Category: Wonderful Things

Through the Front Door Week of June 24

An appreciation of poets William Blake, and T. S. E.iot

My Post (2)

From Jelly Beans to William Blake

My last post began with a quotation from William Blake. Week of June 17

Chances are, you don’t know anything about him. In a nutshell, he is a dead poet with a metaphysical point of view that breathed of scandal during his lifetime. I might consider him the father of free sex. Scholars consider him the most unread poet with the greatest impact on English poetry.

Two Bits About Blake

Literary boffins consider “Songs of Innocence” his masterwork. Nobody but boffins reads Blake these days, but those of us born before 1957 (in other words, those of us required to read in school) probably encountered “Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright” during a high school English class.

Anyway while I was looking for the quotation that I used in last week’s post, I discovered treasure after treasure of William Blake quotations. They have inspired me to sit down and read some Blake-finally.

Two Bits About Poetry in General

When I was struggling through an English degree at UCLA, poetry was an obstacle to climb over in order to get a grade.  It required considerable more exertion of mind than prose. Over the decades, however, it is the poetry that has stayed with me.  Lines and phrases bounce inside my head.

Two Bits About T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot whose work showed up in every single class except Medieval Lit., was the bane of my existence.  Finishing a term paper assigned to his “Four Quartets” and it’s relation to Bergson’s theory of time  was two weeks in purgatory. Funny, it was the “Four Quartets” to which I turned to find words for my mother’s memorial: “in the end is our beginning.”  If I could go back in time, I’d do a better job on that term paper.

A Blake Quotation or Three

Returning to the original subject of Blake, I’ve listed some of the quotes that caught my attention.

“In the Universe there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between there are the doors.”

“What is now proved, was once only imagined.”

“We are not meant to resolve all contradictions, but to live with them and rise above them.”

That old chestnut “Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright” has something going for it.  It’s out there on the ‘net.’ Take a look at it for yourself.

 

 

Through the Front Door for the Week of June 17

Graphic with jelly beans
I adore jelly beans

Joy of jelly Beans

William Blake wrote “you never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.”

So it is thus with jelly beans!

Discovery! Amazon is selling five pounds of Brach’s jelly beans for about the same price as one pound of same in the local market-on the rare occasions you can find them at all.

I adore jelly beans. I rhapsodize jelly beans. A jelly bean dream would be one of the dreams of a lifetime. Forget about those high-end gourmet jelly beans manufactured in Fairfield, California! It’s Brach’s jelly beans for me: all sugar and water and gelatin, and colorful edible food dyes.

For reasons that passeth understanding, the local markets only carry Brach’s jelly beans at Easter and Halloween. Between times, the shelves are bare. Surely you can imagine my delight that Amazon, emporium to the world, carries them.

Five pounds of jelly beans arrived in a bright blue cardboard carton, with the Brach’s label emblazoned across the top. The jelly beans inside were all the colors of the rainbow and they were so fresh it was if they had been manufactured the day before.

I ordered the jelly beans at the beginning of June, and they are gone, gone, gone before the end of June. Don’t tell anyone, it’s my secret: I am going to order another five pounds next month. Because I still don’t’ know what is more than enough!