I love reveling in archaisms and olde style poesie. My long sequence - over 3,000 lines so far, is a hodge-podge of various English poetical styles, from Pre-Chaucer up to Berryman & Ginsberg. I have basically mixed them all together in a bag, given it a good shake, and viola! - Something probably only I will want to read.
But that's not exactly true. Our Spherian friend Bill Carpenter likes the work a lot and has given me strong encouragement to continue with it.
Anyway, this thread gives me a chance to post this one:
A Conversation Between Robert Browning & Wallace Stevens
xxxA fancy restaurant, circa 1925.
B: Huzzah! My friend, what thinkst thou of my poem
Sordello?
S:xxxxxxxxxxYou mean that Sordello whom
Pound mentioned in his canto?
B:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThat's the same.
Zooks, what's the hubbub there? Those waiters swivel
and swerve like dancers in
Le Sacre du
Printemps. Hast seen it, Wallace? As a spirit
that lurk'd unseen, my keen unsubtanced eye
partook at—Paris, was it, or Verona?—
Grr,
the memory fuddles e'en in afterlife!
S: Stravinsky's? Yes, but let's talk of
Sordello.
I read the book, but like Lord Alfred, saw
but two lines that seemed lucid, and the rest
mere huff and hum, a hullabaloo of words
put on the page to make poor widows wince
and scholars' fingers rush to dusty tomes
in search of fact and date.
B:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxMere huff and hum
thou sayst? A hullabaloo of words!
Grr, Stevens, I had thought thee better read
than wincing widows.
'Zounds! that racket! Where's
my wine? But of
Sordello, of my book
that critics found unworthy; my poor book
that left bluestockings and great men befuddled!
Well, Lizzy understood the thing, and more,
but what is that? The world is none the wiser
albeit a touch less patriarchal.
S:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Hah!
Sweet Robert, have you found the time to look
at my
Comedian as the Letter C?
Of all the scribblers come to Kingdom Come
I fancy you would find it to your taste.
B: What? Did you speak?
Hoorah! The wine at last!
But hold, good sir, what's this? I said your best
chianti, in the bottle! Take the glass
and bring a bottle; but make sure, thou knave,
the cork is stuck! If not, I'll have thy hide!
Lo! there he scampers. I'd not have his hide,
poor scamp, for I have yet a heart in me.
S: Forget it, Bob. Now where's that menu?
Ah!
B: Zooks! Look!
S:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThese prices!
Ho! Harrumph. Harrumph.