Poetry for the Inner Ear

The Three Most Important Features of Modern Poetry      1. DISILLUSIONMENT   The great depth of contemporary poetry is evident in the poems by Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, e. e. cummings, Robinson Jeffers, H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Robert Graves, W. H. Auden, Archibald MacLeish, Basil Bunting, Robert Lowell, Philip Larkin, Stephen Spender, and others. . The modernity of   these poets    is revealed by the artist’s failure in a society quite indifferent and callous to poetry. The disillusionment and predicament of a poet was truly described in Pound’s Hugh Selwyn Mauberley : “His true Penelope was Flaubert. \ He fished by obstinate isles.” The artist’s private break-down and disintegration was very aptly shown by T. S. Eliot in The Waste Land :            On Margate Sands,            I can conne...

The Variety and Richness in Branch Redd Review issue 6 Literary Journal by Bill Sherman (Edited & published by Bill Sherman, Branch Redd Books, USA, 2002, pp 80, £5/$10. ISBN 0-9615784-8-3) BRR edited & published by Bill Sherman is one of the most admirable literary Journals. It is marked by genuine autobiographical touches. Sherman has brought to his Journal a wide experience of literature, sincere sympathies, and a rich sense of humour. Sherman is unhappy due to lack of public interest in the English translations of the poetry of Dagny Juel, along with " the deep feminist introduction" by the translator, Norwegian poet Hanne Bramness. As I came to know that the issue Number 6 would be the last one, I wrote to Sherman that such highly accomplished quality Journals deserved more publications. The Journal is highly informative. For example, we are told about Pound's insistence that the "hyacinth girl" in Eliot's The Waste La...