Sympathy Poems
The issue is not just that we grieve, nor when we grieve. The issue is not just why we grieve in poetry, nor how the beautiful song of poetry capitulates to or conspires with the task of weeping. These and more. I like to think of the sound of weeping, along with the sound of laughing, as among the first thoughtful articulations a human being ever made. More than growls or grunts, more than snarls or barks or howls, weeping and laughter indicate passional responses to experience, to a perception of circumstances not only in the present but in the past and—even more fascinating—the future. Nothing else cries or laughs the way we do. These two primary forms of vocalization evolve further into songs: ecstatic language, as it were, standing beside itself, speaking out of its head. It is no accident that the two fundamental modes of lyric poetry are precisely these, crying and laughing, the intonations of grief and pleasure. By this I mean, the elegy and the love poem
Sympathy Poems
Sympathy Poems
Sympathy Poems
Sympathy Poems
Sympathy Poems
Sympathy Poems
Sympathy Poems
Sympathy Poems
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