Poetry appeals more directly to the whole person than prose does. It stimulates our imaginations, arouses our emotions, feeds our intellects and addresses our wills. Perhaps this is why poetry is the preferred mode of communication of the prophets, whose purpose depends on capturing the attention of the listeners and persuading them their message is urgent. — Tremper Longman III, quoted by Tom Grosh
Is there anything better than a good mail day? In yesterday’s mail, I received a new pair of glasses, a 2-pack of David Seah’s Emergent Task Planner stickypads, and my new copy of W. H. Auden’s book-length poem The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue, edited with a foreword by Alan Jacobs. It was a very good mail day, indeed.
One of my high school English textbooks included Auden’s “The Unknown Citizen,” which led me to seek out more of his poetry, and he soon became my favorite poet. Looking back, I have to wonder how much I even understood, much less appreciated, his clever, difficult, and formal verse when I was so young. My senior picture from high school shows me posing next to three books: Auden’s Selected Poems, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and…(sigh) Catcher in the Rye. I suppose I’m lucky that only one of these books now embarrasses me. [Read more…] about Who are your favorite poets?