Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Thanks, Lola Koundakjian, for organizing last night's reading FOR A WORLD WITHOUT WALLS, in conjunction with the World Poetry Movement at Saint Illuminator's Armenian Apostolic Cathedral. What a tremendous cloud of poetic witnesses, embodied and voiced by the 18 participating poets. There were rousing calls to action, moving appeals to pity, satirical depictions of wrong, and sharp diagnoses of individuality. I read Frost's "Mending Wall" and then one of my poems about Singaporeans in America, "The Ceramicist." While reading over the Frost poem in preparation, I wondered if anyone has ever noticed that the speaker, in distinguishing himself from his wall-loving neighbor, is also building a wall between them. Frost's speakers are not his mouthpieces (see the much-misunderstood "The Road Not Taken") but may be airing an attitude that the poet wishes us to be wary of, if not criticize. The speaker of "Mending Wall" speaks of ...

Today my reading group met for the last time to read the last four chapters of The Odyssey , in E. V. Rieu's prose translation. HS, who also led us to read The Iliad last year, gave us our further reading after a most satisfying session. One handout collects the scholia written in the margins of the manuscripts. In Book 1, someone wrote, "They say in the myth that Poseidon went to the Ethiopians at a certain season and was honored by them. But in the allegory, Poseidon is a term for water. Since water, that is, the ocean, circles the whole earth, and because the Nile at a certain season waters the land of the Ethiopians and makes the trees grow, on this account they say Poseidon, or water, is honored by them as the cause of many good things for them. Book 9: Homer . . . seems to have been the first to devise fearful pleasantries, as in the passage describing that most unpleasant personage the Cyclops: "Noman will I eat last, but the rest before him"--that "gues...

Frost gave this talk at Dartmouth College as part of the Great Issues series, a mandatory course for seniors that used weekly guest lectures to explore important current events of politics, science, and the arts. Transcribed, annotated and introduced by James Sitar, the talk appeared In Literary Imagination Volume 10 Number 1 2008, published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics (ALSC). [To take poetry right is] another way to take life right. And that means not to stick too hard to any particular precept. Suppose I said for instance certain ones--they're always rattling around in my mind. Suppose I said this one: the great problem is to know "how to o'errule" . . . How to o'errrules the harsh divorce That parts things natural from divine. See the precept in that is that you must remember it's hard to o'errule the harsh divorce That parts things natural from divine. And for the duration of the piece--if yo...