Somewhere in my travels, I took an American Poetry college class and remember an extended discussion of this poem by Amy Lowell:
SEPTEMBER, 1918
I remember the college professor discussing how Lowell began her poem describing such a nice fall, September day. He went on to note however, that very abruptly, Amy snaps you back into the reality of life with her mentioning the presence of war and the effect it had on her. (There was also an extended discussion of how this type of poetry was referred to as “Imagist” and that Lowell was one of the important figures in popularizing it.)
I thought of all this juxtaposition of imagery just the other day when initially I felt a very comforting sense of calmness and serenity on such a beautiful fall day.
However, it was very short lived because once I caught the news of some ugly current events both here and around the world, it began to bum me out. Amy’s poem and the word wistful came to mind as did this tune from my friend Steve Erwin. (Mention of and listening to Danny Gatton also brings up some very mixed i.e. wistful emotions.) P.S. If you only have a minute or two to listen to this, pick it up at the 3:00 mark, close your eyes and sit back and enjoy Danny’s great playing: talk about the color of water falling through sunlight!
