Every Face I Graze with Love

[PrinceMyshkin]

Every face I graze with love
lives on, like sentences
that make no sense
until every syllable
is in its place

[Mojtaba-Iraqi]

Lovely and expressive Prince. I liked it.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I thought the title was "Every Face I Glaze with Love" at first. I thought it was going to be about something different.

[Anton Hermes]

I thought the title was "Every Face I Glaze with Love" at first. I thought it was going to be about something different.

:lol:

[qimissung]

a loving sentiment, Prince

[AuntShecky]

"Graze" is an interesting word choice. Of course I knew you didn't mean "to feed on grass" but the second listing: "to touch lightly in passing, to skim, or brush." In light of the rest of this little epigram, the verb choice is pretty damn good.

[PrinceMyshkin]

"Graze" is an interesting word choice. Of course I knew you didn't mean "to feed on grass" but the second listing: "to touch lightly in passing, to skim, or brush." In light of the rest of this little epigram, the verb choice is pretty damn good.

Bearing in mind your madness for matters literary, I'm informed by one of my sons, a Latin & Greek scholar, that "Carpe diem" does not mean seize the day, but rather graze the day.

[Hawkman]

More a case of non solum sed etiam there I think, Prince :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

More a case of non solum sed etiam there I think, Prince :)

I've searched in vain for a translation of this. Would you care to provide one?

[Twota]

lovely.

[PrinceMyshkin]

lovely.

Thanks. This was one of those poems that was like a gift to myself.

[Hawkman]

I've searched in vain for a translation of this. Would you care to provide one?

If the shades of Peter Cook & Dudley Moore will forgive me; non solum sed etiam - not only, but also :D

Live long and prosper - H

[Sampson]

Mr. Myshkin, I do believe you are a genius. Sincerely. (:

I've not been on these forums in a while and I was hoping across one of yours sometime soon... This particular poem is a treat. I spoke it aloud to myself and it worked in some many ways. It looks great the page (screen, even) too.

Brilliant!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Mr. Myshkin, I do believe you are a genius. Sincerely. (:

I've not been on these forums in a while and I was hoping across one of yours sometime soon... This particular poem is a treat. I spoke it aloud to myself and it worked in some many ways. It looks great the page (screen, even) too.

Brilliant!

That is indeed welcome. Thank you.

[Hawkman]

Oh, by the way, my Prince, I would point out that my remark was a comment on your comment above it, not about the poem, which I realise I neglected to remark upon. Very careless of me, so sorry about that. I liked the poem which expressed its sentiments with customary economy and elegance.

Live and be well - H

[PrinceMyshkin]

Oh, by the way, my Prince, I would point out that my remark was a comment on your comment above it, not about the poem, which I realise I neglected to remark upon. Very careless of me, so sorry about that. I liked the poem which expressed its sentiments with customary economy and elegance.

Live and be well - H

Many thanks. Do you distinguish among your poems those that virtually wrote themselves from those that were primarily the product of craft?

And I wonder what you make of this statement by a turn of the 20th c. French writer: "I would rather write a second-rate work in full possession of my senses than a masterpiece in a trance."

[blazeofglory]

Every face I graze with love
lives on, like sentences
that make no sense
until every syllable
is in its place



Said much, volumes in a few words. A singe epic condensed.

[Hawkman]

Hmm. That's a tricky one. The ones which wrote themselves were more fun to write, definitely. However, as I've gone on, sometimes I find that some of the ones I enjoyed writing for the fun of it aren't really all that good. Sometimes they are though. In fact the good ones that wrote themselves were written in a sort of trance. If I have to work on something really hard, and if it comes out right, then I get a lot of satisfaction from it, but not more than I do from the ones which just came out right with little or no effort. It has been said that no artwork is ever finished, just abandoned. I don't think this is entirely true. If it's right, it's right. If you can come back to it and change it, it wasn't right in the first place. I've become much more self critical over the last couple of years though. That's why I don't write so much.

LLAP - H

[AuntShecky]

Hmm. That's a tricky one. The ones which wrote themselves were more fun to write, definitely. However, as I've gone on, sometimes I find that some of the ones I enjoyed writing for the fun of it aren't really all that good. Sometimes they are though. In fact the good ones that wrote themselves were written in a sort of trance. If I have to work on something really hard, and if it comes out right, then I get a lot of satisfaction from it, but not more than I do from the ones which just came out right with little or no effort. It has been said that no artwork is ever finished, just abandoned. I don't think this is entirely true. If it's right, it's right. If you can come back to it and change it, it wasn't right in the first place. I've become much more self critical over the last couple of years though. That's why I don't write so much.

LLAP - H
The poems that "write themselves" and/o seem to have been written while the poet was in "a trance" might be a result of years of study and reflection on the aggregate of "established" works the poet has absorbed over his lifetime. Or perhaps he has practiced the craft so diligently that writing a new piece of verse can seem "effortless." (Not for yours fooly, though, every sentence I write is like pulling the proverbial teeth.)

According to T.S. Eliot in "Tradition and the Individual Talent," the art of writing poetry involves both consciousness and unconsciousness; he drives home the point that a "good" poet knows the difference. After reading so many of Prince's epigrammatic poems, I'd say that he usually strikes a good balance of both, as your work does, Hawk.

[PrinceMyshkin]

The poems that "write themselves" and/o seem to have been written while the poet was in "a trance" might be a result of years of study and reflection on the aggregate of "established" works the poet has absorbed over his lifetime. Or perhaps he has practiced the craft so diligently that writing a new piece of verse can seem "effortless." (Not for yours fooly, though, every sentence I write is like pulling the proverbial teeth.)

According to T.S. Eliot in "Tradition and the Individual Talent," the art of writing poetry involves both consciousness and unconsciousness; he drives home the point that a "good" poet knows the difference. After reading so many of Prince's epigrammatic poems, I'd say that he usually strikes a good balance of both, as your work does, Hawk.
The difference between what & what? Sometimes I'll produce a line or two and know that I couldn't provide a prose transcription of it, but I believe I have or have developed the ability to judge when it really does mean something and when it's just pretentious flap-doodle.