Columbia Teachers Alan Purves and William York Tindall illuminate the Poetry of William Butler Yeats

My introduction to William Butler Yeats (June 13, 1865 - January 28, 1839) was as a Freshman at Columbia College. Alan C. Purves, my English instructor, assigned our class Yeats's  Second Coming to explicate.

The first stanza was very disturbing to say the least. It begins with a disruptive image of a falcon not being responsive to its trainer, the falconer and

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

                The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned.

The poem was written in 1919 at the end of  the "blood dimmed tide" of World War I and "anarchy is let loosed" as the the Russian Revolution has gripped the attention and toppled the stability of the world.

My appreciation of Yeats was greatly enhanced by studying some of his great poems under the aegis of Professor William York Tindall of Columbia University's Graduate Faculties English Department.  He brought the rhythms of Yeats's poems alive by reading significant passages out loud.  His favorite was September 1913 and his favorite lines:  

Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,

It's with O'Leary in the grave. 

The poem was occasioned by the lockout in September 1913 of employees by the employers and merchants of Dublin. The poem also pays tribute to those early Irish revolutionaries and  patriots who tirelessly devoted their lives to the futile cause of creating a free Irish Republic;

Here is a video animation of Yeats reading The Second Coming 

Other Yeats poems that I suggest one read include: Adam's Curse, The Lake Isle of Innisfree and The Wild Swans at Coole.

Yeats won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. 

Happy Birthday Mr. Yeats. 

Thanksgiving is an Oasis in Time: Finding Stillness, Calm and Beauty....

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all: 

Finally a brief respite from the tumultuous unpredictable  times that besiege us and have been belittling and harassing us for such a long time. 

This holiday gives us, as a nation, composed of so many solid caring  families, an opportunity to acknowledge and dwell upon all that we must be thankful for: our family, our spiritual traditions, our solid institutions of learning, our museums, our inventors, our high speed internet connections, and the beauty of nature...

So with a modicum of peace and a pause from the seeming chaos around us, where 'our centers do not seem to hold' (to paraphrase W.B. Yeats' poem, The Second Coming),  I sat down and just let my weary mind wander..... and penned these short haiku- influenced lines of verse: 

Irakli  Kvaratshkhelia , Photographer

A solitary cry....I cannot breathe 

I hear only the shimmering silence 

of petals floating at a calm sea. 

In memory of: 

Mom: a poetess of the divine who passed on the 2nd day of Kislev
Dad: healer of man who left us on the 10th day of Kislev
Brother, Dr. Gabe: who went to a better world on the 15th of Kislev, today's Hebrew date. 

May their memories and accomplishments serve as a blessing and inspiration to all those who aspire to creating a better world not only for us, but, above all, for our children. 

A Modest Proposal: My 2015 Summer Reading List, Part I

A Modest Proposal:  a partial display of my summer reading 

Here is a short description of why I chose these 22 + books of which only 11 are briefly discussed.  

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (not shown) This is great read told by eight-year old Scout from Maycomb Alabama. She is the daughter of Atticus Finch, a small town lawyer who is unsuccessful at defending a black man who is falsely accused of raping a white woman.

2. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. This is masterpiece of World War II 'concise' prose which won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Read my review for more details.

3. Station Eleven, a novel by Emily St. John Mandel. This is riveting fantastic story that begins with a production of Shakespeare's King Lear in which the lead actor falls victim to heart failure on stage. This event sets the stage for a futuristic scenario in which mankind is 99.9% destroyed by a Russian flu. The play is redeemed by a roving band of Shakespearean actors and symphony musicians managing to survive by their wits, acting and instruments.  

4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This 1925 classic was recently turned into a big, big bucks  Hollywood production (which I did not see). I choose to imbibe the life of the ultra rich through the timeless prose of a master writer.

5. Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader  by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli. This book is on my shelf because of a  recent Fast Company Magazine review entitled The Steve Jobs You Didn't Know: Kind, Patient and Human. So let's learn about the other side of Steve that contrasts with the more limited egotistical, brash and greedy character presented in Walter Isaacson's biography.

6. Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A recent  Wall Street Journal Saturday essay  by the author spurred my interest in reading her thesis. She is now a fellow at the Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. (There are 875 Comments about the article)
     The subtitle of the WSJ article reads:  "To defeat the extremists for good, Muslims must reject those aspects of their tradition that prompt some believers to resort to oppression and holy war."

7 Roosevelt and Stalin: Portrait of a Partnership by Susan Butler. It is 1943 and World War II is winding down after huge losses of human life by the Russians. Stalin is eager to have the Allies open up the Second Front (the D-Day Invasion) and Roosevelt is keen on getting Stalin, especially, and Churchill to agree on a world peace keeping force open to both small and large nations.
     Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill and their aides meet in Tehran in December, each with his game plan on the table. FDR uses his enormous diplomatic skills, charm and superior bargaining position to overcome Stalin's mistrust and paranoia and Churchill's reluctance to forge the framework for a lasting peace both at Tehran and Yalta in February 1945, just two months before FDR's death.
   This book is  highly recommenced  not only for its engrossing drama, but its beautifully and intricately developed narrative.

8. Strangers in the Bronx: DiMaggio, Mantle and the Changing of the Yankee Guard by Andrew O'Toole  The year is 1951 and the legendary  Yankee Clipper Joe D's last season. On the scene arrives the 19 year old boy wonder slugger, fleet footed Micky Mantle from  Commerce, Oklahoma. The story is enlivened by the many quoted interviews with noted  sports journalists of the day. There are great portraits of Yankee owners Dan Topping, George Weiss as well as the Ole Professor Casey Stengel who led the Bronx Bombers to the second straight World Series win.

9. The Innovators:  How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson. The author, President and CEO of the Aspen Institute introduces us to Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter who was an early computer programmer in the 1840's. He then continues the digital revolution with personality portraits of Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing (subject of the cinematic success The Imitation Game), J.C.R Licklider, Doug Engelbert, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tom Berners-Lee and Larry Page.
   This is a must read for anyone wishing to track what the superhighway of information hath wrought.

10. The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams by Phyllis Lee Levin. My interest in this biography was sparked by  the 'remarkable' biography of JQA's father President John Adams by David Mcullough (2001) and a subsequent tour of The Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Most recently, I published a review of another JQA biography, John Quincy Adams, American Visionary, (click here)  by Fred Kaplan--discussed in a New Yorker Magazine article

   My passion for unearthing the amazing contributions of this family to the growth of our republic from its earliest times is endless. John's son John Quincy was "The Greatest Traveler of His Age."
At age 14,  JQA accompanied the Minister to Russia, Francis Dana who sought Catherine the Great's aid for the American cause. He later became this country's minister to the Netherlands, Prussia, Russia and Great Britain.

 ....and now a 'breath of fresh' air as I digress to discuss some poetry books. My reader may recall that I celebrated National Poetry Month (April) quoting T.S Eliot, William Wordsworth, and Haiku and later William Butler Yeats (click here), as we, in the East Coast were emerging from one of the most brutal winters.  (click here for my postings) 

11. From the New World: Poems 1976-2014 by Jorie Graham. Her honors include winner of the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the 2012 Forward prize. one of the UK's "most prestigious poetry accolade."  The Poetry Foundation has called her "perhaps the most celebrated poet of the American post-war generation," She teaches English at Harvard where in 1998,she was appointed Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, a chair that dates back to John Quincy Adams, who was appointed as its first recipient in 1805 before his presidency.

  The best introduction to her poems is to hear her public recitals. It is best to hear the rhythms and pauses and hold the images in your mind, however brief. (click here to listen)


Tune in to Summer Reading List, Part II.