bee
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Posted: Sep. 04 2011, 18:23 |
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| Quote (wiga @ Sep. 03 2011, 16:58) |  More good words of wisdom. |
how very true Wiga...and that's possibly the first time I have read 'If' through in its entirety. Thank you for putting it here. Stirring stuff.
This is in answer to Nightspore's comments on Desiderata in the Other Artists Thread ...to stop things fraying further...
Refering to Desiderata's 'sweet sickliness' and then using words such as 'deviousness' and 'perniciously' seemed a bit strange to me..or was that irony? ( I'm not being sarcastic here, I genuinely want to know ) I do understand that Desiderata can be taken as a bit mawkish to a point but I think it has much more substance behind it. You lost me on the measuring and infinite number of people bit...surely there will always be an infinite number of people, they are dying and being born all the time, it's never 'finite'? [ I am out of my depth here, I realise that, but please humour me!]
Ugo's point about the poem not being philosophical or mathematical was interesting. And that word didactic, I just love it! Had to look it up though. I don't think there is anything wrong with writing something with a good intention, i.e to offer one view of how to lead a good life...which is what Max Ehrman was doing....and the part about art & Christian ideology I don't think applies in this case when you read,
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
this was the bit that I think drew me very close to this work in the first place...it acknowledges that there is, and will always be, many religions and all are valid or have merit, deserving respect. It's very humanitarian ( that's probably the wrong word, but I don't know another right now).
Considering all this made me wonder about poetry and why it can have such an impact. It's hard to describe what a poem actually does when you read one, but for me it gets deep inside, going beyond our language and draws together feelings, emotions, ideas in such a way that it becomes almost like a sculpture in sound. The form & structure is key, as in all writing, but in poetry it is critical to its existence. A poem is memorable. It defines itself even though it is 'about' something else. It is totally different from music and yet it produces that same abstract, out of this realm,impossible to define feeling. Perhaps this is why songs are so good music + poem = perfection.
So what I'm trying to say is that I think poetry is often quite philosophical because it crystalises ideas in language. And often poems, ( & Dickens you mentioned ), need to be heard rather than read privately to fully appreciate their beauty.
I should probably read this through and write it again, with less confusion, but it's late and I need to sleep 
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....second to the right and straight on till morning....
You heard me before
Yet you hear me again
Then I die
Till I call me again
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