[RCL]

I've always liked this imperfect poem for its demonstration that it's the imperfect human element that makes art attractive. Here, the oxymorons and imperfect meter and rhyme:

DELIGHT IN DISORDER.
by Robert Herrick

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness :
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction :
An erring lace which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher :
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly :
A winning wave (deserving note)
In the tempestuous petticoat :
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility :
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

[Chris Childers]

Ralph's post makes me think of Alicia's fabulous "Antiblurb," on the back of Hapax. I feel like it's been posted at some point before, but what the hell, I'll paste it in:

Antiblurb

This is not necessary. This is neither
Crucial nor salvation. It is no hymn
To harmonize the choirs of seraphim,
Nor any generation's bold bellwether
Leading the flock, no iridescent feather
Dropped from the Muse's wing. It does not limn,
Or speak in tongues, or voice the mute, or dim
Outmoded theories with its fireworks. Rather

This is flawed and mortal, and its stains
Bear the evidence of taking pains.
It did not have to happen, won't illumine
The smirch of history, the future's omen.
Necessity is merely what sustains —
It's what we do not need that makes us human.

I love how the enjambment from octave to sestet enacts the sort of flaw the poem admits to having. Is it really a flaw if it helps make the point? Does that make the poem perfect or imperfect? I don't know, but I like it.

Chris

PS., Gregory, Okay, To Autumn it is. Actually, I love all Keats' major odes. My favorite part from Grecian Urn is the beginning of the last stanza, down to "as doth eternity." And the part about the sacrifice. And the beginning. And the whole thing. Actually, surely that's an "imperfect" poem, in the sense of "incomplete," since we have no idea how the end is to be punctuated--where do the quotes start and stop?

[W.F. Lantry]

Ralph,

I love the Herrick. The brilliant start, the hopeless middle, the distracted end. Alas, everything I love about Herrick, and all of his faults, displayed in a single piece!

Phillip, I've chucked the whole idea of perfect, and replaced it with "lovely little piece of work." My problem is that I agree with Henry: "Literature bores me, especially great literature..."

It's a sign of my bad character that I have a fondness for small medallions. So I prefer things like J. V. Cunningham:

*********************

For My Contemporaries


How time reverses
The proud in heart!
I now make verses
Who aimed at art.

But I sleep well.
Ambitious boys
Whose big lines swell
With spiritual noise,

Despise me not!
And be not queasy
To praise somewhat:
Verse is not easy.

But rage who will.
Time that procured me
Good sense and skill
Of madness cured me.

*************************

Now, there's a pretty little thing. Gorgeous. And every time we go over the George Washington Bridge, my wife insists I recite Paul Goodman's little ditty to her:

*************************

The Lordly Hudson

"Driver, what stream is it?" I asked, well knowing
it was our lordly Hudson hardly flowing.
"It is our lordly Hudson hardly flowing,"
he said, under the green-grown cliffs."

Be still, heart! No one needs
your passionate suffrage to select this glory,
this is our lordly Hudson hardly flowing
under the green-grown cliffs.

"Driver, has this a peer in Europe or the East?"
"No, no!" he said. Home! Home!
Be quiet, heart! This is our lordly Hudson
and has no peer in Europe or the east.

This is our lordly Hudson hardly flowing
under the green-grown cliffs
and has no peer in Europe or the East.
Be quiet, heart! Home! Home!

*****************************

It's funny what sticks in our heads. Little medallions, silly small things. Charming.

Thanks,

Bill

[Roger Slater]

I've always loved that Goodman poem, though I'm hard pressed to say why.