Photo of Chersonesos Bell, in CrimeaThree Epiphanic Poems (and a Short Note) by Joseph S. Salemi The Society October 14, 2023 Beauty, Education, Essays, Poetry 23 Comments . Epiphany It stays in your memory like a pealing bell, A smallish thing, an unimportant fact— The mute suggestion of a random act. What do I speak of? Listen, I shall tell: A kindness from someone you barely knew Dropped like a curtsey from the chambermaid Who smiles to your smile with a formal, staid Look of mild boredom as she passes through Hallways and exits of the grand hotel— A labyrinth of rooms and furnished suites Perfect for honeymoons or sleazy cheats. It stays in your memory like a pealing bell. . . Circumlocution Apropos of Nothing Infinitesimal movement of the wind Rustling the leaves, first this way and then that (As when one’s lips part, hesitant and speechless, Lost in a fog of wavering intent) Parallels the pause of courteous boredom When talk dies down to neutral interjection, Word-sated, conscious of absurdity. . . At Woodside Station There is a holiness in this cool mist Rising like Latin plainsong from a choir Towards the tips of Gothic lancet windows To dispense, with silken vapor-breath, The gentle benediction of the rain. . . A Note on Poetic Epiphanies Persons familiar with my literary criticism know I am impatient with the endless flood of modernist-inspired poems that are nothing but pointless little epiphanies purporting to describe (in a hushed tone of quivering pseudoreference) some minor event, some passing perception, or some vagary of the poet’s thoughts. They represent, in my view, the default genre of amateur poets who really have nothing to say. Such poems are always short, plangent, and mysterious. Nevertheless, an epiphany can be the source of a worthwhile poem if the poet takes the time and effort to follow some simple but basic procedures. Originally, an “epiphany” referred solely to a religious phenomenon in which some striking manifestation of the divine was given, such as the descent of the dove upon Jesus at His baptism in the Jordan, or His transfiguration in glory on the mountain as recounted in the synoptic gospels. But in the twentieth century, via the influence of James Joyce, the term “epiphany” began to be used in a literary sense to mean a powerful moment of immediate recognition, an emotionally striking phenomenon, or a sudden and intense perception of something deeply meaningful. Joyce describes what a literary epiphany is in Stephen Hero, and he gives several examples of it in his collection Dubliners. Vivid instances are the final perceptions of the protagonists in Araby and The Dead. It should be noted that the epiphanies in Dubliners are often deeply upsetting and emotionally crushing. They are intense perceptions of one’s weakness, inadequacy, or failure. This is very unlike what happens in modernist poems of epiphany, where something is presented as wonderful and triumphant in nature, and a statement both of hope and of the poet’s amazing perceptive skills. (That’s what you tend to get when Americans write poems.) The three epiphanic poems given above are my attempt to show what an effective poem in this genre can do. The first (“Epiphany”) presents in three quatrains the speaker’s recollection of a minor act of kindness, and connects it to the curtsey of a chambermaid in a large hotel, and how that act of kindness persists with “pealing” force in his memory. The specific act is not described; only the speaker’s memory of it, and its similitude to the chambermaid’s activity. That’s it. Nothing else. The thing that carries the poem is not the act of kindness, but the sheer force of language creating a detailed similitude to it. The second poem (“Circumlocution Apropos of Nothing”) does the same, but is much more sparing of words. The small and barely noticeable rustling of leaves by the wind is made to stand for a lull in conversation. And the third (“At Woodside Station”) sets up an equation between rising mist and Latin plainsong in the choir of a Gothic church, connecting them with the notion of a blessing. What I hoped to point out here is that the epiphanic poem can be more than what it has become in the hands of the apes of modernism. It can be metrical; it can rhyme; it can be in perfectly chiseled language; and it can actually say something instead of just being a raw perception flung at the reader. The crucial element is the use of language by the poet, and not the small thing that has prompted the epiphany itself. . . Joseph S. Salemi has published five books of poetry, and his poems, translations and scholarly articles have appeared in over one hundred publications world-wide. He is the editor of the literary magazine TRINACRIA and writes for Expansive Poetry On-line. He teaches in the Department of Humanities at New York University and in the Department of Classical Languages at Hunter College. NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. Trending now: 23 Responses Roy Eugene Peterson October 14, 2023 When I read your exceptional educational notes I often get my own epiphany, which I define as sudden realization of some fact, truth, or wisdom. Thank you not only for the poems but for those explanations! Reply Joseph S. Salemi October 14, 2023 Thank you, Roy. I try to do the same when I am teaching. One rarely knows if one has had an effect. Reply Paddy Raghunathan October 14, 2023 Poems so well thought out and constructed and yet they are also a joy to read. Congratulations. Paddy Reply Joseph S. Salemi October 14, 2023 Many thanks, Paddy. Reply C.B. Anderson October 14, 2023 What strikes me hardest in these poems is their subtlety, the building of a case for the significance of small events without using overt plain statement to establish the case. But most of us know that Salemi has been around the block a few times, and we are not surprised. Even those of us (or especially those of us) who do not lack for publication credits should pay close attention to Salemi’s methods. In his created word-worlds, Showing is telling, and telling is showing. Reply Joseph S. Salemi October 14, 2023 The poems are old, from the 1970s, and I am not sure I could pull this off again. Many thanks, Kip. Reply Brian A. Yapko October 14, 2023 Joe, each of these is a delightfully economical poetic snapshot of a moment in time. There’s an almost haiku quality to these poetic snapshots but with a purely Western sensibility — maybe something akin to Ezra Pound’s “The apparition of these faces in the crowd/Petals on a wet black bough.” If this were cinema, these poems would be like brief but vivid flashbacks, perhaps in slow motion and most certainly with a music swell and a close-up. The language is vivid and form is used to great effect. For example, you have that repeating bell in Epiphany as the first and last lines, but you use a rhyme scheme of a-b-b-a which also reflects structurally that same sense of return we get from the repeating bell. It’s quite wonderful. Reply Joseph S. Salemi October 14, 2023 Thank you Brian — I’m glad the poems please you. If memory serves, when I wrote these poems I was attempting to give a kind of answer to the haiku, which back then was becoming a major craze. Haiku were even being given as writing assignments in junior high school back in 1960. Of course this was just the 5-7-5 syllabic structure, and not any of the more traditional requirements of the form. The other thing was Imagism, and its focus on a specific moment of perception. I was reading a lot of H.D. and Amy Lowell and others of that school, and it influenced me. Reply Yael October 14, 2023 Here’s a thought I just had, having followed your very interesting poetry, notes, and essays for a while; perhaps it’s not relevant or interesting, but in case it is, here goes: I get the impression that you are promoting a kind of poetry which is aimed at the frontal lobes of the reader’s brain, while you dislike poetry which aims at the reader’s brain’s limbic system and which mostly seeks to bypass the frontal lobes. During my time as a wilderness adventure guide I learned that people tend to forget what you tell them, but they always remember how you made them feel. I suspect that many of the poets who write the “short, plangent, and mysterious” poetry which you describe above, are really just aiming straight for their readers’ limbic system, in order to quickly evoke a mood or feeling, a fleeting perception of an emotion or two perhaps, which will lodge in their emotional memory without too much effort. It’s the poetic equivalent of a drive-by shooting in a sense, where reason and superior technique are dispensed with in favor of a quick emotional burst. You seem to write from and aim for the frontal lobes in order to engage the reader’s higher cognitive functions. This is a classic and noble endeavor and I suspect that it may be foundational to higher education and civilization itself. However, you may never convince the limbic system poets and readers of your standpoint, because the folks who write and read from the limbic system enjoy the dopamine release which comes from experiencing a sudden raw emotion while they tend to more or less dislike engaging with their frontal lobes. It is noteworthy that heavy recreational drug use tends to mute the frontal lobes. Reply Joseph S. Salemi October 14, 2023 Yael, I don’t know much about the structure of the brain, or what the different areas of the brain control and govern. But what you say makes sense, because one of the goals of the entire modernist project was IMMEDIACY and EMOTIONAL INTENSITY above all else. The higher cognitive functions were unimportant, or only handmaidens to these two desiderata. I guess I was fighting a lot of “limbic system” poets in those days. I constantly got criticism that my work was too intellectual, too abstruse in vocabulary, too distanced from common experience, too rarefied, and even “too snobbish.” But those were the days when you were expected to “let it all hang out,” and be “confessional.” It was maddening to get this kind of criticism when I was trying my best to produce something of exquisite craftsmanship, and when I thought I was following in the footsteps of the classic modernists. Reply Yael October 16, 2023 Yes, it is quite maddening, and somewhat similar to a sober person living with drug addicts. Someone who’s drunk or high is usually unable to process rational thought and will route all input of verbal communication straight into the limbic part of their brain where it triggers their emotional fight-or-flight response. Some years ago I attended a church where the pastor had studied deeply into the subject of brain function and patterns of addiction and he was writing a book about it. Some of his sermons were lectures on the topic and I learned many useful things while attending there; such as why drug addicts are often unable to answer simple yes-or-no questions and will fly into psychotic rages when confronted with reason and logic; why some preachers’ sermons resemble college lectures complete with power point presentations (frontal lobe delivery), while other preachers rant and rave fire and brimstone, speak in tongues, or cry a river (limbic system appeal). For myself, I have found it useful to be able to identify the different cognitive modes, because it cuts down on frustration and confusion when trying to communicate with people, due to the radical differences between these two modes of thought processing. Joshua C. Frank October 16, 2023 “drug addicts are often unable to answer simple yes-or-no questions and will fly into psychotic rages when confronted with reason and logic” Wow, that sounds like the behavior of leftists! There’s got to be a connection… Joseph S. Salemi October 16, 2023 One good way to consider the question is to recall the classic opposition of the Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies. Nietzsche was the first to formulate this explicitly, but even in the ancient world people understood what it meant. Apollo is the god of reason, order, intelligence, logic, and self-control. He is the patron of success, achievement, mastery, civilization, and the destruction of what is rotten, corrupt, toxic, and disordered. Dionysus is the god of madness, drunkenness, utter self-abandonment, and losing control, and the release of all pent-up desires and emotions. They are polar opposites, but both of them are divine. It seems appropriate to associate Apollo with the frontal lobes, and Dionysus with the limbic system. Yael’s mention of two types of preaching is a good example as well. A High-Church Anglican in a pulpit reading a complex sermon from Lancelot Andrewes is Apollonian. A screaming Evangelical on the floor thumping the Bible and sending his congregation into quivering ejaculations of Hallelujahs is Dionysian. Yael October 21, 2023 That’s fascinating. I had never considered that characters from the Greek pantheon might symbolize functions of the human brain. Susan Jarvis Bryant October 15, 2023 Joe, this post is fascinating and thoroughly inspiring. I love the immediacy of these epiphanic poems… these brief linguistic pictures engage my senses… I can see, feel, and taste the moment… they’re so much more than words, and I am eager to create a few. Your mention of Joyce’s Dubliners sent a shiver. I studied this book at the tender age of seventeen, and loathed every page… I wonder whether I would feel the same way now? Reply Joseph S. Salemi October 15, 2023 Thank you, Susan. Your opinion of Joyce’s Dubliners was shared by the author himself, who said that he had deliberately written the book “in a style of scrupulous meanness.” Many of the stories are deeply upsetting and off-putting. Reply jd October 15, 2023 Very interesting, the poems and the explanations with their responses. Thanks to all. Absolutely beautiful, to this reader is, At Woodside Station. I love every word, phrase and the atmosphere & images created. Reply Joseph S. Salemi October 15, 2023 Thank you, jd. I remember that day — very lightly drizzling, and misty — as I stood by the old stanchions at Woodside Station, completely at peace and composed. Reply Sally Cook October 16, 2023 To me it’s about time itself – the expansion and contraction of it. I’d also like to add I cannot help but add a word or two about the parallels I see between the modernist poets of which you speak and the raw immediacy of most of the various abstract expressionist schools. And the secrecy! I sometimes think of an idea as something flying around and nipping people. Am I very far off base here? Reply Joseph S. Salemi October 16, 2023 Sally, your knowledge of the Abstract Expressionist schools is much deeper than mine, so I’m inclined to go along with your suggestion. I think in general modernism tends towards what I have called “raw immediacy,” and modernism is a movement that goes far beyond poetry. Reply Margaret Coats October 16, 2023 Joe, in my list of subgenres of lyric, I don’t have “epiphany,” but your definition and examples give some shape to a sloppy modernist endeavor. As you say, epiphany as widely practiced seems to be the kind of poetry for writers with nothing to say, but with an unduly elevated self-perception deriving from the mere claim to be a poet. They ask for attention while doing little or nothing to earn it. In relation to classic genres, what would you say about “epiphany” in relation to epigram? In history between the two, there is the Romantic fragment. It differs, of course, in presentation of the poem as deliberately incomplete. The poem is something the poet regards as publishable art, but in a rather egoistic way, fears to spoil his fragment by using his (deficient!) craft to finish it. Published example from Coleridge seems modernist in sloppiness but lacking the “emotional intensity”: The Netherlands Water and windmills, greenness, islets green– Willows whose trunks beside the shadows stood Of their own higher half, and willowy swamp– Farm houses at anchor seem’d–in the inland sky The fog-transfixing spires– Water, wide water, greenness and green banks, And water seen– Reply Joseph S. Salemi October 16, 2023 Well, the epigram as I see it is very succinct and concise, and only in that sense it is like the “epiphany.” The big difference, in my opinion, is that the epigram is always lucid and a part of coherent discourse. It expresses something (an idea, a fact, an opinion, a judgment) in a small space of words. Therefore it is a part of human verbal expression, and its concision is often a tool for making its point directly and forcefully. It doesn’t try to conceal anything, or drag the reader into a cloud of vagueness. The best epigrams are zingers that slap you in the face. The modern “epiphany” usually escapes that structure. It is mostly suggestive, tonal, ambiguous, and even riddling. Because it is so connected with the speaker’s intense emotion or vivid perception, it can’t have the kind of logical clarity and pointedness that the epigram has. The Romantic fragment, as in the example from Coleridge, seems to me no more than an unfinished poem. It is lovely, and clearly the product of a sophisticated poet. But I get the impression that the poet was attempting to paint a picture of the Netherlands in words, while scrupulously avoiding all judgment or commentary or narrative or emotion. This concentration on the pictorial would be out of place in the epigram. Reply Michael Vanyukov November 27, 2023 The poems are beautiful and the note instructive. But as an amateur poet, I have to now go and cry in the corner :). Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Roy Eugene Peterson October 14, 2023 When I read your exceptional educational notes I often get my own epiphany, which I define as sudden realization of some fact, truth, or wisdom. Thank you not only for the poems but for those explanations! Reply
Joseph S. Salemi October 14, 2023 Thank you, Roy. I try to do the same when I am teaching. One rarely knows if one has had an effect. Reply
Paddy Raghunathan October 14, 2023 Poems so well thought out and constructed and yet they are also a joy to read. Congratulations. Paddy Reply
C.B. Anderson October 14, 2023 What strikes me hardest in these poems is their subtlety, the building of a case for the significance of small events without using overt plain statement to establish the case. But most of us know that Salemi has been around the block a few times, and we are not surprised. Even those of us (or especially those of us) who do not lack for publication credits should pay close attention to Salemi’s methods. In his created word-worlds, Showing is telling, and telling is showing. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi October 14, 2023 The poems are old, from the 1970s, and I am not sure I could pull this off again. Many thanks, Kip. Reply
Brian A. Yapko October 14, 2023 Joe, each of these is a delightfully economical poetic snapshot of a moment in time. There’s an almost haiku quality to these poetic snapshots but with a purely Western sensibility — maybe something akin to Ezra Pound’s “The apparition of these faces in the crowd/Petals on a wet black bough.” If this were cinema, these poems would be like brief but vivid flashbacks, perhaps in slow motion and most certainly with a music swell and a close-up. The language is vivid and form is used to great effect. For example, you have that repeating bell in Epiphany as the first and last lines, but you use a rhyme scheme of a-b-b-a which also reflects structurally that same sense of return we get from the repeating bell. It’s quite wonderful. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi October 14, 2023 Thank you Brian — I’m glad the poems please you. If memory serves, when I wrote these poems I was attempting to give a kind of answer to the haiku, which back then was becoming a major craze. Haiku were even being given as writing assignments in junior high school back in 1960. Of course this was just the 5-7-5 syllabic structure, and not any of the more traditional requirements of the form. The other thing was Imagism, and its focus on a specific moment of perception. I was reading a lot of H.D. and Amy Lowell and others of that school, and it influenced me. Reply
Yael October 14, 2023 Here’s a thought I just had, having followed your very interesting poetry, notes, and essays for a while; perhaps it’s not relevant or interesting, but in case it is, here goes: I get the impression that you are promoting a kind of poetry which is aimed at the frontal lobes of the reader’s brain, while you dislike poetry which aims at the reader’s brain’s limbic system and which mostly seeks to bypass the frontal lobes. During my time as a wilderness adventure guide I learned that people tend to forget what you tell them, but they always remember how you made them feel. I suspect that many of the poets who write the “short, plangent, and mysterious” poetry which you describe above, are really just aiming straight for their readers’ limbic system, in order to quickly evoke a mood or feeling, a fleeting perception of an emotion or two perhaps, which will lodge in their emotional memory without too much effort. It’s the poetic equivalent of a drive-by shooting in a sense, where reason and superior technique are dispensed with in favor of a quick emotional burst. You seem to write from and aim for the frontal lobes in order to engage the reader’s higher cognitive functions. This is a classic and noble endeavor and I suspect that it may be foundational to higher education and civilization itself. However, you may never convince the limbic system poets and readers of your standpoint, because the folks who write and read from the limbic system enjoy the dopamine release which comes from experiencing a sudden raw emotion while they tend to more or less dislike engaging with their frontal lobes. It is noteworthy that heavy recreational drug use tends to mute the frontal lobes. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi October 14, 2023 Yael, I don’t know much about the structure of the brain, or what the different areas of the brain control and govern. But what you say makes sense, because one of the goals of the entire modernist project was IMMEDIACY and EMOTIONAL INTENSITY above all else. The higher cognitive functions were unimportant, or only handmaidens to these two desiderata. I guess I was fighting a lot of “limbic system” poets in those days. I constantly got criticism that my work was too intellectual, too abstruse in vocabulary, too distanced from common experience, too rarefied, and even “too snobbish.” But those were the days when you were expected to “let it all hang out,” and be “confessional.” It was maddening to get this kind of criticism when I was trying my best to produce something of exquisite craftsmanship, and when I thought I was following in the footsteps of the classic modernists. Reply
Yael October 16, 2023 Yes, it is quite maddening, and somewhat similar to a sober person living with drug addicts. Someone who’s drunk or high is usually unable to process rational thought and will route all input of verbal communication straight into the limbic part of their brain where it triggers their emotional fight-or-flight response. Some years ago I attended a church where the pastor had studied deeply into the subject of brain function and patterns of addiction and he was writing a book about it. Some of his sermons were lectures on the topic and I learned many useful things while attending there; such as why drug addicts are often unable to answer simple yes-or-no questions and will fly into psychotic rages when confronted with reason and logic; why some preachers’ sermons resemble college lectures complete with power point presentations (frontal lobe delivery), while other preachers rant and rave fire and brimstone, speak in tongues, or cry a river (limbic system appeal). For myself, I have found it useful to be able to identify the different cognitive modes, because it cuts down on frustration and confusion when trying to communicate with people, due to the radical differences between these two modes of thought processing.
Joshua C. Frank October 16, 2023 “drug addicts are often unable to answer simple yes-or-no questions and will fly into psychotic rages when confronted with reason and logic” Wow, that sounds like the behavior of leftists! There’s got to be a connection…
Joseph S. Salemi October 16, 2023 One good way to consider the question is to recall the classic opposition of the Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies. Nietzsche was the first to formulate this explicitly, but even in the ancient world people understood what it meant. Apollo is the god of reason, order, intelligence, logic, and self-control. He is the patron of success, achievement, mastery, civilization, and the destruction of what is rotten, corrupt, toxic, and disordered. Dionysus is the god of madness, drunkenness, utter self-abandonment, and losing control, and the release of all pent-up desires and emotions. They are polar opposites, but both of them are divine. It seems appropriate to associate Apollo with the frontal lobes, and Dionysus with the limbic system. Yael’s mention of two types of preaching is a good example as well. A High-Church Anglican in a pulpit reading a complex sermon from Lancelot Andrewes is Apollonian. A screaming Evangelical on the floor thumping the Bible and sending his congregation into quivering ejaculations of Hallelujahs is Dionysian.
Yael October 21, 2023 That’s fascinating. I had never considered that characters from the Greek pantheon might symbolize functions of the human brain.
Susan Jarvis Bryant October 15, 2023 Joe, this post is fascinating and thoroughly inspiring. I love the immediacy of these epiphanic poems… these brief linguistic pictures engage my senses… I can see, feel, and taste the moment… they’re so much more than words, and I am eager to create a few. Your mention of Joyce’s Dubliners sent a shiver. I studied this book at the tender age of seventeen, and loathed every page… I wonder whether I would feel the same way now? Reply
Joseph S. Salemi October 15, 2023 Thank you, Susan. Your opinion of Joyce’s Dubliners was shared by the author himself, who said that he had deliberately written the book “in a style of scrupulous meanness.” Many of the stories are deeply upsetting and off-putting. Reply
jd October 15, 2023 Very interesting, the poems and the explanations with their responses. Thanks to all. Absolutely beautiful, to this reader is, At Woodside Station. I love every word, phrase and the atmosphere & images created. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi October 15, 2023 Thank you, jd. I remember that day — very lightly drizzling, and misty — as I stood by the old stanchions at Woodside Station, completely at peace and composed. Reply
Sally Cook October 16, 2023 To me it’s about time itself – the expansion and contraction of it. I’d also like to add I cannot help but add a word or two about the parallels I see between the modernist poets of which you speak and the raw immediacy of most of the various abstract expressionist schools. And the secrecy! I sometimes think of an idea as something flying around and nipping people. Am I very far off base here? Reply
Joseph S. Salemi October 16, 2023 Sally, your knowledge of the Abstract Expressionist schools is much deeper than mine, so I’m inclined to go along with your suggestion. I think in general modernism tends towards what I have called “raw immediacy,” and modernism is a movement that goes far beyond poetry. Reply
Margaret Coats October 16, 2023 Joe, in my list of subgenres of lyric, I don’t have “epiphany,” but your definition and examples give some shape to a sloppy modernist endeavor. As you say, epiphany as widely practiced seems to be the kind of poetry for writers with nothing to say, but with an unduly elevated self-perception deriving from the mere claim to be a poet. They ask for attention while doing little or nothing to earn it. In relation to classic genres, what would you say about “epiphany” in relation to epigram? In history between the two, there is the Romantic fragment. It differs, of course, in presentation of the poem as deliberately incomplete. The poem is something the poet regards as publishable art, but in a rather egoistic way, fears to spoil his fragment by using his (deficient!) craft to finish it. Published example from Coleridge seems modernist in sloppiness but lacking the “emotional intensity”: The Netherlands Water and windmills, greenness, islets green– Willows whose trunks beside the shadows stood Of their own higher half, and willowy swamp– Farm houses at anchor seem’d–in the inland sky The fog-transfixing spires– Water, wide water, greenness and green banks, And water seen– Reply
Joseph S. Salemi October 16, 2023 Well, the epigram as I see it is very succinct and concise, and only in that sense it is like the “epiphany.” The big difference, in my opinion, is that the epigram is always lucid and a part of coherent discourse. It expresses something (an idea, a fact, an opinion, a judgment) in a small space of words. Therefore it is a part of human verbal expression, and its concision is often a tool for making its point directly and forcefully. It doesn’t try to conceal anything, or drag the reader into a cloud of vagueness. The best epigrams are zingers that slap you in the face. The modern “epiphany” usually escapes that structure. It is mostly suggestive, tonal, ambiguous, and even riddling. Because it is so connected with the speaker’s intense emotion or vivid perception, it can’t have the kind of logical clarity and pointedness that the epigram has. The Romantic fragment, as in the example from Coleridge, seems to me no more than an unfinished poem. It is lovely, and clearly the product of a sophisticated poet. But I get the impression that the poet was attempting to paint a picture of the Netherlands in words, while scrupulously avoiding all judgment or commentary or narrative or emotion. This concentration on the pictorial would be out of place in the epigram. Reply
Michael Vanyukov November 27, 2023 The poems are beautiful and the note instructive. But as an amateur poet, I have to now go and cry in the corner :). Reply
