Poetry

[other_life]

@thirdform previous three posts, luv 😘

 

[Benny Bunter]

Mild coincidence I was looking up some helen vendler lectures the other day and turns out she died the other day

Helen Vendler, ‘Colossus’ of Poetry Criticism, Dies at 90

In the poetry marketplace, her praise had reputation-making power, while her disapproval could be withering.

www.nytimes.com

Found a pdf of her big commentary book on Shakespeare's sonnets the other day, it's great. Link

Really insightful close readings of each of the sonnets, and the introductory essay is really good as well. Definitely some of the best criticism I've read on Shakespeare - avoids all that sociological, psychological rubbish and concentrates on how the poems themselves actually work as "verbal contraptions".

Somehow, Shakespeare’s words and images (most of the latter, taken singly, fully conventional) do not seem interesting enough as “meaning” to scholarly critics; and so an argument for additional “ambiguous” import is presented, if only to prop up Shakespeare’s reputation. The poet Frank O’Hara had a better sense for the essential semantic emptiness of love lyrics when he represented them (in his poem “Blocks”) as “saying” “I need you, you need me, yum yum.” The appeal of lyric lies elsewhere than in its paraphrasable statement. Where, then, does the charm of lyric lie? The answers given in this Commentary are as various as the sonnets examined, since Shakespeare almost never repeats a strategy. However, they can be summed up in the phrase “the arrangement of statement.” Form is content-as-arranged; content is form-as-deployed.

 

[jenks]

Vendler on the sonnets is a joy. So much more interesting than Paulin.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Vendler on the sonnets is a joy. So much more interesting than Paulin.

She even manages to make sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? come alive again, which is quite an achievement.

 

[Benny Bunter]

I've got 53, 73, 94, 106 and 129 memorised now. It's a good mental activity when exercising or doing menial household tasks.

 

[dilbert1]

@luka are you doing poems this weekend my parents are in London

 

[luka]

yes, from midday would be honoured to annoit them

 

[dilbert1]

yes, from midday would be honoured to annoit them

What instructions do I give them

 

[luka]

tell them to ask for a poem about the sexual bout that conceived their son dilbert

 

[yyaldrin]

What instructions do I give them

baggy bumhole

 

[dilbert1]

Yeah I meant like where you guys are located but that’s helpful too

 

[dilbert1]

You know theres a real chance they give you a decent tip to write the most shit poem of your life if one of you just tell me where to find you

 

[william_kent]

You know theres a real chance they give you a decent tip to write the most shit poem of your life if one of you just tell me where to find you

"south bank"

tip!

 

[ver$hy ver$h]

"On the South Bank of the River Thames, between the tourist behemoths of the Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre..." is what it says in some article.

 

[dilbert1]

Thanks guys (btw i’m new to dissensus)

 

[luka]

yes between tate modern and shakespeares globe is the best way to put it i will be there by midday at the latest. tell them to wear some kind of identifying badge

 

[ver$hy ver$h]

 

[mixed_biscuits]

yes between tate modern and shakespeares globe is the best way to put it i will be there by midday at the latest. tell them to wear some kind of identifying badge

You'll be able to make them out by the sound of knuckles dragging along the ground. No offence, dilbert.

 

[dilbert1]

None taken, that’s a perfectly nice and normal thing to say

 

[Benny Bunter]

View attachment 19997

Who wrote this? It reminds me a bit of Robert Frost, not as good as him but fairly decent.