by phillipw | May 15, 2020 | IN, LI, PO
Literary Inspiration from on High “The gods arranged all this, and sent them their misfortunes in order that future generations might have something to sing about.” ~ King Alcinous in the Odyssey at the end of Book VIII The question of our poets’ impulse, long Ago...
by phillipw | May 10, 2020 | LI, RE
Reader Response Literary Theory “Chaucer doesn’t intend that his Pilgrims’ judgments be on the mark; quite the contrary, in most cases. They constantly overpraise and underpraise one another, miss the point, get the moral wrong, pursue unrelated quarrels, introduce...
by phillipw | Apr 27, 2020 | AE, BE, ES, LI, PL, PO
Plato Pooh-poohs Poets, like Blaming a Leopard for not Being an Antelope Poor Plato misses, glaringly, the point, As eggheads often do. Poets, he “thinks,” Are worse than useless. That’s due to their joint Mistake of using mimesis (which stinks)...
by phillipw | Apr 19, 2020 | FI, LI
Entirety A hand receives a firefly on its palm And holds wings for as long as they will stay. The moment is a time for twilight, calm, A luminescent quietness, dark and day, To meld together, briefly, briefly. Brief The instant, instant, instant but the...
by phillipw | Mar 27, 2020 | LI
Counterintelligence A text becomes a pretext for a nerd Of criticism, theorizing, or Detectives’ brains. The poem is a turd For lab investigation. Those minds pore Between the lines. These Sherlocks search for clues About the author or the context in His...
by phillipw | Mar 22, 2020 | LI
Life The random tints of blue are set beside Some richer colors. Here and there the cold One settles in a patch, like failure cried There. It enhances chord-like yellow, bold, And orange bursts. There’s too much beige and green As usual and not...
