Some of my heroes are dead white men

[cali]

Sorry, but they are. I think of this because of the brouhaha over Yale's Major English Poets course and 'decolonizing' the English Department.

Many of my heroes are authors; poets, novelists. I turn to EM Forster and T.S. Eliot for solace in the times when I'm most soul sore. I love Shakespeare and Yeats. I love CP Cavafy and it was his poem Ithaka that came to mind immediately upon hearing about the horror in Orlando.

As you set out on the way to Ithaca
hope that the road is a long one,
filled with adventures, filled with understanding.
The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes,
Poseidon in his anger: do not fear them,
you’ll never come across them on your way
as long as your mind stays aloft, and a choice
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes,
savage Poseidon; you’ll not encounter them
unless you carry them within your soul,
unless your soul sets them up before you.

Hope that the road is a long one.
Many may the summer mornings be
when—with what pleasure, with what joy—
you first put in to harbors new to your eyes;
may you stop at Phoenician trading posts
and there acquire fine goods:
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and heady perfumes of every kind:
as many heady perfumes as you can.
To many Egyptian cities may you go
so you may learn, and go on learning, from their sages.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind;
to reach her is your destiny.
But do not rush your journey in the least.
Better that it last for many years;
that you drop anchor at the island an old man,
rich with all you’ve gotten on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

Ithaca gave to you the beautiful journey;
without her you’d not have set upon the road.
But she has nothing left to give you any more.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca did not deceive you.
As wise as you’ll have become, with so much experience,
you’ll have understood, by then, what these Ithacas mean.

http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=259&cat=1

Of course, in my heart's library- sorry if that's corny but it's how deeply I feel, there are authors who are women and people of color;
Chopin, Jane Austen, Toni Morrison, Emily Dickinson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Zora Thurston Neale, Radclyffe Hall.

I could rattle on and on.

I support diversifying English Departments because there are so many more who deserve to be read. But almost all college English Departments offer diverse courses that solely focus on LGBT authors, authors who are women and people of color.

So I find myself sorrowful about the demand of Yale students who want to do away with or radically alter the required 'Major English Poets'. Yes. They're white men. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Pope. But what they have to say is often universal. It's that capturing of universal humanity, emotion and perspective that makes Shakespeare, for example, timeless.

Why not add to the pantheon, rather than subtract from it?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/02/is-yale-s-english-course-really-too-white.html

I want to add a few verses from a poem that has gotten me through the most painful times in my life. It's a very religious poem. I am not religious. What speaks to me is the universal wisdom.

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.

[PJMcK]

1. Wonderful post, cali

Thanks for the verses this morning.

I especially liked your thought:

"Why not add to the pantheon, rather than subtract from it?"

Hope you have a great day.

[cali]

2. Thank you so much, PJ. May your day be wonderful too.

[cali]

3. Only connect!

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die. Ch. 22

E.M. Forster, Howard's End

[cali]

4. To Be in Love

To be in love
Is to touch with a lighter hand.

In yourself you stretch, you are well.

You look at things
Through his eyes.

A cardinal is red.

A sky is blue.

Suddenly you know he knows too.

He is not there but
You know you are tasting together
The winter, or a light spring weather.

His hand to take your hand is overmuch.

Too much to bear.

You cannot look in his eyes
Because your pulse must not say
What must not be said.

When he
Shuts a door-
Is not there_
Your arms are water.

And you are free
With a ghastly freedom.

You are the beautiful half
Of a golden hurt.

You remember and covet his mouth
To touch, to whisper on.

Oh when to declare
Is certain Death!
Oh when to apprize
Is to mesmerize,
To see fall down, the Column of Gold,
Into the commonest ash.

- Gwendolyn Brooks