Writing 101: Those Sexy Poets

!±8± Writing 101: Those Sexy Poets

Of course the sexiest poets were the Brownings.

Elizabeth, who was home schooled and eloped with Robert to Italy, was born in England in 1806. She died in Italy at age 55 having produced one son, Pen, who survived her.

Robert Browning was born near London in 1812. His father had a large library from which, at least in part, Robert was educated. He liked Elizabeth’s poems and dropped her a line. She wrote back. That caused them to elope and create Pen. Robert died at age 77 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. They have a burial place there for poets. It’s called Poet’s Corner.

Read about the Brownings at http://www.cswnet.com/~erin/browning.htm.

Keats thought Grecian urns were sexy.

John Keats was also born near London but not until 1879. He was well educated despite the fact that he was the son of a stable keeper. He studied medicine and worked at it too but gradually drifted into Writer’s Never Never Land.

Keats died of consumption in Italy (as did Elizabeth) in 1821 a disease that also killed his mother. Read his biography at http://www.john-keats.com/.

My mentioning that both Elizabeth and John died in Italy is called by us writers drawing a parallel. In this case, it is a very week parallel.

Edgar Allen Poe was another hopeless romantic. He liked Nicean barks of yore.

Note that Poe is almost always called by his full name while John Keats is just called “Keats.”

After much research, I don’t know why that is.

But I do know you must be famous to be called only by your last name except with Adam and Eve who are always called by their first names.

I have it on good authority that their family name was Jones: Adam and Eve Jones and they were created in Missouri.

This has to be true doesn’t it? If Adam is my ultra great grandfather then doesn’t his last name have to be Jones? Well, it doesn’t take higher mathematics to figure this out. His kids all had the last name Jones. Their kids had the last name of Jones. Get it?

Back to Poe: Poe died in a gutter as we all know.

That was in Baltimore.

Actually, he was found unconscious and he died in a hospital.

They didn’t say in his biography if it was John Hopkins or not. But I’m quite sure that if it were John Hopkins, they would have saved him. (Writer’s call this drawing a conclusion.)

His death was in 1849 so he lived 40 years from his birth in Boston.

Did you know that Poe was in the army?

He reached the rank of sergeant major in two years; damn good for a poet. That's another parallel. I was in the army for two years and made sergeant.

Poe always admired women. Read his biography at http://www.poemuseum.org/poes_life/index.html. Note that Poe has a museum. How many poets can say that?

We mustn’t skip Andrew Marvell because he wrote To His Coy Mistress.

Marvell was born in 1621 in England and spent his childhood running around the town of Hull. Hull must have been a great place to grow up. It’s the third largest sea port in England.

Even Hitler knew that.

He bombed the hell out of it during World War II.

Marvell would have been exposed to the history of the area. He would know what an Anglo Saxon was, what a Viking was, and what a Roman was. He probably knew about Hadrian’s Wall. He may have even gone out into the fields and walked on it. Well, it could have been too far from his house.

Marvell was well educated and traveled much in Europe.

Most of his stuff was not published during his lifetime. He died in 1678. Read his biography at [http://www.photoaspects.com/chesil/marvell/index.html].

Well, there are plenty of sexy poets but we must stop here. We have to look at some poetry of the aforementioned poets and then write a poem of our own. So take notes!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

This is her most famous poem from Sonnets from the Portuguese. Robert called his dark-complexioned darling wife My Little Portuguese.

Sonnet XLIII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, -I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

I married a couple once. The bride was Elizabeth and the groom was Robert. I read this poem. After the service a gentleman asked me if I was an English professor. I told him that I was a research engineer and that I researched everything. Then he told me that I had married the couple for time and all immortality. I should have married them for time and mortality. Well, I said, “What I did, I did!”

I always made mistakes at weddings. My congregation always waited to see what the mistake would be. Once I said, “I present Mr. and Mrs. Richi.” That was wrong. “Richi” was the bride’s maiden name.

Anyway, did you note that Elizabeth said, “…and if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”

Love is immortal.

If you didn’t read the poem aloud, go back and read it again.

Robert Browning

Robert was a little long winded so we will cut him short giving only the first stanzas of his poem.

A Pretty Woman

That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,

And the blue eye

Dear and dewy,

And that infantine fresh air of hers!

To think men cannot take you, Sweet,

And enfold you,

Ay, and hold you,

And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!

You like us for a glance, you know---

For a word's sake

Or a sword's sake,

All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know.

And in turn we make you ours, we say---

You and youth too,

Eyes and mouth too,

All the face composed of flowers, we say.

I always envisioned Elizabeth as having brown eyes to go with her dark complexion. The gal in this poem has blue eyes. Do you think it was written to Elizabeth?

John Keats

Keats was prolific. I have always liked the first verse of this famous poem:

Ode on a Grecian Urn

THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,

For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

«Beauty is truth, truth beauty,»- that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

I wonder what ever happened to the Urn Keats was looking at. Where they Gods or men chasing those virgins around the urn?

Edgar Allen Poe

Do you like soap operas? Well, Helen was for real. She was engaged to Poe but reneged. Read the whole grueling tale at [http://www.usna.edu/EnglishDept/poeperplex/hwhitmap.htm]. It’s a soap opera.

Here is Poe’s poem to “Helen” but is it to a generic Helen (Poe liked the sound of the word) or was it to Helen of Troy, or was it to his lost Helen?

To Helen

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of yore,

That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,

The weary, way-worn wanderer bore

To his own native shore

On desperate seas long wont to roam,

Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,

The Naiad airs have brought me home

To the glory that was Greece,

And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! In yon brilliant window-niche

How statue-like I see thee stand,

The agate lamp within thy hand!

Ah, Psyche, from the regions which

Are Holy-Land!

I’m going with Helen of Troy.

Andrew Marvell

This is one of my favorite poems. I hope you like it.

To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love's day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges' side

Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the Flood;

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires, and more slow.

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state;

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time's winged chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found,

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity;

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust.

The grave's a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now, therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like am'rous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped pow'r.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Thorough the iron gates of life.

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Well, you know what they say Make love while the sun shines.

Now it is time for you to write your romantic poem. I’ll write mine right here.

To April

Now the March winds have drifted on to northern climbs

I look for thee thou blessed spring to melt the snows alpine.

I want to feel thee in my arms that long have waited for thy smile.

I long to hold thee tight and long; I long to hold thee all the while.

When winter blew the endless snows that burned my ears and froze my toes

I though of thee both day and night, so far away, so not all right.

Now I see you in the distance, coming to me, to give assistance.

Wait! Please do not pass me by. You’re gone again. I will cry.

You’re gone again. I will cry.

Well, I do love warm weather.