This is a small poetry club that started as a poetry email exchange between two friends. Our goal is to read a poem everyday, and this blog is one way to help keep us accountable. There is only one valid rule in poetry club: there are no rules in poetry club. Read any poem, in any order, with any or no interactions. You decide. We only suggest you read poetry!
20 Aug 2018: "Liberty and Love" by Sándor Petőfi
Liberty and love
These two I must have.
For my love I’ll sacrifice
My life.
For liberty I’ll sacrifice
My love.
The 2 L's....two words...two sides of the same mirror. Playing with words...with definitions- flipping the script. Two words whose definitions could possibly be the SAME.
Liberty- NOUN "1.the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.2.the power or scope to act as one pleases."
Love- NOUN 1.an intense feeling of deep affection.2.a great interest and pleasure in something.3.a person or thing that one loves.
I find it highly interesting upon my initial search that both of these words were labeled "NOUN"s, when in the scope of the poem they could also possibly resemble VERBS...actions...ways of life, but to "have" as used in line #2, would resort to them being nouns. And the possessive "MY" in lines 3,4, and 6...turns to these as NOUNS as well. My love as being another person....my love as being a verb "to be able to love".
The equalizing effects of liberty and love in line 2 and then the hierarchy of the same two words with a third "L" word:
Life Love Liberty
How do Liberty and Life relate if Liberty is a state of Life? THESE ARE MY FAVORITE TYPES OF POEMS- mathematical in a sense...if word A = word B and word B= word C, then word A must = word C.
What is the intention of the poem...? Thoughts on values....on decision making...on something more..
Sándor Petőfi (I'll look him up more too) but he was a political activist fighting for freedom. He was a revolutionary and died fighting in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. So for him liberty was the priority. Love and life are worthless without sufficient liberty.
Love > (greater than) Life Liberty > (greater than) Love
I came across this poem reading Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick. It's about North Korea, and very worth reading. I should post a short intro in the original post.
The 2 L's....two words...two sides of the same mirror. Playing with words...with definitions- flipping the script. Two words whose definitions could possibly be the SAME.
ReplyDeleteLiberty- NOUN "1.the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.2.the power or scope to act as one pleases."
Love- NOUN 1.an intense feeling of deep affection.2.a great interest and pleasure in something.3.a person or thing that one loves.
I find it highly interesting upon my initial search that both of these words were labeled "NOUN"s, when in the scope of the poem they could also possibly resemble VERBS...actions...ways of life, but to "have" as used in line #2, would resort to them being nouns. And the possessive "MY" in lines 3,4, and 6...turns to these as NOUNS as well. My love as being another person....my love as being a verb "to be able to love".
The equalizing effects of liberty and love in line 2 and then the hierarchy of the same two words with a third "L" word:
Life
Love
Liberty
How do Liberty and Life relate if Liberty is a state of Life? THESE ARE MY FAVORITE TYPES OF POEMS- mathematical in a sense...if word A = word B and word B= word C, then word A must = word C.
What is the intention of the poem...? Thoughts on values....on decision making...on something more..
Sándor Petőfi (I'll look him up more too) but he was a political activist fighting for freedom. He was a revolutionary and died fighting in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. So for him liberty was the priority. Love and life are worthless without sufficient liberty.
ReplyDeleteLove > (greater than) Life
Liberty > (greater than) Love
I came across this poem reading Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick. It's about North Korea, and very worth reading. I should post a short intro in the original post.