That Expensive, Delicate Ship Was a Real Bastard

This weekend we were listening to famous poems on YouTube and today I went back to search for someone reading "Musee des Beaux Arts" by W.H. Auden. I found a video of him reading it, but he looked like a toothless old man gumming the words and I could barely watch. I prefer this version, complete with a display of the painting referred to in the poem.

This was one of the first poems that I came across that really solidified how much I loved poetry. Like my "The Beach Boys' Greatest Hits" tape that I listened to non-stop as a kid, it drew me in and formed the scaffolding for later experiences with the art. In my mind, Auden's poem will always be what I think of when I think of Poetry, just as the Beach Boys' always seem to come to mind when I think of Music.

I'm not saying they are ideal or even amazing examples of their crafts (though, I might say that), but that our ideas of an artform are usually catalyzed by some of our earliest interactions with it. This is starting to sound like therapy...