She has a review of Jerry Kirkpatrick's new book, Montessori, Dewey, and Capitalism: Educational Theory for a Free Market in Education. She found it fascinating, even if she didn't quite agree with his positive spin on Dewey.
I have a review of Walter Donway's new poetry collection, Touched By Its Rays. I conclude:
Relentlessly intelligent, contemporary in language and topic, Donway brings the music of words boldly up to date for the 21st Century.The cover story is about foreign policy, and shows a caged American Eagle. The article's by Roger Donway, who used to be an editor at Orbis.
Of course, that big bad bird isn't caged at the moment.
For whatever it may be worth,
that eagle's flying all over the earth.
What does "brings the music of words boldly up to date for the 21st Century" mean? Has the music of the best extant examples of poetic eloquence been outdated up until now?
ReplyDeleteGreat poetry never really gets outdated. But the language keeps changing. Older poetry gets harder to read for contemporary readers. Of course, if they study up, they can learn to read it. Sometimes historical context needs to be studied too, and reflected upon, to gather in the significance of some older poems. I was recently reading some of the Canterbury Tales with the assistance of notes, and I was struck by how anchored the tales are in the social setting of the times - which makes them fascinating but somewhat harder to fully understand.
ReplyDeleteI am always heartened to see eloquent verse that deals with contemporary subjects. The Elizabethans had beautiful poetry of their own time, and why should not we?