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9.0
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(60
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Genius, like gold and precious stones,
is chiefly prized because of its rarity.
Geniuses are people who dash of weird, wild,
incomprehensible poems with astonishing facility,
and get booming drunk and sleep in the gutter.
Genius elevates its possessor to ineffable spheres
far above the vulgar world and fills his soul
with regal contempt for the gross and sordid things of earth.
It is probably on account of this
that people who have genius
do not pay their board, as a general thing.
Geniuses are very singular.
If you see a young man who has frowsy hair
and distraught look, and affects eccentricity in dress,
you may set him down for a genius.
If he sings about the degeneracy of a world
which courts vulgar opulence
and neglects brains,
he is undoubtedly a genius.
If he is too proud to accept assistance,
and spurns it with a lordly air
at the very same time
that he knows he can't make a living to save his life,
he is most certainly a genius.
If he hangs on and sticks to poetry,
notwithstanding sawing wood comes handier to him,
he is a true genius.
If he throws away every opportunity in life
and crushes the affection and the patience of his friends
and then protests in sickly rhymes of his hard lot,
and finally persists,
in spite of the sound advice of persons who have got sense
but not any genius,
persists in going up some infamous back alley
dying in rags and dirt,
he is beyond all question a genius.
But above all things,
to deftly throw the incoherent ravings of insanity into verse
and then rush off and get booming drunk,
is the surest of all the different signs
of genius.
Mar Twain
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Read poems about / on: poetry, people, hair, sleep, world, life, poem, friend
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Comments about this poem (Genius
by
Mar Twain
) |
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comments about this poem (Genius by
Mar Twain
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Is It poetry
(4/14/2009 11:13:00 AM) |
Dear Genius,
I am to poor to get drunk,
my rags hardly fit,
my mind as you said is not to far behind
the oysters discharge
to all mankind..iip..rest again in) it(s breadth..
AmeriCan....
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Ashish Dimri
(2/4/2009 5:13:00 AM) |
Dear Poem Hunter,
Mark Twain was truelly a poetic genius!
He might have taken a dig at others, but he was a master of his craft!
warm regards,
yours,
ashish dimri
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Tess Bybee
(1/21/2009 12:17:00 AM) |
Haha, I love Mark Twain. This poem is really great.
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Maxislam Beauty
(10/7/2008 9:10:00 AM) |
I love genius thought and complexity.
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Dimitris(Jimmy) Psachos
(6/17/2007 3:38:00 AM) |
Damn you ludicrous Mark, a genius magnificence! ! ! Say, I wonder who else could have possibly opposed to the traditional artistic and political environment during his lifetime.(Hm, perhaps Byron) If he lived today though, there would be no Tom...
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Jodilee Duke
(7/21/2005 5:48:00 PM) |
To me, this poem implies, that there be, a hidden genius in each and every one of us...but the gender fact.., of the he.., somewhat bothers me..Yet that be, just me, maybe..
With Respect..,
Jodilee
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Jay Landreth
(3/11/2005 9:29:00 AM) |
Twain seldom disappoints. He gives you a peek inside his thoughts once in a while. This is one. The sarcasm and wit he uses with a surgeon's skill cut away the dross from our daily experience, leaving the best and meatiest for us to enjoy with gusto.
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