A Special Love Poem for April

Public Domain

Always Marry an April Girl

Praise the spells and bless the charms,

I found April in my arms.

April golden, April cloudy,

Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;

April soft in flowered languor,

April cold with sudden anger,

Ever changing, ever true —

I love April, I love you.


By Ogden Nash
1902-1971

It Ain't Easy Being a Poet!

Many Famous Poets had a Tough Time Overcoming Obstacles
Eadweard Muybridge, Public Domain

The poet Wallace Stevens once remarked that he liked being a poet because he could dash off a poem in the morning and have the rest of the day to himself!   Of course, Mr. Stevens had an appealingly skewed wit - and we all know it’s not as simple as that.  No, not even for distinguished poets.

A writing student recently said, ‘Until you write about something, you can't find out what you know about it. I don't even know what I'm thinking sometimes, but I'm finding out by writing. I usually have some order in mind, but I never know what's going to happen.’ 

            Writers have always faced and overcome enormous obstacles in their commitment to writing.  Many nineteenth century women even published their work anonymously to avoid censure from a narrow-minded society.  America’s Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) always listened to her mentor, critic and minister, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who actively discouraged her because he believed her poetry wasn’t good enough.  After her death her sister discovered more than one thousand poems in her room, mostly untitled and undated.  Imagine! only seven were published in her lifetime and although these were well-received, Dickinson would not have experienced the joy of a success her talent so richly deserved. 

            Stevie Smith was a poet who had a tough time.  Abandoned by her father in childhood, her mother died while she was a teenager and the initial success of her work was followed by a sharp downturn in her popularity.  Seamus Heaney said of her, ‘I suppose in the end the adjective has to be eccentric.  She looks at the world with a mental squint’, while Philip Larkin’s view was that she was a ‘feminine doodler and jotter who puts down everything as it strikes her, no matter how silly or tragic.’  It takes guts to carry on when those around you are dismissive of your talent including other writers generally held in high esteem. 

          That’s why you must stay true to yourself and take comfort from your writing as Stevie Smith did.  Take constructive criticism on board but resist destructive comments from those who don’t understand or who have a ‘hidden agenda’.

Dear March, come in! by Emily Dickinson

Dear March, come in!
How glad I am!
I looked for you before.
Put down your hat—
You must have walked—
How out of breath you are!
Dear March, how are you?
And the rest?
Did you leave Nature well?
Oh, March, come right upstairs with me,
I have so much to tell!

I got your letter, and the bird’s;
The maples never knew
That you were coming,—I declare,
How red their faces grew!
But, March, forgive me—
And all those hills
You left for me to hue;
There was no purple suitable,
You took it all with you.

Who knocks? That April!
Lock the door!
I will not be pursued!
He stayed away a year, to call
When I am occupied.
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come,
That blame is just as dear as praise
And praise as mere as blame.

The First Spring Day Brings Hope

Copyright Janet Cameron

The first day of Spring is not too far away. (Yes, I know it is incorrect to use capital first letters for the seasons, but sometimes I do what I like rather than what is correct.) Besides, I am in good company as Christina Rossetti agrees with me. Need I say more?

The first day of Spring will be 20 March. In preparation, and in addition to the image, here is a poem by Christina Rossetti. It's a sweet poem, with a lot of sadness in the words but a hint of hope in the last line. What Spring is all about really.


The First Spring Day

I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,
If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun,
And crocus fires are kindling one by one.
      Sing, robin, sing,
I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.

I wonder if the Springtide of this year
Will bring another Spring both lost and dear,
If heart and spirit will find out their Spring,
Or if the world alone will bud and sing:
      Sing, hope, to me;
Sweet notes, my hope, soft notes for memory.

The sap will surely quicken, soon or late,
The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate;
So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom,
Or, in this world, or in the world to come:
       Sing, voice of Spring,
Till I too blossom and rejoice and sing.

Poetry - A Subject as Precise as Geometry - but Wait for the Echo!

Photo Copyright Janet Cameron

People are always asking, "What is poetry exactly?" Recently someone even said, "Can't stand poetry. Why not just write an essay?" I explained this was a completely different art form. You might as well ask why a sculpture isn't a painting. But the lady didn't see that at all!   Hmmm...

Still, some thinkers do try and succeed quite well.

I always quote Philip Larkin, "The best possible words in the best possible order."

Here are some lovely allusions to poetry from my Oxford Dictionary of Quotations:

Boswell: Sir, what is poetry?

Johnson: Why Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is, but it is not easy to tell what it is.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: It takes it origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity ~ William Wordsworth.

That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all. ~ John Keats.

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds. ~ Percy Bysse Shelley.

Prose = words in their best order; - poetry = the best words in the best order. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry. ~ Gustave Flaubert.

Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo. ~ Don Marquis.

And finally, from the incomparable Wendy Cope:

I used to think all poets were Byronic.

They're mostly wicked as a ginless tonic

And wild as pension plans.

Well, in the end we have to try to keep our feet on the ground, don't we?

INVICTUS by William Ernest Henley

With all the chaos going on in the world at the present time, while the Brits fearfully contemplate the consequences of Brexit, while the US President appears to come closer day by day to being impeached, to the agony of Syria, of Africa, and the abuse suffered suffered by black, female politicians, (just to name a few items from today's news) I really need poetry.

Like this one, which inspired Nelson Mandela and provided the title of the wonderful film about him.

William Ernest Henley, Wikimedia Commons

INVICTUS by William Ernest Henley


Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Great Poets Shouldn't Have to "Dumb-Down"

Ezra Pound, Bing Images

This is what James I is claimed to have said about John Donne. It was recorded by Archdeacon Plume:

"Dr. Donne's verses are like the peace of God; they pass all understanding."

I often wonder if that's fair.  Great store is set by how accessible poetry is - the question always being, "accessible to whom...?"

When I was studying modern poetry at the University of Kent, I often felt frustrated at Ezra Pound, who wrote such stunning pieces, then wandered off into foreign snippets and allusions, so that you had to be highly educated in classical literature and language, including Latin, to understand his work. Or else you needed a very patient teacher with plenty of time to instruct you.

Some of his prose is even expressed as musical sheets. I love music, but only as a consumer. I can't sing. I can't play. I can't read music.

I was lost, stumped, angry. How dare he write stuff I couldn't understand? It isn't my fault I didn't get a great education. How would I ever catch up?  Why should these works be beyond my reach?

Ezra Pound wrote a wonderful haiku:

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

— Ezra Pound

What a beautiful, precise image, how full of energy in its very shifting-ness. It's both here and far away, both distinctive and fragile. You feel you might grasp this image only to find it shimmering away into the distance.

I feel differently now. I take what I can and I'm glad for it. I try to fill the gaps where I can't understand, but there's no use in fretting about it all.  How can we expect such intellects, with their great, seeking, reaching, unfathomable thoughts to dumb down so everyone can get a bigger piece of them.

No, we need to dumb-up.  Great poets should just carry on as they see fit.

Oh, and wasn't he so handsome? But I do so wish I understood more than I do.