Friday, April 18, 2008

Wine is Bottled Poetry—Robert Louis Stevenson

April is National Poetry Month. The glorious weather we are experiencing here in NJ would make anyone wax poetic. So, here is my suggestion for this 80-degree day in the north east. This afternoon, head to your local wine shop for something chilled…or if there’s nothing interesting in the store’s fridge (too often the case) grab something off the shelf and pop it in your freezer. Then dust off the deck chair, and dig out one of those old college lit books or any poetry you’ve got around the house. Who resonates with you? Dickenson? Frost? Eliot? Or perhaps something contemporary? Poet laureate Charles Simic?

The power of poetry is that its gifts are hidden in the words. Like a good wine, it doesn’t offer everything at once. But with patience, its depths and layers can be revealed.

So go out this balmy evening, and read a beautiful poem. And sip a beautiful wine. Life doesn’t get much better than that.

3 comments:

  1. Here's one to ponder now that winter has fled the scene

    The Snow Man
    by Wallace Stevens

    One must have a mind of winter
    To regard the frost and the boughs
    Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

    And have been cold a long time
    To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
    The spruces rough in the distant glitter

    Of the January sun; and not to think
    Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
    In the sound of a few leaves,

    Which is the sound of the land
    Full of the same wind
    That is blowing in the same bare place

    For the listener, who listens in the snow,
    And, nothing himself, beholds
    Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

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  2. Hey Joli, thanks for departing from the usual wine banter by sharing this. I had to read it about 3 times to get the full meaning. I'm feeling full of hope from the gorgeous spring we're enjoying.

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  3. This is one of my all time favorite poems. Wallace Stevens is not the most accessible poet...but I like this one, and I couldn't think of any wine-themed poetry.

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