R
Rubato
Guest
I like to read. And as a consequence of that, I have a lot of books. I bought most of them when I was an AFC and while I was trying to find something to help put my to sleep during finals week, I picked up a poetry book I found on sale when I was in high school. The title of this post is the subtitle of the book. I read in somewhere once about a guy who was supposed to give a speech at a college and his mic cut out... while he was waiting for it to come back on, he began reciting memorized poetry. He was a good speaker and able to project well, and apparently the women in the room adored him for his ability to recite poems. So I thought, "I know... I'll buy a poetry book!"
I did memorize a few of the poems, but that's not the point of this. The point is that when I started to read it the other night, I realized that it was perhaps a much more insightful book than I had imagined when I initially bought it... and I would have never been able to tell, being such an AFC. Thinking back on it, I don't even know where I thought the opportunity would ever come up for me to recite poetry to a woman...
Here are some of the things I got from the book. I've bolded the subtitles the poems or ideas came from... keep in mind, it's "A Woman's Journey Through Poems", compiled by Caroline Kennedy, a woman:
The Introduction
The introductory poem is one that I actually do like quite a bit, She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron. But that a woman would introduce a woman's journey through poetry with a poem that is one of the greatest literary examples of "pedestalling" a woman for her beauty was interesting to me.
If you don't know the poem, read it. It will make you a better rounded person and it really is a nice poem.
Falling In Love
I do not Love Thee by The Honorable Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
I DO not love thee!—no! I do not love thee!
And yet when thou art absent I am sad;
And envy even the bright blue sky above thee,
Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.
I do not love thee!—yet, I know not why,
Whate'er thou dost seems still well done, to me:
And often in my solitude I sigh
That those I do love are not more like thee!
I do not love thee!—yet, when thou art gone,
I hate the sound (though those who speak be dear)
Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone
Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear.
I do not love thee!—yet thy speaking eyes,
With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue,
Between me and the midnight heaven arise,
Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.
I know I do not love thee! yet, alas!
Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;
And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,
Because they see me gazing where thou art.
This reminded me a lot of the things Pook wrote about. A woman will say she wants to fall in love with a nice guy. Maybe I'm reading too much in to it, but this sounds to me like a woman who met an AFC that she really wanted to like because they're usually nice. He may have even been handsome! But as the poem is titled, she did not love him. I don't read the last quatrain of the poem as a statement that the poem's narrator was untrustworthy, but rather, was regretful that despite having much potential, the AFC was still an AFC.
Having a Coke With You by Frank O'Hara
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it
Notice the way that this poem also pedestals the woman, above all other things. To whoever O'Hara wrote this poem for, she was obviously one of (if not the most) important things in his life. Again, this reminds me of Pook. He was always adamant that in essence, a woman can never love a man who puts her before his unique path.
Symptoms Recital by Dorothy Parker
I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the gentlest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick, I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men....
I'm due to fall in love again.
This sounds like a very good description of an AFC. Notice, a man did not write this poem. The next may be even better...
Come to the Orchard in the Spring by Rumi
Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.
If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.
Nothing matters outside of the woman.... I hope she shows up... but it sounds like it doesn't matter either way!
Anyways, the take home point for ME as far as all this goes is that these poems describe the feminine aspect of "falling in love". It sounds an awful lot like the way AFC's act.
If this interests anyone, I can give you some more poems from different sections of the book to contrast how similar AFC behavior is to feminine thought.
I did memorize a few of the poems, but that's not the point of this. The point is that when I started to read it the other night, I realized that it was perhaps a much more insightful book than I had imagined when I initially bought it... and I would have never been able to tell, being such an AFC. Thinking back on it, I don't even know where I thought the opportunity would ever come up for me to recite poetry to a woman...
Here are some of the things I got from the book. I've bolded the subtitles the poems or ideas came from... keep in mind, it's "A Woman's Journey Through Poems", compiled by Caroline Kennedy, a woman:
The Introduction
The introductory poem is one that I actually do like quite a bit, She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron. But that a woman would introduce a woman's journey through poetry with a poem that is one of the greatest literary examples of "pedestalling" a woman for her beauty was interesting to me.
If you don't know the poem, read it. It will make you a better rounded person and it really is a nice poem.
Falling In Love
I do not Love Thee by The Honorable Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
I DO not love thee!—no! I do not love thee!
And yet when thou art absent I am sad;
And envy even the bright blue sky above thee,
Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.
I do not love thee!—yet, I know not why,
Whate'er thou dost seems still well done, to me:
And often in my solitude I sigh
That those I do love are not more like thee!
I do not love thee!—yet, when thou art gone,
I hate the sound (though those who speak be dear)
Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone
Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear.
I do not love thee!—yet thy speaking eyes,
With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue,
Between me and the midnight heaven arise,
Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.
I know I do not love thee! yet, alas!
Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;
And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,
Because they see me gazing where thou art.
This reminded me a lot of the things Pook wrote about. A woman will say she wants to fall in love with a nice guy. Maybe I'm reading too much in to it, but this sounds to me like a woman who met an AFC that she really wanted to like because they're usually nice. He may have even been handsome! But as the poem is titled, she did not love him. I don't read the last quatrain of the poem as a statement that the poem's narrator was untrustworthy, but rather, was regretful that despite having much potential, the AFC was still an AFC.
Having a Coke With You by Frank O'Hara
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it
Notice the way that this poem also pedestals the woman, above all other things. To whoever O'Hara wrote this poem for, she was obviously one of (if not the most) important things in his life. Again, this reminds me of Pook. He was always adamant that in essence, a woman can never love a man who puts her before his unique path.
Symptoms Recital by Dorothy Parker
I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the gentlest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick, I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men....
I'm due to fall in love again.
This sounds like a very good description of an AFC. Notice, a man did not write this poem. The next may be even better...
Come to the Orchard in the Spring by Rumi
Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.
If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.
Nothing matters outside of the woman.... I hope she shows up... but it sounds like it doesn't matter either way!
Anyways, the take home point for ME as far as all this goes is that these poems describe the feminine aspect of "falling in love". It sounds an awful lot like the way AFC's act.
If this interests anyone, I can give you some more poems from different sections of the book to contrast how similar AFC behavior is to feminine thought.