As you all know, I have been learning English by following Youtube teachers all along via the great VPN. Only people like me know how wonderful it is to have the chance to get around the bloody "Great Firewall", being plugged into the outside world directly. Recently while I am feeling lost a lot since my great Hive poet and friend decided to focus on his writing in the mainstream media market, instead of being around here, a kind of serendipity appears: I ran across a Youtuber named Ryan Freeman. You can say I am strongly attracted by or even infatuated with his videos on reading and analyzing poetry. If you happened to be a person who loves poems like me, his Youtube videos would be definitely a great place to enjoy. I sincerely recommend you subscribe to his channel!
(It is a very common kind of flower in my hometown. Pitifully I've never known its real/scientific name. We just call it "lazy wife" since they only bloom in the evening and night. But I love them, which reminds me of the mini-version of the Morning Glory.)
Here I would like to share 2 of his videos on poems with you, my dear readers. One is Mediocrity in Love Rejected by Thomas Carew; the other is a small poem--Fire and Ice by Robert Frost.
It is rather interesting for me to read these 2 poems by comparing them. They both refer to 2 extremes--one is about rejecting mediocrity, either love or disdain; the other about fire/desire and ice/hate. With that said, there is no need for me to speak more of them. Let's just click the link
and listen to the wonderful interpretations from Teacher Ryan together.
Mediocrity in Love Rejected
By Thomas Carew
Give me more love or more disdain;
The torrid, or the frozen zone,
Bring equal ease unto my pain;
The temperate affords me none;
Either extreme, of love, or hate,
Is sweeter than a calm estate.
Give me a storm; if it be love,
Like Danae in that golden shower
I swim in pleasure; if it prove
Disdain, that torrent will devour
My vulture-hopes; and he's possessed
Of heaven, that's but from hell released.
Then crown my joys, or cure my pain;
Give me more love, or more disdain.
My comment to Teacher Ryan is: I doubt whether this poem infused its passion and power into you or you infused your passion and power into this poem. All in all, I am overwhelmed by your reading and analysis. I love this poem due to your guide. I love its myth reference: Like Danae in that golden shower...
Fire and Ice
By Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
In this video's description bar, Teacher Ryan wrote: Let me know what you think and hope you enjoy! With this encouragement, I couldn't help pouring my heart out boldly:
"For my part, I say that the world will end in ice. Because I make sure that nobody else in the world has experienced the extreme coldness in heart than me. If they knew about my story, they would agree with me.
Fire and Ice is really a short but meaningful poem! Thank you for your wonderful analysis! No doubt, desire/fire and hate/ice are equally 2 powerful and destructive elements! But your channel is a treasure-trove for me. I even feel that my frozen heart has began to be melted by your passion and profound knowledge little by little. Maybe you can't imagine how I watched your videos greedily! I love your speeches! Such as "the dance with the vicissitudes of life", "the principle of enantidromia", as well as "Wilde's theory on pleasure and morality" etc.
And I am deeply moved by your words: 'You know sometimes the beauty is not outside, it is inside that counts. It is the beauty that is radiating forth from within that enlivens and beautifies the outside world. So carry that torch everywhere with you. Let your beauty shine.' Pitifully my torch inside has been snuffed completely by the ice outside...Now I am so glad that I have found your channel, trying my best to warm myself from you! Yeah, I want to swim in pleasure again...
Your channel deserves lots of suscribers from all over the world ! You are such a charming and bright star!"
I always believe that reading poem is a great emotional bridge to connect people from different cultural backgrounds and countries, helping them resonate with each other better!
thanks for sharing poems review here
Thank you for reading them so much!
Sounds interesting. Thanks for the referral. It's great that you can get around the great firewall to enjoy things like that.
BTW, I don't know that flower name either. But it's lovely.
Yeah, such kind of little flowers is really lovely. Normally they are purple-red or yellow or even mottled/half red, half yellow. I've seen them from my childhood, especially in the evening, they are in full bloom, so brilliant as if greeting people who return home from school or work place. Strangely nobody can tell me about its real/scientific name. Maybe they are too common to be noticed, or they have a famous name which I just don't know, such as hollyhock. (After many years later, I realized that kind of flowers I often see is named hollyhock. We local people just call them a very rustic name: bran pancake/糠饼子. Maybe they look as round as a pancake？)
The first time I ran across this channel is when I was searching a poem titled "leisure" by W.H. Davies. I was attracted by his wonderful explanation all of sudden about the sentence--in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night. He compared the sunshine reflected in the river to the countless diamonds. Such a beautiful and fantastic scene!
Later I surprisedly found that he once taught English both in Chinese university and training school of China. In his video, he neither demonize China, nor beautify China. He sounds very sincere and authentic. He is also a unique person. He even exposed his 'shameful experience' bravely--being jailed in Japan due to smuggling drugs. After all, no matter which country in which university teacher is a very honourable position. One of comments of his videos also proves the fact that he was just his Japanese university teacher, too. He talked about the Wilde's theory on pleasure and morality in his videos... He also claimed he himself never felt ashamed of taking MDMA in morality from his own perspective. I admire his frankness and courage. Yeah, in the final analysis, drugs themselves are just a kind of anti-depression medicine. That's all. Pitifully people are inclined to demonize it excessively. He also mentioned that at that time people just used Bitcoin to buy drugs. If he could hold those Bitcoin till now, he would be very rich. Too funny. But he is always such successful kind of people, no need to worry about money. He was also engaged in the different well-paid jobs such as models and actors in China. And he also have a lot of business chances in China. Oh, maybe someday I just find his figure/role in a Chinese movie.
All in all, for my part, his channel is a treasure-trove. He has not only the profound knowlege with a master degree which he unexpectedly obtained in a Chinese branch campus in Ningbo affiliated to a famous UK university, but an exceptionally rich experience. He travelled so many countries and touched so many different people from all over the world. He is a live legend! How I wish I could get acquainted with him! At least, his personal experience will be a testimony that China is not a scary and hideous place. On the contrary, it is a hidden heaven for the Western people. (Don't forget: the wide poverty in China only aims to the ordinary people being fooled and blocked by its goverment, not for Chinese elites and western people from the developed countries. ) I also don't want to see the phenomenon such as the talented western people have to give up writing in Hive due to economical pressure. Internet provides a golden chance, allowing the populace get around their own government’s brainwash and being plugged into the real world.
Yeah, I am a little proud of my sentence: being plugged into the outside world directly!
Thank you for your sincere support all along again!