Amy Lowell represents a sort of strange character in the fabric of Modern Poetry. Of 20th Century Poetry, I am most familiar with the modernist movement like Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot which I assume most Americans my age who read poetry would be. In Amy Lowell's Wikipedia page which isn't her official biography but it is usually the place I start just to get a sense of a person. Apparently, Ezra Pound had some unkind words about Lowell during her life. I took this at face value, but thought to bring an open mind to the collection of poetry that I found most readily available. There seem to be two significant works that jump out from this poet, her early collection A Dome of Many Colored Glass and What's O'Clock which I think was from later in her life. I chose to read A Dome of Many Colored Glass because it seemed easier to secure in my channels of resources. Again, for this volume of poetry, I listened to an audiobook version through the Libravox app and looked at an e-book version of the collection on my laptop mostly this time.
There were a few different readers on the Libravox app, and I best liked Rosalind Carlile's readings which might have biased my appreciate here.
According to the Wikipedia, these poems from Lowell are the significant works that one has contend: Patterns, A Green Bowl, The Red Lacquered Music Stand, Two Speak Together, and The Sisters.
Out of this list, only "A Green Bowl" was in this collection and it is a stand out poem for sure.
To start the collection, the first poem that jumped out at me was “Suggested by the Cover of a Volume of Keats." Lowell was something of a Keats scholar, and this work seems to pay homage to her master poet. In one line she references what I think is the "thornbird." These are the very best moments in reading to me that the thing itself is beautiful and rich and lovely, but then also points you further on and further in. She references a "fairy bird" that pricks itself on a branch in order to emit the most beautiful song, but in order to do so it must die to accomplish this. what a wonderful and terrible image that she is comparing to the lost too young genius and beauty of Keats.
From, “Apples of Hesperides,” because of this poem, I researched what the apples ofHesperides was and I am grateful just the gift of having interacted with this myth and knowing something more about this classical world I am endeavoring into. I hope to get to Hesiod at some point in this project and will relish this moment.
The twin sort of pairing of the "Azure and Gold" and “Petals” seems to represent an ineffable quality this always searching for theme – the color blue is the jewel at the center of the world, or the jewel in the crown at the center of the earth, that there is nothing ever so blue as this color she sees in a sunrise light glinting off the feathers of a blue bird. Then with the poem, an ode to flower petals which burst forth at once and only work to their dying in once violent but graceful motion once formed and opened can only tarry on their way to death and the falling off of the petals, but again in this ineffable sense will continue to their legacy because – though ‘dead’ continue to spread their own former flowers fragrance.
Because of "Venetian Glass," now it is my life's mission to go to Venice to see the glassblowing on the Island of Murano I ordered Sam a piece of Venetian glass for Christmas because I read this poem.
It seems to be the subject of Lowell’s poems that which she witnesses and personifies like her master, Keats. There is a type of poem that Lowell engages with like that of the Shokei poem, that she takes a cue from her master, Keats, and personfies the action in the image and brings it to life much like Keats did with "Ode to a Grecian Urn" where Keats imagines what is happening on this famous ancient pottery.
I loved the story contained within the poem "The Fool Errant." I think this type of wisdom is lost in our contemporary society. Even if the wisdom in this poem isn't wisdom at all, it is a worthy story to dissect in community.
From “Roads”
“O Roads that journey to fairyland!
Radiant highways whose vistas gleam, Leading me on, under crimson leaves, To the opaline gates of the Castles of Dream” (Lowell 29).
In another poem, she personifies the activities in the song "Road to Avignon" which I have never heard before and played for my daughter as it was probably a famous children's song at the time. As an added benefit of reading this collection, my life is richer now.
In response to her poem, “A Fairy Tale” expresses something essential about the tradition of the fairy tale genre though it sits in despair a bit more than the genre itself does but this happens without faith I suppose.
I loved the poem, "J.K. Huysman," I emailed a writer friend of mine to put before him this idea of the adoration of a closer reader that turns simply responding to your work and personhood, they write a famous poem about you, and what that must feel like as an authoer. Huysman is on the Big List of course, but now I will have my eye out for this author when it comes along.
I sent the group of professors I am close to, the poem, "To A Friend” which they enjoyed.
Reading Amy Lowell's collection, A Dome of Many Colored Glass, has enriched my life in ways that you only dream about as a reader. There was so much fodder here to continue on with that I reminded me of being an undergrad and knowing that there is so much to life that I do not know nearly enough about. I will stick with Lowell and read her What's O'Clock soon to finish the course and see what treasures that book reveals to me.
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