Comments on: Vast Eternity III

By: D. A. Powell

D. A. Powell — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:55:51 +0000

Yes, Matt, you’re right. Write whatever, to hell with whether or not anyone wants to read it. That’s the beauty of blogs, apparently.
dap

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:29:59 +0000

I don’t think the “eternal” thing means people should try to write something really grand and great, but that people should feel free to write whatever, without worrying about what other people think.

By: Lucia

Lucia — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 17:38:12 +0000

Can’t think of a song I hate more than Rapture!
Levine’s poem eternal/temporal seems a bit obvious. Of course we have to keep our noses down and not get distracted by pobiz, not even by gettint published in the New Yorker. But I think that thinking about the poem eternal is just crippling to a writer. If I thought about producing something eternal I’d write nothing.

By: Rich Villar

Rich Villar — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 10:55:56 +0000

I enjoy poetry.
Specifically, I enjoy the post-disco electronic confessionalism of Boy George and Culture Club’s “Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me,” a tour-de-force love poem centered around the futility of words in the modern age. A poem destined, ironically, to be remembered for a thousand years.
I know this because the poet has helpfully put the phrase “a thousand years” in the lyrics!
words are few I have spoken
I could waste a thousand years
wrapped in sorrow words are token
come inside and catch my tears

By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:58:36 +0000

Chris,
nobody – I mean nobody – is stopping you from enjoying poetry.
It’s just that, as Anna Akhmatova put it (trans. by Judith Hemshemeyer) :
“Gold rusts and steel decays,
Marble crumbles away. Everything is on the verge of death.
The most reliable thing on earth – sorrow,
And the most enduring – the all-powerful word.” – 1945

By: Michael Robbins

Michael Robbins — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:18:41 +0000

Hellz yeah, this is my kind of thread.
most of the songs sung by Frank Sinatra on Songs for Young Lovers (lyrics by Rodgers/Hart, Porter, the Gershwins, et al.)
Prince, Sign o’ the Times
the oeuvres of Lil Wayne & Ghostface Killah
“A True Account of Talking to the Sun on Fire Island” (Author Unknown)
Jimmy Carter, “Always a Reckoning”
the collected work of Jeremy Prynne

By: Chris Piuma

Chris Piuma — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:02:35 +0000

Why on earth should I care what readers in a thousand years should think of today’s poetry? That’s the business of readers a thousand years from now to decide, should they be so lucky to exist and be able to make such choices. Will they be judging our poetry based on what the people who live a thousand years from them would like? When do we finally get to enjoy poetry?

By: Kent Johnson

Kent Johnson — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:55:28 +0000

This is great, D.A.!
Nice change of disc.
Kent

By: Doodle

Doodle — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:26:33 +0000

No future reconstruction of our era will be complete or even possible without "The Song of the Prune".