Oh yes! Fourth corollary, which Mom reminds me to ask:
Do you like poetry? If so, what kind of poetry? Do you read it for pleasure? If you’re an imaging reader, does poetry work for you? Tell me, tell me! (I’m really enjoying this discussion. Heehee.)
I do like some poetry. I don’t read nearly as much of it, now that my days as a English Lit college student are over.
Not so keen on much of the contemporary stuff. WH Auden is about as modern as I like, I think. Emily Dickinson, Auden, the Rosettis, William Blake, some of the epic fantasy poetry…Faerie Queen, etc.
The Metaphysicals. John Donne:
License my roving hands and let them go
Above, before, behind, between, below.
Oh my America, my New Found Land,
My Kingdom safeliest when with one man manned,
– I quote from memory. Bear in mind the conceit, the exploration of the New World. How to celebrate the thrill of sex – you can’t get better than this, a guy who was the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral and the greatest English poet.
Here’s some more, addressed to the Sun (on suggesting that his bedroom, with his mistress, constituted the entire world as far as he was concerned):
… And thou, Sunne, art half as happy as we
in that the world’s contracted thus:
Shine to us here and thou art everywhere-
This bed, they center is, these walls, thy sphere.
How tremendous is that?
And his blasphemy when he wonders how the future might regard the unearthed skeltons of himself and his wife, whether they’d found a religion based on the obvious love between the two:
‘When this grave is dug again,
some second guest to entertain…’
Absolutely wonderful, clever, moving, remarkable stuff. Nothing compares: or, as Donne says:
‘Kings do but play us, compared to this:
All honor’s mimic; all wealth, alchemy’
There’s my vote, then.
Well, I responded to this one but it is at the end of my response of whether I see and hear while I am reading. (I certainly HOPE I do!)
Heehee…
I tend to like poetry when I read it (though the type is not at all consistent), but I don’t actively seek it out to read and I don’t like to analyze it too much, more just let it roll over me. On the other hand, I take great pride in writing particularly bad haiku…and on being able to generate a haiku about any topic on a moment’s notice. :)
I like poetry, but haven’t found any that really grabs me lately. I tend to choose fiction over poetry, given a choice.
Oh, and I can picture Tom Cruise (and others) as snapshots instead of movies.