Remembering Robert Lowell
Published in Skipping Stones, 2005 Edition
Copyright © 1996, 2005 by
Jason Lester Atkins
985 Fleet Drive, #347
Virginia Beach, VA 23454
All Rights Reserved.
Singing "Odes
To The Union Dead",
Robert "L" would soar
On this winged imagination
From the highest battlements
Of "Lord Weary's Castle".
Riding wings of escape
From a "Thin Puritan Heritage",
He did not belong
Entirely to his time.
Confessing his most intimate
Thoughts and feelings while
He listened to an inner
laugh of madness,
He listened, first with fear
Then, with genuine amusement.
Enjoying his own named
"pathological enthusiasms",
He hears each moment's
Whisper sliding quietly by.
Riding in the last taxi,
He could see the sun
As blue and scarlet
On the final pages
Of the manuscript clutched -
When his heart delivered
"A Suicide of Wish".
Some Information About the Above Poem
This is one of a series of free verse poems I wrote concerning the poets that self-destructed: (Plath, Berryman, Sexton, Lowell).
To understand the “poem” a little better about Robert Lowell (1917-1977):
Robert Lowell was from a good Puritan family and he was a personable individual. He wore outlandish clothes and he sat on the window sill when he taught at Harvard University. He was an excellent teacher and his students loved him. He was also a good poet. Robert was of the School of Confessional Poets, who wrote about their own lives and the lives of their families. He died in a taxi cab on the way home from the airport.
Jason Lester Atkins - April 27, 2005.
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