How many poems celebrate the poet’s dream, or dreams? This one doesn’t. It’s fair to say that American poet William Carlos Williams had a curmudgeonly streak. In this poem from his 1921 collection Sour Grapes he holds the line for the style that early Modernists had championed to break free from the poetic fancies that … Continue reading William Carlos Williams’ Thursday
Recently I mentioned I might return to the Modernists of 100 years ago who inspired a lot of the material I’ve used here over the years. And indeed, I read two early William Carlos Williams collections early this new year looking for material as I prepared to do that. And then, as a novel from … Continue reading William Carlos Williams’ January
I’ve mentioned I’m reading a couple of memoirs that cover the early 20th Century Modernist era in America this month. At some point there may come a post here directly about them — which this isn’t — but in one of these memoirs, Troubadour, its author Alfred Kreymborg is discussing the launch of his crucial … Continue reading Songs of a Girl II
After all the storm and breadth of remarking on my several-year presentations of “The Waste Land,” the totality of which takes more than an hour to listen to, it’s time to return to a smaller Modernism. To start that off, let me present a tiny poem by Emily Dickinson. Wait, you said Modernism. Dickinson? Well, … Continue reading How Many Flowers
I hope to still have at least one more piece ready here this month, but I’ll admit that I waylaid some time yesterday watching the Academy Award “Oscars” while restringing and doing some deferred maintenance on a couple of guitars. Awards shows — which are of course promotional events regardless of their area of the … Continue reading Oscars, then Oscar, during National Poetry Month
Let’s pickup the countdown of the pieces that drew the most listens and likes over this past winter. Each bold-faced listing is a link to the original post on the piece in case you’d like to read what I wrote back then, and those original posts will also contain links to the full text of … Continue reading Winter ‘20-‘21 Parlando Project Top Ten, numbers 7-5
Continuing on with our count-down of the most listened to and liked pieces here this past autumn. A reminder, each of these selections starts with a bold-faced hyperlink to the post where I first presented the author’s piece. There you may find a bit more about the writer and a link to the full text … Continue reading Fall 2020 Parlando Project Top Ten, numbers 7-5
I said last time that the Midwestern American poet Carl Sandburg is not often thought of as an Imagist when we recount the Modernist revolution in poetry. Indeed, I get the impression that his work as a whole is summarized as folksy/clumsy by academia, the efforts of a low-fi Modernist with middlebrow pretensions to real … Continue reading Gargoyle
For those that have been following our look at English poet Frances Cornford, we’ll have at least one more example coming of her stuff soon. But now is the time when we count-down the ten most liked and listened to pieces from this past winter. It’s been a slightly difficult season for this project for … Continue reading Winter 2020 Parlando Top Ten, numbers 10-8
Here’s another poem by the lesser-known American poet Genevieve Taggard. Taggard was sometimes classed with a group of woman poets of the first part of the 20th century, all of whom suffered from the rise in the 1920s of “High Modernism” that held that longer poems with elevated metaphors referencing prior literature and art were … Continue reading Endless Circle
