Trying to Explain The Origins of My Poetry - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

RonPrice · 08-25-2004, 02:34 AM

THEY CAME

They came as separate poems and when I had what seemed like a sizeable number, I think it was usually somewhere between about fifty and a hundred, I made them into a little booklet. The plastic binding cost me five dollars at a local Xerox shop; the paper and the ink cartridge had another cost, let's say seven or eight dollars all up. From 1992 to 2004 I produced 53 booklets of some 6000 poems. It works out to a little more than a poem a day. I started writing poems back in 1962 at the age of eighteen with Cathy Saxe who lived in George Town Ontario. Then, in 1980, I started saving the poems I wrote. I was thirty-six at the time. At 48 I became even more serious about poetry. It was then 1992. As far as direction in my poetry was concerned, well, I really didn’t know where it was going. I had, from time to time, several senses or intimations of direction and, after one period of strong intimation in the mid-1990s, I organized my poetry into four time periods, each with a different heading or title drawing on the historical construction of the Shrine of the Bab and its embellishments in the gardens and terraces on Mt. Carmel as my metaphor, my physwical analogue.

I don’t write books of poetry as books. I don’t write them like, say, my autobiography, or my critical work on the study of Roger White's poetry. I don't lay them out like my website, my letters, my essays or my attempts at novels. My poetry has some inner evolution which, even after 42 years, is essentially mysterious.-Ron Price, Pioneering Over Four Epochs, May 12, 2004.

Back in the '80s
I took little interest
in rhyming bed & head:
there were enough, I thought,
banalities in life
without my adding to them.

There was so much
I did not need to know:
the Hang Seng, the FTSE
the price of gold,
the price of a new hoe.

My eye, as Shakespeare said,
was in a fine frenzy rolling
from earth to heaven and
heaven to earth........,with
my imagination bodying forth,
turning things I did know
into a shape, giving them a name,
a habitation--something more
than airy nothing.

Ron Price
May 12 2004

Gortexfogg · 08-26-2004, 07:01 PM

Very interesting story behind your poetry. The poem is good too, I like the last two lines best.

RonPrice · 04-27-2006, 07:23 AM

20 months is a long time for this belated thanks. After all this time--it seems like a lifetime. Still, your words are appreciated.-Ron Price, Tasmania

08-25-2004, 02:34 AM	#1 (permalink)
RonPrice Upright Location: George Town Tasmania Australia	Trying to Explain The Origins of My Poetry THEY CAME They came as separate poems and when I had what seemed like a sizeable number, I think it was usually somewhere between about fifty and a hundred, I made them into a little booklet. The plastic binding cost me five dollars at a local Xerox shop; the paper and the ink cartridge had another cost, let's say seven or eight dollars all up. From 1992 to 2004 I produced 53 booklets of some 6000 poems. It works out to a little more than a poem a day. I started writing poems back in 1962 at the age of eighteen with Cathy Saxe who lived in George Town Ontario. Then, in 1980, I started saving the poems I wrote. I was thirty-six at the time. At 48 I became even more serious about poetry. It was then 1992. As far as direction in my poetry was concerned, well, I really didn’t know where it was going. I had, from time to time, several senses or intimations of direction and, after one period of strong intimation in the mid-1990s, I organized my poetry into four time periods, each with a different heading or title drawing on the historical construction of the Shrine of the Bab and its embellishments in the gardens and terraces on Mt. Carmel as my metaphor, my physwical analogue. I don’t write books of poetry as books. I don’t write them like, say, my autobiography, or my critical work on the study of Roger White's poetry. I don't lay them out like my website, my letters, my essays or my attempts at novels. My poetry has some inner evolution which, even after 42 years, is essentially mysterious.-Ron Price, Pioneering Over Four Epochs, May 12, 2004. Back in the '80s I took little interest in rhyming bed & head: there were enough, I thought, banalities in life without my adding to them. There was so much I did not need to know: the Hang Seng, the FTSE the price of gold, the price of a new hoe. My eye, as Shakespeare said, was in a fine frenzy rolling from earth to heaven and heaven to earth........,with my imagination bodying forth, turning things I did know into a shape, giving them a name, a habitation--something more than airy nothing. Ron Price May 12 2004 __________________ Ron Price is a retired teacher, aged 67(in 2011). He taught for 35 years and is now a writer and editor, a poet and publisher. He has been a Baha'i for 52 years(also in 2011)

04-27-2006, 07:23 AM	#3 (permalink)
RonPrice Upright Location: George Town Tasmania Australia	Thanking You For Your Comment 20 months is a long time for this belated thanks. After all this time--it seems like a lifetime. Still, your words are appreciated.-Ron Price, Tasmania __________________ Ron Price is a retired teacher, aged 67(in 2011). He taught for 35 years and is now a writer and editor, a poet and publisher. He has been a Baha'i for 52 years(also in 2011)

08-26-2004, 07:01 PM	#2 (permalink)
Gortexfogg I and I Location: Stillwater, OK	Very interesting story behind your poetry. The poem is good too, I like the last two lines best.