[New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem

[John Jeffrey]

Funny, I see it as the opposite: that it heightens the urgency.  Since 50 springs is little room, you need every season, not just spring.  You need to go in both spring and winter.And that a young man is saying it, is understanding that 50 years may have little room, seems rather extraordinary, but that's where reading the rest of A Shropshire Lad gives s hint.  The "young men" in Housman's world are a dark bunch.  That middle stanza is proof that this is now simple youth.To me, reading this as a straight Oh-I'd-betta-go-look-at-da-pretty-twees-wite-now seems rather light, which is one of the major mistakes reading Housman's sing-song sounding poems.  They always roll of the tongue so pretty, always rhyme so nicely, but they're generally not "pretty" or "nice." And looking at a bare tree hung with snow--since that's all you've got in winter--because you know that you may not make it to next spring is right up Housman's alley, or should I say right
 up his woodland ride.Just more thoughts when I should be working.JohnJ

--- On Mon, 2/2/09, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:
From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Date: Monday, February 2, 2009, 11:06 PM

That knocks the underpinnings out of the whole sense of urgency, Don't
worry, it's not just the 50 springs, you have winters too. And summers and
falls too...what the heck. The whole point is that for most very young men,
fifty years is an eternity -- and yet, only a very young man is capable of that
special kind of wonder to say that 50 springs is little room.

John Jeffrey wrote:
> Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he must go
out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them when they are
hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two score years and ten.
> 
> JohnJ
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> *To:* "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2009 10:18:15 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
> 
> 
>> You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't
think it's blatantly wrong.
> Agreed.
> 
>> The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.
> But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look
at things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry hung
with snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in bloom.
 To be reminded of blooms is not looking at them. 
> --Bob
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
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