You're right about Cunningham. Actually I think when I originally posted this piece, back in the summer of last year when I had almost no readers, someone (possibly John Talbot?) responded with some Cunningham as well.
In the 1950s quite a few professional astronomers were dismissing the hotly-discussed idea that humans would travel to space. Britain's Astronomer Royal said the idea of space travel was "utter bilge." In this vein Robert Frost wrote (in 1959) this short poem, originally titled "The Astronomer":
But outer Space
At least this far,
For all the fuss
Of the populace
Stays more popuLAR
Than popuLOUS.
(I capitalized to show italics in the original.) Not my favorite Frost effort, but interesting and still rather true.
What a rich posting! In a way reassuring Herbert wasn't always perfect. My standby has always been Geoffrey Grigson's Faber book of Epigrams and Epitaphs. And it's worth recalling Blake's anti-epigram epigram:
Her whole Life is an Epigram smack smooth & nobly pend
Platted quite neat to catch applause with a sliding noose at the end
Goodness thank you for that David. I don't think I'd read that bit of Blake before. What a remarkable metaphor of the plait tied with a sliding noose -- anyone who's done a little girl's plaits (or their own in the past) sees immediately what he means. To my shame, I don't have that Grigson anthology (though I learnt a lot as a teenager from his rather austere Faber Book of Love Poetry -- generously sprinkled as I remember with untranslated French). I must get hold of it.
I am so glad seeing Vikram Seth in here... I was gonna recommend him in the comments, for I thought that he may not be known about the western reading public. You just made my day featuring him there...
I love Seth's poetry -- both the Chinese translations and his original work. I'm sorry there's not more of it (perhaps there is some that has not been published in the UK). Years ago I memorised this one in a bookshop because I couldn't (at that moment) afford to buy the book: https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-23724_UNCLAIMED
A note on contemporary epigrams: Novelists also take up the form on occasion. Consider the interesting novelist Thomas Farber (Who Wrote the Book of Love? Norton 1977), who has several (FOREGONE CONCLUSIONS and THE END OF MY WITS).
Yes definitely, it's such a chilling combination -- making tying off a little girl's plait a reminder of the hangman. Horrible and brilliant! I must get hold of the Grigson, thanks for mentioning it. I think one day fairly soon I'm going to do a post which is just a compilation of reader suggestions and recommendations.
Apologies a little late to this, Victoria. And I do read many other poets, but Gunn wrote some very fine epigrams — seeing as he was influenced by Jonson (and wrote an epigram for Cunningham on his death). Gunn’s poem ‘To the Dead Owner of a Gym’ from The Man with Night Sweats is as good an example of contemporary Jonsonian epigrammatic that I can think of.
Since you include Housman, I will also mention Kipling's Epitaphs of the War, likewise short, sharp and sad. One example here:
The Coward
I could not look on Death, which being known,
Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.
Ah yes great call, Kipling has lots of good epigrams. That one I agree is particularly devastating.
Mention must be made of J.V. Cunningham, whose epigrams are wonderful. Here's one from memory:
To Someone Who Suggested I Look Up Someone
We rang them up while touring Timbuktu,
Those bosom chums to whom you're known as "Who?"
I must also include a poem about epigrams by Dorothy Parker:
Among the literate, when I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit:
We all assume that Oscar said it.
You're right about Cunningham. Actually I think when I originally posted this piece, back in the summer of last year when I had almost no readers, someone (possibly John Talbot?) responded with some Cunningham as well.
In the 1950s quite a few professional astronomers were dismissing the hotly-discussed idea that humans would travel to space. Britain's Astronomer Royal said the idea of space travel was "utter bilge." In this vein Robert Frost wrote (in 1959) this short poem, originally titled "The Astronomer":
But outer Space
At least this far,
For all the fuss
Of the populace
Stays more popuLAR
Than popuLOUS.
(I capitalized to show italics in the original.) Not my favorite Frost effort, but interesting and still rather true.
Might you have recommendations for anthologies of Epigrams in English? (metrical, preferably)
'Of those ancestral dwellings built to last,
can there have been—impossibly—a first?
Part settlement, part monument, perhaps
its windows’ novel view still lives in ours:
a field; the ghosts of hunter-gatherers.'
forgive the plug but some of my quintains could be considered epigrams... https://huckastley.substack.com/p/presenting-the-quintains
Thank you!
Scroll down through The Asses of Parnassus https://assesofparnassus.tumblr.com/ edited by Brooke Clark - endless modern short sassy pieces!
What a rich posting! In a way reassuring Herbert wasn't always perfect. My standby has always been Geoffrey Grigson's Faber book of Epigrams and Epitaphs. And it's worth recalling Blake's anti-epigram epigram:
Her whole Life is an Epigram smack smooth & nobly pend
Platted quite neat to catch applause with a sliding noose at the end
Goodness thank you for that David. I don't think I'd read that bit of Blake before. What a remarkable metaphor of the plait tied with a sliding noose -- anyone who's done a little girl's plaits (or their own in the past) sees immediately what he means. To my shame, I don't have that Grigson anthology (though I learnt a lot as a teenager from his rather austere Faber Book of Love Poetry -- generously sprinkled as I remember with untranslated French). I must get hold of it.
“Oh, yes, I know that he's my ex, but can't two people reconnect?” —Olivia Rodrigo, “bad idea right?”
I am so glad seeing Vikram Seth in here... I was gonna recommend him in the comments, for I thought that he may not be known about the western reading public. You just made my day featuring him there...
Another one by Seth:
The road is dark, and home is far
Sleep now, in the poor state you are
Tonight be dreamless, and tomorrow
Wake free from fear, half free from sorrow
I love Seth's poetry -- both the Chinese translations and his original work. I'm sorry there's not more of it (perhaps there is some that has not been published in the UK). Years ago I memorised this one in a bookshop because I couldn't (at that moment) afford to buy the book: https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-23724_UNCLAIMED
That's so heartwarming! He's my favourite poet, if you'd like I could share some work of him with you....
Don Paterson has a lovely one in his most recent collection, which I hadn't thought about as an epigram but clearly is:
So for the record: when we die
our hearts don't slow like steps or clocks
but whirr like small wings in a box
now lit up by a crack of sky.
(He's also the only contemporary poet I can think of who is serious about aphorism.)
A note on contemporary epigrams: Novelists also take up the form on occasion. Consider the interesting novelist Thomas Farber (Who Wrote the Book of Love? Norton 1977), who has several (FOREGONE CONCLUSIONS and THE END OF MY WITS).
Thank you, I'd not fully appreciated the plait metaphor, but a hangman's knot is in there too, farewell to Augustan poetics!
Grigson introduced me to Landor, a master of the genre.
Yes definitely, it's such a chilling combination -- making tying off a little girl's plait a reminder of the hangman. Horrible and brilliant! I must get hold of the Grigson, thanks for mentioning it. I think one day fairly soon I'm going to do a post which is just a compilation of reader suggestions and recommendations.
They’re a bit more zig zag in structure than traditional epigrams, but Kay Ryan’s pithy, rhymed poems often feel epigrammatic in spirit e.g. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/55648/new-rooms
Apologies a little late to this, Victoria. And I do read many other poets, but Gunn wrote some very fine epigrams — seeing as he was influenced by Jonson (and wrote an epigram for Cunningham on his death). Gunn’s poem ‘To the Dead Owner of a Gym’ from The Man with Night Sweats is as good an example of contemporary Jonsonian epigrammatic that I can think of.
You're so right about Gunn, he was for sure the greatest 17th poetry of the 20th century!
That should say '17th century poet of the 20th century' as you probably realised.