• Sections

    • Aug

    23

    Last Night in the Poetry Section

    Filed Under being creative, poetry, questions, quotes, small happinesses 

    Low Fence at Keystone, 2007The DH and I walked over to Borders last night after a late dinner. He lost himself in a debate between Bertrand Russell and Father Copleston while I headed over to the poetry section.

    After half an hour, I kicked myself for leaving at home my orange poetry notebook; it’s where I keep excerpts from poems I like, and reminders of poems and poets to read more of. In fact, I was in the unusual predicament of possessing ZERO notebooks on me and zero pens - so I couldn’t write down anything.

    So I attempted something crazy: remembering the names of the poems I loved the most.

    God must be a poet because, miraculously, when I woke up this morning, I was able to remember the three poems I liked so much last night. They were:

    The lines from Courage that read:

    If your buddy saved you
    and died himself in so doing,
    then his courage was not courage,
    it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

    caused me to wonder about the way that war and fighting is sold to us as a demonstration of courage. We fight or we strive for victory because we are brave. Sometimes, we’re told, what we can look forward to is camaraderie or brotherhood. But I don’t recall ever hearing it referred to as love. Don’t men die for love, too?

    Then again, maybe love just doesn’t work as a motivating cry to kill other people.

    Roethke’s line, “What’s madness but nobility of soul/At odds with circumstance?” sounds faintly familiar. Apparently it’s a famous poem, so probably I’ve seen it quoted and didn’t understand that it was a reference.

    As for “Habitation,” it’s the second Atwood poem I’ve read, and the second I’ve loved; the first, “Girl Without Hands” is obliquely alluded to here in my description of God (which is still true, by the way). Maybe I will read Habitation at our wedding; maybe not.

    Share This

    Popularity: 28% [?]

    Comments

    3 Responses to “Last Night in the Poetry Section”

    1. Glenn Peters on August 23rd, 2007 10:39 pm

      Hm, for some reason this post keeps getting duplicated on LiveJournal. It’s up to six times by now.

    2. hafidha sofia on August 24th, 2007 9:38 am

      Thanks for the heads up, G. I’ve fixed it now.

    3. Comrade Kevin on August 24th, 2007 10:06 am

      I haven’t followed up with poetry nearly as much as I did when I was in undergrad. I need to get back into it and start writing back full time. I justify myself by saying that I blog just about every day and that keeps me sharp.

    Leave a Reply




    Close
    E-mail It
    visitors since June 16, 2007