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38-557: Hayden Carruth (August 3, 1921 – September 29, 2008) was an American poet , literary critic and anthologist . He taught at Syracuse University . Hayden Carruth was born in Waterbury, Connecticut and grew up in Woodbury, Connecticut . He graduated from Pleasantville High School in Pleasantville, New York with the class of 1939 as vice president of the senior class; he was credited with

76-641: A novel and two poetry anthologies. Prior to his affiliation with Harper's , he served as editor-in-chief of Poetry (1949–1950) and as advisory editor of The Hudson Review for twenty years. He was awarded a Guggenheim and the NEA fellowships. In 1992 he was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for his Collected Shorter Poems and in 1996 the National Book Award in poetry for his Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey . Shortly after

114-517: A career as a poet, they can be helpful as training, and for giving the student several years of time focused on their writing. Lyrical poets who write sacred poetry (" hymnographers ") differ from the usual image of poets in a number of ways. A hymnographer such as Isaac Watts who wrote 700 poems in his lifetime, may have their lyrics sung by millions of people every Sunday morning, but are not always included in anthologies of poetry . Because hymns are perceived of as " worship " rather than "poetry",

152-592: A continuation of patronage of poets by royalty. Many poets, however, had other sources of income, including Italians like Dante Aligheri , Giovanni Boccaccio and Petrarch 's works in a pharmacist's guild and William Shakespeare 's work in the theater. In the Romantic period and onwards, many poets were independent writers who made their living through their work, often supplemented by income from other occupations or from family. This included poets such as William Wordsworth and Robert Burns . Poets such as Virgil in

190-491: A particular verse form, commonly called the " Hudibrastic ". The Hudibrastic is poetry in closed rhyming couplets in iambic tetrameter, where the rhymes are often feminine rhymes or unexpected conjunctions. For example, Butler describes the English Civil War as a time which "Made men fight like mad or drunk/ For dame religion as for punk/ Whose honesty all durst swear for/ Tho' not one knew why or wherefore" ("punk" meaning

228-482: A prostitute). The strained and unexpected rhymes increase the comic effect and heighten the parody. This formal indication of satire proved to separate one form of mock-heroic from the others. After Butler, Jonathan Swift is the most notable practitioner of the Hudibrastic, as he used that form for almost all of his poetry. Poet Laureate John Dryden is responsible for some of the dominance among satirical genres of

266-479: A well established poet, was banished from Rome by the first Augustus for one of his poems. During the High Middle Ages , troubadors were an important class of poets. They came from a variety of backgrounds, often living and traveling in many different places and were looked upon as actors or musicians as much as poets. Some were under patronage, but many traveled extensively. The Renaissance period saw

304-564: The Aeneid and John Milton in Paradise Lost invoked the aid of a Muse . Poets held an important position in pre-Islamic Arabic society with the poet or sha'ir filling the role of historian, soothsayer and propagandist. Words in praise of the tribe ( qit'ah ) and lampoons denigrating other tribes ( hija' ) seem to have been some of the most popular forms of early poetry. The sha'ir represented an individual tribe's prestige and importance in

342-1084: The Arabian Peninsula , and mock battles in poetry or zajal would stand in lieu of real wars. 'Ukaz, a market town not far from Mecca , would play host to a regular poetry festival where the craft of the sha'irs would be exhibited. Poets of earlier times were often well read and highly educated people while others were to a large extent self-educated. A few poets such as John Gower and John Milton were able to write poetry in more than one language. Some Portuguese poets, as Francisco de Sá de Miranda , wrote not only in Portuguese but also in Spanish. Jan Kochanowski wrote in Polish and in Latin, France Prešeren and Karel Hynek Mácha wrote some poems in German, although they were poets of Slovenian and Czech respectively. Adam Mickiewicz ,

380-558: The Viaggio di Colonia ( Travel to Cologne ) by Antonio Abbondanti (1625), L'asino ( The donkey ) by Carlo de' Dottori (1652), La Troja rapita by Loreto Vittori (1662), Il Malmantile racquistato by Lorenzo Lippi (1688), La presa di San Miniato by Ippolito Neri (1764). Also in Italian dialects were written mock-heroic poems. For example, in Neapolitan dialect the best known work of

418-462: The literature that (since the advent of writing systems) they have produced. The civilization of Sumer figures prominently in the history of early poetry, and The Epic of Gilgamesh , a widely read epic poem, was written in the Third Dynasty of Ur c. 2100 BC; copies of the poem continued to be published and written until c. 600 to 150 BC. However, as it arises from an oral tradition ,

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456-539: The poema eroicomico . In this country those who still wrote epic poems, following the rules set by Torquato Tasso in his work Discorsi del poema eroico ( Discussions about the Epic Poems ) and realized in his masterwork, the Jerusalem Delivered , were felt as antiquated. The new mock-heroic poem accepted the same metre, vocabulary, rhetoric of the epics. However, the new genre turned the old epic upside down about

494-554: The "prettiest hair." He received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1943 and an M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1948. While institutionalized in White Plains, New York from 1953 to 1954, he befriended and subsequently mentored Gordon Lish throughout his adolescence. He lived in Johnson, Vermont for many years. From 1977 to 1988, he

532-505: The 17th century the epic genre was heavily criticized, because it was felt to be merely expressing the traditional values of feudal society. Among the new genres, closer to the modern feelings and proposing new ideals, the satirical literature was particularly effective in criticizing the old habits and values. Beside the Spanish picaresque novels and the French burlesque novel, in Italy flourished

570-656: The 18th Century" by Grazyna Bystydzienska, published by Polish Scientific Publishers, 1982.) After Dryden, the form continued to flourish, and there are countless minor mock-heroic poems from 1680 to 1780. Additionally, there were a few attempts at a mock-heroic novel. The most significant later mock-heroic poems were by Alexander Pope . Pope’s The Rape of the Lock is a noted example of the Mock-Heroic style; indeed, Pope never deviates from mimicking epic poetry such as Homer 's Iliad and Virgil 's Aeneid . The overall form of

608-505: The Mock-Heroic is clear in every instance. Even the typical apotheosis found in the epics is mimicked in The Rape of the Lock , as “the stars inscribe Belinda’s name!” (line 150). He invokes the same Mock-heroic style in The Dunciad which also employs the language of heroic poetry to describe menial or trivial subjects. In this mock-epic the progress of Dulness over the face of the earth,

646-501: The card game (which includes a description of her hair and beauty), the Baron makes a sacrifice for her hair (the altar built for love and the deal with Clarissa), the “mock” battle of cards changes in the Baron’s favor, Clarissa’s treachery to her supposed friend Belinda by slipping the Baron scissors, and finally the treatment of the card game as a battle and the Baron’s victory. Pope’s mastery of

684-491: The coming of stupidity and tastelessness, is treated in the same way as the coming of civilization is in the Aeneid (see also the metaphor of translatio studii ). John Gay 's Trivia and Beggar's Opera were mock-heroic (the latter in opera ), and Samuel Johnson 's London is a mock-heroic of a sort. By the time of Pope, however, the mock-heroic was giving ground to narrative parody , and authors such as Fielding led

722-635: The creator ( thinker , songwriter , writer , or author ) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or written ), or they may also perform their art to an audience . The work of a poet is essentially one of communication, expressing ideas either in a literal sense (such as communicating about a specific event or place) or metaphorically . Poets have existed since prehistory , in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary greatly in different cultures and periods. Throughout each civilization and language, poets have used various styles that have changed over time, resulting in countless poets as diverse as

760-466: The debut of Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey , he also won the $ 50,000 Lannan Literary Award . His later titles include the 2001 collection of poems Doctor Jazz and a 70-minute audio CD of him reading selections from Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey and Collected Shorter Poems. His Last Poems ( Copper Canyon Press , 2012) combines poems written toward the end of his life with the concluding poems from twenty-six of his previous volumes. Other awards with which he

798-560: The form is the Batrachomyomachia ascribed to Homer by the Romans and parodying his work, but believed by most modern scholars to be the work of an anonymous poet in the time of Alexander the Great. A longstanding assumption on the origin of the mock-heroic in the 17th century is that epic and the pastoral genres had become used up and exhausted, and so they got parodically reprised . In

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836-594: The form was La Vaiasseide by Giulio Cesare Cortese (1612). While in Romanesco Giovanni Camillo Peresio wrote Il maggio romanesco (1688), Giuseppe Berneri published Meo Patacca in 1695, and, finally, Benedetto Micheli printed La libbertà romana acquistata e defesa in 1765. After the translation of Don Quixote , by Miguel de Cervantes , English authors began to imitate the inflated language of Romance poetry and narrative to describe misguided or common characters. The most likely genesis for

874-504: The greatest mock-epic in English literature" Many of Carruth's best-known poems are about the people and places of northern Vermont , as well as rural poverty and hardship, addressing loneliness, insanity, and death. One of his most celebrated poems is "Emergency Haying". Editor Poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry . Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be

912-445: The greatest poet of Polish language, wrote a Latin ode for emperor Napoleon III . Another example is Jerzy Pietrkiewicz , a Polish poet. When he moved to Great Britain, he ceased to write poetry in Polish, but started writing a novel in English. He also translated poetry into English. Many universities offer degrees in creative writing though these only came into existence in the 20th century. While these courses are not necessary for

950-513: The language of Aeneid to describe the coronation of Shadwell on the throne of Dullness formerly held by King Flecknoe. The parody of Virgil satirizes Shadwell. Dryden's prosody is identical to regular heroic verse : iambic pentameter closed couplets. The parody is not formal, but merely contextual and ironic. (For an excellent overview of the history of the mock-heroic in the 17th and 18th centuries see "the English Mock-Heroic poem of

988-598: The main portion of the story, usually involving a battle of some kind (such as in the Iliad ) that follows this pattern: dressing for battle (description of Achilles shield, preparation for battle), altar sacrifice/libation to the gods, some battle change (perhaps involving drugs), treachery (Achilles ankle is told to be his weak spot), a journey to the Underworld, and the final battle. All of these elements are followed eloquently by Pope in that specific order: Belinda readies herself for

1026-610: The meaning, setting the stories in more familiar situations, to ridiculize the traditional epics. In this context was created the parody of epic genre. Lo scherno degli dèi ( The Mockery of Gods ) by Francesco Bracciolini , printed in 1618 is often regarded as the first Italian poema eroicomico . However, the best known of the form is La secchia rapita ( The rape of the Bucket ) by Alessandro Tassoni (1622). Other Italian mock-heroic poems were La Gigantea by Girolamo Amelonghi (1566), La moscheide by Giovanni Battista Lalli (1624),

1064-499: The mock-heroic in the later Restoration era. While Dryden's own plays would themselves furnish later mock-heroics (specifically, The Conquest of Granada is satirized in the mock-heroic The Author's Farce and Tom Thumb by Henry Fielding , as well as The Rehearsal ), Dryden's Mac Flecknoe is perhaps the locus classicus of the mock-heroic form as it would be practiced for a century to come. In that poem, Dryden indirectly compares Thomas Shadwell with Aeneas by using

1102-1166: The mock-heroic novel into a more general novel of parody, although Fielding's The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling contains passages of pure mock-heroic. The ascension of the novel drew a slow end to the age of the mock-heroic, which had originated in Cervantes's novel. After Romanticism 's flourishing, mock-heroics like Byron's Don Juan were uncommon. Finally, the mock-heroic genre spread throughout Europe, in France , in Scotland , in Poland , in Bohemia , in Russia . The most noted mock-heroic poems in French were Le Vergile Travesti ( The disguised Vergil ) by Paul Scarron (1648–52) and The Maid of Orleans by Voltaire (1730). In macaronic Latin enriched with Scottish Gaelic expressions William Drummond of Hawthornden wrote Polemo-Middinia inter Vitarvam et Nebernam in 1684. The main author of mock-heroic poems in Polish

1140-494: The mock-heroic, as distinct from the picaresque , burlesque , and satirical poem is the comic poem Hudibras (1662–1674), by Samuel Butler . Butler's poem describes a "trew blew" Puritan knight during the Interregnum , in language that imitates Romance and epic poetry . After Butler, there was an explosion of poetry that described a despised subject in the elevated language of heroic poetry and plays. Hudibras gave rise to

1178-559: The poem, written in cantos , follows the tradition of epics, along with the precursory “Invocation of the Muse ”; in this case, Pope's Muse is literally the person who prodded him to write the poem, John Caryll : “this verse to Caryll, Muse, is due!” (line 3). Epics always include foreshadowing which is usually given by an otherworldly figure , and Pope mocks tradition through Ariel the sprite, who sees some “dread event” (line 109) impending on Belinda. These epic introductory tendencies give way to

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1216-520: The poet is unknown. The Story of Sinuhe was a popular narrative poem from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt , written c. 1750 BC, about an ancient Egyptian man named Sinuhe , who flees his country and lives in a foreign land until his return, shortly before his death. The Story of Sinuhe was one of several popular narrative poems in Ancient Egyptian . Scholars have conjectured that Story of Sinuhe

1254-408: The small central New York village of Munnsville . He wrote for over sixty years. Carruth died from complications following a series of strokes. Hayden Carruth was the son of Gorton Veeder Carruth a journalist and newspaper editor, and Margery Carruth. His interest in poetry started early due to his father. Carruth wrote more than 30 books of poetry, four books of literary criticism , essays ,

1292-511: The term "artistic kenosis" is sometimes used to describe the hymnographer's success in "emptying out" the instinct to succeed as a poet. A singer in the pew might have several of Watts's stanzas memorized, without ever knowing his name or thinking of him as a poet. Mock-epic Historically, the mock-heroic style was popular in 17th-century Italy, and in the post- Restoration and Augustan periods in Great Britain. The earliest example of

1330-719: Was Ignacy Krasicki , who wrote Myszeida ( Mouseiad ) in 1775 and Monacomachia ( The War of the Monks ) in 1778. In the same language Tomasz Kajetan Węgierski published Organy in 1775–77. The Bohemian poet Šebestiàn Hnĕvkovský in 1805 printed two mock-heroic poems: Dĕvin in Czech and Der böhmische Mägderkrieg in German. In 1791 the Russian poet N. P. Osipov published Eneida travestied  [ ru ] ( Russian : Вирги́лиева Энеи́да, вы́вороченная наизна́нку ). Ivan Kotliarevsky 's mock-epic poem Eneyida (Ukrainian: Енеїда), written in 1798,

1368-487: Was actually written by an Ancient Egyptian man named Sinuhe, describing his life in the poem; therefore, Sinuhe is conjectured to be a real person. In Ancient Rome , professional poets were generally sponsored by patrons , including nobility and military officials. For instance, Gaius Cilnius Maecenas , friend to Caesar Augustus , was an important patron for the Augustan poets, including both Horace and Virgil . Ovid ,

1406-858: Was honored included the Carl Sandburg Award , the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize , the Paterson Poetry Prize , the 1990 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize , the Vermont Governor's Medal and the Whiting Award . Noted for the breadth of his linguistic and formal resources, influenced by jazz and the blues, Carruth's poems are informed by his political radicalism and sense of cultural responsibility. Among his influences, Carruth particularly admired 18th century poet Alexander Pope , lauding "Pope's rationalism and pandeism with which he wrote

1444-580: Was the poetry editor of Harper's Magazine . After teaching at Johnson State College (poet-in-residence; 1972–1974) and the University of Vermont (adjunct professor; 1975–1978), Carruth was a tenured professor of English at Syracuse University in the graduate creative writing program beginning in 1979; in this capacity, he taught and mentored many younger poets (including Brooks Haxton and Allen Hoey ) before taking emeritus status in 1991. He resided with his wife, fellow poet Joe-Anne McLaughlin Carruth, near

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