Poetry Readers Challenge discussion

I realized shortly after beginning this collection that I really knew nothing about Yeats as a poet. I think I'd read perhaps 5 of his most anthologized poems, which give no indication of his "position" as a poet or his projects. I hadn't realized how much of his poetry had been written as an aging man. That is, the persona in many poems is that of an aging man or a man contemplating approaching old age. I was disappointed by the number that bemoaned that he was no longer attractive to young women. I also didn't know that he primarily wrote plays in the early part of his career and that he created characters that he wrote various poems about (sometimes in sequence, sometimes not). I didn't know that he wrote political poetry. So reading this has been eye-opening.

My favorite discovery in this volume was the Crazy Jane poems which argue about which who is more sacred, or even righteous, those that hold themselves above life, who don't dirty themselves, or those who engage life to the fullest, unafraid of the dirt that may come with it. View one of the most talked about of those poems here:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/crazy-...

I chose to read the complete Yeats, as opposed to the many other books on my shelf, because this year I've focused on complete collections of poets who write in form. First Auden, then Wilbur and now Yeats. Of those three, Yeats's poetry is most inclined to harken back to oral traditions of refrains and to use rhyme most strongly. His poems are much more likely to have a high-sounding tone of delivery. In the late 1930s (modernism in full swing), he published the poem "The Black Tower," whose first two stanzas I will provide as an example. The second italicized stanza is a refrain that repeats three times and ends the poem.

Say that the men of the old black tower
Though they but feed as the goatherd feeds
Their money spent, their wine gone sour,
Lack nothing that a soldier needs,
That all are oath-bound men
Those banners come not in.

There in the tomb stand the dead upright
But winds come up from the shore
They shake when the winds roar
Old bones upon the mountains shake

This particular volume of Yeats' poetry is particularly valuable because it is full of notes at the back illuminating historical events, references to Irish folk mythology and other relevant information.

I'm actually not finished with this book. I've got 100 more pages in a section called "Narrative and Dramatic Poetry." If I have something additional to say after reading them, I'll add it then. But I'm thinking I'll take a break and read some shorter books and some different voices. I've found that reading these long collections of one poet can get oppressive.

UPDATE: I finished the "Narrative and Dramatic Poetry" section. While I can admire the skill of execution, I wasn't terribly caught up by the tales. I'm not sure if an acquaintance with Irish mythology would have changed my reaction. I always admire those who take up the gauntlet thrown down by prior generations by attempting long narrative poems or dramatic poems. Why not try to do what Spenser did or Shakespeare even? It's a grand endeavor even if the result doesn't measure up to one's predecessors. So my hat is off to him even if the poems themselves aren't ones I've marked to re-read.

I always liked this one:

The Song of Wandering Aengus
by W. B. Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Every now and then, I tell myself that the time has finally come when I'm going to read Yeats's Collected Poems, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I love a lot of his work -- the Crazy Jane poems are true genius, tremendously inspired stuff -- but something about his attitude toward women irks me. (Is it his tendency to view women as symbols, gauzy floaty mythicized things?) I get the same feeling sometimes when I try to read Neruda, or Jack Gilbert.

The Yeats lyric that has affected me most deeply in my life is the pithy "Consolation." The speaker of this poem, interestingly, is a woman (it is presented as part of a series of female-centered poems, titled "A Woman Young and Old"). I think the female speaker is supposed to embody a feminine, intuitive conception of wisdom, in opposition to the more masculine/cerebral/intellectualized conception of wisdom that is embodied by the "sages" to whom the poem alludes. Yeats seems to have a tendency to dichotomize the world like that.

In "Consolation," Yeats presents a paganized version of the concept of original sin ("the crime of being born"). Whereas Christianity offers one sort of solution to the "problem" of original sin, Yeats offers a different solution: eros, i.e., passionate love in whose raptures the miseries of existence can be forgotten. Misery fuels love, and love conquers misery -- the enigmatic ouroboros at the heart of Yeats's poetry.

http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1461/

Jimmy, yet another thing I was thinking as I read his work is that he is the only one who could get away with writing romantic folk tales--or in a romantic vein--during the course of the modern era. Goes to show that when you're good at something, it doesn't matter what the prevailing trend is. One of my favorites is "The Two Trees" (http://www.poetry-archive.com/y/the_t...). It truly is amazing when someone can write so powerfully and eloquently so young.

Jenna, I think his inclination toward dichotomy is part of what "the establishment" like about him. It makes it possible to talk for or against in any given poem, which academics/teachers love of course. Ripe for discussion. It would be interesting to look at his representations of women overall. We both see things we disliked but then he also loved/depicted strong women, as revealed in his more political poetry.

One of the reasons I enjoy this group is that it helps me see or focus on different aspects of a poet I've read. Thank you both for your thoughts.

Hello I've been moved my Yeats poems a great deal over the years and want to get to know them better. Is this anthology as good as any for that or do people have other favourites?

Thanks

If you already feel an affinity with his poetry, Stephen, a "collected" volume like this might be perfect for you, especially considering the many notes in the back. However, if you're just wanting to know if you "really" like his work, finding a shorter "selected" volume might be the wiser course. I don't have a specific "selected" title to recommend but perhaps others do.

Another favorite:

Sailing to Byzantium
by W B Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

I own the Collected Poems, and, while I haven't read the whole thing, I would never trade it for a Selected Poems. Collected volumes and selected volumes tend to cost about the same, anyway, and my favorite Yeats poems tend to be among his less famous ones: e.g., the obliquely rhymed, obliquely beautiful six-liner "Memory"---

One had a pretty face,
and two or three had charm,
but charm and face were in vain,
because the mountain grass
cannot but keep the form
where the mountain hare has lain.

Many lines from Yeats have become book or film titles: No Country for Old Men, Slouching to Bethlehem, Cast a Cold Eye--the mark of a major poet (like Shakespeare) is when his work enters the language in this manner.

On a lighter note, I have a racing friend--breeder/trainer--from Ireland, who names his horses after Yeats poems (even his farm is Ben Bulben Farm where his stallion Ben Bulben stands at stud). He is currently racing "Cast a Cold Eye". Anyway, I asked him how he came to be a lover of Yeats' work. He said, "Well, of course, we had to read him in school."

Thanks for sharing that fun info, Joan. I want a picture of whatever horse he has named Crazy Jane!