Small Town News

The beauty of poetry

---

Escapades of Emily

Although Robert Burns wrote poetry in the 1700s, he remains the "Voice of Scotland." the everlasting poet laureate. It can be difficult to understand how people of centuries ago flocked to live dramas, especially tragedies, or listened respectfully to the reading of poems, but this was their entertainment.

In his abbreviated life, Burns found love and respect by writing of the common people, using their dialect and sometime tying up his lasting words with a lesson of life. Tenderness flowed through his love poems, and he loved and lost many.

For example, his "To a Mouse" concludes that "the best laid plans of mice and men go aft stray."

In "To a Louse," he writes of an arrogant young church attendee tossing her pretty head with hat and net atop. Those behind can see a bug crawling among the lacy net and are holding in laughter. This poem concludes "O wad some pow'r the giftie gie us/to see oursels as ithers see us!/It would frae monie a bunder free us/and foolish notion:/What airs in dress an'gait wad lea'e us and ev'n devotion.'

I taught Robert Burns or covered him in my British Literature classes. I have his collections of works. And long ago as I drove to a baseball game for amateurs in my hometown then, a young man got out of his car and asked me if I knew where he could find one of his insurance clients. I had no clue but knew immediately the Scottish dialect this man spoke. "You're from Scotland," I almost shouted. "You know Robert Burns!" To my amazement, this young man began full recitement of the eight verse poem "To a Mouse."

I couldn't believe it. "In my classes tomorrow we are reading Burns' poetry. Please stay over and come to my classes to read the way the poetry should sound." He apologized, said he couldn't but had to be on a plane at Love Field by 10 p.m. to fly north. Oh, for a tape recorder.

My claim to fame vanished. But I'll ne're forget. And the poem's wisdom haunts me. If others could see me the way I am? Not as I perceive? I cringe to walk by a plate-glass window of reflection on a sidewalk. In a store I sometime take a peek in a mirror to find the colors I thought matched on my body don't.

Of course, this adage of Burns' can go in reverse. People can be better than they think. Hearing myself on a recorder belies what I think I sound like, but I do use motion with my speech which might alleviate harshness somehow. All temper tantrums and scuffles between friends should be seen in reality.

I've had older male students recite Henry VII's war speeches (Hal) and was moved to tears these male students would tackle such a task. As a public, we've loved poems of Robert Frost, Angelo Mayou, e.c. cummings, T.S. Eliot and many more. My late mother-law in her nineties could recite Yeats' "Wild Swans at Coolee" as she had to memorize a classic poem to pass the eighth grade. She did and so many years later impressed me more than anyone can know with the full memory of this work.

Probably my favorite in the past has to be John Donne (Dunn) and his redemption. He wrote sermons too. Bells knolled back then for a death, and Donne wrote,"Never ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for us" (it should remind of our own morality/immortality, ) "No man is an island, unto himself." Sickness can be good if it can lead one closer to God...." He played on a sinful past life after marrying a young woman Mary Moore by using their last names "Donne" and "Moore" symbolically such as "what I have done, I shall do no more."

But back to Burns. I don't think I'll ever be ready to see myself as others do. Burns could write quiet simply. "John Anderson, my jo, John (jo means joy) has the speaker a woman and in part "Now we maun totter down, Jon/And hand in hand we'll go,/and sleep the gether at the foot' John Anderson, my Jo."

"Alton Water" isn't bad as Burns wrote of love. "Flow gentle, sweet Afton, among thy green breas.... My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream ... disturb not her dream."

Poetry is called condensed emotion with symbolism, metaphors, other figures of speech. Some can do it; some can't. I like to think most of it should be respected. And it appears I'll always miss being part of the classroom.



Copyright 2011 The Malakoff News, Malakoff, Texas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2011 The Malakoff News Malakoff, Texas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

More from The Malakoff News