It really is a fun poem. It stirs an excitement in the soul, an ecstatic longing, if you will, for something that isn’t purely “Earthbound,” as described in the second poem.
And it leaves the imagination just enough space to wander—and wonder!
"The Wonder Boys" is mostly a lark, like a mini "Peter Pan," but there's a kernel of truth because the best poets do magical things with words. It's not an ironic poem, more of a comic tribute to a rare poet. Leslie Mellichamp was capable of singing and communicating emotion, and billions of wannabe poets can't pull off such things. Magic, I say, hoping to prove a warlock myself before all is said and done.
Hawks will be preserved in ornithologic exhibits; the sheep, as Emerson acutely observes, will always have the last say. Truth's destiny hereabouts is museums. It will never confer eyes on the blind.
Les put keeping his journal alive first, though not without regrets. To keep it in circulation he imagined he had to please the subscribership, which he supposed was mostly biased in favor of loveliness, ah, the beauty of the heavens. He sacrificed his personal attractions for the sake of what he imagined was necessary for the journal's survival. He began, near the end of his editorship, before parkinsonism deprived him of the ability to continue, to admit some tiny signs of rebellion. Duty however, as he conceived it, he gave overwhelming precedence over his taste. He was the most self-effacing person I have ever known. He knew life was a horror, but upheld the mirage for the sake of what he imagined to be reader bias and thought had to be obliged in order to keep readers' support, both financial and submissionwise. He was much smarter than the journal that was passed into his safekeeping.
Even if life is a tragedy, it doesn't mean we can't appreciate things like love and beauty. With The HyperTexts, I have always allowed the darker visions to be voiced, but that doesn't mean I would turn down, for example, Whitman's marvelous "A Noiseless Patient Spider" or Wordsworth's spectacular "Intimations."
Oh, and there was an endowment too I now remember, which might have played a role in Les's selections. A fund was established by Helen Cummings I think her name was, very many moons ago, to keep the journal going.
You, as you say and by way of contrast, do not place restrictions on style or theme, and that's as it should be. It's always discouraging to encounter "we don't want this or that" in journals' guidelines, except when what's unwelcome is bigotry in any form. All poetry journals should model themselves on your open approach, but no doubt won't.
I don't see anything wrong with haiku journals, journals devoted to sonnets, etc., but my preference is to not draw unnecessary lines in the sand. There are a few kinds of poems I would decline, such racist and homophobic poems, but honestly in the history of THT, I can't think of any poem I've had to decline based on content. As far as I can remember, all publication decisions have been made based entirely on the quality of the writing. I will say, however, that I would turn down quite a few of the poems published by the Keystone Scops based on content. Never that twain shall meet.
That outfit used to be Bigotry Central. "Bigotry is the sacred disease," noted Heraclitus, and he would've found many worshipers of that disease there. Weren't gays banned there? No idea what they're up to these days, but am guessing none of its panjandrums has had an epiphany.
As to haiku and sonnet journals and the like, well, they want what they want and nothing else I guess. They want a particular kind of poetry, as opposed to just poetry. Reading such for me would be a tad monotonous, so I wouldn't be likely to pay them much heed. I've written both but have no style biases as you know, and lately have been writing unpatterned, pretty freeform stuff. You could say I prefer a smorgasbord to a pizza place.
I prefer a smorgasbord myself and write free verse and experimental verse.
I and a poet of your acquaintance were banned from Scoputopia for debating the merits of homophobic poetry. And Scoputopia remains Bigotry Central with recent cries by one of the ringleaders for migrant children and their mothers to be shot to shreds on sight, with armor-piercing machine gun rounds that would leave nothing to be buried. Such heroes, no?
Čhaŋkpé Ópi Wakpála: December 29, 1890
Brown prairie dogs were huddling in their dens,
And pronghorns spread across the frozen plains.
In the harsh cold of early Winter, breath
Iced up, and some young boys were marked for death
On pale expanses of rough, frozen sands,
Where murder haunts hard frost on the badlands.
-------------------------------
Čhaŋkpé Ópi Wakpála: this stream in South Dakota is also known as Wounded Knee Creek.
Bob, those are good lines. Thanks for sharing them.
I quite like the first poem. But then I was always a sucker for irony.
No irony. More of a Romanticized metaphor. I fell in love with poetry as a boy because of the magical things the best poets could do with words.
It really is a fun poem. It stirs an excitement in the soul, an ecstatic longing, if you will, for something that isn’t purely “Earthbound,” as described in the second poem.
And it leaves the imagination just enough space to wander—and wonder!
"The Wonder Boys" is mostly a lark, like a mini "Peter Pan," but there's a kernel of truth because the best poets do magical things with words. It's not an ironic poem, more of a comic tribute to a rare poet. Leslie Mellichamp was capable of singing and communicating emotion, and billions of wannabe poets can't pull off such things. Magic, I say, hoping to prove a warlock myself before all is said and done.
Comments and suggestions are always welcome.
Hawks will be preserved in ornithologic exhibits; the sheep, as Emerson acutely observes, will always have the last say. Truth's destiny hereabouts is museums. It will never confer eyes on the blind.
Les put keeping his journal alive first, though not without regrets. To keep it in circulation he imagined he had to please the subscribership, which he supposed was mostly biased in favor of loveliness, ah, the beauty of the heavens. He sacrificed his personal attractions for the sake of what he imagined was necessary for the journal's survival. He began, near the end of his editorship, before parkinsonism deprived him of the ability to continue, to admit some tiny signs of rebellion. Duty however, as he conceived it, he gave overwhelming precedence over his taste. He was the most self-effacing person I have ever known. He knew life was a horror, but upheld the mirage for the sake of what he imagined to be reader bias and thought had to be obliged in order to keep readers' support, both financial and submissionwise. He was much smarter than the journal that was passed into his safekeeping.
Even if life is a tragedy, it doesn't mean we can't appreciate things like love and beauty. With The HyperTexts, I have always allowed the darker visions to be voiced, but that doesn't mean I would turn down, for example, Whitman's marvelous "A Noiseless Patient Spider" or Wordsworth's spectacular "Intimations."
Oh, and there was an endowment too I now remember, which might have played a role in Les's selections. A fund was established by Helen Cummings I think her name was, very many moons ago, to keep the journal going.
You, as you say and by way of contrast, do not place restrictions on style or theme, and that's as it should be. It's always discouraging to encounter "we don't want this or that" in journals' guidelines, except when what's unwelcome is bigotry in any form. All poetry journals should model themselves on your open approach, but no doubt won't.
I don't see anything wrong with haiku journals, journals devoted to sonnets, etc., but my preference is to not draw unnecessary lines in the sand. There are a few kinds of poems I would decline, such racist and homophobic poems, but honestly in the history of THT, I can't think of any poem I've had to decline based on content. As far as I can remember, all publication decisions have been made based entirely on the quality of the writing. I will say, however, that I would turn down quite a few of the poems published by the Keystone Scops based on content. Never that twain shall meet.
That outfit used to be Bigotry Central. "Bigotry is the sacred disease," noted Heraclitus, and he would've found many worshipers of that disease there. Weren't gays banned there? No idea what they're up to these days, but am guessing none of its panjandrums has had an epiphany.
As to haiku and sonnet journals and the like, well, they want what they want and nothing else I guess. They want a particular kind of poetry, as opposed to just poetry. Reading such for me would be a tad monotonous, so I wouldn't be likely to pay them much heed. I've written both but have no style biases as you know, and lately have been writing unpatterned, pretty freeform stuff. You could say I prefer a smorgasbord to a pizza place.
I prefer a smorgasbord myself and write free verse and experimental verse.
I and a poet of your acquaintance were banned from Scoputopia for debating the merits of homophobic poetry. And Scoputopia remains Bigotry Central with recent cries by one of the ringleaders for migrant children and their mothers to be shot to shreds on sight, with armor-piercing machine gun rounds that would leave nothing to be buried. Such heroes, no?