tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post7782159521188342354..comments2024-01-24T06:50:01.683-06:00Comments on Samizdat Blog: A Wedding Cake in the Rain: Notes on Auden's FaceArchambeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-16556715948553321252013-06-28T09:57:45.113-05:002013-06-28T09:57:45.113-05:00A face for a writer. A face for a writer. Shelleyhttp://dustbowlstory.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-3141561043401554512013-06-21T16:25:54.405-05:002013-06-21T16:25:54.405-05:00Ah, go on...
Anyway: Tthe last book already has ...Ah, go on... <br /><br />Anyway: Tthe last book already has a big chunk of the blog in it -- so now I'm hoping for a major motion picture!Archambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-91647625561356136162013-06-21T15:36:29.550-05:002013-06-21T15:36:29.550-05:00still blogging with the best of them. a book awai...still blogging with the best of them. a book awaits.Philip Metreshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05449159681282927289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-6099017692277801642013-06-21T14:09:57.969-05:002013-06-21T14:09:57.969-05:00Oh, that's very good. But I think Hockney win...Oh, that's very good. But I think Hockney wins the laurels.Archambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-31830052811699286712013-06-21T13:37:37.848-05:002013-06-21T13:37:37.848-05:00Too, there's William Matthews's attempt to...Too, there's William Matthews's attempt to insert himself into a lineage with "In Memory of W. H. Auden"--and its joke about Auden's face. Here's the whole thing:<br /><br />1.<br />His heart made a last fist. <br />The language has used him <br />well and passed him through. <br />We get what he collected. <br />The magpie shines, burns <br />in the face of the polished stone.<br /><br />2.<br />His was a mind alive by a pure greed <br />for reading, for the book <br />which "is a mirror," <br />as Lichtenberg said: "if an ass <br />peers into it, you can't expect <br />an apostle to look out."<br /><br />It was a mediating mind. <br />There were the crowds like fields of waving wheat <br />and there was the Rilkean fire <br />he didn't like <br />at the bottom of the night. <br />He loomed back and forth. <br />The space shrank. <br />The dogs of Europe wolved <br />about the house, <br />darks defining a campfire.<br /><br />3.<br />My friend said Auden died <br />because his face <br />invaded his body. <br />Under the joke is a myth-- <br />we invent our faces: <br />the best suffer most and it shows. <br />But what about the face <br />crumpled by a drunk's Buick? <br />Or Auden's <br />face in its fugue of photographs <br />so suddenly resolved? <br />It isn't suffering that eats us.<br /><br />4.<br />They were not painting about suffering, <br />the Old Masters. Not the human heart but <br />Brueghel turns the plowman away <br />for compositional reasons <br />and smooths the waters for a ship he made <br />expensive and delicate. <br />The sun is implied by how <br />the sure hand makes the light fall <br />as long as we watch the painting. <br />The sure hand is cruel.<br /><br />John Lattahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01215219604418390000noreply@blogger.com