Tag Aaron Haspel

“The Emperor of Ice-Cream” revisited

This week, I’ve been re-reading Aaron Haspel’s excellent blog, God of the Machine. In May 2003, he anatomized The Emperor of Ice-Cream by Wallace Stevens (1922). On thing struck me in going through the poem. “Let be be finale of…

In defense of private bigotry

It does happen, more often that you would prefer, that certain truths, or a certain set of truths you have come to acknowledge, get voiced by people of whom you do not think highly, and ‘objectively’ serve the interests of…

Haspel & Moore vs. Yeats, W.B.

Aaron Haspel disposes of the Innisfree scald thus: To take most of Yeats’s poetry seriously it is not necessary to believe in ghosts. It is, however, necessary to prefer aristocratic to democratic government, assertions to reasons, instinct to intellect, astrology…

Mini blog review

Work and worry have been sucking off the sap I need to write, and I am waiting for replenishment. In the meantime, here are the links to three recent blog posts I recommend. Nelson Ascher writes about his background, his…

Anti-Pope

Aaron Haspel ‘debunks’ Alexander Pope in the most recent of his rare but piercing poetry posts. His poetry is unsatisfactory because the dominant ideas of his time are unsatisfactory. He might have written great poetry had he been born a…