Advisory
Poems
(from Introduction
to Poetry by
Burton Raffle)
Sean
Howard
Preface
Whatever
else, never
touch
pebbles with
gloves
on!
1. What Poetry
Means
Definitions,
explanations
–
shooting
stars…
*
For
starters –
cliff-flowers
& larks’
eggs
*
Sure
sign? The
beautiful
smart
*
(Keats,
enduring
meaning!)
*
High
praise –
haiku-
dos
2. What Poetry
Does: Metaphor
Breakthrough –
prose,
‘words
for
windows’
*
Hamlet
weighing –
Empire
apples
*
Wordsworth
–
i-
Cloud
*
Paperweight –
‘If
you find the
philosopher’s
stone…’
*
Enough
with ‘Poetry’!
cummings
lowering
his
case
*
Metaphor?
‘Where
the truth
doth
lie…’
3. What Poetry
Does: Other Tools
Eros
–
touching
logic
*
(syntac-
ticians)
*
‘Honey?’ Showing
the
sleep in our
eyes
*
Joyce
–
pun
gent
*
‘Delicacy’
–
deer,
Olympus
crocus…
*
Eros
–
coming
to
terms
4. The Shape
of Poems
Evolution
–
form
ever
content?
*
(‘Easy’? Beetles,
rolling
stones…)
*
Modern
–
Grace
full?
*
(The
poet’s
slow
loaf…)
*
Spray
the couplet from the can –
the
puppet master of the man!
*
Life & death
–
dove-
tail
5. Metrics
and History
Shelley
insisting –
poetry
rules
*
Chaucer
–
stressed
silk
*
(‘Hazards’
– end-
stopped; feet in
mouth;
over-
run…)
*
Silence
–
Wordsworth’s
thrush
*
(Jericho –
Blake’s
graffiti…)
*
Modern
ruler (Shelley’s
point)
– the Emperor’s
new
prose
Sean
Howard is
the author of Local Calls (Cape
Breton University Press, 2009) and Incitements (Gaspereau
Press, 2011). His poetry has been widely published in Canada
and elsewhere, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and anthologized
in The Best Canadian Poetry in English (Tightrope
Books, 2011 & 2014).