"This Visible Worm", the "William/Willie challenge":
THIS VISIBLE WORM My “William/Willie challenge” Some years ago I watched the movie, “Dangerous Minds,” centring on a dedicated high school teacher played by Michelle Pfeiffer. She initiated a “Dylan/Dylan challenge for her students. They were to find poems/lyrics by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and the American singer/songwriter Bob Dylan which had the same theme. It turned out that each poet had written a work urging a bold, confrontational attitude to death. Bob Dylan wrote: “...I will not carry myself down to die./When I go to my grave, my head will be high.” Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night/Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” The idea of finding a connection between two poets from different eras and intrigued me, so I invented a similar challenge for myself, the “William/Willie” challenge. “William” is the English poet William Blake (1757-1827), whose books, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience struck a chord with me. As a studen