Analysis of O, Lydia!
Karl Constantine FOLKES 1935 (Portland)
Poet “El Cortés”
in courtship with “El Otro.”
Latina tango!
The tango of life
in search of knowing one’s Self;
the Self of psyche.
The Self of wholeness.
The Self of our completion;
of our body and our soul.
Body and one’s soul,
striving to find union;
dancing together.
A self-searching dance
of the body and the soul;
coming together.
Coming together,
in dance of exploration;
to discover Self.
A declaration,
like voice of an oracle;
reaching out to all.
“Poet, know thyself!”
That is a poet’s calling.
Self-exploration.
That is the appeal
that poets have for others;
to explore the Self.
It comes by writing;
the art of self-mirroring;
as self-reflection.
Poetry is search.
Poetry is therapy;
for the human soul.
The search for healing
of the body and spirit;
to come together.
So we delve within.
It is a chthonic search;
exploring psyche.
It is a tango.
A dance with one’s own psyche;
to find union.
Poet “El Cortés”
in courtship with “El Otro.”
Latina Tango.
Scheme | aBC def xgh hgb xhB Bge gxx dig xxe iig jfh ixb xjf cfg aBC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (31%) |
Metre | 10111 01111 01010 01011 0111011 01110 01110 01110010 110100101 10011 101110 10010 01101 1010001 10010 10010 011010 10101 0010 1111100 10111 1011 1101010 1010 11001 1101110 10101 11110 0111100 11010 10011 1001100 10101 01110 1010010 11010 11101 11011 01010 11010 0111110 1110 10111 01111 01010 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,012 |
Words | 222 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 15 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 |
Lines Amount | 45 |
Letters per line (avg) | 16 |
Words per line (avg) | 4 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 49 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 11 |
About this poem
An Ode to Our Inner Taino Selves. “Un refrán: El que no tiene ‘dinga tiene de Inca.” This haiku poem, “O, Lydia!” is composed in honor of Lydia Cortés, a Puerto Rican educator and colleague of mine for many years and a trilingual poet (English, Spanish, Italian) who, like the Argentine poet, Jorge Luis Borges, employs the phrase, “El Cortés,” as an eponym to identify her criolla poetic persona, similar to Borges’s use of the phrases “El Otro” and “Borges y yo” to identify his literary muse in his essays and short-story writing. more »
Written on December 13, 2021
Submitted by karlcfolkes on December 13, 2021
Modified by karlcfolkes on April 26, 2023
- 1:06 min read
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"O, Lydia!" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/115727/o%2C-lydia%21>.
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