I think I shall be among the English poets

Unfortunately, in my case that means only that I hope to spend a good chunk of summer reading them. I mean the classics, baby.

Many, I am already familiar with; I'll be deepening my awareness of those poets. (You go, John Keats!) Others, I'm sad to admit, I have not read in sufficient depth. Usually, such poets are the ones I admire but don't exactly enjoy. (I'm looking at you, John Milton. I'll finish Paradise Lost this summer if it kills me. Though hopefully it won't kill me, seeing as that would interfere somewhat with my progress in the doctoral program. I do enjoy Milton in short bursts, actually, but I've never been able to get through that whole poem.)

I am one of those old fogeys who think poets should be very well read not only in contemporary poetry but in the canon, as well. Because I am not satisfied with my own experience in that area, I feel a need to dive head-first into the treasure house.

Strangely, some contemporary poets don't have much interest in the older stuff. I'm not just talking about the kids who say, "I don't read poetry; I just write it." I mean real, authentic, card-carrying poet-union members who never spend any time reading anything published before 1980. To each his/her own, but it's just strange to me. I would rather read "To Autumn" or "Tintern Abbey" or just about anything by Shakespeare than read about 90% of what gets published these days. (Not that the new stuff isn't good; it's just that some of the older stuff is even better.) At any rate, I like being aware of the history, however mythic, of my vocation.

(Also, the advantage of writing about older stuff is that I can say anything I want without the danger of running into the author at AWP or someplace!)

Since I've already pretty well spewed my whole kooky philosophy of everything here on the blog in the last 10 days or so, I have to come up with something else to write about. Thus, I'm hoping that blogging my thoughts on the elders will be both helpful to my project and at least a little bit interesting to any readers I might still have. Besides, if I promise to write about this stuff, I have to actually do the reading!

However, if I'm to maintain my interest, I'll probably have to abandon chronology and read whatever suits me at the moment. (Otherwise, I might never get past Shakespeare! I love Shakespeare, but there's just so much there.) Then again, I may get anal and proceed in strict chronological order.

(I am including the Americans, beginning with Whitman, whom I'll get to eventually. But I'll probably stick with the Brits at first.)

So, for a little while I shall speak of poetry instead of vague musings about gods and brains and the nature of matter. Delicious.