Various Veins
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Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote it nearly 200 years ago, "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."
"Are you trying to write a love song?"
"Erato! Fancy you dropping by. How long has it been?"
"You should know that being immortal, I don't pay attention to time. What's on your little mind?"
"Several things. What is conceptual poetry? Elisa Gabbert dropped the term into a rant against a man who read a coroner’s report to a university audience and called it poetry. In short, she said shame on him. What he did for a fee could get people shot."
"That's not in my line. What else ?"
"Last week I watched a program on William Butler Yeats' life. I was surprised that Yeats bemoaned in verse that although he was physically past being able to make love, the desire burned as fiercely as ever."
"Well?"
"Well, I blush to admit it, but I was glad I'm not the only one feeling that urge."
"You really didn't think me into your den to write a love song, did you?"
"Not consciously, but now that you're here, let me compliment you on your taste in clothes! So revealing!"
"Flirtatious as ever!"
"Well, you're the embodiment of the Greek ideal woman, which brings up another topic. A guest columnist, Loren in Weekend Post, wrote about the social battle over women's self respect in relation to body shape and size."
"You're going to tell me about this, aren't you?"
"Hey, there's poetic connections here. Did you supply the text for Yeats' piece, 'For Anne Gregory' ?"
"Maybe. You can't expect me to remember all the lines I've supplied through the centuries."
"Sorry, but Yeats ended with, '...only God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone, And not your yellow hair.' "
"Some compliment that!"
"Whoa! Don't wink out on me! There's more!"
"Dang, she's gone."
I wanted to tell her about the dropping of "plus size" from labels because it focuses the customer's attention on, well to be blunt, fat. Loren says the fashion industry places larger women in a distinct category which paves the way for people to call other people fat. This is bullying.
Can you picture the hash made up of obesity and physical health problems that add to medical costs, bullying that covers a host of motives and behaviours, the program to address girls and women as "beautiful" to boost their self esteem. Such a ploy can as easily lead to the target thinking, "Liar!"
Would Erato know whether in ancient Greek springtime Sappho's fancy "lightly turned to thoughts of love"?