Tinted Distances is a
Tinted Distances is a tender meditation that reveals a careful eye and steady devotion to elegy and ode. Dorianne Laux
Odes
To be a woman
To be a woman and a writer is double mischief, for the world will slight her who slights the servile house, and who would rather make odes than beds. Dilys Laing
She dotes on poetry,
She dotes on poetry, sir. She adores it; I may say that her whole soul and mind are wound up, and entwined with it. She has produced some delightful pieces, herself, sir. You may have met with her ‘Ode to an Expiring Frog,’ sir. Charles Dickens
Pulvis et umbra sumsu.
Pulvis et umbra sumsu. ~ Horace, Odes (We are dust and Shadows) Cassandra Clare
Shoes would interfere with
Shoes would interfere with her conversation, for she constantly addresses the ground under her feet. Asking forgiveness. Owning, disowning, recanting, recharting a hateful course of events to make sense of her complicity. We all are, I suppose. Trying to invent our version of the story. All human odes are essentially one, “My life; what I … Read more
We are the music
We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. Arthur O’Shaughnessy
An aged Burgundy runs
An aged Burgundy runs with a beardless Port. I cherish the fancy that Port speaks sentences of wisdom, Burgundy sings the inspired Ode. Ambrose Bierce
Nature gets credit which
Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent, the nightingale for its song; and the sun for its radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves and should turn them into odes of self congratulation on the excellence of the human mind. … Read more
A classic lecture, rich
A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, With scraps of thundrous Epic lilted out By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long, That on the stretched forefinger of all Time Sparkle for ever. Alfred Lord Tennyson
A good poem is
A good poem is a tautology. It expands one word by adding a number which clarify it, thus making a new word which has never before been spoken. The seedword is always so ordinary that hardly anyone perceives it. Classical odes grow from and or because, romantic lyrics from but and if. Immature verses expand … Read more