by phillipw | Jul 23, 2020 | AN, CH, FR, GA, Ho, LO, MA, ST
Antarctic Odds The man I love . . . I carry weight along Horizons for his heart. The burdens are Not heavy and they are. A book with song, And song, and song I clutch to me as far As strides will go. The songs and book stretch out As if through snow,...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AC, GA, Ho, MA, PA
Beside the Thousand Ships There once were times when men could hold large pride In having sons who had as lovers men That gods could hate and love — and take their side In gut-strewn battle. Fathers nodded when Their sons retired to tents and to the love Of those...
by phillipw | Jul 20, 2020 | AD, AN, FE, GL, HI, Ho, KY, ME
Were I to Believe in Angels’ Songs If angels, each one, had a message they Would sing to us, would each charge be the same, A Kyrie, an Adoramus te, Or Gloria? No, that would be too tame. I’m thinking every one would be unique, Each text and melody enough to...
by phillipw | Jul 19, 2020 | AR, HE, Ho, NA, PH, PL, PO, XE
The Truth about Ancient History, Plato, and Poetry “Socrates says in the Republic that he and Plato’s brothers might have to inform poetry about the ancient quarrel between it and philosophy. Glenn Most (“What Ancient Quarrel between Philosophy and Poetry?”) argues...
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 15, 2020 | AN, BO, Ho
Scholarly Blindness “Since before 450 BC there was no prose literature, our only windows on the ancient world are the poems.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 8 It only goes to show that scholars love To focus narrowly. He looked so hard At Greeks that he is...
