The Most Anthologized Poems of the Last 25 Years
lithub.com
lithub.com
I
wrote
a poem
on a page
but then each line grew
to the word sum of the previous two
until I started to worry about all these words coming with such frequency
because, as you can see, it can be easy to run out of space when a poem gets all Fibonacci sequency.
edit 1: just found out the author of this poem is Brian Bilston. It has been included in his book, You Took the Last Bus Home: The Poems of Brian Bilston
// cruellest_month.js
import lilacs from 'deadland';
import spring from 'seasons';
let April = function() {
let season = spring;
return {
breeding: function() {
return lilacs();
},
mixing: function() {
return shakeUp(memory, desire);
},
stirring: function() {
let dullRoots = this.breeding().roots;
// move dullRoots in circles, using the avg
// rainfall speed to calculate the period
let circum = this.breeding().plotRadius * Math.PI * 2;
let period = circum * this.season.rain.averageSpeed();
dullRoots.setIntoCircularMotion(circum, period);
}
}
exports.cruellest = {
"month": April
But there is a particular niche, which everyone on HN is familiar with, where books regularly book very lucrative profits while being sold at full price, and whose authors churn through edition after edition and regularly turn out new works - college textbooks.
And indeed, when I look at the Amazon page for the very first anthology listed, "The Broadview Anthology of Poetry", 2 of the 4 reviews mention needing it for a class.
so much depends upon
a red wheel barrow
glazed with rain water
beside the white chickens.
- William Carlos Williams
---
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
---
>> I feel like I've learned a new black magic to describe complex and ambiguous thoughts with clarity and simplicity.
Care to elaborate ? I sense BS
it must be
of
some difficulty
in
formatting the lines,
especially
the blank lines,
but
the original poem
actually is:
=====================
The Red Wheelbarrow
==
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Wheelbarrow
Well, personally, I guess a poem is a compound that tries to convey meanings through multiple modalities, especially the sound and the semantics in language, and sometimes the spaces and the mental images too...perhaps we could think of it as a Broadway musical, in which many different elements are combined in a harmonious presentation: the light, the stage, the costume, the sound, the music, the lyrics, and the acting -- and the timing for organizing all those elements is quite important too!
After thirty five years and an explanation from the poet's mouth, I rather like the poem and the poet, and hate that professor. Thankfully, I can't remember his name, though I can still see his smug mustache under his horn-rimmed glasses.
Also, it is one of the better examples of a type of visual/minimalist/free verse mid-20th century american poetry that is super approachable and understandable (read some of the Wallace Stevens stuff for the counter examples).
Plus, it is great for having "Wait, is this really a poem? What is a poem??" discussions in English 101 classes.
And, to be fair, if some random person wrote it, it would get almost no attention at all, but Williams really was a quite good poet. And while this little poem doesn't have much to it, what it has is nicely wrought.
Just my $0.02...