I’d like to respond to Bryan’s comment to my 90’s rant… Here’s what he wrote:
"Lately, I am more concerned with whether or not I will have grandkids around to ask me those questions. After reading the road, I wonder if the time will come that i will have to literally rally around my family with a pocket full of shells. I think the genX prophets of the nineties are more like Yeats than Keats. I think they saw the beast slouching towards bethlehem. I think they saw things fall apart, and like a rat in cage, they couldnt do anything about it. Why else would they want to be raped? Why else would they teach us to settle? If there really are no better men, if jesus really doesnt want me for a sunbeam, then why should I care, why should i not come down from my cloud and wallow in the shadows of my black holed sun. Blake said that if the doors of perception were open and men they would see things as they really are: infinite. the genX prophets doors were open, they saw the infinite bleakness and embraced it."
All is true. I’ll respond to the bolded sentence.
Yes. Yeats was dismal, mostly mystical, and, I think, an appropriate predecessor to the poet-prophets of the 90’s. He was so beautifully tragic. He was obsessed with the same woman for most of his life and proposed to her on four separate occasions (and denied every time). After she married and had a family, Yeats pursued the only suitable substitute…her daughter. Yeats was an emotional mess. It’s no wonder his poems are laced with such pathos. In my mind Yeats was Cobain’s dark angel—sitting over his shoulder whispering words of quiet rebellion.
Keats on the other hand…was the young master. Keats would have been another Shakespeare had he lived past 25. He wrote too hard. He bled all of his life into his poetry and couldn’t sustain the daily breathing. Yeats said Keats wrote with “deliberate happiness.” Unlike the other romantics, Keats lived his tragedy but wrote his fantasy. So…I retract my original analogy. I don’t think Keats parallels the Xer prophets. I think we’ve yet to see his equal. Perhaps—after the postmodernists have had their say—the new millenials or po-po-mos (post-postmodernists) will birth the next Keats.
That gives me hope.
"Lately, I am more concerned with whether or not I will have grandkids around to ask me those questions. After reading the road, I wonder if the time will come that i will have to literally rally around my family with a pocket full of shells. I think the genX prophets of the nineties are more like Yeats than Keats. I think they saw the beast slouching towards bethlehem. I think they saw things fall apart, and like a rat in cage, they couldnt do anything about it. Why else would they want to be raped? Why else would they teach us to settle? If there really are no better men, if jesus really doesnt want me for a sunbeam, then why should I care, why should i not come down from my cloud and wallow in the shadows of my black holed sun. Blake said that if the doors of perception were open and men they would see things as they really are: infinite. the genX prophets doors were open, they saw the infinite bleakness and embraced it."
All is true. I’ll respond to the bolded sentence.
Yes. Yeats was dismal, mostly mystical, and, I think, an appropriate predecessor to the poet-prophets of the 90’s. He was so beautifully tragic. He was obsessed with the same woman for most of his life and proposed to her on four separate occasions (and denied every time). After she married and had a family, Yeats pursued the only suitable substitute…her daughter. Yeats was an emotional mess. It’s no wonder his poems are laced with such pathos. In my mind Yeats was Cobain’s dark angel—sitting over his shoulder whispering words of quiet rebellion.
Keats on the other hand…was the young master. Keats would have been another Shakespeare had he lived past 25. He wrote too hard. He bled all of his life into his poetry and couldn’t sustain the daily breathing. Yeats said Keats wrote with “deliberate happiness.” Unlike the other romantics, Keats lived his tragedy but wrote his fantasy. So…I retract my original analogy. I don’t think Keats parallels the Xer prophets. I think we’ve yet to see his equal. Perhaps—after the postmodernists have had their say—the new millenials or po-po-mos (post-postmodernists) will birth the next Keats.
That gives me hope.
5 comments:
First, after reading my last comment, I hope that anyone else who reads that realizes that I was stretching for 90's song lyrics to alude to because if you arent up on your nirvana, pearl jam, rage, or sound garden what I wrote would sound really stupid.
Second, I think you are right about the yeats v keats (well actually I was right) but I like the distinction. I have to admit that my Keats is lacking so I cant comment to extensively on him, but I will mention one problem I have with the Yeats comparison. Yeats was an elitist to the core. He didnt really like common people. He kicked it with the aristocrats and believed that the mob should be ruled by the educated elite. I think that Blake and Shelley are the best examples. They were the peoples revolutionaries to the very core. Shelley is like a mix of De la Roca and Vedder, and Gavin from Bush (just cause his wife was more famous than him during his life) Anyway I know blake inspired people in earlier eras as well (namely the doors) but his inversions of good and evil, and his search, his calling to the wilderness in the pursuit of all things true and beautiful in a corrupt world, really rings true when I listen to Vedder and Cobain, or even the pumkins.
All that was going through my head while reading your posts was, "In your head, in your head, zombie, zombie, zombie -eh, -eh, -eh, -eh, -oh, -oh, -oh, -oh, -oh, -ehhhhh..." Talk about inspiring words...
You guys are way too sophisticated for me. Keep up the great work.
All that was going through my head while reading your posts was, "In your head, in your head, zombie, zombie, zombie -eh, -eh, -eh, -eh, -oh, -oh, -oh, -oh, -oh, -ehhhhh..." Talk about inspiring words...
You guys are way too sophisticated for me. Keep up the great work.
Wow, how my previous post got on there twice, I have no idea.
Anyway, rumor has it that Ammon is a great cook. You guys can do the main course, steak, and we'll bring the side, salad. Sound good?
I want in on this ammon cooking business. When, where and what time do we eat?
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