Word: poetes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...reads the back cover of Bob Dylan's new release Live 1966: The 'Royal Albert Hall' Concert, a 2-CD set from Sony Records. The official release of the most bootlegged and one of the most controversial performances of all time has perpetuated so much hype about "The Poet" going electric that one would confuse the album's only value to be a historical relic rather than the legendary musical performance that it was. But let's just get one thing clear: Bob Dylan's Live 1966 is the greatest popular music concert you will ever hear...
...vividly human More is Arthurian rather than canonical, imperfect yet inspiring. And that is the gloss that Ackroyd develops in what may be called a fantastic sequel to More--even though it was published one year earlier. In the novel Milton in America, Ackroyd has the 17th century Puritan poet and radical escaping to New England after the collapse of the English revolution that he helped foment--itself a catastrophic result of the Protestantism set loose by Henry VIII's divorce. Instead of writing Paradise Lost, the blind and defeated rebel arrives near Plymouth in 1660. As he proceeds...
Milton is a perfect and delicious literary counterweight to More. And both the history and the fiction emanate from and complement Ackroyd's 1996 biography of the late 18th century poet and artist William Blake, who cast himself as Milton in the epic of the same name to redeem the older poet. Blake's works remythify Britain, replacing an imposed sanctity with the rediscovery of sacredness. Blake begins the restoration of God's calendar by pointing out that there is "a moment in each day that Satan cannot find...
...have a few, but they remain submerged, and the airing of them often violates their authenticity. We are, as a gender, as dull as we seem. Contrary to the claptrap of the men's movement, men gain power through not talking. "The strength of the genie," said poet Richard Wilbur, "comes from being in a bottle." I'm no biologist, but my guess is that the male human animal was programmed for silence. One can make us talk counter to our genetic makeup, but it is like training kangaroos to box. It's mildly entertaining but pointless...
...POET'S CORNER...