OK I play music semi-professionally in a "ceilidh band", and have an eclectic taste in music, well I think I have anyway, but other forms of "high art" (visual and the written word) are a mystery to me. My taste seems to be very unsophisticated in comparison with that of others.
I mean, a picture should _look_ like something, shouldn't it? I'm an engineer by profession, I believe in Ohm's Law!
However Damien Hirst makes far more money than I do, so I guess I'm the one in the wrong.
But perhaps by way of proof that I am not a complete Philistine, here is my favourite poem.
It's very short but it evokes such imagery in my imagination that it astounds me in its brevity and seeming simplicity. I never tire of reading it.
Adlestrop
Yes, I remember Adlestrop --
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop -- only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop -- only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Edward Thomas (1878-1917)
The "back story" of Edward Thomas and how this poem came about is also fascinating, but I'll leave that to the reader with Google/Wikipedia/whatever to do their own research.
One day when I am down in that part of the world (the Cotswolds) I'll make a pilgrimage even though the railway station is long gone.
Added to the list of things to do before I die . . .
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