{"id":57580,"date":"2018-02-03T21:52:33","date_gmt":"2018-02-03T21:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=57580"},"modified":"2018-02-03T21:52:33","modified_gmt":"2018-02-03T21:52:33","slug":"poetic-or-magical-phrasings-in-otherwise-realist-contexts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=57580","title":{"rendered":"Poetic or magical phrasings in otherwise realist contexts"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — featuring SWJ, Uma Thurman, and an outbreak of sheer alchemy – !! — on MSNBC ]
\n.<\/p>\n

Poetry is irrepressible. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Often confused with things people print with broken lines, poetry is a view on things, an angle oblique to reality revealing an archipelago of plausible, interesting deeper meanings, not behind but within the everyday.<\/p>\n

Under that definion, poetry is irrepressible, while the broken line stuff is failing, almost dead, precisely because it so oftten lacks authentic poetry.<\/p>\n

Here, then, are three examples of the elements of poetry visible emerging from the dense forests of the prosaic, as the Mayan temples emerge from the Guatemalan forest in this National Geographic<\/strong> image:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From Exclusive: Laser Scans Reveal Maya “Megalopolis” Below Guatemalan Jungle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Small Wars Journal:<\/strong><\/p>\n

vegetation and the night can come to be seen part of the enemy, a similar view can emerge concerning civilians <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So: “the night can come to be seen part of the enemy” — true in terms of personal experiences of war (we’re talking Vietnam here) no doubt, but also mythic in its resonance, in a way that’s inseparable from its practical, field reality: night as darkness, the unknown, mystery, terror, all providing a cloak for sudden attack.<\/p>\n

From Preventing the Barbarization of Warfare: The USMC CAP Program in Vietnam<\/a> in the Small Wars Journal<\/strong>, not a source renowned for poetry — or “poetry” for that matter.
\n**<\/p>\n

New York Times:<\/strong><\/p>\n

There’s divinity, and then there’s celebrity:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Uma Thurman<\/strong> is certainly a star, maybe more —<\/p>\n

Her hall features a large golden Buddha from her parents in Woodstock; her father, Robert Thurman, is a Buddhist professor of Indo-Tibetan studies at Columbia who thinks Uma is a reincarnated goddess.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— a goddess, with a lower-case “g”?<\/p>\n

From Maureen Dowd<\/strong>, in This Is Why Uma Thurman Is Angry<\/a><\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

MSNBC, The Beat:<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is no doubt the most astonishing.<\/p>\n

Bringing the moon and the sun together always makes me happy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From Ari Melber<\/strong> on The Beat<\/strong> yesterday, at 47.12 almost at the very end of this clip:<\/p>\n