by phillipw | May 4, 2020 | AN, GR, Ho
The Blinded Poet Sang The ancient Greeks were heartless beasts. They loved The slaughter in the Iliad, the rape Of women captured and subdued. Greeks shoved Themselves between those thighs and hips agape For domination by triumphant men. They gloated in...
by phillipw | May 4, 2020 | AN, DI, GR
Nuances in Curves “The Diadoumenos” in Daniel Schwartz, Metamorphoses/Greek Photographs, Thames and Hudson, London and New York, 1986 The light falls, slant. It falls in shadowed, dim, And subtle patches. It is like the gods Who sometimes hide...
by phillipw | May 3, 2020 | AN, DA, GR, MY
Icarus: When Cleanest Beauty Flies https://dd28.deviantart.com/art/Mourning-for-Icarus-294532709 When young men make mistakes, they still get all The glory. Here he is with nothing wrong About his body. It’s as if the fall Has killed him theoretically. This strong One...
by phillipw | Apr 22, 2020 | ET, GR, OR
Etymology of Orpheus If “of the river bank” is what the name Of Orpheus might mean,* then that might flow From jet slick River Hades and the shame Of failing to recover, to the glow Of life and sunlight, his lost love. Again It might refer to two of his five...
by phillipw | Apr 21, 2020 | AN, GR, PO
Poetry before Writing “Greece down through the fifth century has aptly been described as a ‘song culture’.” ~ Michael Schmidt in The First Poets, 10, quoting Leslie Kurke, “The Strangeness of ‘Song Culture’: archaic Greek poetry’” In ancient Greece the...
by phillipw | Apr 16, 2020 | AN, GR, PO
Daedalus and Icarus “The natural rhythms of Greek [poetry] tend ‘downward,’ falling” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 14 How strange it is to think that ancient Greek In poetry inclined to downward flow. We think that the trajectory was sleek In upward movement...
