The last week or so been I have been working my way through a collection of the poetry of Octavio Paz. I have liked the individual Paz poems I have
come across occasionally (years ago had an instructor in college that was
really really into his work) but have never sat down and read a bunch of his poems
together at one time.
Two things I like about his
poetry and one thing I don’t like….
1.) His poetry in terms of
language seems well thought out but the language he uses is always simple but
never repetitive. He can move feeling
that way and that’s a hard thing with such modest verbiage 2.) I like how he
breaks up his stanzas. That may be taken
for granted, a given for the poet but I am often reading garbage modern poetry
where a guy writes a line then two spaces then one word then a space then three
lines of a run-on sentence. That’s not a
poetic/literary device, that’s just gimmickry.
What I don’t like abut Paz is
I don’t think he has a lot to say. I
think he has visions in his mind of reliving encounters with other people,
women etc. and he compare all those to the
usual (nature, space, emotion, geography, weather)but there’s no universality to
it….At least none a word Marxist like myself can detect.
Paz is basically like a more calm,
less grand Whitman. He is not as anywhere
near as explosive or powerful as Walt W. but sees some connections between himself
and the object of his desires, between the world and love/lust/desire.
Many consider SUNSTONE his
best poem….It really reminds me of Whitman, only more dreamy than thunderous.
http://www.mysterium.com/sunstone.html
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