Henry Vaughan*

Henry Vaughan (1621-1695)

Henry Vaughan was born in 1622 in Breconshire, Wales to Thomas Vaughan and Denise Morgan. Entering Oxford University in 1638 where he studied with his twin brother Thomas followed his Welsh childhood. In 1640 he left Oxford to study law in London for two years. It was also in London that he started his poetic apprenticeship at the Inns of Court. In 1642 he returned back to Breconshire at the onset of a Civil War. It is here that he served as secretary to the Circuit Chief Justice of the Great Sessions until 1645. At that time he joined the company of soldiers who fought for King Charles's cause with Sir Herbert Price at Chester. By 1646 it is assumed he married Catherine Wise with whom he was to have a son and three daughters.

Before 1650 Vaughan's poetry was mostly secular but in the period of 1650 and the years spanning there after his poetry turned toward spiritual issues and he became known as a mystical writer. The mysticism and Neoplatonism of Vaughn's best known collection of poems, Silex Scintillans or The Fiery Flint link him to the metaphysical tradition of Donne, Herbert, and Crashaw, yet his verse continued to reflect his fondness for the wit and spareness of Jonson. The poems contained within this work express his anger and disappointment at the outcome of the Civil War. For example, within the poem In Prayer in Time of Persecution Vaughan rails against the Puritans for confiscating the woods of his family’s estate. Sometime after 1650 in additon to writing and translating works on the subject he practiced as a physician.

The following year (1651) Olor Iscanus or The Swan of Usk was published which was a collection of secular poetry with four prose translations. This piece was so named because of the River Usk, which flows near his hometown. Even though it was a secular work it did contain "rhapsodic passages about natural beauty". In 1655 Silex Scintillans was reprinted with a second additional part. In this section he talks of an illness he had suffered which appears to have been spiritual and may have even been the cause of his conversion experience. In this preface he also contributes his spiritual awakening to the poems of George Herbert. It is definitely apparent that Vaughan's inspired religious poetry is very reminiscent of Herbert's The Temple.

He died on April 23, 1695, and was buried in Llansantffraed churchyard.

*Biography from Poet Seers

Of Truth

Flowers of Evil

Charles Baudelaire (whose birth date was just two days ago), said to be one of the more influential poets of the French symbolist movement, is to me one of the best poets coming out of France.

Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil is one of the most enjoyable reads: odious, mysterious, audacious poems fill that volume, and I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone who might have a flavor for darker (albeit, talented) poets. Baudelaire IS that poet.

A Poem to Lucy

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone.
Half hidden from the eye!
—Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!


Of the Poem (Brief Commentary & Parameters)

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways was written by Wordsworth in Germany in 1798 and published in London in 1800. The poem is dedicated to a figure hitherto unknown: Lucy.

It is said by some that Lucy is a real person, by others that she’s fictitious, and still by others that she’s a composite, hybrid character. Thomas DeQuincey, a friend of Wordsworth, wrote that the poet "always preserved a mysterious silence on the subject of that Lucy.”

What is known about Lucy is that she meant a great deal to Wordsworth, and that, according to the group of poems, she died young.

Of the Lucy poems there’s a total of five (including this one) - the others are:

• Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower
• A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
• Strange Fits of Passion have I Known
• I Travelled among Unknown Men

Parameters

Stanza: The poem consists of three quatrains structured very much so in the form of a ballad.

Meter: The first and third line of each stanza revolve* around a tetrameter (i.e. 8 syllables per line), and the second and fourth are trimeters (i.e. 6 syllables per line).

Rhyme Scheme: The rhyme scheme, per stanza, is abab (but notice that an oblique rhyme is used in lines 5 and 7, i.e. stone and one).

And so there it is, another exceedingly gorgeous work by another admirable poet.


*****

Before I leave off, just a side note ...

One of my New Years resolutions was that I'd steep myself into any and everything that even remotely was connected with poetry- bad idea: there's just too much that's connected to it (or should I say, poetry is connected to everything).

Well, one of the first things on my list was to undergo a rigorous, systematic study of the history of poetry, her movements, and the poets of those movements. When I reached the Romantic period (within which Wordsworth was) I felt blessed to know it.

If any person was just beginning to learn about poetry and asked my advice on where to start, I promise you my resolute answer would be the Romantic period.

Be blessed all, and feel the Muse ...


*****
*I say ‘revolves around’ a tetrameter because lines I and 5 both contain an extra syllable. We could, if we wanted to force a tetrameter, read line one like this: She dwelt among th’ untrodden ways … but this wouldn’t account for line 5’s extra syllable.

William Wordsworth*

William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850)

On April 7, 1770, William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumbria, England. Wordsworth's mother died when he was eight--this experience shapes much of his later work. Wordsworth attended Hawkshead Grammar School, where his love of poetry was firmly established and, it is believed, he made his first attempts at verse. While he was at Hawkshead, Wordsworth's father died leaving him and his four siblings orphans. After Hawkshead, Wordsworth studied at St. John's College in Cambridge and before his final semester, he set out on a walking tour of Europe, an experience that influenced both his poetry and his political sensibilities. While touring Europe, Wordsworth came into contact with the French Revolution. This experience as well as a subsequent period living in France, brought about Wordsworth's interest and sympathy for the life, troubles and speech of the "common man". These issues proved to be of the utmost importance to Wordsworth's work. Wordsworth's earliest poetry was published in 1793 in the collections An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches. While living in France, Wordsworth conceived a daughter, Caroline, out of wedlock; he left France, however, before she was born. In 1802, he returned to France with his sister on a four-week visit to meet Caroline. Later that year, he married Mary Hutchinson, a childhood friend, and they had five children together. In 1812, while living in Grasmere, they grieved the loss of two of their children, Catherine and John, who both died that year.

Equally important in the poetic life of Wordsworth was his 1795 meeting with the poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was with Coleridge that Wordsworth published the famous Lyrical Ballads in 1798. While the poems themselves are some of the most influential in Western literature, it is the preface to the second edition that remains one of the most important testaments to a poet's views on both his craft and his place in the world. In the preface Wordsworth writes on the need for "common speech" within poems and argues against the hierarchy of the period which valued epic poetry above the lyric.

Wordsworth's most famous work, The Prelude (1850), is considered by many to be the crowning achievement of English romanticism. The poem, revised numerous times, chronicles the spiritual life of the poet and marks the birth of a new genre of poetry. Although Wordsworth worked on The Prelude throughout his life, the poem was published posthumously. Wordsworth spent his final years settled at Rydal Mount in England, travelling and continuing his outdoor excursions. Devastated by the death of his daughter Dora in 1847, Wordsworth seemingly lost his will to compose poems. William Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount on April 23, 1850, leaving his wife Mary to publish The Prelude three months later.

*Biography from Poets.org

Lifted Up

I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.

John 12:32

Uplifted

Beyond the mystic’s hope I hope
To know the higher sky
To live and breathe that vaulted slope
Where seraphs joyous fly

O raise me from this solemn earth
And place me in the blue
And grant renewal, newer birth
And clad me in thy hue

Let henceforth fairer blue skies reign
Where fowl in cadence stroll
Release me from this bond, this chain
This flesh, and free my soul

Let bright blue stars their auras lend
Whose phosphor lights I see
And all those truths that do transcend
Ah, draw them unto me

-jwm



Of the Poem (Parameters and Notes):

Stanza: Ballad, Common Measure, Quatrain
Meter: Alternates between a tetrameter (8 syllables per line), and a trimeter (6 syllables)
Rhyme Scheme: abab per individual stanza

I wrote this poem as a sort of counter-sequel to a poem I wrote and dedicated to Anne Sexton.

I named the poem, Touch the Sky. That particular poem speaks on Sexton’s desire to kill herself ('to negate flesh') and my astonishment and grief that she did. It's pretty good, you should check it out.

The imagery employed in that poem is somewhat similar to the imagery employed in this one- namely, sky verses earth. The difference between the two poems, however, and the reason this current one is a counter-sequel, is that Sexton literally took her life to escape this earthly realm, while this poem speaks of the desire to be one with God and everything that pertains to Him, the desire to cast off- not kill- the flesh.

Hope you guys like it. Happy National Poetry Month!!


****

About the sub-quote, it’s from John 12:32 and refers to Jesus’ crucifixion. While acknowledging the historical reference of the verse, I’ve always found a symbol (in fact, many symbols) hidden away in that statement. This particular poem is inspired by one of those interpretations.

The ‘earth’ represents the flesh, or that which is merely corporeal, or worldly. The 'sky' represents the spirit and that which is spiritual or heavenly.

To be ‘lifted up from the earth’ signifies a receding or drawing away from things of the flesh, or that which is worldly. At the same time, it also represents an increase in that which is spiritual and heavenly (since the ‘lifting up’ is a lifting up toward the sky).

I take, in this particular case, the word ‘man’ to symbolize spiritual truths; and so, to ‘draw all men unto me’ simply signifies exposure to spiritual truths, truths that transcend that which is merely corporeal.

The crucifixion itself was an actual act of sacrifice, and therefore, latent in the poem is the idea that departing from the base things of the flesh to attain the noble things of the spirit requires sacrifice.

Interestingly, and I love this fact, the words ‘holy’ and ‘saint’ and ‘sanctification’ all imply a state of separation in the Bible- that is, a separation and departure from that which is not of God. This poem implies that idea of separation, a separation that brings one closer to God, and one that increases propriety. In fact, the point of the poem is exceedingly akin to one of my favorite quotes:

We ought to fly away from the earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.
-Plato-

Hello, Corso

Gregory Nunzio Corso (1930 – 2001)

About a week back it was the birth date of Gregory Corso, one of the original founders (and the youngest) of the Beat poets.

Over the months I’ve come to know a great deal about this movement and its members. They were poets that arose shortly after World War II, poets that rejected social norms and conventions along with the poetic forms that were spawned by these.

My favorite among them would have to be Denise Levertov and LeRoi Jones (otherwise known as Amiri Baraka). Notwithstanding, I appreciate Corso and have enjoyed several of his works. I commend the man as a poet, and thank him and his generation for their contribution to the world and history of poetry.

Corso, as many of the Beats were, was heavily influenced by Romanticism, Surrealism, and- naturally- Modernism in poetry. There was a deep seated desire with these poets to also study eastern religious ideologies (indeed, many of the Beats claimed to be Buddhists- especially Ginsberg and Snyder).

Corso himself was influenced by Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Chatterton, and Percy Bysshe Shelley (in particular by Shelley's, A Defence of Poetry).

The first poem written by Corso that impressed me is called, Hello.

Hello

It is disastrous to be a wounded deer.

I'm the most wounded, wolves stalk,

and I have my failures, too.

My flesh is caught on the Inevitable Hook!

As a child I saw many things I did not want to be.

Am I the person I did not want to be?

That talks-to-himself person?

That neighbors-make-fun-of person?

Am I he who, on museum steps, sleeps on his side?

Do I wear the cloth of a man who has failed?

Am I the looney man?

I the great serenade of things,

am I the most cancelled passage?

Bums Me Out

It seems that there’s a glitch with my HTML that’s preventing me from spacing my sentences and editing potential posts appropriately. Unfortunately, what this means is that, until I reconcile the problem, I won’t be making any posts (believe me, this sucks) …

On Frost's October

Today is the birth date of two very well known poets, Robert Frost (an icon of American poetry) and Gregory Corso (one of the original- and youngest- founders of the Beat poets). I’ll post on Corso next.

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but Frost influenced me by his deceptively simple style, his humble employment of imagery and words, and his determination to explore many different poetic forms. It was by Frost that I came to learn of the Rubaiyat stanza (a stanza that has aaba as its rhyme scheme, a rhythm I excitingly used in some of my own works).

My favorite poem by Frost (and I believe it’s my daughter’s favorite as well) is, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Beautiful, beautiful read (especially out loud). I also like Nature's First Green is Gold- and other elegant poem (and what still astonishes me is the density of detail in so short a poem).

I learned that Frost wrote Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening in the dead of summer. So, as a tribute to him and that favorite poem of mine, I wanted to share another poem of his on this gorgeous spring day, it’s called: October.


October

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes' sake along the wall.


What a beautiful poem. Personally, the poem reminds me of two things: The mystifying beauty of Indian summer, and our mortality (i.e. the coming of winter). I’d love to hear your take on it.

btw: the picture above is called, October Morning, a work created by the gifted artist, Don Reed (you should click the link and check him out).

Lawrence Ferlinghetti*

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919 to date)

In 1919, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York. After spending his early childhood in France, he received his BA from the University of North Carolina, an MA from Columbia University, and a PhD from the Sorbonne.

During World War II he served in the US Naval Reserve and was sent to Nagasaki shortly after it was bombed. He married in 1951 and has one daughter and one son.

In 1953, Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin began to publish City Lights magazine. They also opened the City Lights Books Shop in San Francisco to help support the magazine. In 1955, they launched City Light Publishing, a book-publishing venture. City Lights became known as the heart of the "Beat" movement, which included writers such as Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac.

Ferlinghetti is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, including Poetry as Insurgent Art (New Directions, 2007)Americus, Book I (2004), San Francisco Poems (2002), How to Paint Sunlight (2001), A Far Rockaway of the Heart (1997), These Are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems, 1955-1993 (1993), Over All the Obscene Boundaries: European Poems & Transitions (1984), Who Are We Now? (1976), The Secret Meaning of Things (1969), and A Coney Island of the Mind (1958). He has translated the work of a number of poets including Nicanor Parra, Jacques Prevert, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Ferlinghetti is also the author more than eight plays and of the novels Love in the Days of Rage (1988) and Her (1966).

In 1994, San Francisco renamed a street in his honor. He was also named the first Poet Laureate of San Francisco in 1998. In 2000, he received the lifetime achievement award from the National Book Critics Circle.

Currently, Ferlinghetti writes a weekly column for the San Francisco Chronicle. He also continues to operate the City Lights bookstore, and he travels frequently to participate in literary conferences and poetry readings.

*Biography from Poets.org

At the Water's Edge

I came across the name Sully Prudhomme after having studied French symbolism. The period of poetry within which he’s associated is the Parnassian period (a primarily French movement in poetry characterized by a departure from the sentimentalism of the Romantic poets, a return to traditional forms and meter, grand subjects, and an attitude of ‘art for art’s sake').

The first poem I read by Prudhomme is called, At the Water’s Edge. It consists of six quatrains with alternating lines of pentameter and dimeter (e.g. 10 syllables in the one, and four in the other). The rhyme scheme is simple: abab.

The poem itself is an empathetic reflection on life and all its different manifestations: watching waves within the water (lines 1 and 2), listening and enjoying the warbling of the wren (lines 11 and 12), knowing love (line 18 and line 24) … basically, enjoying the beauty of life.

Yeah, I like this Prudhomme dude (here’s that poem) …


At the Water's Edge

To sit and watch the wavelets as they flow
Two - side by side;
To see the gliding clouds that come and
And mark them glide;

If from low roofs the smoke is wreathing pale,
To watch it wreath;
If flowers around breathe perfume on the gale,
To feel them breathe;

If the bee sips the honeyed fruit that glistens,
To sip the dew;
If the bird warbles while the forest listens,
To listen too;

Beneath the willow where the brook is singing,
To hear its song;
Nor feel, while round us that sweet dream is clinging
The hours too long;

To know one only deep over mastering passion -
The love we share;
To let the world go worrying in its fashion
Without one care -

We only, while around all weary grow,
Unwearied stand,
And midst the fickle changes others knows,
Love - hand in hand

Sully Prudhomme*

Sully Prudhomme 1839 - 1907

Rene Francois Armand Prudhomme, the son of a French shopkeeper. He also went by the name of René François Armand Sully-Prudhomme and Sully Prudhomme. An eye disease terminated his training at a polytechnic institute where he hoped to become an engineer. Instead, his studies concentrated on literature. His first job was as a clerk in a factory office, which he left in 1860 to study law. Sully Prudhomme was a member of the Conference La Bruyere, a distinguished student society, and the favourable reaction from his fellow members encouraged him to go on writing poetry.

His first volume, Stances et Poemes (Stanzas and Poems) (1865), was well reviewed by Sainte-Beuve and established his reputation. The volume was filled with fluent and melancholic verse inspired by an unhappy love affair. He was a leading member of the Parnassian movement, which sought to restore elegance, balance, and aesthetic standards to poetry, in reaction to the excesses of Romanticism.

Sully Prudhomme combined perfection and elegance with philosophic and scientific interests, which are revealed, for instance, in his translation of the first book of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (1878-79). Some of his other poetic works are: Croquis Italiens (Italian Notebook) (1866-68); Solitudes (1869); Impressions de la guerre (Impressions of War) (1870); Les Destins (Destinies) (1872); La Révolte des fleurs (Revolt of the Flowers) (1872); La France (1874); Les Vaines Tendresses (Vain Endearments)(1875); La Justice (1878); and Le Bonheur(Happiness) (1888). Les Epaves (Flotsam) (1908), published posthumously, was a collection of miscellaneous poems. A collected edition of his writings in five volumes appeared in 1900-01. He also wrote essays and a book on Pascal, La Vraie Religion selon Pascal (Pascal on true Religion) (1905). He was awarded the first Nobel Prize for Literature in 1901.

Sully Prudhomme was a member of the French Academy from 1881 until his deah in 1907.

*Biography from poemhunter.com

Hanks, Poe and Helen

I love how poetry weaves herself into my life without my having to do anything, as if she seeks me.

I was visiting my neighbor’s one day and, because they’re both avid readers, there were books strewn everywhere throughout their house. While I was sitting in their dining area I happen to look down and this little grey book caught my attention- it was the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe (and it was gorgeous looking- tiny and fragile and old, almost like brittle papyrus found tucked away in some forgotten cave).

I picked it up and read the first few lines of the very first poem and I immediately knew I had heard these lines before- but where? Ah ha! It was the poem that Tom Hanks' character recited throughout the movie Ladykillers- the poem is called, To Helen.

To Helen

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

The poem is an anomaly. It’s a gorgeous read and it flows perfectly- this despite the fact that its parameters seem jumbled. Just look at the way the rhyme scheme is laid out:

ababb ababa abbab (thoroughly inconsistent)

Then there’s the anomaly of the poem’s meter: 88886 (syllables) for the first stanza, 89877 for the second, and 88884 for the final stanza. Huh? And yet, again, it contributes directly to the beauty and rhythm of the work itself.

What’s awesome is that this poem was composed while Poe was roughly 14 years old (it was dedicated to the mother of Poe’s best friend, Jane Stith Stanard, his “first real love”).*

The original composition (published in 1831) is slightly different from the revised 1845 version most of us are familiar with. Here’s the original composition (the areas highlighted are where Poe made revisions):

To Helen

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfum'd sea,
The weary way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the beauty of fair Greece,
And the grandeur of old Rome.

Lo ! in that little window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand!
The folded scroll within thy hand —
A Psyche from the regions which
Are Holy land !

It’s strange to say this, I know, but I gives me comfort to know that even a great poet like Poe will go back- years later- and feel the impulse to edit his own works (this occurs with me often).

I suppose the reason for this post- aside from Poe’s lovely poem- is that it seems that no matter where I’m at or what I’m doing, there’s always something referring me to poetry. I thank God for that.

Although Ladykillers is a dark comedy, and although Tom Hanks’ character is a goofy, scholarly type, I thought that the delivery of Poe’s poem was beautifully done. Here’s the poem as it was recited throughout the movie (forgive me for the subtitles) …





*It is said- and it makes sense- that the catalysis for Poe’s revised version was a new love, Sarah Helen Whitman. Some think the original poem was actually dedicated to her, and not Jane Stith Stanard (I’m sure this has to do with the curious coincidence of her middle name and the poem’s title), but that doesn’t add up at all. The first time Whitman and Poe met was in 1842 (long after the poem’s original scripting). What happened- and this is purely my take on it … what happened is that Poe met this lovely lady in 1842, became infatuated with her, and three years later re-edited and re-dedicated the poem to her. Seems like simple psychology to me. Still, the plain truth is Stanard was the inspiration of the poem, not Whitman.

Pauline Johnson

Emily Pauline Johnson is the only Native North American poet that I’ve ever read and studied. She’s one of the first poets I started reading to my daughter (the other being Emily Dickinson).

She has a beautiful style- I love how she creates awkward looking stanzas and combines them with meter and rhythm in such a way as to make the mo...st perfectly flowing poems. Her subject are always sublime, and her passion is always felt.

Happy 150th birthday, Emily. You’re an inspiring poet. Thanks for teaching me to be a better, more creative thinker and writer.


*****


A Prodical

My heart forgot its God for love of you,
And you forgot me, other loves to learn;
Now through a wilderness of thorn and rue
... Back to my God I turn.

And just because my God forgets the past,
And in forgetting does not ask to know
Why I once left His arms for yours, at last
Back to my God I go.

Søren’s Counsel

Søren’s Counsel

The Advice of a Danish Existentialist

Tis not death the young man fears
No, what he fears, and this is true:
Staunch rejection of his peers,
And independence from their view.

May I offer this to you-
If you, young man, a man would be:
Know thyself and faith accrue,
And shun the faceless Crowd, like me.

Stroll the Jutland dells as free,
And be what God intends you to;
Wait in peace and you will see
Your peers will fear and follow you! 

-jwm

Of the Poem (Poetic Parameters and a Brief Note):

Stanza: Quatrain
Meter: The first line of each stanza has a seven syllable count, the remaining lines are in tetrameter (eight syllables)
Rhyme Scheme: abab baba abab (notice how the end-rhyme of last line of the first stanza becomes the end-rhyme of the first line of the second stanza, and so on … I thought this offered a beautiful cadence to the poem)

Note: Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was born on May 5th, 1813, in Copenhagen, Denmark. He’s the father of a branch of philosophy that would come to be known as existentialism.

In general, he’s an individualist who praises Socrates and his quest for self-knowledge; and a man who, through a leap of faith, threw himself into the arms of God.

Jutland is the name for a peninsula that forms the continental portion of Denmark. Kierkegaard journeyed there to visit Sæding, the place where his father (recently passed) grew up as a child.

In the last line of the last stanza the word fear is to be understood as fear in the sense of awe, or reverence, like the Hebrew word יִרְאָה (yirah).

Poetic Terms: Apheresis

Inasmuch as poetry is concerned, an apheresis is where one or more letters are omitted from the beginning of a word without diminishing the word’s actual meaning. Here’s a few examples:

- 'til from until
- 'round from around
- 'bout from about
- 'long from along
- 't was (twas) from it was
- 't is (tis) from it is

For the most part, these words are employed in poetry in order to shape the meter. If a poet needs to lose a syllable an apheresis is one way to do that. Here’s an example from Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem, Opportunity (keep in mind this particular poem is done in dialect):

GRANNY'S gone a-visitin',
Seen huh git huh shawl
W'en I was a-hidin' down
Hime de gyahden wall.
Seen huh put her bonnet on,
Seen huh tie de strings,
An' I'se gone to dreamin' now
'Bout dem cakes an' t'ings.

Beneath a Starry Gaze

There, just below the moon’s ascent,
Ethereal a figure went-
A silhouette, a dimly shade,
That moved towards him with clear intent.

Though fear in others would have weighed,
He fearless went from where he stayed
To meet that spectral figure dim
That bold approached him unafraid.

That ghostly apparition slim
Through pale-blue moonlight seem’d to swim,
Approaching now with sure design-
Intent specifically on him!

But then, behold! - a sight divine
For what those shadows did confine
Was this: his lovely lady’s sight-
Most beautiful, and yes, sublime.

The two embraced that starry night
Beneath that silver moon so bright
(In silence and in full content)
As stars gazed on them from their height.

-jwm

Of the Poem (Parameters):

Stanza: Quatrain, Rubaiyat
Meter: Tetrameter
Rhyme Scheme: aaba bbcb ccdc dded eeae

Note:

The structure of the poem is modeled off of what I consider to be one of the most gorgeous stanza types to work with, the Rubaiyat.

The Rubaiyat’s rhyme pattern is aaba which- despite the ‘off rhythm’ of the third line- produces and incredible rate of poetic flow. Where two or more stanzas are involved, that rate flow is punctuated, and is awesome.

Wherever there are two or more of these stanzas the rhyme pattern is usually interlocking, so that the ‘b’ of the first stanza (aaba) constitutes the primary rhyme pattern of the second stanza … aaba bbcb, and so on.

You’ll also notice that in this poem the rhyme pattern returns to the initial primary rhythm of the first stanza (aaba bbcb ccdc dded eeae), this was intentional and served as a sort of internal self-closure of the poem- even apart from the storyline itself.

I first came to know this stanza type by reading a Robert Frost poem called, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. It was a gorgeous, gorgeous poem, and I was compelled to try the style out.

Since my introduction to this form I’ve done a few poems that mimic it, and am working on another one right now.

Now, if you’ve come across this site and have written a poem based on the Rubaiyat structure, please … let me read it: post it in a comments area of mine or, better yet, click on my picture above and friend me on Facebook so that we might correspond over it. I’d be delighted! Meanwhile, let me know what you think of this particular poem above, Beneath a Starry Night.

W.H. Auden*

W.H. Auden (1907 – 1973)

Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England, in 1907. He moved to Birmingham during childhood and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. As a young man he was influenced by the poetry of Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost, as well as William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Old English verse. At Oxford his precocity as a poet was immediately apparent, and he formed lifelong friendships with two fellow writers, Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood.

In 1928, his collection Poems was privately printed, but it wasn't until 1930, when another collection titled Poems (though its contents were different) was published, that Auden was established as the leading voice of a new generation.

Ever since, he has been admired for his unsurpassed technical virtuosity and an ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form; the incorporation in his work of popular culture, current events, and vernacular speech; and also for the vast range of his intellect, which drew easily from an extraordinary variety of literatures, art forms, social and political theories, and scientific and technical information. He had a remarkable wit, and often mimicked the writing styles of other poets such as Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, and Henry James. His poetry frequently recounts, literally or metaphorically, a journey or quest, and his travels provided rich material for his verse.

He visited Germany, Iceland, and China, served in the Spanish Civil war, and in 1939 moved to the United States, where he met his lover, Chester Kallman, and became an American citizen. His own beliefs changed radically between his youthful career in England, when he was an ardent advocate of socialism and Freudian psychoanalysis, and his later phase in America, when his central preoccupation became Christianity and the theology of modern Protestant theologians. A prolific writer, Auden was also a noted playwright, librettist, editor, and essayist. Generally considered the greatest English poet of the twentieth century, his work has exerted a major influence on succeeding generations of poets on both sides of the Atlantic.

W. H. Auden was a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets from 1954 to 1973, and divided most of the second half of his life between residences in New York City and Austria. He died in Vienna in 1973.

*Biography from Poets.org

Preface to Lyrical Ballads - Quote

In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs: in spite of things silently gone out of mind, and things violently destroyed; the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time. The objects of the Poet’s thoughts are everywhere; though the eyes and senses of man are, it is true, his favourite guides, yet he will follow wheresoever he can find an atmosphere of sensation in which to move his wings. Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge—it is as immortal as the heart of man.

~William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads

Out from Concord

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

~Henry David Thoreau

Out from Concord

Walden Pond is in my heart
And I feel like Thoreau
So farewell, world, I must depart
And go where wise men go

Out from Concord’s busy streets
And into Nature’s womb
The place where truth and beauty meet
And merge like bride and groom

-jwm

Dream ...

Note that the complete poem is in the comments area.

Happy Date of Birth, Hughes

It has been roughly two and a half years since I was first introduced to Langston Hughes by a friend of mine, Najin Aryan. He’s a very talented poet who I came to adore almost immediately.

It just happened to be that at the time I was introduced to Hughes I was reading Derek Alton Walcott's, A Far Cry from Africa … which is a very, very intense poem about ethnic loyalties from the perspective of a person mixed between black and white. Then, happenstancedly, I read Hughes’ poem ‘Cross’ which has similar racial overtones and concerns.

Yep, Hughes as a poet had immediate hold on me. That poem ‘Cross’ is below- let me know what you think.

Happy birthday, Mr. James Mercer Langston Hughes …


*****


Cross

My old man's a white old man
And my old mother's black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,

I'm sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder were I'm going to die,
Being neither white nor black?

James Mercer Langston Hughes*

Langston Hughes (February 1902 – 1967)

James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln, Illinois, that Hughes began writing poetry. Following graduation, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia University. During these years, he held odd jobs as an assistant cook, launderer, and a busboy, and travelled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes's first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in "Montage of a Dream Deferred." His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.

Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer in May 22, 1967, in New York. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem, New York City, has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been renamed "Langston Hughes Place."

In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple Stakes a Claim,Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple's Uncle Sam. He edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography (The Big Sea) and co-wrote the play Mule Bone with Zora Neale Hurston.

Biography from Poets.org