by phillipw | Jul 17, 2020 | BR, CO, GA, Ho, LO, SP, TH
The Night before Thermopylae— “The Hot Gates” “Phaedrus’s praise for erôs (love) as a precondition for courage employs poetic quotations from poems that in fact state that wisdom is the true precondition, and that erotic passion without thoughtfulness leads to...
by phillipw | Jul 16, 2020 | CO, GO, JA, ME, OD, PE, SA, SO, WI
The Big Exceptions The women move in caged in places both In life and plays. In poetry they are Curtailed to Sappho and Corinna. Troth Constricts Penelope. It hems. No spar To take her seas away, she sits at loom, Is trapped at night unpicking her trapped work,...
by phillipw | Jul 16, 2020 | CO, EU, FL, HA, HE, OR, PL, RO
That Supreme Nazi, Plato, Sounded Off about Orpheus Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem He takes the poison of his courage and His love. He does not try to dazzle death With poetry: Romeo is not bland...
by phillipw | Jul 8, 2020 | AN, CO, HU, PO, RH, SC
I Have Looked upon the Face of Jolliness The ancient Greeks in poetry were lewd As limericks, playful, silly as a stand Up joker on a comic’s platform, rude And crude, yep, far more rude than Russell Brand. Emitted from these ancient rhythmic throats Were poems...
by phillipw | Jul 7, 2020 | CO, FR, LO, RO, TR
France, the Ancient Place of Love “In the mid-fifth century [B.C.], however, a Greek at the Cap d’Antibes inscribed two verses on a black stone shaped like a penis: ‘I am Mister Pleaser, the servant of the holy Goddess Aphrodite.’” ~ Robin Lane Fox, The Classical...
by phillipw | Jul 7, 2020 | CO, FO, PO, TR
Formal Poetry against Free Verse Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem Plato in “inventing some extraordinarily powerful images of his own” came up with “notably the poet as Corybant”. ~ Penelope...
