Bookstorm

The last time I wrote poetry was in eighth grade. I had to write a book of poems for my language arts class, and for my efforts--which consisted of banging out several shitty poems the night before the assignment was due--I was awarded a lovely F and a loathing for poetry that continued until well after high school. Now, I can enjoy poetry, but I'd never consider myself a poet, and I'd never write it to fulfill a creative void. Simply put, writing poetry is completely beyond me. Poets need to control their language and rythyms--one doesn't just write bizarre sentences that are cut off at odd intervals. Writing poetry requires discipline--which I definitely don't have.

When I learned that I was to write a poem for my World Literature class, my stomach didn't drop, but there was some eye-rolling involved. (And probably a derisive chuckle, but I'm a sarcastic person anyway.) Furthermore, the week's unit was on devotional poetry--I read Sappho and some Egyptian poems and some Psalms. (The Psalms were particularly uninteresting, but I've never been interested in the Bible to begin with.) Being an atheist presents obvious challenges to the topic, but that's where irony comes handy. I wrote my poem in Sapphic stanza, which is actually pretty easy to work with.

So here's why I never should and never will be a poet:

I sing of beauty and of men inflamed with
love. Venerable Aphrodite, vain and
ill-tempered, unfaithful and jealous, your love
for Paris created so much death during
that sad Trojan War.

Mortals say, "All's fair in love and war," but Zeus,
mighty and feared, told you not to traffic with
the black art of war; instead, goddess, guide us
in the black art of

love and marriage. Your faithlessness is known and
emulated by countless mortals: you loved
violent Ares, the god of war, with a
passion unrivaled.

Goddess, help us to choose our lovers wisely,
and help us to love with all our hearts. Guide Eros'
arrows, and let our adulteries rage with
song, dance, and passion.

No, I don't think very highly of it--I spent more time counting syllables on my finger than anything else--but my professor seemed to enjoy it. She said that using dialogue is a Sapphic move, which I didn't know about. It's funny how things work out.

I'm blasting my way through the semester, which is going reasonably well. (I know I bombed my first algebra test, so I need to go back to the drawing board and find a better way of studying for the class.) But I had no idea that Conan the Barbarian was teaching at Trinity College Dublin. It's one of the funniest things I've seen this week, and it almost makes me want to go back to majoring in English. (Sadly, the college already took the page down, but at least we can enjoy it as a cached version.)

I finally received the syllabus to my world literature class, and one thing is apparent to me: my professor really likes poetry. She's also seems like a very nice person, and her syllabus is littered with exclamation points implying cheerfulness and success.

Having very little experience with ancient literature and poetry, I'm looking forward to the class. We'll be starting off with Sappho, the tenth muse. (If the syllabus is any indication, my professor is ecstatic about Sappho.) Other works include Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (naturally), Virgil's Aeneid, Beowulf, and a few selections from the Bible. We'll end at the Renaissance, with guys like Petrarch, Montaigne, and Machiavelli.

I've read very few of the works in the syllabus, and there's one work I've never even heard of--the Mayan epic of Popol Vuh. (It's in the creation myths section, taught after Genesis.) And this is partly why I chose the class: I see little reason to sign up for a class in which there's a good chance you've read a lot of the literature. (Shocker: I've decided not to major in English literature, so this will be the only literature class I take.) So it should be an interesting class. I expect no less than an A.