Sunday, November 13, 2016

Susan Hawthorne # 317 Kleio


when history is in dispute
who can you trust but Kleio
she was there and if not her
then one of her sisters
her kinship is wide enough
to draw in the world

it's not in the telling
but in the unravelling
who speaks true who does not
one will claim celebrity status
say fame is the key to import
another says the least known

are the most trustworthy
for they have nothing
to gain or to lose
the poets too stay firm
to their metre there since
the beginning of time

history in the making
is a troublesome way to go
for only later can we see
the made and the unmade
so unravel your tales
and I will weave them anew



11 comments:

  1. Ah. So good, Sue. I am enjoying these poems so much. And so different from mine! :)

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  3. ...I meant to say that it's a heady ride.

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  4. And curious, isn't it, how the whole opens up. When I was writing it I felt that (for once) I wasn't writing against, but was writing for. I suppose this is a good type of madness.

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  5. Yes agree, I have found the process really interesting and now have a kind of double sequence, poems about the specific Muses abd another train about how they are feeling responding to the current situation eg the Muses sacked, in hiding etc. Not quite finished with it yet but now know the overall shape.

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  6. I really like this poem - the final stanza a lovely finish
    - just a thought - history is textual. Havelock argued that the change from oral (Kleio) to literate modes of expression produced profound change, from an action orientation to enabling reflection and analysis - a 'weaving anew'? The word text deriving from texere, to weave)

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    1. Thanks for that John. Etymology is so fascinating! Re oral, yes have thought and written quite a bit about this shift.

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  7. This is such rich territory, Susan, loving the Muse sequence.

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