More from Ellen Davis

It is difficult to make too much of the words a good poet employs, although one might read them badly – for instance, by confusing poetic language with dogmatic or scientific statements. [A] poem then should be read with the presumption that every word is deliberately chosen and therefore important. If a word [...]

Very Like A Whale

How have I only just come across this gem from Ogden Nash? It totally sums up the attitude of most biblical scholars and preachers I know. A passing acquaintance with Byron’s The Destruction of Sennacherib will help.
Very Like a Whale
One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment [...]

Alter-ed Psalms

This afternoon’s Poetry Please was given over to the book of Psalms. Some were read in the King James version, and others in Robert Alter’s recent translation. These latter were particularly fabulous. There was an interesting selection of psalms, beginning with the familiarity of the King James version of Psalm 23, the bookends [...]

Poetry does indeed matter

Lots of good things in this programme to enjoy: Ian Macmillan (who was my top choice for Poet Laureate, though I am pleased about Carol Ann Duffy), Song of Songs, Marvell, Ben Jonson, Gerard Manley Hopkins and more. On the whole I thought the poems were read well (and I am not a [...]

Why poetry matters

I’m very much looking forward to watching this on BBC 2 tonight. I will report back and let you know whether it’s worth catching up on iPlayer (only if you’re in the UK, I’m afraid).
ETA: Okay, they got me. Beautiful reading of Song 2.

National Poetry Day

I don’t know who decides these things, but someone has decreed that today is National Poetry Day and apparently the theme is work, so this poem by Philip Levine seems appropriate.
What work is
We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is–if you’re
old enough to read [...]

Ash Wednesday

You know, I’ve read very little of T. S. Eliot’s poetry. The Journey of the Magi. The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock. I’ve never quite brought myself to read a poem called The Wasteland. It just sounds too depressing for words.
Today I came across this passage from Eliot’s Ash Wednesday and [...]

Easter wings

Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,

Decaying more and more,

Till he became

Most poore:

With Thee

O let me rise,

As larks, harmoniously,

And sing this day Thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.
My tender age in [...]

How to kill a poem

From Wilfred Watson’s ‘Classical Hebrew Poetry’, the proper approach to analysis of a poem:
Delimitation
Segmentation
Inner-strophic analysis
Isolation of poetic devices
Tabulation
Synthesis
Comparison with other literature
And after all that, why not pick up the poem and read it?

Effectual baptism

There’s a very helpful discussion going on at Best of Both Worlds about the effect or otherwise of baptism, infant or otherwise. Do make sure you read all the comments. I enjoyed this contribution from Tapani Simojoki
There once was a man who said, “No!
This physical stuff’s a no-no.
It’s spirit that flies
Right up to [...]