Cherry blossoms bloom
Swell, disperse, take flight midst stars
Moonlight floating pearls
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Flying Japan [haiku]
Cherry blossoms bloom
Swell, disperse, take flight midst stars
Moonlight floating pearls
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Poem #2: encumberment [iambic tetrameter]
Please tell me something you don't know
of when or why, which way to go
For vast are climbing twists and turns
of lives yet lived, of lessons learned
And since we've yet to see it through
Please tell me anything (save truth)
Poem #1: Mine, Autopsy [analogy poem, free verse]
A remnant of your truth revives
It resurrects receding tides
of flinching heartbeats mid twilight
Incisions/ Hollowed through/ Respite
Not soon enough methinks! and yet-
Like rigor mortis
it revives
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
"When You Are Old," Out With the New
Pop culture today would lead you to believe that love is like a fairytale; a handsome prince falls in love at first sight of a beautiful princess and they live happily ever after. Sound familiar? Western culture demonstrates behaviors that reinforce this notion. Girls play dress-up in gowns and crowns, wear mommy’s make-up and heels, and dream bubble-gum pink fantasies of their gallant prince. Disney movies portray time and time again the ‘beautiful princess,’ stereotyping that a woman’s value is determined by her beauty. Chick flicks follow the same formulaic plot: man falls in love with beautiful woman, conflict ensues, conflict is resolved, and they are once again reunited forever, the end. The pitfall of this pop culture love fest is that it fails to look past superficial beauty while refusing to address mortality in its equation. In his poem, “When You Are Old,” William Butler Yeats breaks this mold.
This poem is presumably autobiographical, addressing Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, the unrequited lover of Yeats who married another man; Gonne was a source of inspiration for many of Yeats’ poems (Academy of American Poets). Rather than addressing the subject of the poem in her present youth, the speaker addresses his lover in her projected old age. The first two verses illustrate her elderly transformation near death, sitting by a fire sleeping. The speaker then prods his subject to reminisce upon her youth, a time when her eyes were soft and deep before they were hardened with age.
The speaker then addresses the multitude of lovers of his young subject, those who loved her quaint elegance, however momentary, as time has transformed that as well; the alliteration of “glad” and “grace” emphasizes this verse (Yeats). Her lovers also are said to have loved her beauty, though with a love that was “false or true” (Yeats). This verse questions the authenticity of a love that can be based solely on aesthetic beauty.
Beginning in verse 7, the speaker interjects himself into the poem as the man who loved the subject’s “pilgrim soul” (Yeats). While others may have loved her for her momentary beauty and grace, the speaker loved her for the permanent depths of her soul; “pilgrim” suggests wandering, perhaps insinuating that the subject drifted from the speaker. This interpretation would be particularly applicable to the reality of Yeats’ love for Gonne.
The contrast between momentary and permanence suggests that the speaker’s love, unlike that of the other lovers, is not fleeting. Moreover, while others’ love wanes at the sight of her aging beauty, the speaker loves even the “sorrows” of her “changing face” (Yeats). It is sorrowful to the other lovers that she is aging because they are loosing her beauty, but the speaker’s love is not determinant on her beauty. Amidst a slew of feigning lovers, the speaker is but the “one man” who ever loved her soul; this is the difference, suggests the poem, between true love and mere infatuation.
In verse 9, the subject of the poem is once again viewed through the lens of old age. The speaker revisits her elder self be the fire. The fire is an important symbol of mortality, kindling and burning before being extinguished. In line 10, the subject is depicted yearning after a love that has fled, the love of the speaker. However, since the speaker has been interjected into the poem, we can sense that he is still with her, albeit without her recognition of his presence.
We know the love that has fled the subject is that of the speaker, because love is capitalized as a singular noun, and the speaker is the only person who loved her (determined from line 7). We can see that though his love had gone unrequited, in her old age, she has come to recognize him as her only love.
The poem concludes with the subject imagining the speaker’s face hidden amid a “crowd of stars” (Yeats). The crowd of stars can be interpreted as all the subject’s former lovers who dazzled her and distracted her from the love of the speaker. The speaker was obstructed from the subject’s view in her youth, and now left alone to die in her old age, she realizes that she has overlooked her only love. She perceives the speaker, and the time of her youth when their love held potential, as unattainable as the stars.
However, since the first verse begins with “when,” we know by context that at the time the poem was written, the subject and the speaker were both in their youth, and their love was still plausible. The purpose of this poem, if we are to believe that it is indeed autobiographical, was for Gonne to recognize Yeats as her only love before time transformed their lives and separated them forever. The poem has a somber urgent tone, perhaps as though Yeats already knew the fate of their love yet refuted its end.
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, many women are pining after the archetypal romance in the manner of Shakespearean sonnets, that flattering comparison to a sweet summer’s day. No wonder, what with pop culture’s incessant bombardment telling you who to be (beautiful) and how to love (like a fairytale). However, Yeats’ subtle nuances depict a more profound kind of love. Perhaps if we can wean ourselves off the sensationalized hype of Western culture’s juvenile and stunted romantic notions, we can learn to recognize the subtleties of genuine love, a love that deepens with age and brings solace to mortality as is depicted in Yeats’ “When You Are Old.”
Works Cited
Academy of American Poets. “W.B. Yeats.” http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/117. 1997-2010.
Macfadyen, Matthew. “Matthew Macfadyen reads the poem ‘When You Are Old’ 1/3.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg8FqPpJC4I. 10 June 2008.
Yeats, William Butler. Ed. Smith, Phillip. “100 Best-Loved Poems.” New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1995.
This poem is presumably autobiographical, addressing Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, the unrequited lover of Yeats who married another man; Gonne was a source of inspiration for many of Yeats’ poems (Academy of American Poets). Rather than addressing the subject of the poem in her present youth, the speaker addresses his lover in her projected old age. The first two verses illustrate her elderly transformation near death, sitting by a fire sleeping. The speaker then prods his subject to reminisce upon her youth, a time when her eyes were soft and deep before they were hardened with age.
The speaker then addresses the multitude of lovers of his young subject, those who loved her quaint elegance, however momentary, as time has transformed that as well; the alliteration of “glad” and “grace” emphasizes this verse (Yeats). Her lovers also are said to have loved her beauty, though with a love that was “false or true” (Yeats). This verse questions the authenticity of a love that can be based solely on aesthetic beauty.
Beginning in verse 7, the speaker interjects himself into the poem as the man who loved the subject’s “pilgrim soul” (Yeats). While others may have loved her for her momentary beauty and grace, the speaker loved her for the permanent depths of her soul; “pilgrim” suggests wandering, perhaps insinuating that the subject drifted from the speaker. This interpretation would be particularly applicable to the reality of Yeats’ love for Gonne.
The contrast between momentary and permanence suggests that the speaker’s love, unlike that of the other lovers, is not fleeting. Moreover, while others’ love wanes at the sight of her aging beauty, the speaker loves even the “sorrows” of her “changing face” (Yeats). It is sorrowful to the other lovers that she is aging because they are loosing her beauty, but the speaker’s love is not determinant on her beauty. Amidst a slew of feigning lovers, the speaker is but the “one man” who ever loved her soul; this is the difference, suggests the poem, between true love and mere infatuation.
In verse 9, the subject of the poem is once again viewed through the lens of old age. The speaker revisits her elder self be the fire. The fire is an important symbol of mortality, kindling and burning before being extinguished. In line 10, the subject is depicted yearning after a love that has fled, the love of the speaker. However, since the speaker has been interjected into the poem, we can sense that he is still with her, albeit without her recognition of his presence.
We know the love that has fled the subject is that of the speaker, because love is capitalized as a singular noun, and the speaker is the only person who loved her (determined from line 7). We can see that though his love had gone unrequited, in her old age, she has come to recognize him as her only love.
The poem concludes with the subject imagining the speaker’s face hidden amid a “crowd of stars” (Yeats). The crowd of stars can be interpreted as all the subject’s former lovers who dazzled her and distracted her from the love of the speaker. The speaker was obstructed from the subject’s view in her youth, and now left alone to die in her old age, she realizes that she has overlooked her only love. She perceives the speaker, and the time of her youth when their love held potential, as unattainable as the stars.
However, since the first verse begins with “when,” we know by context that at the time the poem was written, the subject and the speaker were both in their youth, and their love was still plausible. The purpose of this poem, if we are to believe that it is indeed autobiographical, was for Gonne to recognize Yeats as her only love before time transformed their lives and separated them forever. The poem has a somber urgent tone, perhaps as though Yeats already knew the fate of their love yet refuted its end.
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, many women are pining after the archetypal romance in the manner of Shakespearean sonnets, that flattering comparison to a sweet summer’s day. No wonder, what with pop culture’s incessant bombardment telling you who to be (beautiful) and how to love (like a fairytale). However, Yeats’ subtle nuances depict a more profound kind of love. Perhaps if we can wean ourselves off the sensationalized hype of Western culture’s juvenile and stunted romantic notions, we can learn to recognize the subtleties of genuine love, a love that deepens with age and brings solace to mortality as is depicted in Yeats’ “When You Are Old.”
Works Cited
Academy of American Poets. “W.B. Yeats.” http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/117. 1997-2010.
Macfadyen, Matthew. “Matthew Macfadyen reads the poem ‘When You Are Old’ 1/3.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg8FqPpJC4I. 10 June 2008.
Yeats, William Butler. Ed. Smith, Phillip. “100 Best-Loved Poems.” New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1995.
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