Posted on 12/27/2018 5:36:18 PM PST by mairdie
My personal opinion is that Moore's claim to "Night Before Christmas" would have been questioned years ago if people had read the pompous, moralistic poetry written by this prig. But his poetry is so bad that it's just not accessible, other than on my website. So allow me to offer you a narration of Moore's "apology" for refusing an invitation to a ball. Actually, it's no apology at all. It's a preening bit of virtue signalling at how morally righteous he is to avoid these low occasions of sin. How ANYONE could believe that someone of that mindset could have written the light and lovely "Night Before Christmas" still amazes me. The argument that he wouldn't lie? This moral prig when caught? Of course, he'd lie.
I will. (After I figure out how that works.)
I respect your opinion. Understand that I am an amateur. Please adjust your expectations accordingly.
P.S.
I read this last night. It might interest you:
“Is Poetry Really Dead?” by David Solway
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/is-poetry-really-dead/
“So, for phoneme pairs, a completely unconscious writing characteristic, Mac’s calculations showed that “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” sat firmly in Henry’s camp at 64.912.”
This interests me immensely, if I understand it:
I spend a lot of time tasting (as I call it) different words for phonemic matching with other words in a line. I do it mentally and aloud.
My first default is to pick the word that most matches the meaning, but if two or more words would serve, then I go on tasting them, usually for a few days before decide.
“At the same time, I can’t stand obscure for the sake of obscurity.”*
I share that attitude. I write to convey essential meaning, not meaninglessness.
Since I lack your education, I discover some poets incidentally (apart from the ones everyone encounters).
I first learned of Sidney Lanier by reading Macroscope, Piers Anthony’s first (and, I think, best) science fiction novel. Lanier is, very inventively, a pivotal character in absentia.
* Although I value her music immensely (it inspired me to compose), Tori Amos is an example of someone who drives people bats with her subjective and obscure lyrics.
She is undeniably a genius - youngest person ever accepted at the Berklee College of Music at age 5 - and a pianistic virtuoso, but her lyrics, although often sonically evocative, are mainly meaningful to herself alone.
(I also do not share her worldview at all - but then, I do not share the worldview of many classical composers either).
Heh. An apt analogy.
Don’t know if schooling made me love anything except Ionesco’s plays. Arnold I learned to love from the gentlemen who plied me with poetry. Ferlinghetti I discovered in a bookstore in Greenwich Village. Bookmarked Lanier and I’ll investigate. Since I’m a student of the Civil War, he sounds fascinating.
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