The Father of Humanism In Love With Laura

Miniature from Petrarca's songbook "Canzoniere" depicting Laura de Noves
crowning the poet (15th c.).Florence. Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana

I attended an online presentation "Of glorious and generous fame : The lasting influence of Francesco Petrarca" which was one of the the Wednesday Lectures from the British Institute of Florence Library, 

The 14th-century poet and man of letters, Francesco Petrarca (better known as Petrarch) is often referred to as the "Father of Humanism." 

Petrarch’s work anticipated many themes of the Renaissance, including a sensitivity to nature, the desire for earthly fame, and a close rapport with classical literature. Renaissance Humanism was an intellectual movement typified by a revived interest in the classical world and studies that focussed not on religion but on what it is to be human. 

Its origins went back to 14th-century Italy and such authors as Petrarch (1304-1374) who searched out 'lost' ancient manuscripts. By the 15th century, humanism had spread across Europe. Humanists believed in the importance of an education in classical literature

The trio of Italian authors who lived before the Renaissance period had even begun were Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, and Giovanni Boccaccio. All three would receive new interest in their work during the Renaissance when they were recognized as its founding fathers.

I never studied Petrarch from that perspective. I was introduced to him through the story of him meeting in 1327 at a mass in Avignon where he saw Laura de Noves, for the first time. Laura, though her true identity has yet to be confirmed, would become the primary subject of his poetry for the rest of his life.

I learned about his love and his sonnets. His poem “If no love is, O God, what fele I so?” is here translated by Geoffrey Chaucer.

If no love is, O God, what fele I so?
And if love is, what thing and which is he?
If love be good, from whennes cometh my woo?
If it be wikke, a wonder thynketh me,
When every torment and adversite
That cometh of hym, may to me savory thinke,
For ay thurst I, the more that ich it drynke.
And if that at myn owen lust I brenne,
From whennes cometh my waillynge and my pleynte?
If harm agree me, whereto pleyne I thenne?
I noot, ne whi unwery that I feynte.
O quike deth, O swete harm so queynte,
How may of the in me swich quantite,
But if that I consente that it be?
And if that I consente, I wrongfully
Compleyne, iwis. Thus possed to and fro,
Al sterelees withinne a boot am I
Amydde the see, betwixen wyndes two,
That in contrarie stonden evere mo.
Allas! what is this wondre maladie?
For hete of cold, for cold of hete, I dye.

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Workshopping in Poetry Town

Poet George Bilgere has started a website called Poetry Town with a daily poem and a brief answer by him about "Why I Chose This Poem."  There are other daily poem sites but I subscribed in the hope of discovering new poems and poets.

That was the case with this poem and poet, both of which were new to me. I just did a poetry workshop, so the poem resonated.

"Fellow poets, it’s summer, which means it’s poetry workshop time. Many of you are at one of the many writing workshops scattered here and there around the country. A magical time! Some of the happiest summers of my life have been spent at these wondrous retreats from daily reality. And you’re going through exactly what Norman Stock describes so memorably in this poem. But fear not! Cocktail hour is at 7 p.m., down by the lake. Casual attire!"

Every workshop has its tools

Thank You for the Helpful Comments 
by Norman Stock, from Buying Breakfast for My Kamikaze Pilot

I sit quietly listening
as they tear my poem to shreds in the poetry workshop,
as each one says they have a “problem” with this line
and they have a “problem” with that line
and I am not allowed to speak
because that is the etiquette of the workshop
so I sit listening and writhing
while they tear the guts out of my poem
and leave it lying bleeding and dead,
and when they’re finally finished
having kicked the stuffing out of it,
having trimmed it down from twenty lines
to about four words that nobody objects to,
then they turn to me politely
and they say, well, Norman
do you have any response.

Response, I say,
picking myself up off the floor
and brushing away the dirt,
while holding on for dear life
to what I thought was my immortal poem
now dwindled to nothing,
and though what I really want to say is
can I get my money back for this stupid workshop,

what I say instead is…uh…thank you
for your helpful comments…while I mumble
under my breath, motherfuckers
wait till I get to your poems.

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To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues,
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Prompt: Parks

Our July Call for Submissions is about parks. It's summer here and I can often be found walking, sitting and reading, and taking photos in one of the local parks. Parks large and small are an escape to nature. It might be a small pocket park in a big city or a huge State or National Park.

For the August issue, we will be seeking poems about parks. There are many poems to consider as examples. I chose a rather obscure poet, Helen Hoyt, who is quite straightforward in her poem, "Park Going to Sleep," about a park entering the night.

I also considered using "Dog Park" by Brandon Brown which begins:
I told Alli I really wanted
to write a poem called “Dog Park.”
In bed she’s like you could make it
a New Yorker poem, where you
go to a dog park and then have some
huge epiphany...

For contrast, consider some of these park poems:
The Park by David St. John
A Walk Round the Park by Sandra Lim
In the Park by Maxine Kumin
Central Park, Carousel by Meena Alexander

There is a collection of 50 poems by 50 different poets writing about a National Park in each of the United States that was part of an NEA grant "Imagine Our Parks with Poems."

Time for you to imagine a park within a poem. A simple summer prompt that might be as light as a cold glass of lemonade, or perhaps you will find there some huge New Yorker epiphany.

This prompt was inspired by browsing "Imagine Our Parks with Poems," part of Imagine Your Parks, a grant initiative from the National Endowment for the Arts created in partnership with the National Park Service to support projects that use the arts to engage people with the memorable places and landscapes of the National Park System. The Academy of American Poets commissioned fifty poets to write poems about a park in each of the fifty states.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: July 31, 2024

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To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues,
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The Sonnets

I like this edition's cover image showing hands trimming
the tip of a quill pen, ready to set down a new sonnet.

Shakespeare's sonnets were first published in 1609. They were probably published without Shakespeare's permission in a time when copyright didn't exist as we know it.

The book contained 154 sonnets and all but two of them had never been published before. So, this was new material for readers. Shakespeare (or perhaps the publisher Thomas Thorpe) dedicated the collection to "Mr. W.H." whose identity has never been known with any certainty.

The poems are about love, sex, politics, youth, and the mysterious "Dark Lady." Scholars have written about them for hundreds of years. They have been material for lovers and teachers, and for hopeless and hopeful romantics.

Untitled but for numbers, many of them are known for their first line or one phrase in the poem.

For example, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun," and W"hen, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state."

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, a
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade,
Nor loose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time though grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

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Follow this blog for all things poetry.
To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues,
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