Well, how did those weeks fly by so quickly? Next week we are back to our safe little cluster in class. Kay has sent out her next batch of poems for us to read (lovely) before we discuss in class and I’m getting reading to lead a discussion on how poets have been influenced by science, incorporated it into their use of form and language.
I hope I can pull off two hours worth, gulp!
In three weeks I need to hand out my last bunch of work for class discussion, nothing like a deadline to get you going!
Here are some quotes from my reading packet to tease you:
“Only fables present the world as it should be and as if it had meaning,” – Kurt Gödel (Austrian-American logician, mathematician and philosopher)
“The original Muses might be imaged now as little Apples, home-computers wired into the great mother memory bank of the world, promiscuously fingered by the swift digits of the global villagers. But a computer does not a muse or music make.” – Phyllis Webb
“We have to break down poetry into its elements just as the chemists and physicists are doing in order to reform the elements.” – William Carlos Williams
“Sir: In your otherwise beautiful poem ‘The Vision of Sin’ there is a verse which reads – ‘Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born.’ It must be manifest that if this were true, the population of the world would be at a standstill… I would suggest that in the next edition of your poem you have it read – ‘Every moment dies a man, Every moment 1 1/16 is born.’… The actual figure is so long I cannot get it onto a line, but I believe the figure 1 1/16 will be sufficiently accurate for poetry. I am, Sir, yours, etc., Charles Babbage”
– Charles Babbage to Tennyson, 1851
And a poem:
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—
– Emily Dickinson
heh – the Phylis Webb’s quote “The original Muses might be imaged now as little Apples, home-computers wired into the great mother memory bank of the world, promiscuously fingered by the swift digits of the global villagers.” – early Mac branding win!
hehe, product placement, so viral 😉
It was the Charles Babbage quote that struck me. Now that’s what I call a poetic soul!
[…] I spied in a post over at Helen’s place and it made me laugh. I admire Mr. Babbage’s sentiment for poetry and affiliation to […]
Hehehehe, yes, good old Babbage 🙂
Since when did we call ‘handouts’, ‘packets’??? What is with this new Americanism??
*the splutter of the easily outraged*
Good luck with the presentation, btw – you’ll be fabulous, I know it!
x H
Lol, didn’t even know “packets” was an Americanism, you’ll get over it 😉
your presentation sounds really interesting, i’m sure the time will fly by. would love to meet for a cuppa some time.
Thanks Sarah, I’d love to have a cuppa too – email me anytime 🙂