There exist some loose bits of lyrical nonsense so absurd that they become absolute. That is to say, there can be a foolishness so extreme that it crosses over the equator into the gravity of philosophers, giving sages the task of meditating on owls and pussycats, or poring over the prattlings of Mother Goose instead…
What Good Is Poetry? Robert Frost’s ‘The Axe-Helve’: Fitting Axes and Forming Children
I’ve known ere now an interfering branch Of alder catch my lifted axe behind me. But that was in the woods, to hold my hand From striking at another alder’s roots, And that was, as I say, an alder branch. This was a man, Baptiste, who stole one day Behind me on the snow in…
A New and Important American Poet: Andrew Benson Brown
One of the lessons of history is that it is difficult to predict in advance who are truly the important people of the day—be they politicians, philosophers, artists, musicians, novelists, poets, or in any area of human endeavor. My favorite example of this is Shakespeare. While he was a huge commercial success as a playwright—groundlings…
What Good Is Poetry? ‘Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare’
Math is not often associated with poetry, but it should be. “Poetry,” from the Greek “poiesis,” meaning “to make,” is a language art that makes connections between the physical realities, while mathematics manipulates the metaphysical principles that govern them. Poetry helps us see that the quantitative functioning of matter is not all that matters, and…
What Good Is Poetry? ‘Sea Fever’: Our Adventurous Call to Infinity
There is a seasickness that is more like a spell than a sickness. It is a yearning, a calling, a burning whereby people seek to break free of the finite and sail out into the boundless by the illimitable analogy that the sea is. That sea has beckoned land dwellers to live out their lives…
What Good Is Poetry? Robert Burns’s Immortal ‘A Red, Red Rose’
So long as there are lovers in the world, there will be poetry. In fact, it might be argued that if lovers do not produce poetry, they are not really in love. And it is absolutely the case that poetry rejoices even in the earnest, ham-fisted poems written by smitten folks who are not gifted…
What Good Is Poetry? Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Requiem’: A Kind of Homecoming
A white tomb overlooks the sea on a mountain in Samoa. It is the final resting place of one the natives called “Tusitala,” the Teller of Tales. Dead men tell no tales, and so it is for this man who told of pirates, knights, and swashbucklers: Robert Louis Stevenson. But his tales live on, despite…
What Good Is Poetry? Wordsworth’s ‘The Rainbow’
My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound…
‘With Rue My Heart Is Laden’: The Poetry of A.E. Housman
When I left graduate school long ago without earning my doctorate, one of my first thoughts was “Now I’ll be able to read whatever I want.” And I set out to do just that. Throughout my 20s, in my pre-children days, I followed my heart and desire in pursuit of literature. For hours every day,…
What Good Is Poetry? ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. There is nothing like a paradox to entice the mind to discover a suggested secret….
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