from being perfect: the need to maintain the structure forces [William] Empson into some contrived rhymes ("rills" and "shrills", in particular, feel awkward) and the inversion of noun and verb in the first line jars unpleasantly, but the creeping ominousness of the "poison" and the potent sense of dread conjured by the repetition of "the waste remains" are, I think, irresistible.from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: theblogbooks: Poem of the day: Unconvinced by yesterday's Daljit Nagra? How about some Empson?
~~~~~~~~~~~
Allow me to present to you, therefore, one of my favourite love poems: an untitled sonnet from ee cummings. Generally speaking, he's not an out-and-out favourite of mine--I find him too whimsical a lot of the time--but here, he balances his linguistic playfulness with big, solid, simple nouns (as in the "sun" and "star" of line 12) to produce an almost incantatory paean to the power of love.
from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: theblogbooks: Poem of the day: Yesterday, death; today, love.
~~~~~~~~~~~
No comments :
Post a Comment