by phillipw | Apr 27, 2020 | LO, RO
A Tropical Waterspout at the Edge of a Lagoon Somehow romance as whirlwind is true, Too true, like comas are too much like death. A little twister is too like a coup In some small principality whose breath Is warm and humid, packed with yellows, reds, And oranges in...
by phillipw | Apr 27, 2020 | AE, BE, ES
Distortions of the Lovely in Ancient Greece The beautiful in ancient times could see Themselves less perfectly than we can view Ourselves. A pond might give a good degree Of truth in its reflection, even blue Of eye and undistorted skin and shape, But other mirrors...
by phillipw | Apr 27, 2020 | AN, IN, PR
Disc World: Soapstone Discs Found Thousands of Years Later in a Dried Up Watercourse Millennia ago, before CDs And DVDs, artistic discs were made In India with carved motifs to please Their owners. Birds were set into a braid With animals around the edges. ...
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 27, 2020 | IN, PL, PO
Sing in Me, Rational Muse! Plato’s “descriptions of poetic inspiration occur over a long period of time, ranging from his earliest works to his latest, and there is considerable uniformity in what says. Throughout P.’s work the mental state of the inspired poet is...
by phillipw | Apr 27, 2020 | PO
The Poet! “light, winged, holy creature” ~ The words of Socrates to describe a poet, as quoted in Penelope Murray, Plato on Poetry, 8 That’s always how I’ve thought about myself, Yup, yes, of course, at least when I have thought Of me as “poet”—surely...
by phillipw | Apr 26, 2020 | AU, DI
Ever and Always Death is Their Final Pathetic Option “It is therefore necessary to give orders, not only to poets,but also to all artists and craftsmen, that they should portray the image of goodness in their works and avoid everything that is ugly and bad…”. ~...
by phillipw | Apr 26, 2020 | PL
Plato’s Probity Paradox “But in fact he [Socrates] concludes (a) that potential guardians should imitate only good men … and (b) that they should imitate as little as possible.” ~ Penelope Murray, Plato on Poetry, 5 “To thine own self be true” ~ Polonius If...
