Friday, August 18, 2006

Eli Siegel's Poetry -- and, What is poetry?

As a person who loves poetry, and teaches it in my high school classes, I think the following page is tremendously valuable: Eli Siegel's Poetry -- and, What is poetry? It contains many poems and translations by the founder of Aesthetic Realism, American poet and critic Eli Siegel (1902-1978) , works of literary criticism by him and others, lectures he gave relating poetry to other subjects, and more. It is a resource I value, and I think other people will agree.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Ellen Reiss, on Robert Burns and justice to working people

How should working people, and the work they do, be seen? Aesthetic Realism explains that work is an aesthetic situation--a putting together of an individual person with the outside world--and it should be respected. Yet so many people throughout history, and many, many today, have been and felt disrespected when it comes to work, and have been rightly discontent because of this. In her commentary to the issue of the journal The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known titled "Jobs, Discontent, and Beauty," Ellen Reiss, the Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism and literary critic, discusses some poems by Robert Burns to show how he objected poetically to the unaesthetic, unjust way working people were seen. She has also written about the work of many other poets, and the aesthetic way they saw the world in their writing. So, there's more to come!