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More on John Milton
ABOUT MY POETRY
I find writing poetry is somewhat like the way a stream flows down from the mountain to the sea, its course changed by every boulder it comes across, which never goes straight for a minute unless the terrain dictates otherwise. It follows one law, is always loyal to that law which, curiously, is no law. There is nothing for it to do but make the trip to the sea.-Ron Price with thanks to Alfred Kazin in Mark Twain, Harold Bloom, editor, Chelsea House, 1986, pp.132-33.
I have tried in my poetry to overcome the problem that Milton refers to here in Paradise Lost:
My self I then perused, and limb by limb
Surveyed, and sometimes went, and sometimes ran
With supple joints, and lively vigor led:
But who I was, or where, or from what cause,
Knew not; to speak I tried, and forthwith spake,
My tongue obeyed and readily could name
What e'er I saw.
- Milton, Paradise Lost, VIII, 253-73
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married for 48 years, a teacher for 32, a student for 18, a writer & editor for 16, and a Baha'i for 56(in 2015)
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