Love is not enough

[PrinceMyshkin]

One must have protein.
One must have purpose.
Some of us must have
poetry - or piety.

"We must love one another or die,"
Auden wrote as the final line
to "Sept. 1 1939,"
but later amended it to read:
"We must love one another and die."

–only half of which is true.

Compelled love? Love
at the species’ command?

Puh-lease!

[Helga]

I liked this one very much, I love Auden and I really liked how you used these words from him in your own interpretation. also I liked the first part very much...

[muhsin]

Nice poem! Keep it up.

[AuntShecky]

This is thought-provoking to say the least. Most interesting is the equivalence relationship between protein and purpose (our needs as animals as well as our needs as spiritual beings.) The link between the two opening sentences and the Auden quotation is subtle, but quite effective.

I read somewhere that Auden spent as much time revising and rewriting his lines as he did creating them. (His direct, witty language and distinctive "voice" is what appeals to me most as a reader.) But do you suppose the first version "We must love one another or die" referred to the precarious state the world is in during war? Perhaps the "or" was changed to "and" because, when you come right down to it, we all have to go sometime, whether we like it or not. There's where the "must" (compulsion) comes from, independent of our individual wills.

But being compelled or commanded to love opens up a whole new kettle of clams, as I always thought that love was primarily voluntary-- an act of will as opposed to an act of force, the romantic notions of "falling" in love notwithstanding.

Still, I think I get your point.

You know you've written a pretty good piece of verse if it takes more words to analyze than are in the poem itself!

[billl]

Yes, very nice poem.

[ezawislak22]

I think the two first lines are great, as Aunt Schecky pointed out, I like the contrast of our animalistic needs vs. our spiritual need, and the idea that we need BOTH. very interesting idea with a great economy of words.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I liked this one very much, I love Auden and I really liked how you used these words from him in your own interpretation. also I liked the first part very much...

Thank you, Helga

[blazeofglory]

One must have protein.
One must have purpose.
Some of us must have
poetry - or piety.

"We must love one another or die,"
Auden wrote as the final line
to "Sept. 1 1939,"
but later amended it to read:
"We must love one another and die."

–only half of which is true.

Compelled love? Love
at the species’ command?
Puh-lease!

Beautifully written and it has the force that drives us emotionally.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I liked this one very much, I love Auden and I really liked how you used these words from him in your own interpretation. also I liked the first part very much...

Thank you so much, Helga. If anyone has influenced my own poems, it would be Auden with his ability to lift what might be everyday speech into passionate, humane poetry.

[qimissung]

I didn't know that, Prince. It's always interesting to know the poets that (perhaps) influence another poet.

In any event, I like this because it is very thought-provoking. Must we love? I think we must. Are we compelled too? That I'm not so sure of.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Nice poem! Keep it up.

Many thanks. I don't know if I can keep it up. I try to write each of my poems as if it might be my last.

[PrinceMyshkin]

This is thought-provoking to say the least. Most interesting is the equivalence relationship between protein and purpose (our needs as animals as well as our needs as spiritual beings.) The link between the two opening sentences and the Auden quotation is subtle, but quite effective.

I read somewhere that Auden spent as much time revising and rewriting his lines as he did creating them. (His direct, witty language and distinctive "voice" is what appeals to me most as a reader.) But do you suppose the first version "We must love one another or die" referred to the precarious state the world is in during war? Perhaps the "or" was changed to "and" because, when you come right down to it, we all have to go sometime, whether we like it or not. There's where the "must" (compulsion) comes from, independent of our individual wills.

In this case, as best I remember, he said while the first version had what might be considered a nice rhetorical fluorish, it was simply not true: Without food or shelter one might die; without love one might live a lonely, empoverished life, but one would not die.


But being compelled or commanded to love opens up a whole new kettle of clams, as I always thought that love was primarily voluntary-- an act of will as opposed to an act of force, the romantic notions of "falling" in love notwithstanding.

Still, I think I get your point.

You know you've written a pretty good piece of verse if it takes more words to analyze than are in the poem itself!

Thank you. I do still maintain that while there are many social conditions or beliefs that compel us to love (or a facsimile thereof), in the core of our being insofar as we have free will, there is no compulsion to love other than what is evoked in us by some other, when the response may feel involuntary but is in fact a great, joyful leap of faith.

[Haunted]

Words of truth from an exceptional poetic visionary.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I think the two first lines are great, as Aunt Schecky pointed out, I like the contrast of our animalistic needs vs. our spiritual need, and the idea that we need BOTH. very interesting idea with a great economy of words.

Many thanks, deeply appreciated.

[Virgil]

Very good poem Prince. I must have missed it. I've got mixed reaction to the last line though. I can't make up my mind aoubt it. But the poem is solid.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Very good poem Prince. I must have missed it. I've got mixed reaction to the last line though. I can't make up my mind aoubt it. But the poem is solid.

The only defense I would offer re that last line is that it seemed to me to fit with my intent to make this as vernacular and conversational as possible. In a sense, to undermine the sententiousness of the rest of it.

[Virgil]

The only defense I would offer re that last line is that it seemed to me to fit with my intent to make this as vernacular and conversational as possible. In a sense, to undermine the sententiousness of the rest of it.

Yes, that's on the plus side. Also the alliteration pulls it back to the first stanza. On the negative side, is it too vernacular? Your call. I'm getting more comfortable with it as I relooked at it. :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

Yes, that's on the plus side. Also the alliteration pulls it back to the first stanza. On the negative side, is it too vernacular? Your call. I'm getting more comfortable with it as I relooked at it. :)

I don't know of any vernacular scale! And I must admit that the alliteration was utterly unconscious or unintended. On the whole I tend to avoid alliteration as an over-familiar literary device although here of course protein purpose &c. were indeed meant to be linked.

Any word on Lavinia?

[Virgil]

Any word on Lavinia?

I haven't started it yet. Overwhelmed with work right now.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I haven't started it yet. Overwhelmed with work right now.

Reset your priorities, dude!


Beautifully written and it has the force that drives us emotionally.

How generous! Thank you very much.


Words of truth from an exceptional poetic visionary.

What a humbling response! Thank you...

[PrinceMyshkin]

I didn't know that, Prince. It's always interesting to know the poets that (perhaps) influence another poet.

In any event, I like this because it is very thought-provoking. Must we love? I think we must. Are we compelled too? That I'm not so sure of.

I don't see the difference between your "I think we must" and your uncertainty about "compelled". Of course, you may mean that as a species we must love each other, or wipe each other out; but why must this or that indivual love? Have you never met people who, as far as you could tell, were either incapable of loving or had closed themselves against it?

[billl]

Have you never met people who, as far as you could tell, were either incapable of loving or had closed themselves against it?

And then there's the cases when they might be demanding that we love them, or some other particular person. For me, the poem says, "let us love, that's the right way".

[PrinceMyshkin]

And then there's the cases when they might be demanding that we love them, or some other particular person. For me, the poem says, "let us love, that's the right way".

Thank you and my apologies for re-posting it, but here's a poem I wrote on that subject:




Bottom-line hearts

There are those who give and those who take,
There are those who give but it’s only a trade
watching to see that they get as much
or more in return.

They are capitalists of the heart:
“Buy cheap, sell dear...”
Bottom-line hearts on a flat-line street.