Drugs = Great Poems! (a review of 'Kubla Khan')

The first poem I plan to review is the poem 'Kubla Khan' by Coleridge - a poem about one of my favourite non-fictional guys ever, and one of the biggest party guys the world has ever known - the one and only Kublai Khan.

Doesn't look much like party animal, does he? Well he was.

It's a poem about Kublai Khan's pleasure palace, which Coleridge describes as being pretty awesome. 'Twice five miles of fertile ground with walls and towers girdled round' - or, in other words, ten square miles of pleasure palace - is a pretty good idea if you ask me, especially when you consider just how good at partying the Mongols were when they weren't massacring the armies of the Russians and Chinese. I mean, Ogedei Khan (the second ruler of the Mongol empire) had a fountain that literally spewed out various alcoholic beverages instead of water. But bragging about the Mongolian's party skills isn't going to get this poem analyzed, so I better get cracking. Basically, I thought the poem was great, even if Coleridge was tripping out on opium when he wrote it. It has all the weird adjectives that appeal to a Dungeons and Dragons player like myself - Alph is a Sacred River instead of just a body of running water, the trees are Incense-Bearing instead of just being vertical columns of vegetable matter, and the rills in the gardens bright are Sinuous instead of just being... rills. What is a rill, anyway?

So yes, I like the descriptive language all through it, and I feel like I could quote bits of the poem and perfectly set it up as a D&D scenario for my party. Also, lines 14-16 would really help set the tone for a 'haunted garden' type adventure - I'll quote them below.

Due to my strong personal convictions, I would like to stress that these following three lines in no way endorse love affairs with demons. 

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

Pretty cool, right? the rhyme scheme may be odd (ABACB in that verse, ABCCB, in the first, and variations all through the poem) but the quality of the work shines through no matter how much he changes his meter, foot, and rhyme scheme.

The other major thing I liked about the poem besides the descriptiveness was the images it invokes in your mind as you read it. You'll need to read the whole poem to really know what I mean, but I'll post some of the best examples right here.

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice! 

Or:

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Sunny domes, caves of ice, and the Earth breathing in fast thick pants? (I assume this means short intakes of breath and not fabric leg garments.) All of these lines conjure vivid images when read. They probably aren't the same images Coleridge saw as he wrote the poem, but they are still cinematic and awe-inspiring. It encourages you to read the poem more than once to try to catch Coleridge's meaning - something I did and enjoyed. So let me end this blog with these words: Kubla Khan is an amazing poem, and if they ever made a movie of it, I would sit out all night in front of the theatre to be first in line. Happy poetry reading!

-Paddywagon Man