How does it make you feel when you read Love’s Philosophy by British poet Percy Bysshe Shelly? What images run through your mind? “And the moonbeams kiss the sea.” Does your mind conjure a nautical “scene” of listless clouds and gentle waves glimmering in translucent light? Do you feel a sensation in your heart and an urge to relive a moment with a lost love? Whose voice do you hear, yours or Shelly’s? Lord Byron speaks of a woman “who walks in beauty.” When I think of Kipling, I can actually see Tommy soldiers in India; cockneys from Lambeth. I have a soft spot for his poem If. It makes me think of my mother’s funeral and men in my family who will ever hold my admiration. Even writing these few words, my mind is flooded with sentimental emotion. My heart is ticking faster. Poetry moves us, as does great literature, art and music.
If you live on the Upper East Side or Malibu’s Carbon Beach (both places that I like and have recently visited) you may not have any connection to Oliver Anthony or feel the emotion I feel when he sings Rich Men North of Richmond. The media has labelled his new song America’s “Blue Collar Anthem.” My brother Walter, aka Fat Wally called me 2-3 days after Anthony posted his song on You Tube and said “you gotta hear this song from this boy in Farmville.”
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