The Ode Less Travelled Quotes

The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane. Each sentence we produce, whether we know it or not, is a mongrel mouthful of Chaucerian, Shakespearean, Miltonic, Johnsonian, Dickensian and American. Military, naval, legal, corporate, criminal, jazz, rap and ghetto discourses are mingled at every turn. The French language, like Paris, has attempted, through its Academy, to retain its purity, to fight the advancing tides of Franglais and international prefabrication. English, by comparison, is a shameless whore.

I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry... I believe poetry is a primal impulse within all of us. I believe we are all capable of it and furthermore that a small, often ignored corner of us positively yearns to try it.

We don't stop talking about how the world might be better just because we have no chance of making it to Prime Minister. We are all politicians. We are all artists. In an open society everything the mind and hands can achieve is our birthright. It is up to us to claim it.

Can there really be a form of verse where all that counts is the number of syllables in a line? No patterning of stress at all? What is the point? Well, that is a fair and intelligent question and I congratulate myself for asking it.

You have already achieved the English-Language poet's most important goal: you can read, Write and speak English well enough to understand this sentence.

Mankind can live free in a society hemmed in by laws, but we have yet to find a historical example of mankind living free in lawless anarchy.

I believe that poetry is a primal impulse within us all.

If that kind of poetry doesn’t make your bosom heave then I fear we shall never be friends.

In normal speech and prose our thoughts and feelings are diluted (by stock phrases and roundabout approximations); in poetry those thoughts and feelings can be, must be, concentrated.

Unlike musical notation, paint or clay, language is inside every one of us. For free. We are all proficient at it. We already have the palette, the paints and the instruments. We don’t have to go and buy any reserved materials. Poetry is made of the same stuff you are reading now, the same stuff you use to order pizza over the phone, the same stuff you yell at your parents and children, whisper in your lover’s ear and shove into an e-mail, text or birthday card. It is common to us all.

Two hours later, the drawing room converted, the costumes wrapped, the electric-kerosene lamps flickering in a semicircle at their feet, the performers enacted the thirty-minute ode to love and the Mediterranean, Home by the Sea. Miss Charming kept a ferocious grip on her script and gave oily air kisses to Colonel Andrews. Amelia was calm and sweet, melting into her dialogue with Captain East as though into his arms. Jane knelt beside Mr. Nobley, the wounded war captain, as he nearly died, and did her best to sound earnest. Old Jane would’ve run away or laughed self-consciously throughout. New Jane decided to feel as enchanting as Miss Charming and performed each line with relish and passion. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t a very good actress. Mr. Nobley’s character miraculously recovered all the same, leading to the part where he stood and took her hands. They were still cold. He paused, as though trying to remember what came next. He looked. Looked at her. At her and into her. Into her eyes as though he couldn’t bear to look away. And there was a delicious curl in his smile. “I love you,” he said. Zing, thought Jane. It was his line, more or less, though simplified. Stripped of similes and farms and rain and moon and all, it pierced her. She opened her mouth to say her own line but couldn’t remember a single word. And she didn’t want to. He leaned. She leaned. Then Aunt Saffronia, who’d been laughing encouragingly during the parts that were supposed to be sad and clapping gleefully whenever a new character came onstage, now cleared her throat as though intensely uncomfortable. Mr. Nobley hesitated, then kissed Jane’s cheek. His lips were warm, his cheek slightly scratchy. She smiled and breathed him in. At length, the six actors stood side by side, pretending the bright yellow wall of the drawing room opened to a view of the Mediterranean Sea, and said their closing lines. Jane: Trying to sound actress-y. “At last, we are all truly happy.” Miss Charming: Pause. Crinkling of paper. Frantic searching for line. “Indeed.” Amelia: With a shy smile for the tall man beside her. “Our travels are ended.” Captain East: With a manly smile for his lady. “We can rest peacefully in each other’s arms.” Colonel Andrews: As always, with panache! “And no matter where we may roam…” Mr. Nobley: A sigh. “This will always be our home.” His voice unhappy with the line. “By the sea.” And, silence as the audience waited for who knows what--a better ending line? A better play? Colonel Andrews cleared his throat, and Jane inclined her head in a hurried curtsy. “Oh,” Aunt Saffronia said and started the applause. The audience clapped enthusiastically and arhythmically, and the cast bowed, Miss Charming giggling. Jane squinted past the lamps to get her first good look at the audience, now that the play was over and stage fright couldn’t prickle her. Aunt Saffronia, beaming. Mrs. Wattlesbrook, looking for all the world like a proud schoolmarm. Matilda, bored, and a few other servants, equally bored.