Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Why He Was There
- Much as he left it when he went from us
- Here was the room again where he had been
- So long that something of him should be seen,
- Or felt — and so it was. Incredulous,
- I turned about, loath to be greeted thus,
- And there he was in his old chair, serene
- As ever, and as laconic and as lean
- As when he lived, and as cadaverous.
- Calm as he was of old when we were young,
- He sat there gazing at the pallid flame
- Before him. “And how far will this go on?”
- I thought. He felt the failure of my tongue,
- And smiled: “I was not here until you came;
- And I shall not be here when you are gone.”
Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) grew up in Gardiner, Maine. One of his two brothers died of a drug overdose and the other married the young woman Edwin was in love with. That brother died as an impoverished alcoholic, estranged from his family. Edwin spent two years at Harvard and then moved to New York. Among his admirers as his reputation grew was president Theodore Roosevelt, who secured a position for him at the New York Customs House. Well loved during his lifetime, Robinson’s reputation has not diminished and he is often considered the first of the great modernist poets of America: despite the fact that he tended to write in traditional forms, his diction and sensibility are clearly that of our own contemporary language and time. This poem is a traditional Italian sonnet but its diction and phrasing are altogether contemporary and altogether masterful. Robinson, who won the Pulitzer Prize three times in the 1920s, never married.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Why He Was There
Why He Was There
- Much as he left it when he went from us
- Here was the room again where he had been
- So long that something of him should be seen,
- Or felt — and so it was. Incredulous,
- I turned about, loath to be greeted thus,
- And there he was in his old chair, serene
- As ever, and as laconic and as lean
- As when he lived, and as cadaverous.
- Calm as he was of old when we were young,
- He sat there gazing at the pallid flame
- Before him. “And how far will this go on?”
- I thought. He felt the failure of my tongue,
- And smiled: “I was not here until you came;
- And I shall not be here when you are gone.”
Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) grew up in Gardiner, Maine. One of his two brothers died of a drug overdose and the other married the young woman Edwin was in love with. That brother died as an impoverished alcoholic, estranged from his family. Edwin spent two years at Harvard and then moved to New York. Among his admirers as his reputation grew was president Theodore Roosevelt, who secured a position for him at the New York Customs House. Well loved during his lifetime, Robinson’s reputation has not diminished and he is often considered the first of the great modernist poets of America: despite the fact that he tended to write in traditional forms, his diction and sensibility are clearly that of our own contemporary language and time. This poem is a traditional Italian sonnet but its diction and phrasing are altogether contemporary and altogether masterful. Robinson, who won the Pulitzer Prize three times in the 1920s, never married.
Comments