How to Research a Poet

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I was in the lovely state of California for just under two weeks, and was too wiped/busy to write. We took the plane (of course) and just kind of hung out for a while.

Which brings me to our topic of the day. (Not really, but I needed to get here somehow). I was working with two other people on a project where we needed to write about the style of a poet. So I suggested that we read some poems in order to get a feeling for his style. This being Butternut, of course one of my partners replied, "Why? Other people will have written about his style." This was so sad/funny I had to laugh inside. I saved my real hilarity for when I got home. The really awful part was that I thought this kid was a hard worker and actually had a brain on his shoulders. I guess that Butternut has infected even him. <Shiver> Maybe I'll be next. Perish the thought.

Follow up: Our poet was T. S. Eliot. If you don't know who he is, Google him. If you don't feel like it, T. S. Eliot was one of the most revolutionary poets of the 20th century. His poems were pretty dark, and set against the background of a wasteland-like civilization. He was most famous between World Wars One and Two. If you had to guess, based on only that information, what would you think was THE biggest influence on his poetry? That's right, WORLD WAR ONE!!!!!! If you Googled him as I suggested, you should have been able to figure that out.This kid was supposed to actually do some active research, not just Google. So when I suggested that our discussion question be, "How did World War One influence T. S. Eliot's poetry?" I was shocked to hear him say, "Wait...World War One influenced his poetry?" Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this kid did that little thinking. Ahhh Butternut.

P. S. Did you know that some people don't know how to pronounce Freud (as in the famous physcologist)? I now know people who are that oblivious. They pronounce it "Frood", to rhyme with "brood", instead of "Froid", to rhyme with "droid". I should do a stand-up routine about this school.