Culture
Match the Taylor Swift Song to the Poem Inspired By Her Music
In honor of Madison Cloudfeather Nye
Somehow the voices twined around a young mind
encouraging gentle stanzas, open endings,
even in a Texas town where they wanted you
to testify before cashing a check. Heck with that, boys.
I’m heading out in my little gray boots, slim volumes
of poetry in my holster, William of Oregon, William of Maui,
drinking jasmine from an old fence. I’m finding a meadow,
children, dandelion puffs, scraps from a vintage notebook.
The double William of Paterson, New Jersey
helped keep us sane though our teachers
went crazy over that wheelbarrow.
Love it, then move on!
Riding a train north in England to the stoop
of another William’s cottage, sloped roof,
his sister’s purple-scented paper next to his,
high school memory loitering: our teacher
insisting his gloomy poem nearly led
to death. My classmates concurred,
not caring much whether some guy
leapt from a cliff long ago or not,
but I said, He grieves, but he is filled
with joy. In a strange voice
like a ringing bell, immeasurable joy, because
he grieves so much. Because he loves
so deeply all that he is seeing.
They stared at me.
I was never at home in that school.
Our teacher wanted everyone to get
the same thing from a poem.
Later home felt everywhere, radiant waters,
thistles, greenest hilltops dotted with sheep,
masses of tulips and geese, wandering William’s
intricate paths, pausing at every turn,
life stretching ahead, mountains of bliss
and searing sorrow for years to come.
They wrote it, we defended it,
it seemed joyous enough to know one could
love forever, carry on or stop right there,
and the power was yours.
Welcome to Literary Quotable Quotes, a quiz that tests your recognition of classic lines. This week’s installment highlights observations from future or alternate worlds depicted in popular science fiction. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’re intrigued and inspired to read more.
Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s challenge tests your memory of books that made huge impacts on society after they were published — some of them even spurring changes to American laws. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
Where do you turn when you need advice? A chatbot? A life coach? A wise and trusted friend?
How about a poet? Poets may not be famous for making the best life choices, but because they subject the mess of human existence to the discipline of language, they can be as helpful as any therapist or mentor.
Good poets know the rules and when to break them, which is something they can teach the rest of us.
To wit:
Giving advice is a peculiar literary undertaking. It flourishes in certain popular genres — graduation speeches, newspaper columns, country and western songs and poems like this one — but what, in these contexts, is it really for?
I’m thinking of situations when you don’t urgently need help but nonetheless enjoy reading answers to questions you may not have thought to ask. What interests you isn’t the content of the advice — you could get all the life hacks you want from A.I. — so much as the voice of the person dispensing it.
Wendy Cope is an English poet, born in 1945, who has been a fixture of her country’s literary scene since the 1980s. More recently, her short, buoyant poem “The Orange” has been widely memed online, bringing her to the attention of new readers beyond Britain.
Cope favors rhyme, meter, brisk jokes and tart aperçus. She addresses romance, friendship and the petty absurdities of modern life with disarming good humor. The last line of “The Orange” is “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” Somehow she makes it the opposite of cringe.
This isn’t the kind of poetry you would describe as “confessional.” And yet …
Question 1/7
Stop, if the car is going “clunk”
Or if the sun has made you blind.
Don’t answer e–mails when you’re drunk.
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.Want to learn this poem by heart? We’ll help.
Fill in the missing words below. You can always refer to the reading by A.O. Scott and full
text above.Let’s start with the first stanza.
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