by phillipw | Apr 20, 2020 | AN, PO
No Room for Unholiness not Cleansed “ ‘What would a man not give,’declares Plato in the Apology, ‘to engage in conversation with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer?’ Can we do something of the sort? If not to engage in conversation, then at least to glimpse...
by phillipw | Apr 16, 2020 | PO
Phillip’s Place for Poetry I have a place for poetry, right here. It is not straight although the laptop screen Demands its squared-off angles. Like a weir That holds it shining waters, this leaved scene Is set among reality, among Realities, a bit of nuanced pink And...
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...
by phillipw | Apr 15, 2020 | IN, PO
Socrates versus Sappho One wonders if poor Socrates might just Have been much happier if he had made Up poems, not philosophy. A gust Of inspiration from Apollo swayed The poets into a rhapsody of thrill. While lost in love for some young person’s hair, The writers in...
by phillipw | Apr 15, 2020 | PH, PL, PO
The Ion, the Phaedrus, the Republic When someone else is all mixed up, we tend To sneer at what they have to say, so why Not Plato? Must we allow him to bend And contradict his arguments? Is high Philosophy supposed to work like that? He has the voices in two...
by phillipw | Apr 15, 2020 | AR, PL, PO
Widescreen, 3D, Surround Sound Buttered Popcorn and Icy Coca-Cola® “It follows from the fact that poets do not have knowledge of that about which they speak, but aim to seem as though they do, and some listeners do not realize that poets lack knowledge.” ~...