Friday, October 26, 2007

Un experimento en poesía: Two exempla

This summer I had the honor of teaching English at Phillips Academy-Andover under the (MS)2 program for minority students. A truly exceptional program utilizing the full advantages of the American boarding school.

In fact, I contacted Professor Stephen Greenblatt, via e-mail, who was kind enough to keep a correspondence with me, and he recalled his teaching experiences at Andover with me as memorable. I also met some of the most wonderful educators there during the program. One in particular, who goes by the name Kyle and is an Instructor at Arizona State University (ASU), had asked that I consider putting on the blog some poetry.

My love affair for genre experimentation is legion, and though I cannot safely state that I love poetry, I offer two examples of my own thought on the matter. The examples stem from the The Dudley Review, Volume 11: Façades issue (2005) published by Harvard University. Respectively, they are simply labeled, "Two Sonnets" and are taken from an on-going collection of 100 sonnets, which I hope to further publish.

These poems express for me the concepts of my experimento en poesía, and I hope they offer that reading into one's life--wherein poetry can be considered what I call--the ars of sensation.

Sonnet IV:

If time were sovereign over me,
These words I pen would gladly prostrate;
Alas, only thought and memory, can make me free,
All ambition chanced to the Divine's magistrate.
Is time bowed to Him with whom we have to do?
The answer is foolish by clay's reply.
My hands can hold all of elemental stew,
But limited are they, covetous to deify;
Salvation has come to the humans first,
Then penultimate, thine aim O trumped angel,
Bestow care upon all below who thirst-
I think it shame and likened Pantagruel.
The ticking dial of a puls'd, weakened frame,
Still proves, in much, man's need to be tame.


A Sonnet of Gold in Tele-Lies of Silver:

Time us to see if the fruit of promise be pick-worthy,
Reach for it Muse, not delaying--I promise to ignore thee not;
O pluck it from my common heart and queen me Kingly,
For I remain ripened as the Divine in thee did begot;
To say I love you is not enough, though the season be,
Unkindly as its cousin hate, but more irreverent;
Call upon Herculean arms, Jove's bolts, or demigod--Panoply.
Mi amour will not wane, nor wax-wetted, liken'd to an Icarian
descent;
I am bold in this joy! I needn't shake-my-spear in soliloquy,
And yet resistance is rooted in the cellar of my fear;
'Tis no matter my Precious and fair Narcissine symmetry,
You and my love, though clouded in gold parts, are crystal,
lined clear.
And foolish mortals we be, if we be truly vexed,
As witches in the dark that are irreverently sexed.

Further contributions re: the genre of poetry and my poesía will follow, but for now content thy self with these two ramblings of reflective rancor and relevance, no.

F.

No comments: