The Vulgar Eclectic

Category: poetry

  • Morning

    A crow on the sidewalk, reflected in the rainAn auspicious signSo the gods, if I listen, whisper

  • The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems by Michael Ondaatje

    I just finished reading The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems (1970) by Michael Ondaatje. It is a combination of poetry and prose poetry; it’s often referred to as a novel in verse. Most of it is written from the fictional perspective of Billy the Kid. Some sections are written from the…

  • Su Tung-p’o: Selections From a Sung Dynasty Poet

    The following is an old book jot from December 2021: I just finished reading Su Tung-p’o: Selections From a Sung Dynasty Poet, translated and with an introduction and notes by Burton Watson (1965). This book is a selection of poems by Su Shi, also known by his literary name of Su Tung-p’o, and contains poems…

  • Journey of the Magi

    Here are a few lines from a wonderful poem by T. S. Eliot: At the end we preferred to travel all night,Sleeping in snatches,With the voices singing in our ears, sayingThat this was all folly. Read the full poem here: poets.org

  • Echoes

    A world forsooth where wrong and right are blent,A world that teems with war, a world that reeksWith countless crime, where evermore the ploughLacks its due honour, and the hind is forcedFar from his desolate fields, and reaping-hooksAre straightened into swords. -Virgil, The Georgics (translated by Lord Burghclere)

  • The Poetry of Thomas Hardy

    I have been dipping into this great selection of poems by Thomas Hardy. I have loved his poetry for years and this is a great volume to have at one’s disposal. Long ago, I read A Trampwoman’s Tragedy while traveling in Hardy’s homeland. I remember reading The Convergence of the Twain in a college class.…

  • The soul’s dark cottage…

    I am trying to create a habit of reading a poem every day. I just this evening read Of the Last Verses in the Book by Edmund Waller (1606-1687). Here is an excerpt, a line I particularly enjoy: “The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.”

  • Sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley

    I read a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley today. It was unfamiliar to me; I came across it in the book Five Hundred Years of English Poetry: Chaucer to Arnold edited by Barbara Lloyd-Evans. The text I read in the book does not include the word ‘painted’ in the first line, but all the examples…

  • Rain (Lluvia)

    Here is an excerpt from a poem a read recently; Rain (Lluvia) by Federico Garcia Lorca, translated by Stanley Appelbaum. My soul has the sadness of the calm rain, a resigned sadness for something unattainable; on my horizon I have a blazing star but my heart keeps me from running to gaze at it. Mi…

  • Pharsalia by Lucan

    “No, it will be the match we always have— Liberty pitted against a Caesar“ I recently finished reading Pharsalia (written about 65 AD) by the Roman poet Lucan, translated by Jane Wilson Joyce. This is an epic in ten parts written in verse in the tradition of Homer and Virgil. Unlike those poems, however, Pharsalia…