Sunday cat pix
Cradled.
Musa, 14 Aug 2009 (Credit: M)
Sound of the week
Flute, bass, drum (2′5″).
Sunday cat pix
An alfresco diptych. Josie first.
Josie, 9 Aug 2009
Sound of the week
Major-minor (7′14″).
Sound of the week
Panpipes, drum, altered koto (3′55″).
Sunday cat pix
Among the items on M’s desk is a nap-cat. Attention Josie fans: new pix are on the way!
LG, 8 Aug 2009 (credit: M)
Sound of the week
Another ambient loop: Goodbye Sneakers (5′33″). Longer version here (11′6″).
Translation of the week: Jules Lemaître on poetry
Inspired by Justin Smith’s Thursday Translations.
He has continued, even so, to struggle against the indifference of the public; but some of his latest readers do him no favors.
As for Lamartine, who still likes him, who still knows him? Perhaps, in the provinces, some solitary, some convent-girl of seventeen who hides him at the bottom of her desk. And remember that Lamartine is more than a poet—he is pure poetry itself. Baudelaire has his faithful, but their admiration is often pathetic. 
Poets, minor or major, are not really read except by other poets. Perhaps because poetry has become in our day an art more and more refined and special and that, whether through impotence or disdain, it no longer has much oratorical or lyrical stamina. Around 1830, when poets were expressing broadly and full-throatedly widely-shared feelings and passions understandable to everyone, they did not lack for readers. It is likely, then, that poetry owes its failing fortunes to the increasing predominance of artistic curiosity over inspiration.
