[Catherine Chandler]

Rick: "My Father Paints the Summer" .

[Allen Tice]

I would hate to have my writing evaluated in any perspective from my mother's paintings of her mature period. They are different media, by different people who had different opinions of each other and everything everywhere, and derived from different epochs. Should William Butler be seen as a shadow of his painter brother "Jack" John Yeats?

https://lettersfromahillfarm.blogspo...ilbur.html?m=1

[R. Nemo Hill]

This is the Wilbur poem that has always stayed with me most.
I love it.



The Ride


The horse beneath me seemed
To know what course to steer
Through the horror of snow I dreamed,
And so I had no fear,

Nor was I chilled to death
By the wind’s white shudders, thanks
To the veils of his patient breath
And the mist of sweat from his flanks.

It seemed that all night through,
Within my hand no rein
And nothing in my view
But the pillar of his mane,

I rode with magic ease
At a quick, unstumbling trot
Through shattering vacancies
On into what was not,

Till the weave of the storm grew thin,
With a threading of cedar-smoke,
And the ice-blind pane of an inn
Shimmered, and I awoke.

How shall I now get back
To the inn-yard where he stands,
Burdened with every lack,
And waken the stable-hands

To give him, before I think
That there was no horse at all,
Some hay, some water to drink,
A blanket and a stall?
.
.
.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Nemo,

This is the very poem stuck to our fridge. I see it, read it, almost every day.

Ha!

[R. S. Gwynn]

Allen, did you mean Yeats's father?

[Allen Tice]

Sam, thanks for bringing me up short. Until this hour I had no conscious awareness that the poet's father as well as his brother were both visual artists (a dangerous knowledge not to have). I drew my opinion from seeing in Ireland some of the Expressionist canvases of his brother, which left me very cold. I don't think this is the place to divert to discus the merits or demerits of those. Always an education to engage with you, Sam. Thanks.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Allen, Yeats's father was pretty well known and friends with some of the pre-Raphaelites. Actually, it was I who didn't know about the brother as a painter! Dah.

[Rick Mullin]

Jack Yates (the brother) was the more important painter. He is the highlight of the National Gallery in Dublin. W.B. was actually a pretty good painter himself.

I don't suggest that Wilbur's poetry is a reflection of his father's art. I was more interested in what became of his teenage rebellion.

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

The Guardian have certainly given him the accolades that are due to him. It must have been tough to write formal poetry in the US in the last part of the 20th century. It wasn't quite as tough in the UK. Larkin was given his due, and he paved the way for others.

Duncan

PS Just realised that George Mackay Brown, whose birthday it is today, would also have been 96. Not a bad year, 1921. It was a bit of a miracle that GMB lived to the age of 75. He was one of the first to be cured of tuberculosis.

[Allen Tice]

It's probably time for me to withdraw from this conversation, but there is my thought that Wilbur's most troublesome flaw is that he, like many great and talented people, was too trusting. It's a kind of pride, and not limited to nice people. No way. Perhaps he realized this himself after a while. A first-class mind can never know everything, especially in uncongenial areas. Like Mencius, we want to believe that humanity is good. Saints (like Wilbur, if I may) need this blindness. Some things that one can see or touch will exceed one's grasp -- else what's a heaven for?