Portrait of an Old Woman on the College Tavern Wall by Anne Sexton : The Poetry Foundation
The Campus on the Hill by W. D. Snodgrass : The Poetry Foundation
Recently I visited once again the University of Indiana in Bloomington, one of my very top choices for most beautiful campus and most pleasant college town in the United States. Almost every campus building is grandly made of local limestone, so there’s an architectural harmony that I’ve found unusual in large state universities. In the midst of those acres of lofty academic structures is a small woods.
To this outsider, the strained town-gown relationships portrayed in Breaking Away, the famous bicycling movie, are not immediately apparent, but what non-resident knows that real scoop?
As I walked around, I felt like photographing every stone and student. All those stories . . . . Then there's my tendency toward sentimentality about campuses and the college life in general; it led me once again to look for new poems that were related to scenes I'd witnessed. I couldn’t have gotten luckier, thanks again to Poetry Foundation. What a luxury, to wander so easily and casually through all kinds of verse and commentary.
At least for now, I love Anne Sexton’s “Portrait of an Old Woman on the College Tavern Wall.” If it weren’t so new to me, I’d say it’s as powerful and important as W.D. Snodgrass’s “Campus on the Hill,” posted here September 9, 2010. We'll see how Sexton's poem holds up, with its haunting interplay of different voices.
The Campus on the Hill by W. D. Snodgrass : The Poetry Foundation"The Campus on the Hill" by W. D. Snodgrass. What Is College?
Portrait of an Old Woman on the College Tavern Wall by Anne Sexton : The Poetry Foundation
If anyone wants to revisit the discussion of the college experience, I'm all ears.
By the way, I've just learned that yesterday's poet, Dean Young, earned his MFA at Indiana.
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