Bob,
Perhaps this is related to this thread:
<dir>CHARLES A. BEARD (1874-1948)
, asked if he could summarize the lessons of history in a short book, said he could do it in four sentences:
- Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power.
- The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small.
- The bee fertilizes the flower it robs.
- When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
[
This is lifted from The Practical Cogitator.]</dir>
I recently read at Gaz a quote from someone--I don't remember who--who said something like, "The only dull subjects are those subjects we have failed." I think that the so-called "subjects" of our poetry can easily be broken down into a few broad areas--Beard's is an interesting possibility--and that the newness is in our treatment of those broad categories via specific metaphors and narrow arguments.
When I began "Apple Fritter Fugue" (currently posted at Free Verse), I had an altogether different "subject" in mind. For days, the title had been circling in my head, and I thought I'd write a longish semi-narrative poem about my experiences in San Francisco when I was first "coming out." I thought I'd use "applejack," "apple sauce," "apple fritter," etc., but leave out "apple pie."--It would be thoroughly "apple," an analogue to American history but without the patriotic "Apple Pie" in it, and this would correspond with the narrative. So much for that idea. I often wonder if "stick-to-it-iveness" would produce an altogether different poetry than the kind I've been producing...or if even that longish poem would have circled the same things the ultimate version circled but in a different way.
Curtis.