Re: PPB: August / Edmund Gosse

> George J. Dance wrote:
> 
>> Will-Dockery wrote:
>> 
>>> George J. Dance wrote:
>>> Saturday's poem on Penny's Poetry Blog
>>> August, by Edmund Gosse
>>> 
>>> The soul is like a song-bird, and must hold
>>> Its silent August, or its heart would break
>>> [...]
>>> 
>>> https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2026/08/august-edmund-gosse.html
>> 
>> 
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Gosse
>> 
>> Edmund Gosse is a new poet to me, enjoyable read, though.
>> 
>> See JLA Forums attachment below for illustration of Edmund Gosse.
> 
> 
> Thanks, Will. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
> 
> Gosse can truly be called a forgotten poet. Though he was known as a
> critic and for his autobiography when he died in 1928, his poetry was
> already out of fashion by then; and succeeding years have not been
> any kinder to him. The problem wasn't just with his form but also his
> content.
> 
> Take this poem. It's actually my favorite of all the Gosse
> poems I published, but look how it opens: he uses "soul" in L1, and
> "heart" in L2. "Heart and soul" poetry was already taboo in those days,
> even in poetically backward Canada. (A.M. Klein's first submitted poem
> was rejected by the /McGill University Daily/ precisely because it
> included the word "soul".)
> 
> Nowadays, though, it looks like the modernist hold on poetry has finally
> died, another casualty of the internet; so there's hope he can find a
> new audience.



Glad to see poetry becoming more open to average people. 


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