American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) used the fly to understand, or try to understand, the idea of the soul.įrench poet Guillame Apollinaire (1880-1918) pondered the fly as a thing in an of itself, “hoping to find a hint of what its reality might be, to sense its mysterious essence, its thingness,” says Hudson. He didn’t just write one haiku poem about the fly he wrote more than 200. Poet and artist William Blake (1757-1827) used the fly as a symbol of imagination, while Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828) explored the fly as a symbol of compassion. He rubbed shoulders with Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. William Oldys (1696-1761) was an antiquarian and bibliographer, known for serving as the first editor of Biographia Britannia and for his bibliographical work for the Duke of Norfolk. One of his meditations addresses the fly, and he uses the insect to examine human existence. He himself is using the subject of the fly to explain how and why poets write poetry.Įnglish poet Thomas Traherne (1636-1674) was largely unknown as a poet until his life and works were plumbed in the 20th century. As you read this work, and occasionally marvel at what’s been written, you gradually realize that Hudson is not only talking about flies. Hudson looks at seven poets who have written about flies, each in a different way. ![]() They are one of the great neglected invariables.”Īnd poets have been writing about them, meditating upon them, using them as metaphors, following their trajectories, and symbolizing them for a very long time. “We forget, in our air-conditioned dens and climate-controlled offices,” Hudson writes, “how much of human history is bound up with Musca domestica-the common housefly. The one who, once inside, seems almost impossible to corral and eliminate. ![]() The pest who loves to discover our food when we eat outside. And in The Poet and the Fly, he considers how the fly has served as an object for numerous poets over the centuries. And he’s a member of the West Michigan Thomas Merton Society. He loves poetry he’s a member of the international Dante Alighieri Society and the Thomas Traherne Association. With a master’s degree in comparative literature, he worked for 34 years as an editor for a major publisher. Hudson has been a teacher, a clerk, an editor, a translator, a book designer, a proofreader, a publisher, a writer, a bookbinder, and a printer (with a certificate in printing by hand).
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