Oh, boy! This poem has it all: sex (even if it gets a bit explicit at times), humor, Greek myhtology, and an interesting take on poets "employing the second person address." Jeez! Anyway, I liked it. I only found out after my first reading of the poem (which was a little bit weird) that Erato is the "Muse of lyric poetry, especially love and erotic poetry," according to Wikipedia (which I realize isn't the most wonderful source, but I'll trust it to give me a general understanding of the Muses). Apparently, she was the one who charmed everyone with the sight of her and her name is a derivitive from Eros (which I could have told you), meaning Lovely. Okay, so I'm glad I looked that up because the poem makes a lot more sense now. Yeah. So, other than the fact that this poem was extremely engaging with its vivid sexual imagery, it had some other really great things going for it. For one thing, this Scott Cairns guy really knows how to place a line break. He totally uses the idea of line breaks creating emphasis to the fullest advantage. Actually, it's not just line breaks--it's stanzas, too. This whole poem is so creative. It seems so complete. I mean, it's everything, I guess. He's discussing poetry in a lyrical poem with the muse of lyrical and erotic poetry while fooling around. It's awesome! I wish I had thought of it. It's funny, because this makes me wonder how common this type of subject material (more the Muses than sex) is today. I mean, poetry has been around forever. When people started talking to each other they started to create poetry. So, a big part of that tradition has been the Greek epic poets. I think it's awesome that Cairns wrote a (very!)modern poem that actually features one of the great literary traditions (although updated): the summoning of a Muse. Everyone does it--or at least, everyone did it. Maybe it could make a comeback. I don't even think it matters that no one (that I am aware of) still believes in the inhabitants of Olympus. The whole idea of a muse on your side is absolutely enchanting. We need to bring it back. Oh yeah, I'm going Homer-style.
What the hell am I talking about? It could be that it is 4:15 am. Oh! Happy Birthday, Sonya, whenever you read this! I saw it was your birthday on Facebook. See, it's good for some things! Like letting a sleep deprived Erin wish you a happy birthday in the middle of talking about a poem in which the poet has sex with a Muse....
Okkkkkaaaayyyyyyy... That was weird. I need to actually do this assignment. Am I done? Ummmm....liked the poem. made me think about the history of poetry, so thats good. gave the whole greek mythology thing a modern spin. nice. awesome line breaks. cool how there's dialoge, but it's in italics rather than quotes--it's just pretty that way. my questions:
can we bring this back?
did he mean to make me think about bringing this back?
did he have performance anxiety?
thats not a real question.
how will i ever get the guts to actually write about something like this?
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