O' Yeats What Could Have Been

on WB Yeats's last poem, "Politics"

W.B. once, quite perplexed

asked: how, that girl standing there,
a lad could fix his mind
on tawdry politics?

I've often wondered if
perhaps, he hadn't had

his crusty old pound
fixed squarely in his sights

that autumn morning

taking up the pen one last
treasure to give
a measured warning
to friend and world
slipping into a momentary lapse
of madness.

Through twelve taunt lines
he turns away
the rancid rancor
the everyday
a lasting song

to enduring perpetuity
of a woman's way of

soothing hostile brows.

Yes, I've often wondered:

had Ezra heeded
his old friend's warning--
what madness might
have been

avoided?

Ken e Bujold

©2022

Reviews

[Perry]

Ha! This is great, Ken. Just yesterday evening I was discussing Pound with my daughter. "Poor Ezra," said she, "perhaps the greatest of literary casualties."

Perry

[Ken e Bujold]

OMG that is the greatest of lines, tell your daughter thanks because I do intend on stealing it!!!read moreOMG that is the greatest of lines, tell your daughter thanks because I do intend on stealing it!!!
Ken e

[Perry]

She smiled broadly at your reaction, Ken, and she's a woman who takes no quarter.

Perry

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Poets understand each other quite often, but rarely listen to the advice of each other.
This reminds me of how excited Syliva Plath was to move into her flat...with the sign by the door saying "Yeats lived here"
her madness had company....a Pound of it at least.
nice work here, Ken,
j.

[Ken e Bujold]

thanks for kind review Jacob. We poets are indeed strange birds. Friends with a jealous edge is how I would put it. For me the friendship and links between the greats of the early 20th century is a fascinating one. Yeats, Pound, Eliot, Ford Maddox Ford were all great friends, constantly in contact with each other. Their influence on each other was significant, quite often playfully so, but underneath it all was still that rivalry.

[Lorry]

Even our pen smooths some of our previously misdirected ramblings of youth, with wisdom of what our youth thought of as living too long, as in growing older and wiser.
Even Ibsen, in the early 1800's regretted his biggest mistake of giving in to the pressure of the day, to give a dolls house a happy ever after ending for its German tour, diluting a great work into mediocrity for the masses.
I prefer a bit of controversy over dilution any day, but even I have my limits. I would never write about those P word waste of space arses. (Politicians) 😊

[Ken e Bujold]

haha. well strictly speaking Yeats wasn't either. He was asking why given the beauty of a woman any man would waste time on politics. His last poem written in the shadows of the fast approaching 2nd WW was a foreshadowing of the madness.

[John the Baptist]

For one thing, the old b*****d wouldn't have beaten the drum for Il Duce.

[Ken e Bujold]

true John, and it took me a long time to find the right balance between my abhorrence for Ezra's politics and my great admiration for Pound's poetic genius. I fully understand why many can't. My only beef with some of them is that the excuse of dismissing EP for his politics is really little more than an admission they won't or can't be bothered doing the hard work required to truly get to the heart of his writing

Ken e

[John the Baptist]

Good point, Ken. What do you think of Louis Ferdinand Celine?

[Ken e Bujold]

Celine's writing has never really appealed to me that much, I consider him nearer to Joyce in style, which I have always considered much to self-indulgent. That said, Celine's influence on 20th-century french literature, (which I can muddle through without translation) is undeniable. He was also to my mind at least far more apparent in his antisemitism than Pound was. Like EP the question of what to do with him after the war was a controversial one, that would please no one in the end. Convicted, pardoned, forever infamous. Still, as I feel about EP, people need to find their own balance between his art and politics. And like Ezra, if the only reason people have for dismissing his work is politics, I'm wary. Far too often over the years, I have encountered serious writers who dismiss the art for politics, as an easy cop-out for not doing the hard work of drilling down into what the art really was. On a final note, the French writer of the WWII period I most enjoy and admire was Jean Genet.

Ken e

[John the Baptist]

You make good points, Ken. In a similar vein, though, I would shy away from making a case for Wagner to the Israelis, despite the beauty of "Tannhauser."

[Ken e Bujold]

Wagner was an antisemitic beyond doubt, but then so were many (might one say most) living at the time. Where trouble arises, and I have had this conversation, is in labeling him a Nazi. The man had been dead more than half a century by the time WWII broke out. If we are going to begin blaming people for the sins of their descendants we might as well throw away all literature and arts. My philosophy is really fairly simple, man is flawed, some far worse than others, and all men need to be held accountable for their sins and transgressions. I am not god, but like him, I can (must) sit in judgment. And like a good judge I have to weigh life in its totality. Great art, s****y person, doesn't mean I am throwing out the art with the bathwater

Ken e

[Red Brick Keshner]

For the push and pull in life, here in view, the poet’s life and pen. A worthy struggle of art for art’s sake or the utility of pushing a point by poetic force making it subservient to a cause. Perhaps this is akin to actors getting typecast and stereotyped while in that same vein of thought, them peddling their art for the next great box office dollar.

[Ken e Bujold]

as far as your analogy for modern celebs, I wholeheartedly agree Fred. For WB and EP it's a more complicated dance. The two of them were great friends, incessant correspondents, and each other's greatest critics when it came to honing works in progress. I have often thought, had WB lived just a tad longer, some of the vile edge of EPs polemics might have been dulled by Yeats keeping Pound focused on the art of poetry.

Ken e

[W. Barrett Munn]

Understanding when where how and what to elide seems the one constant among brilliant poets. Late Yeats was remarkable. But then all great poetry is remarkable.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Ken.

[Ken e Bujold]

so true. And as I've grown older, I find myself more and more revisiting the works of wonder I found in my youth, and it is like the scales have been lifted from my eyes, a ground shaking clarity so often stunning reveals itself

[Robert Haigh]

Sexual attraction can distract even the greatest of men. I'm reminded of that great Warren Zevon song, "Genius." Particularly the lines: "Albert Einstein was a ladies' man/While he was working on his universal plan/ He was making out like Charlie Sheen/He was a genius."
A pretty face can turn many a man's head - including my own! I enjoyed the read!

[Ken e Bujold]

no dispute here. Though Yeats was writing metaphorically in Politics. It was his final work, published after his death, and is generally read as his last comment on the troubles fast approaching. My rift at its heart is mostly a thought I have often considered, was he not also counseling his old friend Ezra Pound about the dangers of abandoning art for polemics?

glad you enjoyed the read
Ken e

[Miss Sharon]

(taking up the pen one last treasure to give a measured warning to friend and world slipping into a momentary lapse of madness.) Ah yes...I've always believed one must lean a tad on the side of madness to become a writer! LOL Love this write.

[Stuart Munro]

Yeats the First Poet I ever read in a poets bar in Dublin , meeting many Irish poets , who inspired me
Sexual Distractions maybe , from the arts and politics , Great Poem Ken