Hi, I'm looking for a poem based on Greek Mythology. I have a copy of the whole poem. The first line is "At midday he rose on schedule from the flood."

I know that the title is one word and has to do with mythology. I believe the title might be Proteus. I also know the author is a Male and the poem was written after 1865. The author might be American or British. Also this poet has received a Pulitzer Prize although not necessarily for this poem.

If you have any information PLEASE reply.

Thank you,
Susanne

>I'm looking for a poem based on Greek Mythology. I have a copy of the whole poem.

Huh?

Have you considered taking your poem and typing it into a good search engine such as Google?

I appologize for my original message. I obviously left information out that I meant to include.

I have looked just about everywhere for this poem, including at a college library, a public library and online.

The first lines are "At midday he rose on schedule from the flood to stretch his limbs on the kelp-strewn shelf"

I was told that the title of the poem is one word referencing Greek mythology. It might be something about Proteus. I also know the Poet is male and has received a Pulitzer prize. The poem was written between 1865 and now.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Susanne

There is a list of winners of the poetry prize that can be accessed from [www.pulitzer.org] it might at least narrow down your search. The poem is probably still in copyright if it cannot be found on the web which suggests that it might have been first published after 1923 which may narrow it a little further - still a lot of poets to go through :(

That's an excellent idea. I never thought about copyright laws and the web.

Thank you for your help :)

Susanne

You've got my curiosity up now - any chance you
could post the whole thing?

Sounds like a riddle or a scavenger hunt, the way
you have explained it.

Second the motion!

pam

The poem is this:

At midday he rose on schedule from the flood
to stretch his limbs on the kelp-strewn shelf
of rock, where he could soak his bones
in the drippings of the sun
and watch, bemused, the monsters of the deep,
who were his sacred charge,
humping and snorting at their brutish games.

He was not envious of their rampant blood,
nor had he bargained for this keeper's role.
Their origins were buried in his past,
lost syllables in a language of forgetting.
Perhaps they were his misbegotten brood,
conceived by night in another age, but why
should he be vexed, as in his wanton prime,
by buzzing guilts and blames, that cloud of flies?
His burden was to see the future plain.

On shore, he knew, under the beetling crags
lurked bands of marauders in their painted skins,
waiting for him to lapse into a drowse,
when they would pounce upon him in repose
and pin him down, compelling him
to rip the sweating membrane from the void
and practice his excruciating art.

He was the world's supreme illusionist,
taught by necessity how to melt his cage,
slipping at will through his adversaries' grasp
by self-denial, displaying one by one
his famous repertoire of shifting forms,
from lion and serpent to fire and waterfall.
But now he was heavy in his heart, and languid,
sensing the time had come to leave his flock.
Must he prepare himself once more for the test?
He could not recollect the secret codes
that gave him access to his other lives.

Half-listening to the plashing of the oars,
a disembodied chorus from the sea,
he shut his dimming eyes
and did not stir. These were the dreaded boatmen
racing to his side, and these their hairy hands.
He heard barbaric voices crying, "Prophesy!"

Thanks for the read. Does remind one of Proteus, that's
for sure. It sounds like something by Swinburne, but
the Pulitzer prize didn't begin until after his death,
so it can't be him. You don't say whether the prize won
was for poetry itself, but we should probably infer it,
I would suspect. Also, the lines are not all capitalized,
which practice did become commonplace until after 1950, say.

Not much help, I fear. The only other suggestion I could
make would be to post in on the rec.arts.poems newsgroup.
A lot of knowledgeable folks read that group. If you do
not have access via nntp protocol, you can use the web-
based stuff from [groups.google.com].

Good luck, and thanks again for the pome.

Hey,

Was wondering if you found the name of the poem. I am real curious to see how the search is going.
Wendy

I will have the title/author of this poem on August 9th, as my class ends on that day and the information will be given. I will try to post it on that day for anyone still interested.

I appreciate everyone's help and interest into this project.

Susanne

Yes, please post it. Curiousity is killing me now.

Disregard this post, just setting up an 'e-mail me
replies' entry.

I have a couple of final hints to this poem.

1. The author was Poet Laureate at one point during the past decade.

2. The poem was only published once and only in the author's own book. Never in an anthology.

I will post the answer on Wednesday Aug. 15th.

Hey, no fair - you said the 10th before!

What is the answer??

How many students does this instructor have anyway?

Proteus, by Stanley Kunitz.

It's someone at a University in New Hampshire. Haven't gotten a name yet.

pam