VMI Senior’s Poem Reminder That John Steinbeck Studied Formalist Poetry at Stanford

July 25, 2018 by

helen-of-troy-rossetti

Rushed Affection

You are a blood red rose,
A deep and opaque one.
Me I thought you chose.
Now the severance done.

You are a blinding Daisy,
My green and shining light,
And I unfortunate Gatsby,
With light pulled out of sight.

You are a song-filled siren,
Singing notes of bliss.
Jumped, I went a-diving,
Down deep, to find your kiss.

You are a gilded apple
That looks and tastes of gold
But makes my stomach grapple
And my sinking image cold.

I am the tragic fool
To haste forth like the bull
Into a rushed affection,
To drown in that same pool.

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About Carter Davis Johnson

Carter Davis Johnson is a writer and graduate student in Virginia. The paper he delivered recently on the influence of Jung in East of Eden reflects his interest in the connections between myth, consciousness, and modernism. His experimentation with formalist poetry, evident in poems published by the Society of Classical Poets and The Road Not Taken, will remind fans of Steinbeck that the writer's best grades at Stanford were in poetry.