I'd like to post "I Wanna Be Yours" by John Cooper Clarke.
He's an English punk poet who started off doing comic poems on tour with punk bands. He became addicted to heroin, but has recently kicked it and started touring again.
Here's the link:
http://www.johncooperclarke.com/inde...oems&Itemid=56
I think you're right! The does are looking at the White Stag as a maid at her lover.Originally Posted by jersea
@ Ecurb- I just want to clarify this point, as long as I understand what you are saying.
In my reading, I don't think the doe are lovingly looking at the stag, but have eyes that "appear as" the eyes of a maid to her lover.
Lo! they pause not for love nor for sorrow,
Yet their eyes are as the eyes of a maid to her lover
So in other words, the eyes appear to be loving, but that is just the way they look or have this quality in their appearance. Why do you Pound put this line in the poem?
I agree that the does (if "them" refers to a herd of does) may not be longing after the stag -- but they might be. After all,
" Yet their eyes are as the eyes of a maid to her lover,
When the white hart breaks his cover..."
Obviously, "them" is ambiguous. It could be a herd of deer "'mid the clouds on the heather." Or it could be hounds, whose eyes might well be like the eyes of a maid to her lover when they spy their quarry. The hounds are mentioned in the next stanza.
Does "we're" in the last stanza refer to Me + "them"? If so, "them" might be fellow poets, searching for the white stag of fame, and pausing not for love or sorrow in the quest. Also, this interpretation makes "them" seem more like hounds then like deer. In any event, I like the poem (even though I don't know what it means).
You're probably right that the "we" is referring to the fellow poets. That helps clarify the idea that they are in pure pursuit of Fame without anything holding them back.
Thanks for the conversation!
"I Wanna Be Yours" by John Cooper Clarke
I want to say this is awfully bad poetry, but maybe someone else can share an opinion.
Paul, how come you like this poem? I'm assuming you do like it.
I'll post more about my thoughts later, but briefly, i think it's satirical.
Yes, I always fall for that one.
In contrst to other romantic poetry - he's offering her something, but not much. A coffee pot, a raincoat, a ford cortina, (prone to rusting I think), and that rather disgusting image of the vacuum cleaner breathing in her dust.
It's like some bloke in a pub/ bar desperately trying to think of good lines with which to chat up a woman. I think the references to Teddy Bear - Elvis - and dreamboat are cliches. He's getting desperate, and then we have the ironic devotion deep as the ocean, when it is clearly as deep as a puddle.
Just to add - he's a performance poet who used to tour with Punk bands in the 80's.
I read that one the page you posted. Well, I can see there is a little more to think about when reading the poem, but it was so cliche that it must be ironic.
I like the John Cooper Clark poem. It reminds me of "Primitive" paintings. It sounds like song lyrics, rather than poetry (which makes sense if Clark was touring with punk bands). Anyone who has ever taken even famous and respected song lyrics and said them out loud as poetry knows that it is extremely rare that even the best lyrics can seem like decent poetry without the tune to support them. But Clark's can. They're ironic, and lyrical all at once. It's not just the irony that makes the poem good, it's also the skill with sounds and words. Even without the tune, a tune plays in one's head while reading the poem.
I agree, the poem does sound like song lyrics. It would be interesting to hear the poem back by music.
http://www.lyricszoo.com/john-cooper...cooper-clarke/
Funny you should say that. I had a look and he has done some of his stuff to music. The link takes you to a video from the Old Grey Whistle Test - a programme that was on in the 1980s in the UK. You can listen to the rather grim Beasley Street. He's got a Mancunian accent - he's from Salford near Manchester - a rough town - and the nasal voice seems to be appropriate to the subject matter.
Last edited by Paulclem; 05-20-2011 at 06:37 PM.
One of my favorite poets from the 1950s is Weldon Kees. He was also a critic, filmmaker, musician and novelist. His car was found by the Golden Gate Bridge in 1955, and Kees was never seen again. Most assume he took that final plunge. Nobody knows.
His poems (I think) combine wit and despair. Here are two of them:
CRIME CLUB
No butler, no second maid, no blood upon the stair.
No eccentric aunt, no gardener, no family friend
Smiling among the bric-a-brac and murder.
Only a suburban house with the front door open
And a dog barking at a squirrel, and the cars
Passing. The corpse quiet dead. The wife in Florida.
Consider the clues: the potato masher in a vase,
The torn photograph of a Weslyan basketball team
Scattered with check stubs in the hall;
The unsent fan letter to Shirley Temple,
The Hoover button on the lapel of the deceased,
The note: "To be killed this way is quite all right with me."
Small wonder that the case remains unsolved,
Or that the sleuth, Le Roux, is now incurably insane,
And sits alone in a white room in a white gown,
Screaming that all the world is mad, that clues
Lead nowhere, or to walls so high their tops cannot be seen;
Screaming all day of war, screaming that nothing can be solved.
------------------------------------
For My Daughter
by Weldon Kees
Looking into my daughter’s eyes I read
Beneath the innocence of morning flesh
Concealed, hintings of death she does not heed.
Coldest of winds have blown this hair, and mesh
Of seaweed snarled these miniatures of hands;
The night’s slow poison, tolerant and bland,
Has moved her blood. Parched years that I have seen
That may be hers appear: foul, lingering
Death in certain war, the slim legs green.
Or, fed on hate, she relishes the sting
Of others’ agony; perhaps the cruel
Bride of a syphilitic or a fool.
These speculations sour in the sun.
I have no daughter. I desire none.
I always feel like when I am trying to understand a poem I am solving a mystery. Anyhow, this poem was fun to read, but I don't think I solved its mystery. You can tell when it was written by the fan letter to Shirley Temple. The setting is so typical American suburbs. The ordinariness of the crime scene. The clues tell the reader nothing as well as the Sleuth. He's insane form his job? "that clues lead nowhere"
I'm still trying to get at the overall idea of the poem's meaning.
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