{"id":6775,"date":"2021-02-19T07:26:07","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T15:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=6775"},"modified":"2021-02-19T07:26:08","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T15:26:08","slug":"talking-poetry-with-dad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/talking-poetry-with-dad\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking Poetry With Dad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Dad and I were discussing the state of America, what was sickness at the core of our popular and political culture, when I asked him if he knew a poem that might distill it all down for a simple, yet also metaphorical understanding, if such a thing were possible or even desirable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took him all of a few seconds to ponder his answer, and then from his recliner, he recited a classic from Emily Dickinson, his favorite poet. He must know at least two dozen of her poems by heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emily got it right all right. The big lead frog croaking to the admiring (deluded) bog. Dive into those American metaphors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the recital, somehow the topic of iambic pentameter came up. Perhaps I made a crack that Shakespeare probably farted in iambic pentameter it was so natural to his verse. Dad then launched into a few stanzas of Thomas Gray’s \u201cElegy Written in a Country Churchyard,\u201d as an example of iambic pentameter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It truly astonishes me that I cannot recite a single poem and my dad can recite close to a hundred. Now I can recite most of the lyrics from the Stones’ Exile on Main Street <\/em>and a fair share of Prince and Bruce Springsteen songs, but that’s it. Not even a full Dylan song. I think something is truly lost in my not being able to recite a single poem.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dad and I were discussing the state of America, what was sickness at the core of our popular and political culture, when I asked him if he knew a poem that might distill it all down for a simple, yet also metaphorical understanding, if such a thing were possible or even desirable. It took him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-poetry","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6775"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6778,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6775\/revisions\/6778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}