the truest success. On the other hand, Bishop does not sound convinced that she really gains that much by catching her fish. For her cheerily sentimental word 'rainbow, ' with its repetition that, rather than giving emphasis, only enhances the sense that she feels the word's inadequacy, together with the sudden exclamation point and its redoubled effect of straining too hard at the end of what had remained an understated, calm poem, all seem to compensate for some fear of ordinariness in her understatement and quiet. Her letting the fish go, dramatized by putting it all in the final words, seems too willfully a striving for conclusive wisdom. She can throw the fish back, if she likes, but to gloat over throwing it back sounds too easily superior, since most of us, rather than throwing fish back, enjoy eating them now and then. Instead of ending with a wish for something to say, she seems not to know how to end, and so she goes, in effect, fishing for profundity, violating at the end the modesty and indirection that she was to win such admiration for. [From The Unbeliever: The Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop. Urbana: University of Illinois Press,1988. Copyright © 1988 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.] WILFRED JOHN

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TRYING TO CLING TO SOMETHING STABLE Looking into the windows She sinks faster and faster Constantly falling deeper Trying to cling to something stable. To stop the endless free fall She recollects the smiles and embraces And stops fighting the urge To cascade downward. The descent becomes all she can think of She is free and becomes Absorbed in the sensation All of a sudden she slows And floats weightlessly into the air. She is basked in light and warmth And the sun awakens unto a new day. And her smile brightens the world a Little more with moment it stays. WILFRED JOHN WILFRED JOHN

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Twentieth-Century British Women's Poetry A History of Twentieth-Century British Women's Poetry offers a detailed evaluative documentary record of the publications, activities and achievements of a lively but undervalued literary community. Part literary history, part critical analysis, this comprehensive survey is organised into three historical periods (1900–1945,1945–1980 and 1980–2000) , each part introduced by a comprehensive overview in which the emerging names are mapped against cultural, literary and poetic events and trends. Individual essays reflect and stimulate continuing debates about the nature of women's poetry and cover a range of canonical and lesser-known, but significant, poets. They offer new critical approaches to reading poems that engage with, for example, war, domesticity, modernism, linguistic innovation, place, the dramatic monologue, postmodernism and the lyric. A chronology and detailed bibliography of primary and secondary sources covering over 200 writers make this an invaluable reference source for scholars and students of British poetry and women’s writing. • Full coverage of British women’s poetry across the century • Re-evaluates the canon of women’s writing and explores its contexts • Includes an invaluable chronology and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources covering over 200 writers Contents WILFRED JOHN

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Two Poles, North And South It takes two hands to clap It takes two to make friendship It takes two to share Two means togetherness Two can make a team Two makes binary Tow tides, high and low Two poles, north and south It takes two atoms to make a molecule It takes two voices to form chorus Two breaks loneliness Two state of a switch, on and off Two parent, mom and dad WILFRED JOHN

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UNSEEN SMOKE It is a world of space and fritters Somehow with us all day long A world — mad — of soft and bitters With angles in a pretty song. Dash along, world, hit the quartz beds Make paper fly in merriment Bring sullenness to sleepyheads Find bugs in the transcendent Hand gifts to jaguars moving lame Fill libraries with unseen smoke, Make Thursdays have their clouds and shame Dash periodicals alongside the oak. Being is revelry Existence is a jumble The universe is crippled and free Overbearing, humble. Slap time upon its curly pate Put years upon a background's knee Cause paving of early and late And let resentment have the lily. WILFRED JOHN

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VELVET SOFTNESS Standing on the Observation Deck surrounded by a cloud of velvet softness sounds heard dimly as if the hooves were wrapped in cotton muffled footsteps echo slowly, brite sprites of light star the sky red, blue, green at random, to stir the white and gold a cyclone of fairy dust a question mark makes. The edge draws one closer, peering over the vastness, void, stretching out to the unknown far and wide from where we all come to linger and dream the edge of a time forgotten remembered deje vu for some, rebirth for some, dawning of age, a new beginning for some, or refounding of old, totally brand new and amazing, the wealth of the future broad based history, the majik of the technology floats freely a web unseen, continents drifting closer and closer, people from eons of time meet together, and exchange thoughts, wishes and dreams. Poetry becomes a language the land invokes a spirit of feeling words, thoughts are translated into languages of letters and punctuation symbols are created, communicate emotions, we *are* really here, a truer self in dreamscape, speaking feelings freely, sharing souls long hidden voice, burdens of external trappings, fears, constraining inhibitions all were lost at sea transversed by Argo, most times for good, but at times evil, worlds growing pains felt round. Legends are forming in the spaces we create and populate with our beings time stands still in this world, night and day exist in locales, night here, day there, in our worlds as well, day here, night there, the land is a collage of seasons, snow, garden, green and growing, sun, blasted heath, surrounded by a cloud of velvet softness sounds heard dimly as if the hooves were wrapped in cotton muffled footsteps echo slowly, Unicorns roam free WILFRED JOHN WILFRED JOHN

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Vladimir Mayakovsky-Wilfred John Vladimir Mayakovsky The new stage of socialist realism opened in Russian and world poetry.He was born on 19 July 1893 in the village of Baghdadi (today Mayakovsky) near Kutais in Georgia. His father was a simple forester, and the family was nourished on progressive ideas. The poet was twelve years of age when the first Russian Revolution broke out in 1905. its echo was felt even in the mountains of the Caucasus. The wave of the popular movement against Tsarism and the reactionary bourgeoisie, led by the Georgian Bolsheviks, lapped the whole of Georgia, and especially the city of Kutais, where he was attending high school. Vladimir was educated by his father with democratic feelings of respect and affection for working people. The year 1905 became for him not only a great source of impressions, but also a true school, where he formed his first political ideas, where he received his first baptism as a revolutionary. He entered the Marxist circles at the high school, read revolutionary literature which his elder sister brought from Moscow, learned new rebel songs which left a great impression on him. ‘It seemed as if verses and revolution were intertwined in my mind, ’ wrote the poet in his ‘Autobiography’. The year 1906 found Mayakovsky in the city of revolution; his father died and he, with his mother and his two sisters, settled in Moscow. Here the smoke of gunpowder had not yet dispersed, and the workers’ blood had not yet dried in the working class quarter on the main barricade of the revolution, which resisted heroically. The older students who shared a house with him persuaded him to read the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin. They talked about the Bolshevik Party and about the role of Lenin as leader of the Russian proletariat. In his desk, along with his school books, he kept ‘Anti-Duhring’. The revolutionary inspiration of the future was being sown in the consciousness of the poet. Years of Youth 1908, the year of the most rabid reaction after the crushing of the 1905 Revolution, became the happiest year for the fifteen-year-old Mayakovsky: he joined the Russian Social-Democratic Party led by Lenin. He had the pseudonym ‘Comrade Constantine’. He worked as a propagandist, distributed illegal publications, helped a group of revolutionaries to escape from prison. He came to know at first hand the workers, their thoughts and feelings. The passion of revolutionary activity, with its daily joys and dangers, took hold of him. During the years 1908-1910 Mayakovsky was imprisoned three times. But prison could not break his belief in the victory of the revolution. He came out of prison with a new wish: 'I want to create socialist art' (‘Autobiography’) . Mayakovsky wavered between poetry and painting. From childhood he had been attracted by verses, which he learnt by heart and recited beautifully. In prison, in 1909, he tested his pen for the first time, but the prison governor confiscated the notebook of verses. Similarly, in his high school in the Caucasus, he had greatly amused the Georgian comrades with his caricatures of the reactionary professor. He had also drawn portraits of some of his revolutionary comrades. Mayakovsky entered art school in Moscow, and was a successful student. In 1912 he published the first verses. Poetry had finally conquered Mayakovsky. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Beginnings of Literary Creativity The young poet was at that time under the influence of futurism. This literary current, despite its sensational slogans of ‘a new art of the future’ and ‘the struggle against decadent bourgeois art’, was in fact a manifestation of petty-bourgeois, anarchist literature. Futurism, with its anti-bourgeois slogans, at first attracted Mayakovsky but, despite some traces which this current left in his early creative work, at heart Mayakovsky was far from futurism, and he fought with all his strength against the very bases of bourgeois society. ‘Let us speak the truth’, Gorky has said about Mayakovsky’s poetry of those years, ‘there has never been futurism here, there is only Mayakovsky. A poet. A great poet’. In this first creation he portrayed the tragic fate of man under capitalism and the feelings of protest of the masses, which were known to ‘Comrade Constantine’. Principal among these were the humanitarian ideas of the liberation and elevation of the working man, which find most complete embodiment in the programmatic poem of this period ‘A Cloud in Trousers’, published in 1915. Later, the poet, explaining the ideas of the four parts of the poem, said that they may be entitled: ‘Down with your Love’, ‘Down with your Art’, ‘Down with your System’, and ‘Down with your Religion’. In this poem, the poet, describing the tragedy of the life of the simple man of the people, calls for revolutionary struggle against the rotten bourgeois morality, religion and social system: ‘Passers-by, take your hands from your pockets! Pick up a stone, a knife, a bomb! ’ The principal aim of his activity became preparation for the approaching revolution. Mayakovsky greeted the First World War with struggle. He unmasked its imperialist, anti-popular character in the poem ‘War and the World’ of 1916. In the poem ‘Answer! ’ he says angrily that the bourgeoisie, driven by thirst for profits and conquest, sends millions of people to the slaughter-house. Here he rises also in defence of the rights of small countries, such as Albania, etc., which the imperialists wish to dismember. Nevertheless, in his whole pre-revolutionary political activity one must note that the poet is more a stormy rebel than a conscious fighter. In these years Mayakovsky became familiar and friendly with the great revolutionary writer Maxim Gorky, who was pleased to publish his works in the review he directed, ‘Chronicle’. Gorky, who was now a developed proletarian writer, supported and assisted the poet at a time when the bourgeois press was attacking him fiercely. They were united by a common anger against all the oppressors, by affection and praise for free man, for the revolution – against which the whole Tsarist state and the bourgeois press and art had undertaken a foul attack to try and stem the new tide of revolution which was rising in Russia. Precisely in these years there rang out the poetical voice of Mayakovsky who, alongside Gorky, entered the October Revolution, singing to it and greeting it as his own. ‘October. To accept it or not? For me this question never arose. It is my revolution. I went to Smolny. I worked’. Literary Creativity during the Civil War Mayakovsky undertook a wide activity in the service of the Soviet state. He wrote verses and film scenarios, appeared himself in films and, on the first anniversary of the Revolution in 1918, presented at the festival the theatrical piece ‘Mystery-Bouffe’, dedicated to the triumph of the socialist revolution. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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He shared the joys and anxieties of Soviet power. In the heroic years of hunger and cold of the Civil War, Mayakovsky acted as a revolutionary poet; he went to the people, to the soldiers and marines, reading his verse and giving heart to them. Such is his poem of these years ‘Left March’ (1918) , about the proletarian courage, discipline and optimism of those engaged in the struggle with counter-revolution. This poem reveals a new face in Mayakovsky’s lyrical poetry, the face of a clearer and simple poetry, fully intelligible to the masses. As a newspaper wrote at the time: ‘with his strong, powerful voice, which resounded through the whole square, he read the poem ‘Left March’. The whole square repeated his verse: ‘The Commune will never go down. Left! Left! Left! ’ During the years 1919-1922 Mayakovsky worked night and day, up to sixteen hours a day, in the Russian telegraphic agency (Rosta) . He drafted hundreds of posters and wrote for them thousands of captions in topical verse. These posters were called ‘Rosta’s windows’. They were pasted up each day in the streets of Moscow. This intensive work, very useful also for the poet himself, helped him to get to know the new reality more profoundly and comprehensively, and to link himself more closely with the interest of the people and the socialist state. Directing himself to the man of the masses through posters, Mayakovsky learned to speak in poetry too with a simpler language, closer to the living speech of the people, and to use a clearer, but still original, figurative style. He studied passionately the speeches and reports of Lenin and drew from them themes for his poetry. A new step towards socialist realism in the poet’s creativity was taken in the poem of these years ‘150,000,000’, which, through an imaginary duel between two legendary giants – Ivan (representing revolutionary Russia) and Wilson (representing Capitalism) – portrays the struggle of the revolution against, and its victory over, the interventionists. Literary Creativity after the Civil War When the land of the Soviets began work on the reconstruction of the ruined economy and the building of the new life, Mayakovsky’s poetry was enriched with new themes and ideas. His important theme in these years was that of labour and socialist patriotism; he extols the construction of the industrial base of socialism (‘Khrenov’s Story of Kuznetsktroy and the People of Kuznetsk’) , celebrates the workers’ vanguard movement (‘March of the Shock Brigades’) , builds in verse a ‘Temporary Monument to the Workers of Kursk, who extracted the First Minerals’, sings of the social changes in the countryside (‘Harvest March’) , weaves optimistic elegies to communists who fell in the course of the duty (‘To Comrade Nette, Man and Ship’) , expresses his optimism and pride in being a citizen of the first socialist country in the world, a country which strikes fear and hatred into the imperialists and everywhere enjoys the sympathy of workers (‘Verse on my Soviet Passport’) , etc. Another theme to which the poet devoted great attention, creating outstanding poems, was that of the struggle against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois survivals in life and in www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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the consciousness of people. With his inspired pen, he promptly echoed the decisions of the party in this field. He wrote verses against religion, religious beliefs and backward customs; he lashed bureaucracy and servility unmercifully, struck out at the ‘dregs’, and gave warnings of the danger of bureaucracy and other blemishes from the past: ‘The storms of the revolutionary gales quietened, the tangle of Soviet strata came together, and behind the back of the RSFSR the petty-bourgeois thrust their snouts’. With his proletarian spirit the poet could not reconcile himself with anything bourgeois or petty-bourgeois; he declared war throughout his life on the standards of their morality. 'Petty-bourgeois habits are more terrible than Wrangel’, wrote the poet in the poem ‘Gregs’. He lashed harshly the bureaucrats who replaced creative work with interminable, useless meetings (‘Meeting Addicts’) , mocked the servile official (‘Rudimentary Methods for Rudimentary Toadies’) , castigated harshly the administrators who wished to suppress the criticism of the masses under the pretext that this criticism harmed the authority of cadres (‘The Pillar’) . One of his favourite themes was that of the life of the new generation. In the poems ‘The Secret of Youth’, ‘Our Sunday’, etc., he delivers a fervent appeal to youth to rise up with a revolutionary leap against religion and outworn customs: ‘Forward, forward, O Communist youth! Forward, towards the sun. At the sound Of your march, Let the heaven tremble with fear’. In the ‘Komsomol Song’ he presents to youth the shining model of Lenin. Particularly attractive are his works for children (‘What is Good and What is Bad’ and for pioneers (‘What I shall be when I grow up’) . Some of Mayakovsky’s best poems are dedicated to the problems of literature and art, such as: ‘The Extraordinary Adventure which happened to Vladimir Mayakovsky in the Country, during Summer’, ‘Order No.2 to the Army of Arts’, ‘Jubilee’, ‘Conversations with an Inspector of Taxes about Poetry’, ‘The Bird of God’, etc. The poet regarded poetical work as something of great importance, as a powerful weapon in the struggle for the new society; he sometimes compares poetry with a bomb and a flag, sometimes with a cart filled with grain: ‘The Song and the Verse Are a bomb and a flag; And the voice of the poet Raises the class to arms. Whoever sings today apart, www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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He is against us’. The poet had a very advanced outlook on love and physical feeling, which elevate and beautify man, give him strength and impel him to lofty social aims (‘I Love’, ‘About This’, ‘Letter to Comrade Kostrov from Paris about the Nature of Love’, etc) . In these years he wrote also the great poems ‘Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’ (1924) and ‘All Right! ’ (1928) , in which he ridiculed people plunged in the morass of petty-bourgeois individualism, and ‘The Bath-House’ (1929) , in which the vital revolutionary spirit of the working class is counter-posed to the seedy bureaucratic style. Mayakovsky was also widely involved in the activity of social organizations; he managed literary reviews, travelled throughout the Soviet Union, met with workers, soldiers, and students. In halls packed with people he read his poems, explained them and the problems of Soviet literature, answered questions and comments, organized lectures and literary discussions, spoke on the radio, wrote slogans for festivals and advertisements for new Soviet products, travelled frequently throughout the country and beyond. ‘I feel it necessary to travel; direct meetings with people have almost replaced for me the reading of books’. In the last three years of his life, for example, the poet visited more than fifty towns in the country and appeared more than 200 times before the public to read his verses. His popularity throughout the Soviet Union was extraordinary. He became poet-agitator, poet-propagandist, who did not confine himself to work on his books; he was active in every sector of the living world, thus rising to the highest level of the writer of the new type, of the active participant in socialist reconstruction; he linked himself closely with social life, with the masses, with the party. The assessment which the people and the Party made of his creativity, the critical comments of Lenin himself, and especially the high evaluation which Lenin made of his poem ‘Meeting Addicts’, became a real inspiration to Mayakovsky, a true compass for his creativity. The poet’s voice also rang out outside the boundaries of his homeland. He journeyed several times to capitalist countries (to Czechoslovakia, Poland, Germany, France, Mexico, Cuba, the United States) and, surmounting the obstacles of the police organs, met with ordinary people and progressive intellectuals, who received him with enthusiasm as a man who came from ‘the spring of socialism’, as the ‘hero of Soviet poetry’. The result of these travels were many lyrical verse about Western life, such as ‘Spain’, ‘Black and White’, Broadway’, ‘Mexico’, ‘Havana’, ‘Paris’, etc.; the notebook ‘My Discovery of America’; the cycle of verses ‘Mayakovsky’s Gallery’, where in a satirical manner he painted the political portraits of bourgeois reactionaries of the time, such as Poincare and Mussolini. It was not accidental that the fascists burned, along with the books of Lenin, Stalin and Gorky, also the volumes of Mayakovsky. Enemies, everywhere and always, feared the poet of the proletarian revolution. At the beginning of the year 1930, Mayakovsky, making a balance sheet of his activity, opened the exhibition of books, photographs and posters entitled ‘Twenty Years of Mayakovsky’s Work’. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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The poem ‘Vladimir Ilych Lenin’ The greatest work of Mayakovsky – dedicated to the giant figure of Lenin, to the role and importance of Lenin’s activity in the world revolution, to the role of the Party he created, tempered and led in battles and victories – is the poem ‘V.I. Lenin’. It fully and finally affirmed the method of socialist realism in poetry. With this poem began the period of maturation and full flowering of Mayakovsky’s revolutionary talent. The poem includes rich material from centuries-old history of the struggle of the proletariat, from its birth to its triumph in one-sixth of the world. It reflects in a symbolic manner the life and work of Lenin, extols the feelings and thoughts of the ordinary working man, born and reared in revolution. The poem has been called, correctly, the ‘epic of the proletariat.’ Mayakovsky had intended to write this work when Lenin was alive. The deep pain caused by the death of the beloved leader became a powerful stimulus for his inspiration. A spontaneous and meaningful question arose in the poet’s mind: ‘Who is this man, from where does he come and what has he done to cause this profound pain among people throughout the world? ’ Mayakovsky, replying poetically to these questions, recreated in the three cantos of the poem the figure of Lenin, linked organically with the Russian and World proletariat, with the Bolshevik Party, with the masses of the people, with history. For the poet of socialist realism the dialectic of historical development, of the change of social system, is clear. Capitalism once played a progressive role: it ripped open ‘the feudal rights’, sang the ‘Marseillaise’, putrefied; it ‘lay down on the road of history’. And so there is ‘only one way out – blasting! ’ And this historic mission will be carried out by the ‘children of work’, the proletarians, to which capitalism gave birth. The poet creates for us with realism the collective figure of the working class, which gradually straightens its back, is tempered in strikes and clashes. Its ideological genius, Marx, reveals the laws of social development and arms his class with an invincible theoretical weapon. From the very bosom of the working class emerges the revolutionary vanguard, ‘the twin of Mother History’: the Bolshevik Party and its leader of genius, Lenin. Mayakovsky, as no one else in poetry, creates the figure of the Party as a majestic symbol of the collective strength and wisdom of the working class, in strong antithesis to the figure of bourgeois individualism. It is the highest level of proletarian organization, the ‘spinal column of the working class’. The ‘immortality of our cause’. The party educates, mobilizes, raises up the masses in revolution and ‘ makes something out of nothing’, and in all these, says the poet, ‘appears the compass of Leninist thought, appears the guiding hand of Lenin’. The figure of Lenin in the poem is thus raised to the symbol of the ‘helmsman’, the genius of human history, ‘the father and son’ of the proletarian revolution. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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Lenin is for the poet a man like other men. His life is distinguished but short. However, in fact this life, in its symbolic meaning, is long; its roots stretch into the past and into the future, into Russia and all the continents. His life is the embodiment of proletarian thought, desire, will, strength. Lenin is presented in the poem with profound realism as thinker of genius and practical man, as educator and leader of millions of proletarians and working people. He is characterized by simplicity and proletarian love for people. He ‘is the most human of all humans who have lived on earth’. For Mayakovsky Lenin is above all, ‘the most human’, but also ‘just like you and me’. Leninist humanism is active proletarian humanism, inspired by love for all the oppressed and by pitiless hatred for every oppressor: ‘He gave ardent love to comrade, became with the enemy steel, relentless’. The highest level of Leninist humanism is the boundless belief in the inexhaustible creative capacity of the masses. Lenin is characterized by extraordinary acuity and strength of mind, which rises above bourgeois petty-mindedness, revealing new horizons of human society: ‘Gazing into space; he saw what time has covered’. He is distinguished by iron will and Bolshevik principle. He tempers the Party of the working class, leads the revolution through the blockades and bullets of the imperialists, draws the first workers’ state along the road of socialism. This, for Mayakovsky, is Lenin: the new man, the man of the socialist epoch, the active, the conscious creator of history, the leader of the new type. His life does not end with death. Lenin died, but the people lives on, communism lives on, the Bolsheviks armed with his idea lives on: ‘And even the death of Ilyich became a great communist organizer’. Pain and sorrow change into revolutionary optimism. Lenin lives on in the hearts of the proletarians of the whole world and calls for world revolution: ‘Proletarians, form ranks for the last battle! Straighten your backs, unbend your knees! Proletarian army, close ranks! Long live the joyous revolution, soon to come! This is the greatest of all great fights that history has known’. The value of the poem does not centre only on the high artistic reflection of the life of Lenin and of the history of the proletariat. It is expressed with great force in the profound feelings of love and respect for the leader, of pain and optimism, of proletarian pride and hatred of bourgeois oppression and exploitation, of unshakable belief in the historic victory of the proletariat, which the poet has embodied in the hero www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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of the work. This hero is the participant in and soldier of, the revolution. The entire content of the poem is presented through his eye and heart. This fills the poem with life and concretizes its inner content, blending in an organic way epic and lyrical qualities, defining its form and style. The poem, by its language, rhythm and other means, remains an innovative work of socialist realism, a worthy monument for the great Lenin, for the Bolshevik Party, for the working class and for the proletarian revolution. The Poem ‘All Right! ’ The poem, which is dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution, is one of Mayakovsky’s most powerful works. It describes in vivid, realistic colours the road followed by the Soviet people and power during ten years under the leadership of the Party. In nineteen short sections, with great artistic power, it presents many pictures of the most important politico-social events, shows how the old feudal-bourgeois power was overthrown in the fiery days of November 1917, depicts the heroism of the people during the Civil War, the latest construction work, the struggle with many difficulties and with class enemies, the brilliant successes. Alongside great difficulties and with class enemies, the brilliant successes. Alongside great events, the work also depicts scenes from intimate life and personal reminiscences of the poet himself, always closely linked with the central theme. So, in the poem epic elements are intertwined with lyrical elements. In the poem there are also drawn in a few lines satirical portraits of some of the old bourgeois world leaders, counterposed to portraits of the new people of the revolution. An important place in the poem is occupied by the elevation of the feeling of the new socialist patriotism. Singing joyfully to the heroic struggle and work of the people and the party for the construction of the new society, the poet feels happy when he sees that his life and work are fused with those of the people and the Party. The poem is permeated throughout by optimism and by pride in the victories achieved by the revolution. In it there is found a profound, realistic reflection of the heroism of the working class and the whole Soviet working people in the first years of socialist construction. The well-known Soviet critic Lunacharsky has called this poem ‘The October Revolution cast in bronze’. Art and importance The road of Mayakovsky towards the art of socialist realism was not smooth and easy. The difficulties and obstacles which he surmounted on that road testify to his great talent and to the decisive role of Marxist-Leninist ideology in his education. At the beginning of his road the young poet had to struggle against and overcome some formalist, futurist influences. He proceeded with ever more decisiveness from isolated tragic protest, from spontaneous rebelliousness, towards the concrete and conscious call to overthrow the bourgeois world by means of proletarian revolution and to build the new socialist world. This process of the fusion of the poet with the proletarian revolution, his profound assimilation of Marxist-Leninist ideology, his evaluation of and stand on the best traditions of Russian national literature – all these gave birth to the innovational poetry of Mayakovsky. Mayakovsky is the first and greatest representative of socialist poetry. The principal www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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thing in his innovationalism is the creation of the new lyrical hero. This hero is not simply the poet. He is the new citizen of the first proletarian state; conscious revolutionary; the destroyer of the old world and the builder of the new; the creator of the new economy, culture and art, tempered in class struggle, moulded with communist ideas; the living embodiment of the class to which he belongs, of the proletarian epoch. The inner content of Mayakovsky’s poetry comprises the feelings, thoughts and aims of his hero, his past, present and future. Before his acute class observation there are opened up the fundamental contradictions of the epoch: the struggle of the majestic and wonderful new with the ugly bourgeois, feudal and petty-bourgeois old, which resists to the death. This struggle is carried out with a feeling of proletarian enthusiasm and optimism, of patriotism and socialist internationalism, of love for creative work and the working man. The poet issues a call to battle, a call for sacrifices and victories in the name of communism. This new inner content, never before elaborated in poetry, makes the works of Mayakovsky not only a true reflection of life, but also a weapon to change it. It breaks the old poetical framework and opens up new thematic horizons for poetry and its laws. Mayakovsky greatly broadened and enriched the subject matter of poetry. For Mayakovsky everything which has to do with revolution and serves it is beautiful and worthy to be sung in verse. He calls poetry ‘the road to communism’. This new revolutionary poetical concept impels Mayakovsky, while preserving the healthiest aspects of the democratic literary tradition, to reject the old poetry with its musty, obsolete rules. He rejects the ‘theory of distance’, which postulates that one should wait for events to pass, for ‘conditions to ripen’, before writing about it. Mayakovsky creates work of a high artistic level which respond to reality on the spot. The brilliant example of this is the poem ‘V.I. Lenin’, which was written immediately after the leader’s death. Writing about the present, about the problems of the day, he generalizes them and opens up representatives for the future. This revolution in inner content and in the creative process brought about also a revolutionization of form in the poet’s work. And this was not an easy, smooth road to take without mistakes and without defects. At the beginning of his creativity, Mayakovsky was attracted to a certain extent to futuristic expressions, attaching great importance to the external figurative resonance of the verse. But later, alongside his profound assimilation of new content, the poet moved towards clarity, simplicity and the artistic elevation of his works. And this was natural, since Mayakovsky, from the beginning of his creativity, directed himself to ordinary people. He wished them to understand and be inspired by his verses to revolutionary actions, to be served by them as ‘bomb and flag’. For this, he created new literary kinds of agitational poetry, of ‘marching order’ poetry. Mayakovsky changed and enriched other kinds of poetry with new elements, corresponding to the ideas he wished to express. Thus, into the genres of poetry and comedy, he inserted, among other things, political satire and the political grotesque. Mayakovsky performed a great work for the enrichment of poetical language. He broke the framework of the old poetical language and inserted into verse the vivid vocabulary, the beautiful expressions and proverbs, of the people. He created new words to express profound economic and social change. Through short phrases and concise thoughts, he presented the dynamism of the revolution. Mayakovsky brought radical changes too into figuration and other means of artistic expression. His comparisons are as daring as they are vivid. His hyperboles are suited www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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to the gigantic destructive and restorative action of revolution. His epithets and metaphors are clear, beautiful and profound in content. Mayakovsky’s innovations take a concise and original form, materialize in the free verse he preferred, with a powerful rhythm and meaningful resonant metre, which corresponds to the wishes of the poet that his work should be recited and communicated directly to the masses of listeners. Mayakovsky’s creativity became in every direction the living embodiment of the socialist revolution. ‘Mayakovsky’, Stalin has said, ‘was and remains the best and most talented poet of the Soviet epoch’. His work represents the first traditions of the poetry of socialist realism in the world, which every literature develops according to the time and national conditions. The poetry of Mayakovsky remains the symbol of innovation, of boundless broadening of the tasks and possibilities of the poetry of socialist realism, of the potentialities of the free personality who, armed with Marxist-Leninist ideology, creates the life and economy, the culture and history, of society. WILFRED JOHN POET AND FREELANCE JOURNALIST Source: Jakup Mato, Rinush Idrizi, Vangjush Ziko and Anastas Kapurani: ‘Foreign Literature’, Part Two, The Albanian Society, Ilford,1987.Click here to return to the September 2003 index. WILFRED JOHN

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Walking One Morning Up A Road Near Woods Mariana, with the morning so, Walking one morning up a road near woods, With the sun young that morning, And the dew not long gone from grass and roses; violets still were wet; the moon had not so long gone; Mariana had not long awakened; Mariana, with the sun growing hotter, going west, coming nearer to Mariana, Mariana, going up a road near woods, thinking of Thursdays and gone nights and coming nights, Mariana, sweetly crushing twigs on a road, twigs there somehow. Mariana, grasping at some leaves of a nearby tree. Mariana, thinking of Thursdays. Mariana, scaring a butterfly; Mariana, scaring little living things in warm flowers. Mariana, living through a morning near woods. Mariana's dress touching at times tall grass green in fields. Mariana, seen by a bird. Mariana, touched by a slow wind. Mariana, coming nearer to woods. Mariana, moving little stones in the road; Mariana, covering with her slippers, Mariana covering little stones in the road. Mariana, seeing a rose. Mariana, in woods. The woods have Mariana. Mariana has woods. A leaf falls on Mariana's hair; the leaf falls down from Mariana's hair, down her face, down her neck; she walks; the leaf falls down over her dress, touching her dress, and falls down in grass; Mariana walks on in woods. All in Mariana's morning. This morning Mariana has. This morning, on road and in woods, in summer, under summer, morning sun, Mariana, Mariana has. WILFRED JOHN

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Wanting You Smooth And Casual If your mother's like mine Wanting you smooth and casual You’ll get safe to eat by getting evicted Since the mothers can teach With a dustpan the Tons of modes of tossing. And the fathers will lift Your eyes too-early-too-open The fathers can creep up on Anything when it's still too wet To cloister with their weeping And strand you like a seed Or cook at the carnivals With the can-do caroling And storefronts and foodstuffs And annulments and Scotch Until they're cooking the flow Of you wanting a whole bayou up in you and cooking and cooking the gist of you needing your crannies hot with a good man's body-silt until your head is stuffed with a pining for diapers and the most minuscule spoons made mostly of silver while howling at the marrow of the marrow of the bone. WILFRED JOHN

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WAYS TO PLEASE YOUR MATE You're here because You want to make your Sex life exciting. You want to make it hot. Passionate. Mind-blowing. You probably want to find Ways to please your mate. Whether your love life's a little stale And you want to bring back the Fire or you just want to make Iit even hotter you'll find everything You need right here with over WILFRED JOHN

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WE ALL WANT ANSWERS Life is not getting answers Its about asking questions It is easy to ask But to choose the rightquestion Is Imprtant to choose the right We all want answers But we cannot always get them Not unless we ask The Intelectual questions first In order to do this We need To choose the question The answer might not Always be clear, but its still there Behind all your questions WILFRED JOHN WILFRED JOHN

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WE ARE THE HUMANITY OF THE WORLD We are the civilization on this planet All life is unified and mutually dependent All share in the worldwide tie of love Love begins with self receipt and pardon With lenience and sympathy we hold variety Jointly we make a dissimilarity through love. WILFRED JOHN

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What's Your Initial Reaction You've just come into a ton of money. What's your initial reaction? You ask if there's a catch You jump up and down, screaming your head off You start dreaming up all the things you will do with it You figure out how much you want to spend and how much you want to save You start spending it randomly on amazing things You plot of a fabulous way to spend it on something big You're arguing with some friends over an issue you care deeply about. How do you drive your point home? You get very animated and hyper explaining it to them You keep telling them the different reasons for feeling the way you do You present them with a simple, elegant argument You try to figure out where they're coming from on this You try to emphasize the points on which you all agree You try to give them as many facts as possible so that they are better informed You plan on spending an evening alone watching a movie. What kind of film do you pick out for yourself Drama Action Documentary Suspense A hybrid of many genres, like a dramedy Comedy You can't stand it when people are: Unwilling to reflect on things Calm during exciting times Close minded Eager to ignore the truth Sloppy Slow Okay, you know you've got your faults... But some of your good qualities are: Your ability to be fair and impartial Your flexibility and eagerness to learn Your style and grace Your optimism and liberal attitude Your eye for detail and deep knowledge of the world Your enthusiasm and energy WILFRED JOHN www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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WHEELS LOCK AUTOMATICALLY So colourful spaces and heights I try to see after black days of my owns My songs try I throw out to crowds and to you Like waves that washed ashore exposing to view Now roused from my sleep I’ll stay at my own like bird with a broken wing Of dreams whatever lies frozen in the ice, Suspended as though floating upside down in the sky. The fiddle music was over, so the priest went home And saw the ghost of his father sitting on the bed. Late in the season when the ice gets soft Some drunk tries to cross at night and disappears. Most people worry about saying the wrong thing, Think too long about the darkness beneath their feet. Wheels lock automatically When passenger doors are open. She gave her daughter the red sweater and a key To the safety deposit box down at the bank. Something that shouldn't have been there; A car in the same spot for days, gathering tickets. 1981 WILFRED JOHN

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When You See Her Deep Blue Eyes Looking for hope I've lost my hope If you find her send her back I'm sure she's still Wearing that green dress she loves I know she's cold But I don't think she is scared... It's only me... I refuse to be alone. I've lost my hope If you find her send her back You'll know it's her When you see her deep blue eyes I'm still alone And I don't think this is fair Please heavens, please... I will need my hope tonight... Looking for hope I've lost my hope If you find her send her back I'm sure she's still Wearing that green dress she loves I know she's cold But I don't think she is scared... It's only me... I refuse to be alone. I've lost my hope If you find her send her back You'll know it's her When you see her deep blue eyes I'm still alone And I don't think this is fair Please heavens, please... I will need my hope tonight... WILFRED JOHN

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WHERE I GO I JUST DON'T KNOW I've got a bad disease But from my brain is where I bleed. Insanity it seems Has got me by my soul to squeeze. Well all the love from thee With all the dying trees I scream. The angels in my dreams Have turned to demons of greed that's mean. Where I go I just don't know I got to got to gotta take it slow. When I find my piece of mind I give you some of my good time. Today love smiled on me. It took away my face say please All that you had to free You gotta let it be. So polite indeed Well I got everything I need. Oh make my days a breeze And take away my self destruction It's bitter baby. And it's very sweet. I'm on a rollercoaster, but I'm on my feet. Take me to the river, Let me on your shore. I'll be coming back baby, I'll be coming back for more.' WILFRED JOHN

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WHY PEOPLE ARE SCEPTICAL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS The happier I let myself be The harder the fall is I really do understand why people are Sceptical about relationships It’s just so hard. But, I am very fortunate to have learned how to truly Appreciate and cherish each moment Because something so beautiful deserves no less No matter if it’s a Person or a moment where time just seems to stop because You realize that souls have come Together into this world That’s the thing about being happy And are truly living it Experiencing it together Paths may meet or separate Joyfully and painfully Yet if one respects and love all things Then there is still hope, And perhaps it just may be bearable. 1980 WILFRED JOHN

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WILFRED JOHN'S CIRCLE Romanticists have an unusual penchant for 'circles' and 'schools.' We have a Lake School, a Satanic School, and a Cockney School (which includes the Hunt circle): we have Joseph Johnson's circle, the Wordsworth Circle, Shelley and his Circle; and we have, of course, the plural and seemingly all-encompassing Romantic Circles. It is as if romanticists wish to account for the literary culture of the early nineteenth century in the graphic terms of a Venn diagram. And yet, for all these overlapping schools and circles, some figures always seem to lie just beyond the circumference, unlisted on the roster of any particular school and thus relegated (literally) to the margins of literary history where they appear only occasionally in the odd footnote. Until quite recently, William Hone has been just such a figure. Though he was well known to many of the central writers and publishers of the Regency period, and in spite of his general fame (or notoriety) in the public prints, and though he was the long-time friend of Charles Lamb, the publisher of Hazlitt's Political Essays, and perhaps the best-selling writer in England during the post-Peterloo and Queen Caroline affair periods, Hone has not been widely known or widely read among more recent romantics scholars. Happily, over the last dozen years or so this state of affairs has begun to change. With the publication of such works as Marcus Wood's Radical Satire and Print Culture, Joss Marsh's Word Crimes, a handful of essays and electronic editions (such as The Political House That Jack Built, here on Romantic Circles and on my BioText website) , and most recently in Ben Wilson's Laughter of Triumph, Hone's work as a publisher and journalist, parodist and antiquarian is coming into increasing prominence. The volume under consideration here offers a timely contribution to this swell of interest in Hone. The first substantial compilation of Hone's work since Edgell Rickword's Radical Squibs and Loyal Ripostes (1971) , and the first collection ever to offer anything approaching a comprehensive view of Hone's 'life and works, ' Regency Radical: Selected Writings of William Hone is a most useful volume. The book presents a biographical introduction to Hone supplemented by a short chronology; a very brief selection of articles from The Reformists' Register, a short-lived weekly that Hone published—initially with the help of Francis Place—in 1817; extended selections from Hone's famous libel trials of 1817; four of the half dozen or so illustrated satires produced with George Cruikshank in 1819-21; and a short selection of material drawn from Hone's very popular late-career antiquarian works, The Every-Day Book (1825-27) , The Table Book (1827) , and The Year Book (1832) . These excerpts from the published works are followed by a short sampling from Hone's voluminous correspondence, much of which is very illuminating and entertaining reading but most of which has never been published. The works collected here thus span the period when Hone was at his most prominent and influential as a public figure, and they suggest something of the range and the development of Hone's writing and publishing efforts. All of these selections are effectively, but unobtrusively annotated. And herein lies the chief value of Kent and Ewen's volume. Heretofore, editions of Hone's work have been scattered and often very partial. While editions of some pieces—Hone's Three Trials, for instance, or The Political House that Jack Built—have always been relatively easy to locate and read, scholarly discussion of such works has typically appeared in rather limited contexts. Many readers of Romantic Circles, for instance, will be familiar with Hone as a parodist and satirist, but will know little about his journalism or his antiquarianism. Likewise, historians of British jurisprudence may well know Hone from his 1817 libel trials, but be blind to the broader context of Hone's distinctive 'antiquarian radicalism' and to his literary pretensions. And few romanticists or legal historians are very keenly aware of the important role Hone's Apocryphal New Testament (1820) plays in the history of Bible publishing and discussions of the www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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biblical canon. The inevitable result, of course, is that it has been difficult to see Hone in any comprehensive way. Regency Radical strives to draw together the fragments of Hone's reputation into a single volume where students and scholars of the Romantic period can finally begin to grasp the breadth of the man's efforts. In effect, the book serves to 'humanize' Hone, seeing his work not as a rich source of marginal materials and backgrounds for studies focused elsewhere but rather as a coherent body of work in its own right, the product of the man whose portrait stares evocatively from the front cover and whose sometimes very personal (and personable) letters make up the book's final section. Regency Radical presents a new Hone, then, and the book will likely find its greatest value in this suggestion of a comprehensive view of the works and, of course, as a kind of ready reference to the numerous topical allusions that are so frequent in the sort of politically engaged writing that is typical of Hone's ouvre. This is very useful scholarship indeed. Unfortunately, this comprehensive inclination is also, inevitably, the source of the book's limitations. While the volume does offer a broader and more accessible view of Hone than anything else currently in print, there are some surprising gaps in the coverage. For instance, nothing from the series of antiquarian and polemical works that followed Hone's controversial publication of the Apocryphal New Testament is represented here—readers are likely to come away from the volume with no awareness of this still largely unexplored aspect of Hone's career. Other editorial selections are similarly lacking. There are no works previous to 1817, though the introduction to an 1816 pamphlet (the lengthy title of which begins Hone's Interesting History of the Memorable Blood Conspiracy....) offers perhaps Hone's clearest and most unequivocal justification for his radical publishing activities. Likewise, there are no selections from the Cruikshank-illustrated satire A Slap at Slop and His Bridge-Street Gang (1821) , though I am not alone in thinking it is the best of the satires and would presumably fit perfectly the selection criteria of a volume called Regency Radical. Of course it is easy to complain about works that are missing from the volume—any 'selected works' compilation is going to omit some important pieces, often for reasons that are fully justifiable. In the case of A Slap at Slop, for instance, the editors may have omitted the piece because the original was printed in a full sheet newspaper format that does not transfer well to smaller codex formats (though Hone himself also printed a rather disappointing octavo version) . The problem here involves a kind of uncertainty about what the book is intended to be and to do. If the editors wished—as their title suggests—to focus on those works that made Hone famous during the radical years of the late Regency, then one wonders why the antiquarian prose from the 20s and 30s (as well as a range of letters extending well beyond the limits of Hone's 'radical years') is included at all. The later prose, after all, seems to crowd out some other important, even defining works from Hone as a 'Regency radical.' Alternatively, if the editors intended to provide a more comprehensive overview—as is suggested by the texts chosen for inclusion and as announced in the dustjacket blurb—then one wonders why excerpts from the Apocryphal New Testament and Ancient Mysteries Described or even Hone's spurious continuation of Byron in Don Juan, Canto the Third! or his heavily edited republication of Defoe's Jure Divino might not have made the cut. As it stands, the selection criteria are never clearly spelled out, and the headnotes to each major section (in the absence of a Preface and of headnotes to individual selections) offer only the most minimal guidance. These quibbles aside, Regency Radical is a welcome and valuable book. It provides a convenient and well-edited reading text for some of Hone's more familiar works, most www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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notably the Three Trials and the (fully illustrated) Hone-Cruikshank collaborations from the post-Peterloo years. These works are supplied with annotations and glosses which, if not always as thorough as one might want, nonetheless offer some original insights as well as sensible distillations of such important commentaries as those of Dorothy George, Ann Bowden, Robert Patton, Marcus Wood, Kevin Gilmartin and others. Hone's political writing from the late-Regency period is highly topical and historically grounded, packed with allusions to contemporary persons, issues, and events. It is a great help to have a reasonably accurate and comprehensive key to such allusions collected together in a single volume. For students and scholars alike, Regency Radical offers both a sound introduction and a handy reference to Hone's most characteristic writing. WILFRED JOHN

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WITH ONE WINKING STAR Now that wind has confused itself with Water we at last breathe you each caviar Cluster out seeking its lung - your every Germ jiggling & sliming with canker. While in saucers of coral our hothouse Fungi continue rise fan their white Gills to spore you - till even amoebae In basalt oceans frisk you & take you in Whole - wobbling with energy the way The jowls of a diner might try to subdue The peppercorn molars alight on - o see How we smear ourselves in elements one. On another as a child would in ochre How urgent we are to extend that table None may sit at - till brain-dust carries On dry surf on fire to complete this grey Blue circle of planet with one winking star We are that grit crackling the seam of your pocket WILFRED JOHN

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WOMEN IN MY LIFE I was born A woman was there to hold me My mother I grew as a child A woman was there to care for me To play with me My sister I went to school a woman was there to help me learn my teacher I became depress, whenever I lost a woman was there to offer a shoulder my wife I became tough a woman was there to melt me. my daughter I am dying a woman is there to absorb me in. my motherland. Stay CooL and Keep Smiling WILFRED JOHN

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WOULD INSTINCT REALLY BE SHOWN If the Universe should prove to be A computer reality truly be composed Of digital programs in clever disguise Would instinct really be shown Just a databank's manifestation Memory chips composing Present and past explode. Life can play tricks refugees know. No security's extent this side of the grave. 1980 WILFRED JOHN

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YOU ARE IN MY THOUGHTS It's a Time to Think your birthday isn't just a day That comes and hurries by it's a time to think of things We've shared together-you and I. It's a chance to say you're in my thoughts Very often all year through it's a time for me to say How much I fondly think of you Happy Birthday WILFRED JOHN

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YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT You are missing the point Life is too short to take it seriously So take it seriously and playwith it Because in the end all that matters Is that you had a good trip And helped others to do the same. WILFRED JOHN

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YOU CAN CALL IT WANT YOU WANT Art of Making Love This is specially for married people We all know that by doing same thing Again and again We will get boared and fed-up But one thing will not get fed-up and it should Not get fed-up that is sex or making love. You can call is what ever you want So please enjoy and try some Different thing everyday. Be happy in your sexual life WILFRED JOHN

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YOU HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY Tread softly because you tread on my dreams Offbeat solutions to problems may beckon But you're better off going mainstream That greets me like the morning sun To feel the breeze of your breath On my neck with sweet kisses everyone. Your smile brightens each day You are my fortress against life's decay, You are all my wishes and dreams come true My romance and love forever are you. For without you I would be lost in the shadows Cast away on the ocean waves of despair, On an Island of total loneliness and solitude Where I would no doubt cease to exist without care. For you are an angel of God's creation You are as peaceful as the dove in the sky, Do you mind shutting up for ten bloody minutes Ask friends or your partner for their input and support. Because you have an opportunity to release some emotions You've been holding on to for too long. Letting go of the old can make room for The new dreams beneath your feet. WILFRED JOHN

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YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN ME My child, you appear so anxious you've tried so hard to be Everything at once impossible you've forgotten about me. So take up your heavy cross I've carried it already With me beside you walking It will not seem so heavy. Don't try to be the best there is Just do what you can do And when you feel you can't go on I'll be there to see you through So stop all your fantasies of how life's imaginary to be Just do the best that you can do and leave the rest up to me. WILFRED JOHN

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YOU WILL MISS MOTHER NO MORE Miss your cheerful presence The joy that you brought Shared, one innocent moment The pain that brought you Grief in a child's mind Lay your head down on the pillow Soft as hay no more bullets No more sorrow under a sheltering sky. 1978 How much have thine young eyes seen The shrapnels that took away your mother dear And how much have thine young soul felt When they wasted you Is it a fallacy Or is it the truth Is the truth the fallacy That you've suffered for the folly

Rest ye well now As I sing to you forgotten lullabys And together we count the stars above Sleep tight tonight Nestle your teddy tight When you open your eyes You will miss mother no more WILFRED JOHN

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