Wednesday 10 July 2013

Walking Naked with W.B.Yeats

Sorting out my books after my holiday  I came across this glittering poem by  the ineffable W. B. Yeats. Although  it's in my own  book I'd never read this poem before. There in my bedroom it came to me like a warning. It has so much to say to any writer - particularly me, now when I'm trying to embroider my own story out of a particularly arcane mythology.

Walking naked looks like a possibility.

A Coat
I made a song with my coat     
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there’s more surprise
In walking naked.
W. B. Yeats


3 comments:

  1. Hi!
    Nice poem choice! I do like poetry, but seldom take the time to read it. I'm addicted to reading suspense, I'm afraid. Tunnel reading! Your sites are very nicely done.
    Marla

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    Replies
    1. Hi Marla
      I do enjoy my own bouts of tunnel reading (and tunnel writing...) but now and then I come up for air and find a poem just like this one that meets my mood. Or now and then I write one for the same reason. So pleased you like the site. W.

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  2. Enterprise "there's more enterprise in walking naked" It's interesting. W.B.Yeats' father John B .Yeats was an artist and good friends with William Morris. William Morris was a poet, designer and a Pre Raphaelite. Morris would grace the Yeats' household with stories of the Pre Raphaelites who were super romantics and kind of outcasts, but like the impressionists they changed the worlds of both painting and poetry.They influenced W.B. Yeats heavily in his early works and his use of mythology and imagery in his writing. In his later works, he shed most of the "flowery" poetry for a denser and more direct style, although his imagery remained beautiful. Some of his best poetry he wrote in his 50s or later.

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