i’m in awe of young poets that write verse that can only be comprehended later in life. I know it is an illusion: it is man who attributes meaning to symbols. It is us, as we grow wiser with time and experience, who expand the poem’s meaning and fill more of life’s crevices with its …
platitudes aren’t all to be avoided, corny is not to be scorned by the self-proclaimed cultured. I remember Mario Vargas Llosa coming to the defense of corny (cursi) in an interview a couple decades ago. “It’s around us, it’s what life’s little moments are about, there is a place therefore for cursi in literature.” And …
(“I’ve been ten thousand miles in the neighbor’s backyard” -Luna) Sometimes I wonder if Bob Dylan is one of those poets whose songs are meant to be interpreted by others. Think of Joan Baez and Blowin’ In The Wind, or A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall and the same Joan Baez. Or take this version from …
I always wondered why certain songs, from the very first time we listen to them, stay with us for the rest of our lives. In 1969, Ricardo Soule composed one of the most important songs of rock n’ roll: Presente. He was 18 years old back then, but now, almost 50 years later, as he …