[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Erik Olson

"What then does ich bin mean? The old word bauen, to which the bin belongs, answers: ich bin, du bist mean: I dwell, you dwell. The way in which you are and I am, the manner in which we humans are on the earth, is Buan, dwelling. To be a human being means to be on the earth as a mortal. it means to dwell. The old word bauen, which says that man is insofar as he dwells, this word barren however also means at the same time to cherish and protect, to preserve and care for, specifically to till the soil, to cultivate the vine."

Wait a minute. Does this mean that taking care of my chickens, and growing vines over their coop and run, is actually a poetic act?

Thanks,

Bill

[R. Nemo Hill]

Far more so, perhaps, that what often passes for a poetic act on the page.

Nemo

[Allen Tice]

May I prod this back to recent poetry that is both about Big Stuff and assertively Formal? Much as I relish the Jane Hirshfield quoted above, it has no regular rhyme or rhythmic structure. What is there is ideas well stated, but it is close to formal verse in some ways. Quite by accident, I encountered her and it at a small poetry reading, and dared to suggest to her a minor change in the last sentence. Oh, no, she naturally said, firmly. Well, I went away serendipitously impressed and 99.6 % satisfied.

What would be the effect of framing much the same poem in a more patterned and thus more memorable form? Would it rise (or for those who are jealous of Pope, descend) to the level of Alexander Pope?

How much of our esthetic is infected by the modern hatred in the arts of Charm?