The Vulgar Eclectic

Tag: poetry

  • 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…

  • Argonautica by Apollonius Rhodius

    A book jot from June 2021: I just finished reading the Argonautica (3rd century BC) by Apollonius Rhodius, translated by Peter Green. It is an epic poem that relates the story of the Argonauts and the quest for the Golden Fleece. This edition includes a glossary that, at 67 pages, is full of helpful information.…

  • Pharsalia by Lucan, video

    I just posted the first video I’ve made for The Vulgar Eclectic. Here it is:

  • 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…

  • Carmina Achilochi: the Fragments Of Archilochos

    I read this collection of poems by the Greek lyric poet Archilochus back in January of 2021 and wrote a very brief reaction: I just finished reading Carmina Archilochi: the Fragments Of Archilochos, translated by Guy Davenport. Archilochos was a 7th Century Greek poet and soldier. This book was really fun to read and felt…

  • Snowy world

    In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,In the bleak midwinter, long ago. -Christina Rossetti; excerpt from In the Bleak Midwinter

  • Inevitable

    The shades drawn all dayErasing time, a circleThe elm seed in spring

  • London Calling

    I was feeling down earlier today, sad and a little alone maybe. I rode on the train to a physiotherapy appointment and everyone in the train car seemed downcast, isolated, and grim. It made me think of the poem London by William Blake: I wander thro’ each charter’d street,Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.And…

  • Evening haiku

    Midnight, standing stillMind is like a drop of inkRipples in water

  • Theodore the Poet

    As a boy, Theodore, you sat for long hoursOn the shore of the turbid SpoonWith deep-set eye staring at the door of the crawfish’s burrow,Waiting for him to appear, pushing ahead,First his waving antennae, like straws of hay,And soon his body, colored like soap-stone,Gemmed with eyes of jet.And you wondered in a trance of thoughtWhat…