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03-07-2022, 10:20 PM
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Now that is quite iambic!
Your prime reference reminded me of the Ramanujan number, 1729, and the story behind it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_(number)
Cheers,
John
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03-07-2022, 11:24 PM
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Exactly. And cheers to you, sir.
While we're on the subject, Belloc was far from the only one who had his iambic motor running even in the context of prose. "The Gettysburg Address" is almost all iambics. Edward Gibbon could never escape the sway of the mighty iamb: "Nor is our own age destitute of such distinguished characters." Thomas Wolfe was addicted too: ..."the lavish, rude, and unfenced distances; the familiar, homely, barren, harsh, and strangely haunting scenery of the nation."
Sorry, I get carried away. Didn't mean to hijack your thread, RC.
Last edited by Tim McGrath; 03-08-2022 at 12:08 AM.
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03-08-2022, 04:51 AM
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Oh - that wasn’t Belloc, it was Beerbohm, the author of Seven Men and Two Others, with the Shakespeare parody Savonarola Brown.
Though sugar’s sweet, revenge is sweeter far;
To the piazza! Ha ha ha ha har!
Cheers,
John
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03-08-2022, 06:16 AM
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Just chiming in to say that I think Robinson is an exceptional poet. In my personal echelon of great poets, he's not too far below the pinnacle of Auden.
These things are all about personal taste, of course, but poets who seem to truly understand the human condition have always appealed to me the most. Robinson's Children of the Night is a who's who of humanity, and is essential reading. "Reuben Bright" is just gutting.
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03-08-2022, 07:21 AM
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Hmm. As you rightly say, personal taste is key. I find the piece a bit mannered, but it’s always nice to see a Petrarchan sonnet in the English language tradition.
Cheers,
John
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03-08-2022, 01:55 PM
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"Gutting" is a good word for what a good poem does. It is visceral, not intellectual.
Last edited by Tim McGrath; 03-08-2022 at 02:33 PM.
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03-08-2022, 05:30 PM
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Seamus Heaney’s Mid-Term Break, for instance.
Cheers,
John
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03-09-2022, 02:37 AM
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Heaney was a Yeats man. 35 years ago, he wrote an assessment of the poet that appeared on the cover of the NYTBR. A few years before he died, I heard him give a reading at the Art Institute of Chicago, and he was still quoting lines from Yeats.
Last edited by Tim McGrath; 03-09-2022 at 02:49 AM.
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03-12-2022, 11:01 PM
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His metrics are a little rough, as is characteristic of Heaney, but the poem is affecting, no doubt. Some other gut-wrenching, heartbreaking poems about the death of a child include "A Refusal to Mourn," by Dylan Thomas; "On My First Son," by Ben Jonson; and "Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter," by John Crowe Ransom.
Last edited by Tim McGrath; 03-12-2022 at 11:33 PM.
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