Hope Springs

pic by Just Jules

Do I dare believe?

Welcome, wild harbinger of spring!

To this small nook of earth;

Feeling and fancy fondly cling
Round thoughts which owe their birth

To thee, and to the humble spot

Where chance has fixed thy lowly lot.
- Bernard Barton, To a Crocus

Pics taken by me - around my yard.... do I dare believe Spring is here?
It snowed 38 inches April 25th last year. I remain skeptical.

Where Have All The Poets Gone?

Where Have All the Poets GonePicture from Flickr

Where Have All The Poets Gone?

Where have all the poets gone,
Whose metered cadences unfurled,
The ones whose noble verses rhymed,
Whose hillsides were dew-pearled? ...

...Where have all the poets gone
Who sang throughout the ages?
Are they replaced by blank verse now
That dribbles down the pages?...

You can find the rest of the poem here

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I have not heard of a famous poet lately. There is a few, I guess. Maya Angelou and Mark Strand.

However, there is nothing today that matches poets of the past. Names like Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Frost, Emily Dickenson, and John Keats, or Anne Sexton reverberate through history as famous poets.

Now, I am sure there are still poets out there plugging away in their own meters and genres (wow, had to pull those words out of the memory bank!) But, they are not celebrated and known as in the past.

Why?

I have a few theories of my own:

1) There were only a few types of media in the past. Specifically a few that were accepted.

2) There were far fewer "things" in print - books, magazines, literature in general.

3) Those poems stand timeless to those who teach Literature classes, there fore they are highlighted in schools.

4) We just don't appreciate the art anymore. It is too slow for our overstimulated lives. We have just stopped listening to them.

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I posed this question to my dear friend Deb (from Sojourner). She had the best answer of all though.

"Julie, there are still poets. I just think they are called song writers now"

(that is a loose quote. she said something along those lines :)

Brilliant!

That is why I love her! Of course. There are still poets out there - tons of them! But the art has taken on a new form... the words have been set to music and we know the verses far better then any generation before us.

So, to hear a modern day poet - just turn on the radio!

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What is your opinion. Where do you think all the poets have gone?