We've had some discussion lately of poets, real and otherwise, beloved and otherwise, which is why I must link to a fascinating tribute to Inger Christensen, a poet revered in Denmark, who just died.
Fascinating because Christensen was both hugely popular in Denmark, probably more so than any poet in our language except perhaps Bob Dylan, and a dauntingly structural poet, who based some of her work on mathematical ideas.
Sounds off-putting, doesn't it?
But in her case, as in Auden's, the limits of her self-imposed structures apparently opened up her writing. The obituary in the New York Times quoted one stanza from her long masterwork called "it" that was painted on a street in a run-down part of town, and survived for decades:
A society can be so stone-hard
That it fuses into a block
A people can be so bone-hard
How many people do you know for whom that has happened?
Kit Stolz 
Good morning from a fan coming out of the woodwork.
Having been engaged in an on-going discussion elsewhere on “structure” as a key point of contact between art and science, I enjoyed this entry immensely.
And, I wanted to let you know that I’ve passed on the Premio Dardos award to you. I’ve been enjoying your blog for some time, and thought many of my own readers would enjoy it as well. My current wordpress post has more information on the award, as well as my recommendation of your blog.
Thanks so much for the wonderful mix of posts you offer!
LikeLike
Thank you, Linda! I’m delighted to discover I have a reader who spends time in Utah, and one who appears to be seeing it at its most beautiful.
Congratulations on your recent success, and please feel free to post comments, links, etc. Your profound faith in writing itself moved me, and I especially loved this quote from Didion, at the bottom of your post on “Speaking My Heart.”
“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.” ~ Joan Didion
http://shoreacres.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/speaking-my-heart-writing-vision-and-truth/#more-2051
A lotta truth there — and inspiration, too.
LikeLike