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Thread: Poetry Bookclub 2

  1. #61
    biting writer
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    Perhaps in the future we can check which collections are available in libraries or in print at a large distributor? I know with poetry collections this is chancy, but I didn't know when the nominating process was ongoing that the edition of Roethke selected was out of print.

  2. #62
    Bibliophile JBI's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jozanny View Post
    Perhaps in the future we can check which collections are available in libraries or in print at a large distributor? I know with poetry collections this is chancy, but I didn't know when the nominating process was ongoing that the edition of Roethke selected was out of print.
    It wouldn't matter; the collected Roethke is hardly more expensive than the anthology would have been anyway; in truth, you get more Roethke for your buck this way.

  3. #63
    The Poetic Warrior Dark Muse's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by quasimodo1 View Post
    Thanks Virgil. Anybody having difficulty finding/acquiring the text? I have an extra and can ship it anywhere USA. q1
    If it would not be too much trouble, I would take you up on that. I don't really like to buy things online, so I don't if I will be able to get a hold of a copy of the book.

    Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

  4. #64
    Registered User quasimodo1's Avatar
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    Anyone wanting the text of the first poem, please speak up.

  5. #65
    Vincit Qui Se Vincit Virgil's Avatar
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    Quasi, how are going to go through the book? Last time we went poem by poem and it was grueling and tiring and we never got through it. I think it would be too much to discuss every poem in the collection. I wish there was an easier way. One thought would be that each of us took turns selecting a poem.
    LET THERE BE LIGHT

    "Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena

    My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/

  6. #66
    Registered User quasimodo1's Avatar
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    Virgil, Your way sounds perfect. As you might have noticed, I sent the text of the first poem to all the players, at least those expressing interest so far. At this point, the method of approaching the book is open. I'm just trying to keep this thread from malingering...a project I'm quite fond of.

  7. #67
    The Poetic Warrior Dark Muse's Avatar
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    Yes I agree Virgil's idea does sound interesting

    Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

  8. #68
    Registered User quasimodo1's Avatar
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    To awassini: Professor, if your comment is on topic and since very few here speak either Farsi or Arabic, perhaps you could translate.

  9. #69
    Registered User quasimodo1's Avatar
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    Virgil and Dark Muse, Having each "member" choose a poem for discussion will be the loose rule. We could start with a look at "Feud" if there is any interest in the poem. Also, and please add to this if possible, the current group is composed of Dark Muse, Dapper Drake, Il Penseroso, JBI, Jozanny, Quark, myself, Sofia 82, Stlukesguild and Virgil.

  10. #70
    Artist and Bibliophile stlukesguild's Avatar
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    Since the Rothke is agreed upon I'll pick up a copy of the Collected Poems at my local Borders (I saw it there last week). I like the idea of picking a specific poem each... perhaps as a starting point... for discussion. So how does this discussion work beyond that?
    Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
    The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
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  11. #71
    Registered User quasimodo1's Avatar
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    Stlukes: You ask a question that you are better suited to answer. A free-for-all approach to discussion rarely works as well as some format whether parliamentary or a template.

  12. #72
    Registered User quasimodo1's Avatar
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    first poem for discussion

    There are so many possibilities for an easy choice but I wanted a poem at once representatve and challenging, and THE SHAPE OF FIRE (pp 61--63) is clearly both. At this point, after one reading...I can't say I have much of an idea about its meaning. Let the speeches begin.

  13. #73
    Registered User quasimodo1's Avatar
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    Theodore Roethke

    From The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke {FIRST POEM FOR DISCUSSION}
    PP 61-63

    THE SHAPE OF THE FIRE

    I

    What's this? A dish for at lips
    Who says? A nameless stranger.
    Is he a bird or a tree? Not everyone can tell.

    Water recedes to the crying of spiders.
    An old scow bumps over black rocks.
    A cracked pod calls.

    Mother me out of here. What more will the bones allow?
    Will the sea give the wind suck? A toad folds into a stone.
    These flowers are all fangs. Comfort me, fury.
    Wake me, witch, we'll do the dance of rotten sticks.

    Shale loosens. Marl reaches into the field. Small birds pass over water.
    Spirit, come near. This is only the edge of whiteness.
    I can't laugh at a procession of dogs.

    In the hour of ripeness the tree is barren.
    The she-bear mopes under the hill.
    Mother, mother, stir from your cave of sorrow.

    A low mouth laps water. Weeds, weeds, how I love you.
    The arbor is cooler. Farewell, farewell, fond worm.
    The warm comes without sound.

    II

    Where's the eye?
    The eye's in the sty.
    The ear's not here
    Beneath the hair.
    When I took off my clothes
    To find a nose,
    There was only one shoe
    For the waltz of To,
    The pinch of Where.

    Time for the flat-headed man. I recognize that listener,
    Him with the platitudes and rubber doughnuts,
    Melting a the knees a varicose horror.
    Hello, hello. My nerves knew you, dear boy.
    Have you come to unhinge my shadow?
    Last night I slept in the pits of a tongue.
    The silver fish ran in and out of my special bindings;
    I grew tired of the ritual of names and the assistant keeper of the
    Mollusks:
    Up over a viaduct I came, to the snakes and sticks of another winter,
    A two-legged dog hunting a new horizon of howls.
    The wind sharpened itself on a rock;
    A voice sang:

    Pleasure on ground
    Has no sound,
    Easily maddens
    The uneasy man.

    Who, careless, slips
    In coiling ooze
    Is trapped to the lips,
    Leaves mare than shoes;



    Must pull off clothes
    To jerk like a frog
    On belly and nose
    From the sucking bog.

    My meat eats me. Who waits at the gate?
    Mother of quartz, your words writhe into my ear.
    Renew the light, lewd whisper.
    {two of five parts}

  14. #74
    The Poetic Warrior Dark Muse's Avatar
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    I will have to wait untill I can read the whole poem, but so far, I have no idea what it is about. It just sounds like a random collection of images, though some of them are kind of cool, they make no acutal sense.

    Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

  15. #75
    Registered User quasimodo1's Avatar
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    After some research and because this poem seems so inaccessible, here are a few ideas about its makeup: The poems in this series, including "The Lost Son" are psychological comparisons, similar to what the German poets used to call a "bildungsroman" but also quite different because the poems don't show a linear progression from innocence to ethical strength. Also relative to the psychological factor is this quote from "Madness in the New Poetry" by Peter Davison..."Is madness a conflict between imagination and reality? (Theodore Roethke would call it "nobility of soul at odds with circumstance.") Perhaps, but what else but that very conflict gives rise to poetry? Where madness enters in we may expect incoherence; but let us take care to discriminate between the incoherence of not knowing how, and the incoherence of reaching beyond. Madness without poetry can sometimes, through the excitement that rises from it, arouse in the reader feelings much like those that would be aroused by poetry without madness. Longinus defined the difference as between the sublime and the beautiful; but twentieth-century psychiatric madness has all too little of the sublime about it. Where it engages the poet too closely with himself it tends to damage poetry, for the self should be the reservoir of poetry rather than its shallop. Poetry has suffered long from the preponderance of the idea that it exists to scratch the poet's itch. When madness enters in, the poet may try to cure himself upon the page, or to drive himself on to further intoxications of madness. If madness damages poetry, poetry must be defended. The poet as poet bears responsibility for the excellence and wholeness of his poem more than for his self's wholeness, no matter how mad he happens to be. In examining some of the books of verse published in the last year, I have kept in mind poetry before madness. Let us watch the outcome of each struggle." http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/65jan/davison.htm
    Last edited by quasimodo1; 09-11-2008 at 09:08 PM. Reason: link

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