Monday, January 10, 2011

Poetry

We have a talk show host out here who says he's happy to discuss anything except poetry and architecture.  I'm fairly happy with architecture in an informal way, but I'm with him on the poetry thing.  The problem is I just don't get it.

I have one poet whom I inherited from my father - Robert W. Service.  Now what my father, an ex-seaman and inhabitor of the suburbs, was doing reading about the Yukon and the quest for gold in the previous century, I have no idea, but he really liked the stuff.

I do too, and somehow understand the wonder of the northern lights, and the harsh life that the miners and the other dreamers followed back in the mid-19th century.  The Ballad of One-eyed Jake, and the Shooting of Dan McGraw are the best.  I think I began to lose the poetry thing when they stopped rhyming the words.

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