This week I read UNBROKEN by Laura Hillenbrand.
It's an excellent book, and as is often the case with excellent books, I found poetry in those pages -- starting with the epigraph that opens the book, which is taken from an actual poem:
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,
Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?
- Walt Whitman, “The Wound-Dresser”
(complete poem here)
It's a great question, isn't it?
I think every poem we write should answer that question.
For more poetic thoughts and verse, visit Poetry Friday Roundup with David at FOMOGRAMS.
Ah. The thorny unanswered queries about that which is deep, tremendous - those 'hard-fought engagements' - I suddenly missed Whitman. I should look for 'leaves of grass' in my disorganized bookshelves.
ReplyDeleteThis has made me pensive this evening. :)
Wow - I'd forgotten about that poem, Irene - it's a real heart-breaker. I assume it's from when he tended soldiers during the Civil War...?
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm with you - this is a good question to ask, even if we can't always put our fingers on the answer.
I wish I could banish forever some of my "curious panics" and "sieges tremendous" that haunt me and come back to undermine my confidence. But I suppose that they are part of what makes me ME and I should embrace, rather than banish them. Still...
ReplyDelete(thanks for making me think and wonder!)