Essays

. A Formalist Poet at the Open Mic Part II: The First Reader by Daniel Kemper Keith stands up semi-gracefully in the dead center of the metal folding chairs, gives his patented sugary-surly smile, swings his head in a short semi-circle and swishes his hair back, and tucks it behind his...

. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR0MktU78bA . . Andrew Benson Brown has had poems and reviews published in a few journals. His epic-in-progress, Legends of Liberty, will chronicle the major events of the American Revolution if he lives to complete it. Though he writes history articles for American Essence magazine, he lists his primary occupation...

. Bridgerton’s DEI vs. Historicity They sacrifice true historicity, So DEI trumps authenticity. But Bridgerton and Netflix, they don’t care, Because those ethopaths with neon hair Give fat cats in their boardrooms such a scare. Black aristocracy in England, when? I know a Frenchman with a skillful pen: Dumas was truly aristocracy;...

. The Society of Classical Poets Journal XII has been published! It features poetry, translations, and essays selected from those published on the SCP website between February 1, 2023 and January 31, 2024. See the Introduction and Table of Contents below. The Journal also features exquisite color art created by...

. To Mr. Evan Mantyk, . I know you lead a busy life curating the Society of Classical Poets and I don’t want to waste a bunch of your time with some long-winded missive.  That being said, if you can spare a few moments—can spare a few moments to read...

. https://youtu.be/ICEvMGx4WnY . . Andrew Benson Brown has had poems and reviews published in a few journals. His epic-in-progress, Legends of Liberty, will chronicle the major events of the American Revolution if he lives to complete it. Though he writes history articles for American Essence magazine, he lists his primary occupation...

. The Snares of Simplicity by Joseph S. Salemi Liberals, Communists, and capitalists all share one dangerous and demonically-prompted trait. They want to simplify. The complexities and nuances of any traditionalist society irk them no end, and they are driven by an impulse to flatten and homogenize everything. To understand...

. A Formalist Poet at the Open Mic Part I: Before the Reading by Daniel Kemper A two-story, square shaped “U” made of corrugated tin. Two theaters, a haunted attic. A gravel lot with reserved parking spaces—handicapped—and unofficial reservations. Some are simply old. Nestled deferentially in the corner, the SPC,...

(Advertisement) Request for Papers---PAMLA 2024 Conference Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association . Deadline for Proposals: April 30, 2024 . Conference Details The conference will be held from Wednesday, November 6 through Sunday, November 10, 2024 at Margaritaville Resort, Palm Springs, California. . Description: The standing Poetry and Poetics session...

. The Ten Best Poems to Analyze by Adam Sedia The Roman poet Horace famously set forth the twofold purpose of poetry: to teach and to delight. The sheer aesthetic and imaginative language of poetry is often on its own enough to delight, but in analyzing the poem teaching and...

10 Poems on Builders & Buildings by Michael Curtis . Temples and architects, builders and buildings are like poets and poems, each creates rooms, stanzas, within which we and our ideas have life. Sometimes, a poem is inscribed upon a stylobate, column, or entablature. Sometimes the poem is a dedication,...

. . . What Happened to Great Poetry? by Andrew Benson Brown When was the last time you sat down and thoroughly enjoyed a serious poem written by a poet who is still alive? If you aren’t a poet yourself and you are watching this, it is almost certain that...

. The 10 Best Poems of Emily Dickinson by Monika Cooper Being presented with an Emily Dickinson poem is like getting a telegram from a strange planet: our own. There may not be any words you don’t know. But she has an idiosyncratic way of putting words together and of...

. . Reviewed Book: Songs of My Life and Death by Peter Hartley, Grosvenor House Publishing Limited, May, 2023 by Susan Jarvis Bryant . Songs of My Life and Death is a treasure trove of poetic gems. It is a splendid and varied collection that appeals to the senses, engages...

. Here We Go Again… by Joseph S. Salemi Oh dear… it looks like the hillbilly software salesman is having another moral fit. Michael R. Burch of Nashville Tennessee has posted more venomous comments about the SCP and Evan Mantyk at his superannuated poetry-and-soft-porn website. Burch seems to be obsessed...

. 10 Best Poems for Funerals by Susan Jarvis Bryant The right poem at a funeral service can make that final farewell extra special, but choosing the right one is not an easy task. I have chosen the poems below for their beauty and their variety, which is why they...

. Art and Belief by Joseph S. Salemi When I consider the question of art and belief, I recall the words of the world-famous Indian dancer, Sujata Rubener. She was born a Christian in Bombay, but she was the premier dance interpreter of the various myths of Hinduism and Buddhism,...

. Reviewed Book: Selected Verse of Émile Nelligan: Québec's Great Lyric Poet, translated with commentary by Ian Allaby, Petra Books, 2023 by Gabriella Bedetti His masts touched the sky, he sailed on seas unknown. Ses mâts touchaient l’azur, sur des mers inconnues ---Émile Nelligan’s gravestone epitaph With today’s rising trends...

. Classical Poets Live with Andrew Benson Brown Episode 7 Part 2: C.B. Anderson, Poetical Gardener If you enjoy this video, please like and subscribe on YouTube to support the production. . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gPKUavbuZs . . Andrew Benson Brown has had poems and reviews published in a few journals. His epic-in-progress, Legends of...

. Mike Burch Still Around? Good Lord, No… with apologies to J.C. Squire’s Ballade de l’Évolution Créatrice Strange beasts have gone to their reward— The snaky Gorgon and the Sphinx, The centaurs and the satyr horde, The Cyclops with his foetid stinks. A backward glance through time, methinks, Reveals such...

. Epiphany It stays in your memory like a pealing bell, A smallish thing, an unimportant fact— The mute suggestion of a random act. What do I speak of? Listen, I shall tell: A kindness from someone you barely knew Dropped like a curtsey from the chambermaid Who smiles to...

. The 23 Best Haiku of 2023 Winner and Runners-up of the Society of Classical Poets 2023 Haiku Competition Judged by J. Thomas Rimer and Margaret Coats (see their remarks below) See all entrants here. . COMPETITION WINNER . . . Swallow, an arrow bursts across the burnished blue I cannot...

. Cantankerous Limericks on Good English Prose I love a complexly wrought sentence With phrases and colons that went thence __To make concise points __With their well-dovetailed joints And gave one no cause for repentance. Your prose should be sharp as a razor And cut through all crap like a...

. Reviewed Book: Making Music by Sally Cook, White Violet Press, 2012 by Monika Cooper Making Music by Sally Cook is a book that comes with a painting on its cover, a still life no less. Wine-colored drapery adorns a blue bowl with a pedestal stem, the bowl mounded with...

. . . . . Appreciating Shakespeare by Evan Mantyk Why do people think Shakespeare is so great? Why do they keep returning to his plays 400 years later? And for other classical literature, even thousands of years later? Hi, I’m Evan Mantyk, teacher of literature and history, and in...

. A Discussion on Long Poems by Julian Woodruff  In her second comment to the thread trailing my recent poem “The Heavy Launch of the Siegfried Idyll” (July 29), Margaret Coats suggested I “begin a conversation on LONG POEMS,” since, while responding to Joseph Salemi’s marvelous “Jeweler’s Deposition” (July 23),...

. The Cultured Hedonist Art responds to our need of pursuing an activity without end, for the pleasure of the pursuit, whereas morality compels us to follow a determinate path to a definite end. —Emile Durkheim by Joseph S. Salemi Religious conservatives often complain that the contemporary world has been corrupted...

. Paradise Lost Satan Found in the Modern by Michael Curtis The guardian prince Saint Michael, spiritual warrior, leader of the Army of God, cast into Hell Satan.  And there it is.  Yet, Satan is not content to lay about in the pit of Hell, prideful busybody that he is. ...

. The Great Legitimizer by Euphrates Moss Up from the barbaric yawp of Beowulf and routing through Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), an Italian poet of great distinction, Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340s-1400) created the greatest collection of short stories ever assembled. Recognized by consensus as his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales used Middle...

. Classical Poets Live with Andrew Benson Brown Episode 5 Parts I & II: Why Amanda Gorman Is Not a Poet / Building a Renaissance  If you enjoy this video, please like and subscribe on YouTube to support the production. . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPsbQLPUXHU . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XRk4pgRDOw . .

. Reviewed Book: Laughing Matters: Poems with a Wink and a Smile by James A. Tweedie, Duncrest Press, 2023 by Theresa Werba This collection of humorous poetry by the excellent James A. Tweedie is more than a mere collection of clever jokings and funny sayings. James Tweedie is reveling in...

. Classical Poets Live with Andrew Benson Brown Episode 4: Poetry in the Age of AI If you enjoy this video, please like and subscribe on YouTube to support the production. . https://youtu.be/WKQD9jfHpsk . .

. Classical Poets Live with Andrew Benson Brown Episode 3: Embrace the Epic, Not the Opaque If you enjoy this video, please like and subscribe on YouTube to support the production. . Podcast on Spotify: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/PW0LljpabAb Podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/classical-poets-live/id1685283102 . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMBAsu3BkqA . .

. Reviewed Book: Seven Poems by Jacob Balde (Translated by Karl Maurer) Cooper and Posey, 2023 by Monika Cooper In 2022, a small and brand-new press launched a paper ship, full of herbs and poppies from Bavaria… That’s the story behind Cooper and Posey’s publication of a little book called...

. Below is the SCP Journal XI Introduction written by lead editor and SCP co-founder Evan Mantyk. After the Introduction is the complete first section of poems and art from Journal XI. Other Journal XI editors include C.B. Anderson, Dusty Grein, and Daniel Magdalen. Click here to purchase a complete...

. Classical Poets Live with Andrew Benson Brown Episode 2: Fake Poets and Hollow Prestige . Audio version available here: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7nbFbs2YtvlgZ2B4RtQOcG Apple Music: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/classical-poets-live/id1685283102 . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XHnlF7kU4o . Thomas Gray complete poem "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes" read in this episode by...

. Poetry As The Philosophers’ Stone by Joseph S. Salemi The alchemical art, though long in disrepute, is nevertheless of great antiquity.  Supposedly founded by Hermes Trismegistus, a Ptolemaic Greek reflex of the Egyptian god Thoth, alchemy has fascinated men since the days of imperial Rome, and probably earlier.  Thinkers...

. This inaugural episode features an interview with Society of Classical Poets' co-founder and editor Evan Mantyk who talks about the founding of the SCP and its growth. He also discusses the FoFG Poetry Competition, which has a quickly approaching April 30 deadline and no submission fee. Audio version available...

. Human Poetry Versus ChatGPT's AI Poetry Can you tell the difference between artificial intelligence poetry and human poetry? by Evan Mantyk and Mike Bryant Artificial intelligence, most notably ChatGPT, is gaining a lot of attention for creating works of writing that seem effective and even human-like to a scary...

. On the Musical Language of Poetry In Defense of the Classical Style . by A.J. Illingworth The historical connection between music and poetry is no secret. Homer, in the first line of the Iliad, instructs his muse with the word ἄειδε, “sing!” which itself is connected to the root...