[New-Poetry] Philosopher/philosopy poems

[James Cervantes]

One should also not have to research in the morning.  The graces: "Aglaia
(Splendor), Euphrosyne (Mirth), and Thalia (Good Cheer)." - somewhere on the
internet.
- Jim

On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 9:00 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> Tad's post, made me think of a poem I ran across recenlty by Anne
> Carson....
>
> *Outwardly His Life Ran Smoothly
>
> *
> * *
> Comparative figures: 1784 Kant owned 550 books, Goethe 2300, Herder 7700.
>
> Windows: Kant had one bedroom window, which he kept shut at all times, to
> forestall
> insects. The windows of his study faced the20garden, on the other side of
> which was the
> city jail. In summer loud choral singing of the inmates wafted in. Kant
> asked that the
> singing be done *sotto voce* and with windows closed. Kant had friends at
> city hall and
> got his wish.
>
> Tolstoy: Tolstoy thought that if Kant had not smoked so much tobacco *The
> Critique of *
> *Pure Reason* would have been written in language you could understand (in
> fact he
> smoked one pipe at 5 AM).
>
> Numbering: Kant never ate dinner alone, it exhausts the spirit. Dinner
> guests, in the
> opinion of the day, should not number more than the Muses nor less than the
> Graces.
> Kant set six places.
>
> Sensualism: Kant’s favorite dinner was codfish.
>
> Rule Your Nature: Kant breathed only through his nose.
>
>
>
> --Anne Carson
> *Decreation* (Random House, 2006)
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
> Sent: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 6:19 pm
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Allen Grossman wins 2009 Bollingen
>
> By Allen Grossman
>
> Descartes' Loneliness
>
> (Meditation Three)
>
> Toward e vening, the natural light becomes
> Intelligent and answers, without demur:
> /“Be assured! You are not alone. . . .”/
> But in fact, toward evening, I am not
> Convinced there /is/ any other except myself
> To whom existence /necessarily/ pertains.
> I also interrogate myself to discover
> Whether I /myself/ possess any power
> By which I can bring it about that I,
> Who now am, shall exist another moment.
>
> Because I am mostly a thinking thing
> And because this precise question is
> Only from that thoughtful part of myself,
> If such a power did reside within me
> I should, I am sure, be conscious of it. . . .
> But I am conscious of no such power.
> And yet, if I myself cannot be
> The cause of that assurance, surely
> It is necessary to conclude that
> I am not alone in the world. There is
>
> some other who is the cause of that idea.
> But if, at last, no such other can be
> found toward evening, do I really have
> sufficient assurance of the existence
> or of any other being at all? For,
> after a most careful search, I have been
> unable to discover the /ground/ of that
> conviction – unless it be imagined a lonely
> workman on a dizzy scaffold unfolds
> a sign at evening and puts his mark to it.
>
>
> jforjames at aol.com wrot e:
> > Not sure when this was announced but I just noticed it...
> >
> > http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/bollingen/winner.html
> >
> > The judges also said: "A distinguished teacher of poetics and >
> literature, Grossman has influenced three generations of American > writers.
> He has characterized the lyric poet as an individual who, 'by > means of
> this art, seeks to speak with the utmost seriousness about > the totality of
> what he experiences,' and Grossman himself has been > refreshingly restless
> in that pursuit. In /Descartes' Loneliness/, he > achieves a precarious
> balance between an aspirational vision and close > attention to the world at
> hand. The poems progress with comic flair, > dramatic inquiry, and, at
> times, rage, through remembrance toward > understanding. The figure they
> make is large and difficult, and the > results are wholly singular. Carrying
> a weight that is rare in > contemporary poetry, their music provides a
> deep-seated solace to > their stark sentence."
> >
> =
>
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