[Len Krisak]

Catullus

What do I see in you, someone inquires,
you brash and cocky playboy, dead at thirty,
and why spend years transcribing your desires?
Your life was loose, your language often dirty.
I doubt I'd even like you, if we met:
you, born to riches, quick to fling abuse,
and loath to waste a thought or epithet
on women you weren't trying to seduce.

But you were from the sticks, thin-skinned, and spurned
by one you ached for, sure she was the one
love of your sorry life. And I have burned
with love, with hate, with words, as you have done,
though now I'm old enough to be your mother.
Hail and farewell, my counterpart, my brother.


First--extreme apologies for not finding the right way
to fix the indention and wrap problems in the transmission
of the text. I assure our readers that this sonnet was
certainly not typed this way by its poet!

Another strong, plain, direct piece, with a nastily brilliant pun in line two (OK, it’s “cocky”). There is also a subtle echo of Catullus’s famous odi et amo epigram (#85 is it?) in line 12 (“with love, with hate”). The pleasures of subtlety extracted from seeming simplicity are definitely on display, though I might have re-thought
“counterpart,” which seems a bit weak to dock next to the
startling “brother.”

[Svein Olav Nyberg]

I'm venturing a bet this was written by Alan Sullivan.

I liked the octet part best. Not that the sestet is weak, but it is outshone by the octet (imho). And (again imho) the best octet of the nine.

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Svein Olav (The poet formerly known as Solan )

[This message has been edited by Svein Olav Nyberg (edited June 30, 2005).]

[Tim Murphy]

Bad guess, Svein!

[Tim Murphy]

This also ends by echoing the beautiful ave atque vale of Catullus' poem for his dead brother. I was in such haste, simply typing in Len's address and pressing forward, that I didn't read all the submissions to this year's bake-off. This one fairly leapt off the page. Of course I'm crazy for Catullus, and I'm a pretty big fan of this poet too. Svein, you don't really think Alan would have said "I'm old enough to be your mother." I'd say that makes it rather unlikely that the author is male.

And what's the French poem that ends "hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable, mon frere." Baudelaire? Lots of layers here.

[Janet Kenny]

I remember this one from the Deep End. I loved it then and I love it now.
Janet

[Richard Wakefield]

Even with my sorry ignorance of the classics I sense the many harmonizing layers here, and the conversational tone is exactly right. To my ear the "you" set off by itself at the beginning of line six is a complex and exciting bit of intonation. It seems as first bitter or dismissive, and yet then contemptlative, even conciliatory as later lines modulate it.
RPW

[Svein Olav Nyberg]

Tim: And I thought I was clever by remembering the name of Alan's boat ...

OK, egg on me faice! And doubly so for not knowing the echo. I need a rest. 5 weeks vacation, starting in 7 hours from now, would be just about right. Luckily, that's what I have to look forward to at the end of this workday.


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Svein Olav (The poet formerly known as Solan )

[Alfred Nicol]

I am the "someone" who "inquired" what the poet saw in Catullus. I should ask more stupid questions, I think, if the result is going to be more poems like this one.

[grasshopper]

I like this sonnet very much. With a light touch, it conveys warmth and affection, and conveys the human link that art forges with someone through the centuries. As Forster wrote: 'Only connect'.
It has a very personal resonance for me, because when I started to learn Latin, I was bored to tears with 'The Gauls are besieging the fortifications'. Then we were given 'Ave atque vale' to translate. I found the image of the poet visiting his brother's grave very moving. Suddenly it wasn't a dead language, but spoke directly to me.
Regards, Maz

[Rose Kelleher]

As someone who has never read Catullus, barely even heard of him, and am generally not interested in poems about scholarly research, I think I am best qualified to pronounce this poem a success. Against all odds, it makes its subject matter lively and interesting to the general reader.


[This message has been edited by Rose Kelleher (edited July 04, 2005).]