Whose hearts do you carry?
I know that some of you love Alfred Lord Tennyson and his most famous poem Immemorium is a book length elegy for his dear friend Arthur Henry Hollam, who tragically died at the age of 22. I've been thinking recently about a friend of mine, also a college friend. I was an undergraduate. She was a graduate student at the University of Washington. Wendy Baton. She was the first poet who was near my age who I recognized was writing real poems
Nidhin George 🔷
@geo_rhymes · 0:32
Who understood beauty's force as she did, for whom beauty was never a given. This was a line that caught my attention, and I have to say it holds great beauty and depth. And I really have no words that would do justice if I were to comment on this poem or the recital. So thank you very much for sharing this. It was a pleasure to listen to this as I start my Monday morning
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:17
You know, I feel a little special because I'm looking at this poem, by the way, LHG, because I have this advanced copy of the book Yay. But that line really I have to ask about it, actually, that you picked out, who understood beauty's force as she did, for whom beauty was never a given. I have to ask about that line, because what beauty, in what form was never given to this beautiful soul?
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
I think for my friend who was a consummate artist in poetry, it's probably true for all of us poets that as we're working so hard to create beauty, we never know whether we've succeeded or not unless or until someone tells us. And then it might only be for that one person. Which means that even if it's true for one, it's not a given for anyone else who might come and read the poem afterwards
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:52
Ah, Katharine, thank you for filling me in on this. And I love when you share that concept of taking something out, but then leaving it in because you wanted to take it out. That's a whole other swell. So many artists and different milieu's have that conversation with themselves or with their editors or with people that reply to it before its ultimate publication or broadcast