Growth of a Poet's Mind

Growth of a Poet's Mind is an autobiographical and philosophical poem in blank verse by the Lovian poet Yuri Medvedev. Medvedev wrote the first version of the poem in 2004, and worked over the rest of it for the next four years. The poem was unknown to the general public until published in 2008.

Content and structure
The work consists out of an autobiographical prologue followed by three parts in wich the autor has put his philosophical ideas. This autobiography holds Medvedev's persistent metaphor that life is a linear journey. Medvedev's poem opens with a literal journey. The poem narrates a number of later journeys, most notably the crossing of the Alps in book II and, in the beginning of the final book, the climactic ascent of Snowdon. In the course of the poem, such literal journeys become the metaphorical vehicle for a journey, the quest in the poet's memory.

Although the episodes of the poem are recognizable events from Medvedev's life, they are interpreted in retrospect, reordered in sequence, retold as dramas involving the interaction between the mind and nature and between the creative imagination and the force of history. Through the journeys Medvedev tries to reconstitute the grounds of hope in a time of post-revolutionary reaction and reason.

Qoutations
Fair seedtime had my soul, and I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear.
 * Book. I, l. 301

Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, makes them cling together In one society.
 * Book. I, l. 340

The grim shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still, For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion like a living thing, Strode after me.
 * Book. I, l. 381

Huge and mighty forms, that do not live Like living men, moved slowly through the mind By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.
 * Book. I, l. 398

Where the statue stood Of Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.
 * Book. III, l. 60

When from our better selves we have too long Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop, Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, How gracious, how benign, is Solitude.
 * Book. IV, l. 354

A day Spent in a round of strenuous idleness.
 * Book. IV, l. 377

Whether we be young or old, Our destiny, our being's heart and home, Is with infinitude, and only there; With hope it is, hope that can never die, Effort and expectation, and desire, And something evermore about to be.
 * Book. VI, l. 603

Brothers all In honor, as in one community, Scholars and gentlemen.
 * Book. IX, l. 227

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!
 * Book. XI, l. 108

There is One great society alone on earth: The noble Living and the noble Dead.
 * Book. XI, l. 393