Poetry

“Rip Van Winkle’s Lilac” – Melville’s Premonitory Vision of Posthumous Fame

Published July 2, 2014 | By Robert Sandberg

Herman Melville read and studied the poetry of the great romantics. And so he likely had read, at least once, John Keats’s sonnet, “When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be.”

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And feel that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Compare Keats’s sonnet with these lines of verse that conclude Melville’s prose-and-verse piece, “Rip Van Winkle’s Lilac.” Keats, young; Melville, elderly; both writing in verse to express their hope for posthumous literary fame and glory. Neither knew wide-spread fame while alive, but because of the few friends and family who did understand and appreciate their work, they each flourished creatively.

Came about
That neighbors, unconcerned before
When bloomed the tree by lowly door,
Craved now one little slip to train;
Neighbor from neighbor begged again.
On every hand stem shot from slip,
Till, that region now is dowered
Like the first Paradise embowered,
Thanks to poor, good-for-nothing Rip!

Some think those parts should bear his name;
But, no, — the blossoms take the fame.
Slant finger-posts by horsemen scanned
Point the green miles–To Lilac Land.
Go ride-there down one charmful lane,
O reader mine, when June’s at best,
A dream of Rip shall slack the rein,
For there his heart flowers out confessed.
And there you’ll say,–O, hard ones, truce!
See, where man finds in man no use,
Boon Nature finds one–Heaven be blest!

Posted in Literature, Poetry | Tagged John Keats, When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be

Imaginarium: Sightings, Galleries, Sightlines – A New Book of Poetry by A. Robert Lee

Published November 16, 2013 | By Robert Sandberg

A. Robert Lee

has just published another volume of poetry:

Imaginarium: Sightings, Galleries, Sightlines

This is his latest collection of poetry and is published by 2Leaf Press.

From the publisher’s website:

The term “imaginarium” refers to a “place” devoted to stimulating and cultivating the imagination, towards scientific, artistic, commercial, recreational, or a spiritual end. In this collection, Lee explores two connecting keynotes: imagination and sight that explores the way we go about imagining as much as seeing reality. Lee goes about this using an ekphrastic approach by commemorating a dozen or so celebrated visual artists and their works, among them J.M.W. Turner and Frida Kahlo. He extends the usual meaning of the term to include vantage-points like a French archeological cave, and then expertly frames a run of personal encounters within the heights and widths of buildings and landscapes.

To learn more about Lee’s new poetry volume, click here to visit the 2Leaf Press website.

This is A. Robert Lee’s third recent volume of published poetry. For more about the other two recent volumes – Ars Geographica and Portrait and Landscape – published by Printed Matter Press, click here.

Posted in Book Reviews, Culture, Herman Melville, Literature, Poetry | Tagged A. Robert Lee, Ekphrasis, Imagination

A New Volume of Poems by A. Robert Lee – Portrait and Landscape-Further Geographies

Published May 27, 2013 | By Robert Sandberg

I look forward to immersing myself in this new volume of poetry, Portrait and Landscape: Further Geographies, by poet, Melville scholar, world traveler, and 21st century cosmopolitan, A. Robert Lee. The book is forthcoming from Printed Matter Press. Click the image to open up a large image of the book’s front and back covers.

FROM THE BOOK JACKET

Portrait and Landscape
Further Geographies

Portrait and Landscape. Vertical and Horizontal. Two terms used in printing and the visual arts as well as in the general round. In Portrait and Landscape, Further Geographies they double-up again as framing for a gallery of people and place. The portraiture opens with Herman Melville. Ocean-voyager, steersman, diver. In his wake follow personally known writers and a span of friendships and close encounters. Brits, Americans, Europeans, Asians. The landscapes at hand also and equally summon the Atlantic and Pacific. Geo-worlds. Interiors as much as exteriors. Versifications of both site and itinerary.

A. Robert Lee was a Professor in the English department at Nihon University, Tokyo from 1997-20 l l. British-born he previously taught at the University of Kent, UK. His creative work includes Japan Textures: Sight and Word, with Mark Gresham (2007), Tokyo Commute: Japanese Customs and Way of Life Viewed.from the Odakyu Line (2011) and Ars Geographica: Maps and Compasses (2012), also a Printed Matter Press publication. Among his academic publications are Multicultural American Literature: Comparative Black, Native, Latino/a and Asian American Fictions (2003), which won the American Book Award in 2004, and Modern American Counter Writing: Beats, Outriders, Ethnics (2010). He has also published widely on Melville. Currently he lives in Murcia, Spain.