tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post2329602206016415528..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: William Wordsworth: A Disappearing LineUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-12579133859888998782011-05-31T01:56:11.569-07:002011-05-31T01:56:11.569-07:00Don,
I'm with you, on all counts.
Without an...Don,<br /><br />I'm with you, on all counts.<br /><br />Without any disrespect to the spirit of Dean Swift, I would very much like to think that, at this moment, his ghost is laughing with us, rather than at us.<br /><br />But then, to paraphrase the wisdom of Zippy the Pinhead, are we laughing yet?<br /><br />(Asked the old sourpuss, forgetting that to live is the only pleasure... and that it helps, when possible, to view human life as a comedy... though not quite divine, these days, if it ever was.)<br /><br /><br />Lucy,<br /><br />A bent tree as a weather flag, allowing us to "read" the history of the elements, in a given place. What a beautiful idea that is.<br /><br />If there is any place left on earth that still possesses the particular majesty (and magic) of the Lake District in which Wordsworth was born and grew up, it must be your Patagonia!TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-59788171546897027022011-05-30T17:35:11.771-07:002011-05-30T17:35:11.771-07:00Images and words, this post gives me the kind of p...Images and words, this post gives me the kind of peace and solace I only find in Nature.<br /><br />I am haunted by the first image. Those trees so strangely shaped by the wind are typical in southern Patagonia and we call them <i>"árboles bandera"</i> (flag trees). What an unusual way to refer to a tree, isn't it?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-29042011899892947882011-05-30T07:31:26.241-07:002011-05-30T07:31:26.241-07:00"I think it may be the access it offers to th..."I think it may be the access it offers to these areas of reality that keeps poetry always in the moment."<br /><br />As fine a definition of haiku as there is ...<br /><br />All poetry, all poets, of course, give us this (access to the moment), what we pass everyday, unseeing, unknowing, thought obsessed, hardly even breathing, most of us. <br /><br />Of course, I include myself, and bless the few moments of clarity that come to me. <br /><br />Poetry helps. Poetry heals. Poetry as a Way.<br /><br />One can see why it is so very, very hard, and yet so very, very easy, to love this thick skulled, thin skinned beast, the human animal.<br /><br />I imagine I hear Dean Swift laughing at my silly little ass right now ...Issa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-25597761215848844672011-05-30T06:26:08.086-07:002011-05-30T06:26:08.086-07:00Don,
Grateful to be sharing these thoughts. "...Don,<br /><br />Grateful to be sharing these thoughts. "The power of the thing itself," and of something elemental in the forces of nature, and of time -- I think it may be the access it offers to these areas of reality that keeps poetry always in the moment. Though of course that can never quite be caught up with, maybe it's the trying keeps us conscious... or it just the not knowing when or how to give up?<br /><br /> <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/william-wordsworth-three-years-she-grew.html" rel="nofollow">William Wordsworth: "Three years she grew in sun and shower..."</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-38793857083395914342011-05-30T04:47:33.515-07:002011-05-30T04:47:33.515-07:00Tom:
We all know the power of the thing itself. ...Tom:<br /><br />We all know the power of the thing itself. The representation of the thing in photography and art, as is so very often illustrated here at this blog, has another powerful effect.<br /><br />Yet, reading the words of WW, my throat began to tighten a bit and my eyes moisten. "the sacred midden of the poet tribe", indeed.<br /><br />I often think of how we have poets and artists that are praised for certain times in their lives and derided for other times. I think of Kerouac and Dylan, for all those American novelists who could never live up to that first great book, and of course WW, too. Your reminder of how our perception of various things alters at different ages in (I just typed "in" with my hand one key to the right by mistake and just discoverd it is "om") our lives is so true. <br /><br />The clarity of the voice never wavers. It is there on the page for us for as long as we are able to reach for it. So what changes is our perception, what we bring to it in youth, in middle age, and as we float gently, gently down to the pond's surface.<br /><br />It is so fine to be excited about the word. I'm very excited about getting back to Wordsworth now. Thanks.<br /><br />DonIssa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20440555494767306272011-05-30T02:54:57.922-07:002011-05-30T02:54:57.922-07:00Don,
I feel that same link, maybe it's our ag...Don,<br /><br />I feel that same link, maybe it's our age. The emphasis on the "gently" -- Blyth's signals are always so wise and unemphatic. How lovely, in this violent time. (What charm he must have possessed to persuade get the Governor of the Bank of Japan to finance the publication of his essential classic, the "Spring" volume in the Haiku series!) <br /><br />But you know it's funny with WW, as a young fool I always thought of him -- I mean the person behind the poet within the poems -- as impossibly old; whereas now as an impossibly old fool myself, I find in him, as a young (!) poet, both the long-view wisdom that supposedly comes with experience, and the in-the-moment capability that one latterly identifies with the openmindedness of youth...<br /><br />Reminded here of the Moritake haiku:<br /><br />It is New Year's Morning; <br />I think also of the Age<br />Of the Gods.<br /><br />And of the connection Blyth draws therefrom, with Tintern Abbey:<br /><br />...that blessed mood <br />In which the burthen of the mystery,<br />In which the heavy and the weary weight<br />Of all this unintelligible world<br />Is lightened...<br />While with an eye made quiet by the power <br />Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,<br />We see into the life of things.<br /><br /><br />Really, as Keats so wonderfully grasped, it's that "burthen of the mystery" which remains also the sacred midden of the poet tribe, as this old fool dimly understands it.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-31082107476632048672011-05-29T09:49:50.366-07:002011-05-29T09:49:50.366-07:00"But I believe sometimes it's in everyone..."But I believe sometimes it's in everyone's better interest that the poet be saved from him/her self." Oh, my, from personal experience, I know how very true that can be.<br /><br />One thing I had wanted to do last year (and look, half of this year is almost gone!) was to go back to "The Prelude" and I never managed to. Your observation about the early version is very helpful, indeed. I intend to try and read the original with revisions and so this will shed some much needed light.<br /><br />I remember being swept away by the book ten years ago and have been anxious to revisit it ever since.<br /><br />Whenever I've read Blyth over the last 10 years I always feel him gently pointing me back to Wordsworth ...Issa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-43607723499709301132011-05-29T07:55:18.298-07:002011-05-29T07:55:18.298-07:00Don,
Yes, what a moving (and disappearing) line t...Don,<br /><br />Yes, what a moving (and disappearing) line that is.<br /><br />In my mind this passage stands as a sort of answer to the shock and bewilderment the poet experienced upon his early experience of the streets of London. (See the post I've linked to above, as "City"). I take Wordsworth to be speaking here of a knowable community, the community that had been familiar to him as a child, the terms of which he could recognize and understand, as opposed to the confusing, alienating, ultimately unknowable spectacle of the great metropolitan hive, that vast crowd of strangers, as first encountered in the section of the poem titled "Residence in London".<br /><br />This passage from the 1805 version of the poem was dismantled and rewritten (and to my mind, destroyed) in the later revised version of the poem which appeared in 1850. That latter, revised version has long stood as WW's "authorized" version. But I believe sometimes it's in everyone's better interest that the poet be saved from him/her self.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-35783013976652508062011-05-28T11:56:13.318-07:002011-05-28T11:56:13.318-07:00"I love a public road" ... what a wonder..."I love a public road" ... what a wonderful line. <br /><br />The Prelude is truly one of the stunning poetical works. I, who prefer three or less brief lines, could live with this as the only poetry book if forced to choose one only.<br /><br />Thanks for the reminder, Tom.<br /><br />I do hope your problems resolve. The universe, or at least our small section of it, has not worn thin on the wonder you bring.<br /><br />Though I certainly have had much the same feeling many a time when it comes to things electronic ...<br /><br />DonIssa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-79915618894988989442011-05-28T03:49:15.754-07:002011-05-28T03:49:15.754-07:00Yes, the way we take him, and the way we take the ...Yes, the way we take him, and the way we take the past, and what we can make out of the future, and for that matter the way the present keeps disappearing over the hill...<br /><br />The fox walking across the bricks is welcome here.<br /><br />But, sad to say, I have not been, over the past two days in which Google has with its inimitable whimsical playfulness, locked me out of this blog, crashed our browser, and created serious doubt in the agèd mind as to the wisdom (if any) of toiling up this hill.<br /><br />Talking as we were of disappearing lines.<br /><br />(Michael, sorry no contact email given for the simple reason I don't have one of my own, all this folly is strictly and entirely a temporary privilege, which has probably already strained the patience of the universe unduly...)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-6348821875433295892011-05-27T06:40:07.973-07:002011-05-27T06:40:07.973-07:00Tom,
Yes, completely ("feels like home"...Tom,<br /><br />Yes, completely ("feels like home" -- WW's "disappearing line" is the road up Watch Hill of course, but also his line (of words), disappearing into the past -- and brought forward here to live a little bit longer, still today in our minds. . . .<br /><br />5.27<br /><br />grey whiteness of fog against invisible<br />top of ridge, fox walking across bricks<br />in foreground, sound of wave in channel<br /><br /> painting part, things being<br /> described as physical<br /><br /> internal, pictorial surface<br /> inadequate, some such<br /><br />whiteness of waves breaking in channel,<br />cormorant flapping across toward ridgeSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-83433596317298776122011-05-26T09:43:53.625-07:002011-05-26T09:43:53.625-07:00'Awed have I been by strolling Bedlamites'...'Awed have I been by strolling Bedlamites'<br /><br />Tom - Surprised again by Wordsworth's ability to spring the sheer weird drama of a line like that in such close proximity to the near bathos and - no, I can't resist - pedestrian quality of his 'I love a public road' moments. What an extraordinary range of responses he provokes - I'm never sure how I'm going to find myself taking him - line by line, sometimes.Barry Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02121653352771218338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-36748266778332623622011-05-26T07:47:05.656-07:002011-05-26T07:47:05.656-07:00Tom, love the blog. Hey, I am interested in using ...Tom, love the blog. Hey, I am interested in using one of your fine photos as a visual to accompany one of MY blog entries. Not sure how to contact you.Michael K. Gausehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00733800948927719761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-70290695650019506052011-05-26T06:41:05.746-07:002011-05-26T06:41:05.746-07:00Steve,
The climate of Cockermouth where WW was bo...Steve,<br /><br />The climate of Cockermouth where WW was born and grew up is cold and wet, <br /><br />not unfamiliar as we look up into the attempt of day to break its way through this latest<br /><br />“stationary” system, notion<br />which, in relation to<br /><br />grey white clouds --<br /><br />feels like home?TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-58685992635341560472011-05-26T06:34:50.542-07:002011-05-26T06:34:50.542-07:00Tom,
What calm to walk in WW's thoughts along...Tom,<br /><br />What calm to walk in WW's thoughts along the road up Watch Hill, its "disappearing line/ Seen daily afar off. . ."<br /><br />5.26<br /><br />pink light in cloud above still shadowed<br />ridge, blue jay landing on redwood fence<br />in foreground, waves sounding in channel<br /><br /> vanishing condition that is,<br /> contraction of second<br /> <br /> “stationary” system, notion<br /> which, in relation to<br /><br />grey white clouds against top of ridge,<br />shadowed green pine on tip of sandspitSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-47545784207046943672011-05-26T06:00:32.762-07:002011-05-26T06:00:32.762-07:00Also by this poet:
William Wordsworth: "A sl...Also by this poet:<br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/william-wordsworth-slumber-did-my.html" rel="nofollow">William Wordsworth: "A slumber did my spirit seal"</a><br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/william-wordsworth-city.html" rel="nofollow">William Wordsworth: City</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com