Since the ancient Greeks to the present time poems about wine are abundant. I shall follow a different path by pairing poets and their non-wine poems to a particular grape or wine or, perhaps a drink. Hopefully,
this will provide an added understanding of the poets and their work.
Not all poems or wine are savory. Some may be bitter, spoiled, sulfurous, or exaggerated by pomposity or chemicals. Others may be simple or sweet, full bodied and complex, or subtly mature.
My first example reflects on the character and philosophy of T. S. Eliot,
a Nobel prized, modernist poet with a love of cats, but with a serious flaw of deep anti-semitism.
“The rats are underneath the piles.
The jew is underneath the lot” *
Thus, I suggest medicinally bitter herbal wine while reading his work.
Those concoctions may be potently emetic to some, but concurrently complex and perhaps intellectually stimulating.
*Burbank With A Baedeker, Bleistein With A Cigar
Elliot O. Lipchik
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