Bartleby Willard’s Poetry Corner

We’ve collected classic poems (written by authors now dead whose works have lasted because, we take it, there’s some eternal Beauty within their work that people recognize, and that attracts readers even when they’re no longer caught up in the fashions of the author’s days) and poems written by Bartleby in response to classic poems; and a few poems that Bartleby just wrote for whatever reasons in whatever mood whatever daygonebyago.

Response Poems

Poems by Bartleby Willard

So those are the links.
Below we expatiate upon the wonders of poetry for a long breath:

Bartleby is interested in poetry. With rhythm, cadence, and order, it overtakes the body: you feel it, and so your body/mind travels with it.

Where does poetry take you?

Poetry recreates in your body/mind a whole human moment experienced (often long ago) by some (often long dead) author. Sometimes the author experienced the moment for the first time when they wrote it; other times the author had kind of experienced the moment previously and were themselves kind of recreating this previous lost moment when they experienced the moment of poem-writing. But in any case, with good poetry well read, the reader shares another’s whole moment: from the ineffable fire prior to all specifics; up through vague feelings, notions, and ideas; our into particular words, and deeds.

All literature does this, but poetry has the advantage of involving the body via enchaining author and listener in a shared rhythm and sound-slide.