{"id":632,"date":"2010-06-02T06:02:28","date_gmt":"2010-06-02T10:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/strathconn.com\/lady\/?p=632"},"modified":"2010-06-01T22:31:11","modified_gmt":"2010-06-02T02:31:11","slug":"whats-your-favorite-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/strathconn.com\/lady\/2010\/06\/02\/whats-your-favorite-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s your favorite poem?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If I Could Tell You<\/span><\/h3>\n
Time will say nothing but I told you so,
\nTime only knows the price we have to pay;
\nIf I could tell you I would let you know.<\/p>\n

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
\nIf we should stumble when musicians play,
\nTime will say nothing but I told you so.<\/p>\n

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
\nBecause I love you more than I can say,
\nIf I could tell you I would let you know.<\/p>\n

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
\nThere must be reasons why the leaves decay;
\nTime will say nothing but I told you so.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
\nThe vision seriously intends to stay;
\nIf I could tell you I would let you know.<\/p>\n

Suppose all the lions get up and go,
\nAnd all the brooks and soldiers run away;
\nWill Time say nothing but I told you so?
\nIf I could tell you I would let you know.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/address>\n

W.H. Auden<\/strong><\/span><\/address>\n
<\/address>\n

When I was a senior in high school (1994) I went on a trip to London with my school.\u00a0 I was in awe pretty much the whole time.\u00a0 Not that I hadn’t traveled, I was just so in love with London I could hardly believe I was really there.\u00a0 If I had had a digital camera I would have run out of space on my memory card the first day.\u00a0 I especially loved riding the Underground.\u00a0 After all I grew up in a town with a handful of elevators, a crappy bus system, and no escalators.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

On the Underground I started to notice poetry in some of the ad spaces.\u00a0 I didn’t know until way later (enter the advent of the internet) that this was a culture thing.
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Poems on the Underground<\/a> was launched in 1986. The programme was the brainchild of American writer Judith Chernaik, whose aim was to bring poetry to the wide ranging audience of passengers on the Underground.<\/p>\n

All I knew was, I was seeing poems I hadn’t read before.\u00a0 There was one that caught my eye and I wrote it in my journal.\u00a0 I don’t know what it was that spoke to me in Auden’s words.\u00a0 Maybe it was the repetition, maybe the odd rhyme scheme, maybe the message, but whatever it was I came home wanting to know more poetry by W.H. Auden.\u00a0 It was a librarian friend who explained villanelle<\/a> style poetry to me.\u00a0 I tried to write poems in the same style, but I am a hopeless writer.\u00a0 I got a book of his poetry and devoured it.\u00a0 Four Weddings and a Funeral<\/a> came out that same summer and featured another Auden poem that just about broke my heart.<\/p>\n

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
\nPrevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
\nSilence the pianos and with muffled drum
\nBring out the coffin, let the mourners come.<\/span><\/address>\n

continued<\/a><\/p>\n

The connections just keep coming.\u00a0 The college I went to, Sweet Briar College, actually has an Auden collection in the library<\/a>.\u00a0 I don’t actually know what that means, because I was never brave enough to ask about it.<\/p>\n

Looking back I wish my senior quote in my high school yearbook had been from another Auden poem, Leap Before You Look<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep<\/span><\/address>\n
Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear;<\/span><\/address>\n
Although I love you, you will have to leap;<\/span><\/address>\n
Our dream of safety has to disappear.<\/strong><\/span><\/address>\n

\n

I would have just quoted the last line, but I put the whole final stanza here to give context.\u00a0 I was so afraid to leave the safety of my hometown, my friends, the only house I ever really remembered (there had been an apartment until I was 3), my parents and my sister.\u00a0 Virginia is a long way from Vermont in so many different ways.\u00a0 And I really had to leap before I looked, or I might not have gone.\u00a0 I am so glad I did.<\/p>\n

I had no idea what I was going to experience in college or how it would shape my life.\u00a0 I wanted all the answers up front, but they weren’t there for me.\u00a0 To be trite, I had to let time be the one to tell me so.<\/p>\n

\"If<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I Could Tell You Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know. If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play, Time will say nothing but Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,31,6],"tags":[67,45,66],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allaboutme","category-if-memory-serves","category-readingmaterials","tag-high-school","tag-nablopomo","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/strathconn.com\/lady\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/strathconn.com\/lady\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/strathconn.com\/lady\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strathconn.com\/lady\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strathconn.com\/lady\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/strathconn.com\/lady\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650,"href":"https:\/\/strathconn.com\/lady\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions\/650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/strathconn.com\/lady\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strathconn.com\/lady\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strathconn.com\/lady\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}