Another poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I just find such such joy in Hopkins' joy and his love and use of language. He's having fun and so I have fun. Squee!
This poem is about a bird, the windhover, that seems to pause in mid-flight as it hunts. Pauses perhaps like a person does when they read the obscene over-use of alliteration in this poem. Oh! Maybe that's why only the first stanza has so much alliteration. It's the skimming, the pause before the strike that occurs in the last stanzas.
The strike! The kill. In a way, it's about the bird killing its dinner. It could also be about any result after a long effort. Er, that is, if the result is a bloody and well-fought one.
This poem is a sonnet. For show, I guess. It's not romantic in the way Shakespeare's sonnets are. I don't really know why else the form would be used.
Favorite line: "Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion."
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
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What do you think of today's poem?