‘Pope Sylvester II and Meridiana’ by Joseph S. Salemi (and an Essay on Dramatic Monologues) The Society October 24, 2021 Culture, Essays, Humor, Poetry 11 Comments . Pope Sylvester II and Meridiana Pope Sylvester II, born Gerbert de Aurillac (946-1003), is said to have had a demonic succubus named Meridiana who...
Three Sonnets on Contemporary Poetry, by Joseph S. Salemi The Society October 8, 2021 Culture, Humor, Poetry 25 Comments . Prerequisites for a Trendy Poetry Reading Casual clothes, streetwise but debonair: Knit sweater, denims (slightly dishabille); A tentative,...
A Major Problem: An Essay by Joseph S. Salemi The Society August 27, 2021 Culture, Essays, Poetry 89 Comments . "American pragmatism insists that words are for use, not enjoyment; American puritanism insists that expression is a duty, not a pleasure."...
‘Pierrepoint on Capital Punishment’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society August 17, 2021 Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry 19 Comments . Albert Pierrrepoint (1905-1992) served as one of GreatBritain’s chief executioners from 1931 to 1956, duringwhich time he hanged over 500...
When Poetry Matters, and When It Doesn’t: An Essay by Joseph S. Salemi The Society July 27, 2021 Culture, Essays, Poetry 59 Comments . A widespread distemper in modern life is the insistent need that many people feel to justify themselves and their activities. Countless persons...
Two Mythological Poems by Joseph S. Salemi The Society July 19, 2021 Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Humor, Poetry 13 Comments . Heliotrope Phaeton, son of the god Helios, attempted to drive his father’s celestial chariot. His inexperience caused him to burn up part of the...
‘The Carnelian Ring: A Still-Life’ by Joseph S. Salemi, and ‘A Note on the Objective Correlative’ The Society June 29, 2021 Art, Beauty, Blank Verse, Essays, Poetry 11 Comments . The Carnelian Ring: A Still-Life Footfalls echo in the memoryDown the passage which we did not takeTowards the door we never openedInto the...
The Perils of “Perfection”: An Essay by Joseph S. Salemi The Society June 12, 2021 Essays, Poetry 40 Comments . Persons devoted to formal, metrical poetry are susceptible to a specific disease, much in the same way as light-skinned persons are apt to get bad...
‘Épuration’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society June 2, 2021 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 14 Comments . On the Greek isle of Tilos are the ruins of the sanctuary of Pythian Apollo. Over them has been built the Church of the Archangel Michael. "Now rot...
Two Poems about Stone, by Joseph S. Salemi The Society May 19, 2021 Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry 17 Comments . Isolde and the Men of Stone Who could believe, except on ancient trust? The stones grew pliant, yielding into shape When softer nature touched...
‘Precious Procedure and Process’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society May 9, 2021 Essays, Poetry 55 Comments . When I was eighteen years old, something happened that had a profound effect on my view of the world. Next door to us in Woodside there lived an...
A Translation of François Villon’s ‘Ballade of Prayer to Our Lady,’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society April 5, 2021 Acrostic, Beauty, Culture, Poetry, Translation 11 Comments . Ballade of Prayer to Our Lady (in the voice of the poet’s mother) by François Villon (1431-1463), from French by Joseph S. Salemi Lady of...
‘Easter!’: Translation of an Italian Sonnet by Joseph S. Salemi The Society April 4, 2021 Culture, Poetry, Translation 13 Comments . Easter! by Rosario Previti (1882-1967), from Italian by Joseph S. Salemi Why your bitter torment on the cross, Martyr of Golgotha, if the world on...
Two More Poems with ‘Conceits’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society March 27, 2021 Beauty, Blank Verse, Essays, Humor, Poetry, Poetry Forms 10 Comments . The Bibliophile’s Birth Certificate Marius Michel (1846-1925) was one of the most prominent and gifted bookbinders in France. He produced work in...
‘Pain, Product, and Poetry’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society March 22, 2021 Essays, Poetry 24 Comments I went to my first opera when I was six years old. My mother took me to the world premiere of Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Saint of Bleecker Street, on...
‘The Wife’s Lament’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society February 14, 2021 Humor, Love Poems, Poetry 11 Comments . For my friend Rose R., with sincere condolences. Good Lord, imagine my bad luck: I’m married to a hockey puck. I don’t know how it came...
‘Maurras at the Parthenon (Acropolis, 1896)’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society February 4, 2021 Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry 11 Comments . Charles Maurras (1868-1952) was a highly influential French poet, essayist, and political journalist. He edited the rightist paper Action...
Two Poems on Benvenuto Cellini, by Joseph S. Salemi The Society January 13, 2021 Art, Beauty, Culture, Ekphrastic, Humor, Poetry 17 Comments . Benvenuto Cellini’s Salt-Cellar A woman sitting back, just mildly curious To hear a man’s contrived, seductive patter, Waiting to see what...
Two Poems Making Use of ‘Conceits,’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society January 9, 2021 Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Essays, Poetry 26 Comments . The Death of Today’s Sequoia Flecte ramos, arbor alta, tensa laxa viscera: Et rigor lentescat ille, quem dedit nativitas, Ut superni membra...
The Struggle for the Formalist Tradition: An Essay by Joseph S. Salemi The Society December 13, 2020 Deconstructing Communism, Education, Essays, Poetry 58 Comments Why are many young persons so bad at writing formal poetry? Why do they struggle and labor and twist and turn when trying to compose formal...
‘The Homeward-Bound Armada, 1588’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society December 1, 2020 Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry 21 Comments X No tengo más que darte —Inscription on a Spanish sailor's gold ring, in the shape of a hand holding out a heart, found off the western coast of...
An Exercise in Dactylics: ‘Love’s Song and Dance’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society November 11, 2020 Culture, Humor, Poetry 23 Comments She was the one who approached me and spoke, Saying my lectures had swept her away. Maybe we could have occasional chats After class...
‘Spindle, Shuttle, Loom’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society October 4, 2020 Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry 14 Comments …anulbaṇáṃ vayata jóguvām ápaḥ. Weave ye the singers’ work without a knot. —Rigveda 10.53.6 Those pale cream swaths of handmade...
‘To Those Who Condemn Coleridge for Using Opium’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society September 16, 2020 Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry 26 Comments Weave a circle round him thrice, __And close your eyes with holy dread, __For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of...
‘Golden Gloves’ and Other Poetry by Joseph S. Salemi The Society July 29, 2020 Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry 22 Comments Golden Gloves My father fought in Golden Gloves. Back then The ring was where you slugged your way to hopes. It was no place for fey, aesthetic...
‘Apostrophe to François Villon’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society July 9, 2020 Culture, Humor, Poetry 18 Comments Good François Villon, petty thief, Carouser, cutpurse, scholar, sot; Young chronicler of gallows-grief, Escapee from the hempen...
A Smorgasbord of Craziness: An Essay by Joseph S. Salemi The Society June 8, 2020 Beauty, Culture, Essays, Humor, Poetry 15 Comments I recently discarded some unnecessary texts, and among them were two past editions (the 17th and the 20th) of Len Fulton’s Directory of Poetry...
‘The Unknown Circle of Hell’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society April 8, 2020 Beauty, Culture, Dante, Epic, Humor, Poetry 28 Comments Personae and scene: Vergil and Dante, somewhere in the mid-region of Hell. Dante: Honored Vergil, tell me where we’re going— It’s...
Essay: ‘Moralistic Authenticity’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society March 3, 2020 Culture, Education, Essays, Poetry 43 Comments A not infrequent problem that a poetry editor must face is a contributor’s intransigence. Sometimes this resistance is on metrical issues...
‘Jorge Bergoglio Blesses the Amazon Synod’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society February 10, 2020 Culture, Humor, Poetry 44 Comments Bongo, bongo, bongo, I don’t wanna leave the Congo, Oh no, no, no, no, no! Bingle, bangle, bungle, I’m so happy in the jungle I just...
‘Gilbert and Sullivan on New York Affluence’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society January 4, 2020 Culture, Humor, Poetry 9 Comments Hark now to the yuppies’ anthem, And the lifestyle that it preaches— How we all reside on the chic West Side With our Chardonnay and...
‘On Antonello Da Messina’s The Annunciation’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society November 21, 2019 Beauty, Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry 9 Comments Palermo’s great basilica is still— All prayers are tongueless for a lonely hour. Here high and holy silence can be breathed Like...
‘The Three Graces in the Trinket Shop’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society October 17, 2019 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 17 Comments Aglaia, Euphrosyne, Thalia I find them there, no longer young, Though neatly dressed and well preserved: Three sisters in the trinket...
‘Romantic Triangle, With An Ice-Pick’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society September 23, 2019 Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Humor, Poetry, Short Stories 16 Comments In 1937, the renegade Communist Leon Trotsky (real name: Lev Bronstein) came to Mexico with his family and took up residence with the painter Diego...
SCP Symposium Readings (Videos): Joseph S. Salemi, James Sale, Adam Sedia, Michael C. Maibach The Society August 7, 2019 Beauty, Culture, From the Society, Humor, Poetry, Readings, Symposium, Video 1 Comment ...
‘Compulsive Euphemism’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society August 7, 2019 Culture, Humor, Poetry 12 Comments From A Gallery of Ethopaths Ethopaths fear, as much as cancer, A straight, unvarnished, simple answer. They love the euphemistic...
‘Self-Help and Recovery’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society July 17, 2019 Culture, Humor, Poetry 82 Comments —from A Gallery of Ethopaths The bookshops that we used to see Were citadels of literacy. Classics of grace and wit and style Greeted your...
‘The Lament of the Editors’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society June 2, 2019 Culture, Humor, Poetry, Sapphic Verse 14 Comments a satirical piece in Sapphic stanzas Every day they come in a flood: unwanted Big manila envelopes stuffed with verses. Mostly...
‘The Collapse of Character’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society May 3, 2019 Culture, Humor, Poetry 23 Comments —from A Gallery of Ethopaths What generates the half-assed views That this dimwit nation spews? Why are persons mindless lemmings? From...
‘Domitian’s Dark Dinners’ by Joseph S. Salemi The Society April 9, 2019 Blank Verse, Culture, Poetry 3 Comments The Graeco-Roman historian Lucius Dio Cassius, in his Roman History, describes “dark dinners” that were given by the emperor Domitian to...
