[Milton-L] After John Milton - 19th Sonnet

[jonnyangel]

I think tonally it's about 180 degrees from Milton's 19th Sonnet. What
struck me was the reference to the "towers" and the (to me) very bleak
ending: "so that things stand / as they stand / in the recruited present"

I was actually going into the WTC when the first one was hit, and I would
have been up there if I hadn't been hung-over and overslept. All these years
later, I'm just starting counseling for it. I've had chronic reoccurring
respiratory tract infections, insomnia and nightmares since then, and my
Psychology Professor from last semester asked me if I'd ever been to therapy
for it. It never occurred to me to go, but I've always felt kinda like a
ghost since then.

I saw the towers in this poem as the twin towers, and I cannot read the
adjective "recruited" in this context as anything other than the recruitment
of the suicide bombers acting in the name of God. In Milton's Sonnet, he
addresses themes he would later expand upon, primarily in PL
(action/patience/waiting/standing etc.). I don't know; I'm still mulling it
over, but the contrast between her standing and waiting and Milton's is
pretty stark - the real question is what do you do when you get the call
from your God? 

I think 'ol Mississippi Fred McDowell was on it when he sang, "when the Lord
gets ready / you gotta move."

Jonny 






On 6/1/09 7:05 PM, "jsavoie at siue.edu" <jsavoie at siue.edu> wrote:

> It's a trifle, but it well serves to show what a masterpiece Milton wrote.
> 
> John Savoie
> 
> 
> Quoting jonnyangel <junkopardner at comcast.net>:
> 
>> I thought I’d pass this new poem from Rae Armantrout along. It’s in the
>> newest issue (June) of Poetry Magazine.
>> I thought it was an interesting contrast to Milton’s 19th Sonnet.
>> 
>> 
>> Peace Shalom,
>> 
>> Jonny
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Eyes
>> by Rae Armantrout
>> 
>> After John Milton
>> 
>> 
>> Our light is never spent.
>> Is spent.
>> 
>> Thus have we scooped out
>> maceration reservoirs.
>> 
>> We will blaze forth
>> what remains
>> as pixels.
>> 
>> Great angels
>> fly at our behest
>> between towers,
>> 
>> along axons and dendrites,
>> 
>> so that things stand
>> as they stand
>> 
>> in the recruited present
>> 
>> ---------------------------------------------
>> 
>> Sonnet 19
>> 
>> When I consider how my light is spent,
>> E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,
>> And that one Talent which is death to hide,
>> Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
>> 
>> To serve therewith my Maker, and present [ 5 ]
>> My true account, least he returning chide,
>> Doth God exact day labour, light deny'd,
>> I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
>> 
>> That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
>> Either man's work or his own gifts, who best [ 10 ]
>> Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
>> 
>> Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
>> And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:
>> They also serve who only stand and waite.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
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