with exciting potential, but, as it turned out, the title of Elizabeth Alexander's inauguration poem was more inspired than the poem itself."Each day we go about our business,/walking past each other, catching each others'/eyes or not, about to speak or speaking," Alexander begins: not a riveting start. "All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din . . ." The "thorn" image is picked up later: "words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,/words to consider, reconsider". In a poem concerned with language and human encounter, brambles may not be the sharpest metaphorical image for the curse of Babel.
from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Elizabeth Alexander's praise poem was way too prosy
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The Movement of Bodies [by Sheenagh Pugh] is not a description of the painting. However, [Joseph] Wright is known to have based his Philosopher on Godfrey Kneller's portrait of Sir Isaac Newton, and the way Newton gazes at the figure to his right in the picture might just suggest the way he stares at "the young mathematician" in the poem, dreamily distracted from his rational preoccupations, suspended in that state of blind attraction and gravitational upset which is said to make the world go round.
The Movement of Bodies
from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week: The Movement of Bodies
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