The Hot 100

[DWill]

1. "The Tyger" (or "The Tiger"), by William Blake. Some see this poem from "Songs of Experience," the companion to "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence," as confronting the existence of evil against the good of "The Lamb." But it isn't like that. Blake explores our two polarities in each collection, corresponding to the child's view and the view of the human being who has come to maturity.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Thanks to those who have gone along on this countdown, either all the way or for part of it (s.a., saffron, froglipz, oblivion, Penelope, Robert, lady of shallot, dawn, giselle, realiz). I hope to see you all around the forum from time to time!

[Saffron]

Thanks to those who have gone along on this countdown, either all the way or for part of it (s.a., saffron, froglipz, oblivion, Penelope, Robert, lady of shallot, dawn, giselle, realiz). I hope to see you all around the forum from time to time!

Tyger is such a dramatic poem. I love it because it is so fun to read aloud. Four dings for the poem. I can hardly believe we have goten to the end of the list. I must say I am a bit sad. See you all around. And one last thanks to DWill.

[Penelope]

A Big thankyou to DWill and also to Saffron. I have enjoyed it so much.

I've learned a lot too.

[DWill]

Oh, you're welcome. I'm curious to know about one thing. Did anybody learn through reading all these poems more about the poetry that is essential for them? I think that appreciation for a wide variety of poetry is one good thing, but there will always be a certain style, mood, or voice--or a range of all these--that we naturally find ourselves steering for. This might be a hard question to answer specifically. Often it's a matter of "I know it when I see it."

[Robert Tulip]

1. "The Tyger" (or "The Tiger"), by William Blake.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Blake's question anticipates Darwin's theory of evolution. Traditional faith, still dominant in Blake's life time at the dawn of the nineteenth century, believed that all creatures are designed by God. Blake asks how God could frame such fearful symmetry.

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

God, inhabiting the eternal cosmos, is questioned as to how the wonders of the earth were planned in advance, with a strange reflection between the fiery eyes of the predator and the deeps of space. The hand seizing the fire asks the question of Prometheus, how industrial man could be designed by God.

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

The shoulder of God, placed to the wheel of creation, is imagined as providing the art of the dread feet of the tiger.

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

Vulcan, forge of the Gods, made some beautiful robots, but lacked the skill to create life. This image of the designer manufacturing life is hinting at the absurdity of traditional teleology.

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Our imagination of God as gentle and merciful seeks to create God in the image of our desire, instead of worshiping the reality, in which nature is red in tooth and claw, and predatory competition provides the impetus for evolution.

http://www.pathguy.com/tyger.htm says "In the creation story in "Job", the stars sing for joy at creation, a scene that Blake illustrated. In Blake's later books, the stars throw down their cups (the notebook poem "When Klopstock England Defied...") and in "The Four Zoas" figure prominently in the account of Urizen's failed clockwork universe founded on pure reason. For Blake, the stars represent cold reason and objective science. (They are weaker than the Sun of inspiration or the moon of love. Their mechanical procession has reminded others, including the author of "Lucifer in Starlight", of "the army of unalterable law"; in this case the law of science.) Although Blake was hostile (as I am, and as most real scientists are) to attempts to reduce all phenomena to chemistry and physics, Blake greatly appreciated the explosion of scientific knowledge during his era. But there is something about seeing a Tyger that you can't learn from a zoology class. The sense of awe and fear defy reason. And Blake's contemporary "rationalists" who had hoped for a tame, gentle world guided by kindness and understanding must face the reality of the Tyger."

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The symmetry of the poem recapitulates Blake's Promethean romantic vision, anticipating the question of Mary Shelley if science can make life, and asking how God could possibly dare to make something so beautiful and terrible. There is a feeling of Yeats - a terrible beauty is born.

[froglipz]

I remember Tyger from my childhood, I have to admit though that like so many things from when I was so small I didn't attach a lot of meaning to it, so thanks Robert Tulip for the in depth analysis.

Dwill and Saffron, thanks for bringing us through. These poems have opened my eyes a lot to many other forms of poetry to love, as well as made me realize that I only know so very few works out of the huge library of poetic works there are, and that's just in English.

I have enjoyed the company we have kept and I also hope to see some of you around the forums. I am feeling a little lost, I have had this magnet to bring me back for all this time, now I will have to find something else....

[Saffron]

I have enjoyed the company we have kept and I also hope to see some of you around the forums. I am feeling a little lost, I have had this magnet to bring me back for all this time, now I will have to find something else....

I feel the same way. This thread has been an anchor. I do find myself wondering what I will do now on BT. Now to DW's question. I feel I have grown tremendously as a reader of poetry over the past year. Poems I never would have gotten to the end of I have learned to appreciate and even like. My understanding of poetry is much expanded. And yes, I do have a much better sense of what it is about a poem that speaks directly to me.
--please excuse any problems with my typing, my cat is sitting on my mouse and the end of my key board and I have the hiccups.

Anyway, as I was saying, I do have a better sense of what poets I like and why. I like more concrete and straightforward. I want to feel like I've made some connection by the time I get to the end. I do not want to struggle to find something to hold on to just to stay in the poem. I like vivid imagery; especially that hits the senses. No esoteric poetry for me, thank you.

[Dawn]

THANKS DWill, and all, for this thread and for the introduction to some wonders I'd not met before. It was much more interesting (and instructive) doing this with others. I will miss it; this thread has been a civil and calm oasis at BT. I hope to find others that are so refreshing.

[Saffron]

We could tackle another book of poetry or even another anthology. I am planning on picking up Garrison Keillor's Good Poems.
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Poems-Garris ... 0142003441

I'd go with this or any other suggestion.

[DWill]

I started rereading Shakespeare's sonnets, because one thing going through the 500 showed me is that I like best a poetry that is (and here is where I start to have problems describing it) rhetorically somewhat elevated, and more formal and complex than the style adopted by modern poets. My favorite poems are probably not going to be by modern poets. I'm not saying I like difficult poetry, in fact just the opposite. Modern poetry is much more difficult than what came before it. Once you get the hang of Milton's labyrinthine sentences, the meanings are clear. It often isn't clear to me just what modern poems are trying to do. The reason probably has to do with the direction of modern poetry toward the private and personal, away from general truth. The general truths have all been written about, so what choice did poets have? But that's still what I value most in poetry, the great generalities it may expose. I also like a solemn and somewhat melancholic tone.

Verse form is another aspect that increases my enjoyment of poetry. I like the boundaries that different verse forms give, which is often done through end-rhymes. Rhymes seem to give poetry a gnomic or spell-like quality that I enjoy. Frost said that writing free-verse is like playing tennis without a net. He wasn't knocking free-verse; he was just saying how difficult it is to write without meter and rhyme to guide you. That goes for the reader, too; the meter and rhyme placing the poem within a perimeter.

Shakespeare's sonnets are 154 iterations of the same form. I love to observe his endless ingenuity as he exercises his creativity within the restrictions of the form.

Reading the 500, mainly shorter lyric poems, also gave me the idea to read at least one epic-length poem of the distant past. I think it might Byron's Don Juan (pronounced by Byron ju-wen). It's a 16,000-line satiric epic written in 8-line stanzas of iambic pentameter. We'll see if I carry through with this against my many unpoetic distractions.

I had a teacher in college once for a poetry class who said the first day that he considered poetry to be the best and highest form of literature. It was good to hear such clear advocacy from any academic, and I think I do agree.