T.S. Eliot at age 10 in 1898 – he was never young according to Robert Crawford, his biographer
This was the year to celebrate two literary centenaries, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, and James Joyce’s Ulysses. Appropriately a section of Eliot’s poem was read at the February session. But since Joyce’s poetic works are not as celebrated as his other works, here below we wish to remember the light touch Joyce had with lyric poems when he started out:
STRINGS in the earth and air
Make music sweet;
Strings by the river where
The willows meet.
There's music along the river
For Love wanders there,
Pale flowers on his mantle,
Dark leaves on his hair.
All softly playing,
With head to the music bent,
And fingers straying
Upon an instrument.
(From Chamber Music, 1907)
Make music sweet;
Strings by the river where
The willows meet.
There's music along the river
For Love wanders there,
Pale flowers on his mantle,
Dark leaves on his hair.
All softly playing,
With head to the music bent,
And fingers straying
Upon an instrument.
(From Chamber Music, 1907)
Since February is Black History month in America, KumKum chose to read a young contemporary poet, Amanda Gorman, who has been named the first Youth Poet Laureate of America. Another black poet, Alice Walker also figured, whose parting advice is:
… expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
She stands in contrast to those who wrote poetry in their youth in the sixties, the beat poets like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Thomo chose Ginsberg and read from his poem Howl.
Though it is not the ‘cruellest month,’ the change of season that comes about in northern climes in February inspires many poets – some with prosaic thoughts about a ‘small pink bumhole’ (Margaret Atwood), and Boris Pasternak with more care-worn lines about
… the melting snow, instilling
Dry sadness into eyes that weep.
… the melting snow, instilling
Dry sadness into eyes that weep.
The variety among the poems is attested by there being a woman Dogri poet, Padma Sachdev, in English translation represented, as well as Milton from the opposite end of the spectrum, describing the Biblical strongman Samson, given the epithet Agonistes, i.e. one engaged in struggle.
A souvenir mug for KRG readers was designed by Joe. One side shows the mug shots of the current 12 readers:
The obverse depicts the favicon of KRG's blog – the design for which is a stylised form of the coat of arms purchased by William Shakespeare for his father, John Shakespeare:
