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Published: July 15, 2009 09:29 pm
Readers' Forum: July 16, 2009
Awkward existence for poet and artist
Michael is an albatross!
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), the famous French poet, wrote a poem called “The Albatross”. It describes the capture of that majestic and greatest of all creatures of the skies. (Their average wingspan is 10 to 12 feet. The longest on record is 17 feet.)
The poem is a metaphorical or symbolic profile of the poet, or, for that matter, any great or atypical artist. In flight, the giant bird is unique in grandeur and beauty. Earthbound, awkward, clumsy, weighted and encumbered by its great wings. We even see the sailors mock or abuse the feckless creature.
The poet is writing about the paradox of the poet/artist, and his own gifted and deeply troubled life well fits the message. And so does the art and life of so many others whose creativity is born out of the crucible of suffering: Edgar Allen Poe, Allen Ginsberg, John Milton, Dostoevsky, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Chopin, Schumann, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday.
And, yes, Michael as well, king before the crowd but off the stage, pathetic as a pauper, broken, misguided, tortured, tragic.
But Baudelaire says it better. (The translation is by George Dillon.)
The Albatross
Sometimes, to entertain themselves, the men of the crew
Lure upon deck an unlucky albatross, one of those vast
Birds of the sea that follow unwearied the voyage through,
Flying in slow and elegant circles above the mast.
No sooner have they disentangled him from their nets
Than this aerial colossus, shorn of his pride,
Goes hobbling pitiably across the planks and lets
His great wings hang like heavy, useless oars at his side.
How droll is the poor floundering creature, how limp and weak.
He, but a moment past so lordly, flying in state!
They tease him: One of them tries to stick a pipe in his beak;
Another mimics with laughter his odd lurching gait.
The Poet is like that wild inheritor of the cloud,
A rider of storms, above the range of arrows and slings,
Exiled on earth, at bay amid the jeering crowd,
He cannot walk for his unmanageable wings.
— Saul Rosenthal
Terre Haute
Intersection needs serious attention
I live near Davis Avenue and Erie Canal Road. I have seen my fair share of accidents and I have also been involved in one at this intersection.
This intersection is under construction at this time. I hope that a stop light is part of the engineering plan at this intersection, along with the turning lanes that were mentioned on the news.
Believe me, this is a dangerous intersection. The stop signs that are there now will not be enough to prevent accidents at this very busy intersection.
I am aware of the railroad tracks just east of Davis and Erie Canal, and I hope the railroad tracks will not be an excuse not to put a stoplight there. There is a stoplight at 19th and Margaret at that busy rail crossing, so installing a stoplight at the rarely used railroad tracks at the Davis and Canal intersection should not be a problem.
If anyone knows of plans for a stoplight at this intersection please reply to this letter.
— Mike Sweeting
Terre Haute
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