Tag: dead poets society

I created the dead poets society tag on The Diary of Improvateur to designate when I feature a poet who has changed the course of poetry but has passed, particularly those I want to honor with the heartfelt reviews of their poetry that I am compelled to write.

There are a number of posts that feature writers who have left enough of a legacy for me to consider them a member of the dead poets society, one of which is Rainer Maria Rilke, whose poem “The Panther” inspired a trip to the Buenos Aires Zoo during a few weeks I spent in Argentina. I am against Victorian zoos because I believe they are cruel for the wild animals but I wanted to have a similar experience as Rilke when he sat and watched a caged panther at a zoo.

I read the poem aloud to the big black cat, feeling a sizzle when I read, “As he paces in cramped circles, over and over…” and the panther stood up and began pacing on the dusty floor of its outdoor pen. I continued reading, studying him as my words petered off into silence and, almost as if on cue, he sashayed to a spot he had hollowed out under a copse of trees, his tail dragging in the dirt, and lowered his body into the shallow pit. Without so much as a glance in my direction, he closed “the curtain of the pupils” over his gorgeous golden eyes, and my heart broke for him, trapped as he was within such a sad prison.