Poem of the Day

[Scheherazade]

PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHT LAWS: READ THIS BEFORE POSTING:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17515

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Encouraged by the popularity of the 'Poem of the Week' thread, I would like to start another one. Every day one of us will post a poem and we will discuss/share our thoughts on it till a new poem is posted:

1. Please, to prevent any confusions, clearly indicate for which day you are posting.

2. Post only after it is the mentioned date in your part of the world.

3. The same person cannot post another poem within 5 days.

I will post the first poem for April 24th:


my sweet old etcetera...

my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent

war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting

for,
my sister

isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds) of socks not to
mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers

etcetera wristers etcetera, my

mother hoped that

i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my
..............
e.e. cummings

[Grumbleguts]

Is this e.e.cummings by any chance? You forgot to post the author. The format looks like his.

[Scheherazade]

Oh, sorry! Must have slipped when I was highlighting. Yes, it is by cummings.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Cute poem.

I'm not too sure about Cummings myself. He seems a bit clever-clever and lacking in real emotional depth. Although I haven't read a lot of his work, just odd poems in anthologies. I know you like him a lot Scher, perhaps you could recommend some titles that would prove me wrong.

[Petrarch's Love]

Wow, I was just thinking last night of maybe starting a thread for a poem of the day. There's so many that just don't seem like they'd take up a week's worth of discussion. I'm not usually a huge cummings fan. I tend to side with Xamonas that he sometimes seems a bit "clever-clever" but not always enlightening (something the way I feel about deconstructionist criticism). That said, I actually enjoyed this poem quite a bit. The last line made me smile. The "etcetera" is quite effective in creating the feeling of the people at home going about their lives doing lots of things that sort of blend together as a lot of "and other stuff." I love, "my/ mother hoped that/ i would die etcetera/ bravely of course." It really encapsulates a certain kind of conversation you can hear his mother having across tea with the neighbor or something: "Oh, yes, my brave son, off at the war and I'm sure he's willing to sacrifice everything for our cause and die bravely...." etcetera. There's a shock in the expression that his mother hopes he'll die, but then the etcetera fills something in for us, makes us suspect it isn't a real wish but one taken out of the context of a lot of other things. Then the next line confirms that safe reading for us, that she's not really wishing her son dead, but putting out a lot of rhetoric of him dying bravely and all that. Across all the lines he's keeping us on our toes about how we view his mother, him, the attitudes of our society etcetera. ;)

[Chinaski]

Like she said... I like e.e.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

My favourite Etcetera is the capitalised one at the end. But that's probably because I'm a stereotypically macho and insensitve, sexually obsessed male. ;)

[Chinaski]

I think the seventh stanza is fantastic. I love the structure.

[Scheherazade]

I'm not too sure about Cummings myself. He seems a bit clever-clever and lacking in real emotional depth. Although I haven't read a lot of his work, just odd poems in anthologies. I know you like him a lot Scher, perhaps you could recommend some titles that would prove me wrong.Probably my liking of Cummings stems from the fact that I don't understand him enough to dislike! :p

I enjoy reading his poems because, once I manage to understand them, they say the deepest things with minimum number of seemingly 'simple' words. I love the 'cleverness' of his poetry. I think poetry is about being able to use words in the most efficient way to create the most pleasant effect and Cummings seems to achieve this very humbly. He does not run away with big words, does not interject confusing, pretentious references or ideas.

As for lacking in real emotional depth... I really disagree with this. I wonder if you think so because he does not strip his soul with unheard of adjectives and verbs. Otherwise, I believe, he does a marvellous point of sharing what he had in his mind. Like in the poem I have posted. Even though his folks at home, safe with their ideals, are proud of him and wouldn't mind even his heroic death, the fact is that he is sitting in mud (how becoming of a hero! :p) and only thing he can think of is not his own bravery but his beloved. I find it ironic, funny and cruelly realistic.

More Cummings discussion on the Forum: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3680&highlight=cummings

[Xamonas Chegwe]

You're probably right Scher - I could have got sidetracked by the weird structure - all the short lines and brackets - and not looked any deeper. I promise to give him more of a chance next time I see some of his work. I like this poem at least.

[Jay]

John Keats - La Belle Dame sans Merci

I.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.

II.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

III.

I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

IV.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

V.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

VI.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

VII.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
“I love thee true.”

VIII.

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

IX.

And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d
On the cold hill’s side.

X.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”

XI.

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

XII.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.

[Virgil]

A gorgeous poem. One of my favorites of all time. Unfortunately the current Poem of the Week, with it's double entrendres has warped me a little and today I pick up the sexual references here. But here, while I'm sure Keats intended the sexual references, it's only a small part of the poem. I love the way the poem circles back on itself. And of course, this is Keats' voice fully developed into the great poet. The poem "hath me in thrall."

[IrishCanadian]

I wonder what was happening in Keats' life that made him write this. Its so beautiful, and so depressing.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

"Do you know 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'"?
"Know her? I married her!"

Something a friend said once.

I've always loved this one too. The shortened last line in every stanza really works with the subject matter somehow - there's bound to be a name for this meter but it escapes me.

[Scheherazade]

How likely is it that Keats was under the influence while writing this?

[Bandini]

Waking up cold on a hill side after a beautiful dream? Yes, he was under the influence. Bit of a TB metaphor too. Oh , it is also about his thwarted love for Fanny. he spent his life chasing Fanny. Couldn't get enough of Fanny old Keats. Absolutely adored Fanny. I'll stop now.

[jackyyyy]

Every last line turns each stanza into a verse from a song. I can sing that, and I can't sing. I looked at it a few times, but only now realized it. Wonderful, and thanks.

[Virgil]

How likely is it that Keats was under the influence while writing this?
Some of the other Romantics (Coleridge, I know) may, but I don't recall Keats doing that. Do you know that he did? I read a biography of his last year of life, and I don't remember anything like that in there.

[Scheherazade]

Some of the other Romantics (Coleridge, I know) may, but I don't recall Keats doing that. Do you know that he did? I read a biography of his last year of life, and I don't remember anything like that in there.I don't know that he did (which is why I asked ;)) but it is all so very dreamy that one does wonder...

Psychedelic!

;)

[Virgil]

I don't know that he did (which is why I asked ;)) but it is all so very dreamy that one does wonder...

Psychedelic!

;)
Many of Keats' poems are dreamy. That's part of his work.

[Scheherazade]

Yes and that is what I am asking. Is it possible that this dreamy quality of his poetry might be due to intoxication (drugs/alcohol/what have you) or fever when he was suffering from TB?

[jackyyyy]

I read up on him recently. And well, he died in Rome at 25 from Comsumption, just like his brother. He was educated somewhat in medicine, another brother moved in America. I wonder about him.. maybe a happy go lucky (especially after reading this), unlike his peers. Incredibly talented, shown in only 3 and 1/2 years, and a sad end he knew was coming.

He was resigned.

[IrishCanadian]

Thats a sad story. Its incredible how much suffering can lead to such incredible art. Loads of examples from Beethoven to VanGough. I never knew this about Keats though.

[Petrarch's Love]

Thanks for posting this Jay. It's a really beautifully written piece. Such an incredible expression of loss and desire entertwined. I love the way it circles back to the lines, "the sedge is withered from the lake/ And no birds sing." Sometimes in the autumn months those lines and the lines "the squirell's granary is full/ And the harvest's done" come to my mind like a refrain from a song.

I don't think Keats was on anything when he wrote it. As far as I know he wasn't into drugs the way Coleridge and others were (I'm not saying he never tried anything, but it doesn't seem to have been a big part of his lifestyle or an "aid" in his poetic production).

I was thinking as I read it about the possible influences of Arthurian Romance and the like, and I noticed for the first time that there are twelve stanzas, the traditional number of books for Epic and often Romance. I wonder if that was intentional or if I just spent too much time thinking about the epic genre for my studies this afternoon? Anyway, rambled on enough. Thanks for the poem.

[jackyyyy]

Thats a sad story. Its incredible how much suffering can lead to such incredible art. Loads of examples from Beethoven to VanGough. I never knew this about Keats though.Excuse my spelling above. Yes, there are lots of examples. I wondered once, and mentioning it here to kind of create the topic, if there was some measurement of correlation we could ponder between suffering and the quality, intenseness, whatever we might call it, of people's work. Great hardship, great suffering will, almost consistently, cause an equally great spike of human creativity. Self-preservation would not cause most of us to spend our last days writing poetry. I know that trying to quantify suffering is a crazy notion, but when someone is on the verge of death, as opposed to another emotional catastrophe, seems much more profound - when your own mortality is at your doorstep. Maybe that should be another thread, another time.

[Jay]

I like the mystery in the poem. I like the way it contrasts "everything's wonderful while I'm with the faery" and then suddenly it goes to pale, ghastly, (more than likely) dead men warning the knight who wakes up only to die soon. Or does he? Does anybody think he'd actually survive, having been warned in time?

[Xamonas Chegwe]

26th April - much as I love LBDSM - it's time to move on.

And despite the title - this is not about psychadelics!


Mushrooms - Sylvia Plath

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

[IrishCanadian]

That is a fantastically written poem. The mood of the words .. hmm, how to describe this better ... The words have the same feeling in your mouth as a raw mushroom does --sort of. The round tones and simple wirds with multiple syllables sort of reminds me of mushrooms. I guess if someone changed the title they would remind me of apples, steak, etc. but you can still tell the time and effort she put into the poem. The simple wirds with multiple syllables (Overnight, discreetly, quietly, ... thats just the first stanza) fill your mouth with the sort of smoking flavour of mushrooms. Haha, no I'm not writing this while on mushrooms, call me crazy but thats just what i think.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

"Soft fists" is my personal favourite phrase in this poem - it's what made it stand out when I was reading through my Plath collection last night. It's such a perfect description.

Interesting verse form too - 5 syllables in each line, but no set metrical style - enjambments across stanzas as well as merely between lines. I've noticed that Plath used variations on this distinctive, artificial, haikuesque style a lot.

[Riesa]

Wow! What a poem, nice description of it, Irish, I can definitely see what you mean about the words having the same feeling in your mouth as the way a raw mushroom does, very finely put. I feel like I've been blowing up a bunch of balloons after reading this.

My favorite lines:


So many of us!
So many of us!

I hear these tiny teeth-squeaky little voices, a chorus of mushrooms.

I should dig around and find my collection of hers.

[jackyyyy]

This made me smile a lot. I can't help thinking about those little white mushroom cuts we get on our plates, and now they have a personna, it will not be the same anymore. Another thought, this little society is soooo good, and over the hill there is an evil society of mushrooms, and in the patch between there are magical ones. And before you post it, no, I am not on magic mushrooms either. :lol:

[Bandini]

Some of the other Romantics (Coleridge, I know) may, but I don't recall Keats doing that. Do you know that he did? I read a biography of his last year of life, and I don't remember anything like that in there.

Oh yes he did. He was a Laudanum addict. The poem is about a) spurned love b) TB c) the effects of Laudanum. All beatiful - but without mercy. Yes - even TB - it induced feelings of euphoria, and the much imitated 'pale and interesting' look (which caused many to die of lead poisoning, from the white face paint they used)

[Bandini]

Actually, I should say that the above is just my view! Although it is documented that he took Laudanum, had TB, and had a spurned love for Fanny, I don't KNOW that this is what the poem is about.

[Bandini]

Strange - I read today's poem before reading the comments on feeling the mushrooms, and I could totally feel/taste the mushroom. A real synaesthetic poem. And I thought it was my Jazz cigarette.

[Virgil]

Today's poem is quite nice. I especially liked the line: "The small grains make room." "make room" echoes mushroom!
I also liked this stanza:

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

Who would have described mushrooms as nudgers and shovers? :lol:

Does anyone think the mushrooms are symbolic or carry some other meaning? I don't see it, but I'm just wondering.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Does anyone think the mushrooms are symbolic or carry some other meaning? I don't see it, but I'm just wondering.

I've been trying to see anything beyond the obvious but I don't. I think it's just a beautiful bit of descriptive poetry - do we really need more?
(Cue The Unnamable to show us how stupid we all are and how it's actually about mixed-race relationships. :D)

[Virgil]

I've been trying to see anything beyond the obvious but I don't. I think it's just a beautiful bit of descriptive poetry - do we really need more?

No, we do not need more.

[jackyyyy]

Today's poem is quite nice. I especially liked the line: "The small grains make room." "make room" echoes mushroom!
I also liked this stanza:


Who would have described mushrooms as nudgers and shovers? :lol:

Does anyone think the mushrooms are symbolic or carry some other meaning? I don't see it, but I'm just wondering.
Mushrooms carry lots of meaning in Britain, I think going way back in history, Celt times, witchcraft, as everything from medicines to poisons, and of course 'the magic stuff'. The nudgers and shovers, I picked up on as reference to their ability to sprout up totally unexpectedly in a spot that is just about perfect for them, like after a rainfall, when their 'roofs' fill up. Gads man, Plath could have written books, man, on mushrooms, man. :banana:

They are fragile and adaptive, just like humans really....

[ktd222]

I don't think we can have any sort of proper discussion on most poems if we only spend a day on it. And I think we owe more to the poems and our brains, to spend a little more time discussing poems.

[Virgil]

I don't think we can have any sort of proper discussion on most poems if we only spend a day on it. And I think we owe more to the poems and our brains, to spend a little more time discussing poems.
I got that feeling too. Although I still like this thread. For Poem of the Day I think we are just reduced to highlighting a few key aspects of the poem, and we will have to leave detailed analysis for the Poem of the Week thread.

[Scheherazade]

I don't think we can have any sort of proper discussion on most poems if we only spend a day on it. And I think we owe more to the poems and our brains, to spend a little more time discussing poems.ktd,

This thread is simply to share the poems we like with other members and, maybe, exchange a comment or two. A way of reading more poems just for the pleasure of it. We can still enjoy a poem without beating it senseless with our analyses, I am sure.

However, participation is not compulsory and it is only for those who are interested.

[genoveva]

I'll give this a try- today's Thursday (4/27)...

Laughing Song

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;

When the meadows laugh with lively green,
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene,
When Mary and Susan and Emily
With their sweet round mouths sing "Ha, Ha, He!"

When the painted birds laugh in the shade,
Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread,
Come live & be merry, and join with me,
To sing the sweet chorus of "Ha, Ha, He!"

~William Blake

[Bandini]

I don't think we can have any sort of proper discussion on most poems if we only spend a day on it. And I think we owe more to the poems and our brains, to spend a little more time discussing poems.

You vcan have an enjoyable discussion on a poetry for 10 minutes. Kepp it on please.

[Bandini]

Agreed Shez.

[chmpman]

My impression is that there is far too much laughing going on.

[Scheherazade]

Laughing Song

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;

When the meadows laugh with lively green,
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene,
When Mary and Susan and Emily
With their sweet round mouths sing "Ha, Ha, He!"

When the painted birds laugh in the shade,
Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread,
Come live & be merry, and join with me,
To sing the sweet chorus of "Ha, Ha, He!"

~William BlakeI agree with chmpman that there is a lot of laughing going on and that is unusual for a Blake poem... Far too 'merry'? OK, it is repeat 3 times.

I like the way he changed the last 'ha' to 'he' to rhyme! :)

[Bandini]

Inspiration for David Bowies' 'The Laughing Gnome'?!

[Virgil]

Ever since we had an Emily Dickinson poem on Poem of the Week thread, I've been reading a few more of her poems. I really like her as a poet. Here is on of her rare love poems, which I've become infatuated with. Most of her poems are not titled, but this one comes with a title "In Vain." What else would a love poem by Dickinson be about? I don't know if an editor titled or if she did herself.


In Vain by Emily Dickinson

I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf

The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup

Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.

I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down,
You could not.

And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus',
That new grace

Glow plain and foreign
On my homesick eye,
Except that you, than he
Shone closer by.

They'd judge us-how?
For you served Heaven, you know,
Or sought to;
I could not,

Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise.

And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest
On the heavenly fame.

And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.

So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!

[Petrarch's Love]

Thanks, Virgil. I've never read this one. Was she in love with a priest or something? It sounds like religion is proving an obstacle to her love for this person. Imagine, Emily Dickinson as a more prudent Hester Prynne! I really love the sound of this poem too, and the way it flows together. As with all her verse I feel like I need to read it over and over and I'll slowly unfold layers of subtle meaning that I just missed the first time.

[jackyyyy]

I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down,
You could not.

This part is most profound to me. Emily.

[Virgil]

There's a lot profound here. I was attracted at first to two parts, the openning metaphor and the closing stanza. She cannot live with him, because it would be life, and life is like a broken cup hidden on a shelf. Wow! and the wow refers to both halves of that statement. (a) She doesn't want life because (b) life becomes mundane, quaint. And then the closing stanza is touching to me, that it is better to keep apart, and feed on the despair. It seems it would be better to live in separation.

The center of the poem she uses to dramatize the inability for the two individuals to connect in life and death, and the failure of religion to bring the two together. It seems to me a statement of the imperviousness of individuality. What she seems to be saying is that it is so imposssible her and him to harmonize (perhaps there's a better word, but it doesn't come to me) in life, that even in death it is impossible. The stanza that Jack highlights is very nice.

Petrarch, I don't know if there really was a person she's referring to. As far as I know, she was reclusive all her life, and this could refer to either a one time house guest, a family friend, a frequent visitor, or someone she imagined.

[Nightshade]

I guess Im abit late to post this but there isnt a new one yet soo I like the last bit best. especially

And that pale sustenance,
Despair!

Its what the word(??) palitable? You can almost touch and feel the despair.

yupp I definetly like this :D

[jackyyyy]

There's a lot profound here.Simply to add, I could not help being drawn back to "On the death of Anne Bronte". Its one of those poems that plagues me everytime I think on these things. There is no one phrase in Charlotte's piece that mirrors this in any way, but I sense the notion of death of one, while the other is left, in just these few lines, and similar as Charlotte could have suggested in her own.

Nor could I rise with you,

[chmpman]

I'm bored, and it's late, so:

Elements of Composition
A.K. Ramanujan

Composed as I am, like others,
of elements on certain well-known lists,
father's seed and mother's egg

gathering earth, air, fire, mostly
water, into a mulberry mass,
moulding calcium,

carbon, even gold, magnesium and such,
into a chattering self tangled
in love and work,

scary dreams, capable of eyes that can see,
only by moving constantly,
the constancy of things

like Stonehenge or cherry trees;


add uncle's eleven fingers
making shadow-plays of rajas
and cats, hissing,

becoming fingers again, the look
of panic on sister's face
an hour before

her wedding, a dated newspaper map
of a place one has never seen, maybe
no longer there

after the riots, downtown Nairobi,
that a friend carried in his passport
as others would

a woman's picture in their wallets;


add the lepers of Maduri,
male, female, married,
with children,

lion faces, crabs for claws,
clotted on their shadows
under the stone-eyed

goddesses of dance, mere pillars,
moving as nothing on earth
can move--

I pass through them
as they pass through me
taking and leaving

affections, seeds, skeletons,


millennia of fossil records
of insects that do not last
a day,

body-prints of mayflies,
a legend half-heard
in a train

of the half-man searching
for an ever-fleeing
other half

through Muharram tigers,
hyacinths in crocodile waters,
and the sweet

twisted lives of epileptic saints,


and even as I add,
I lose, decompose
into my elements,

into other names and forms,
past, and passing, tenses
without time,

caterpillar on a leaf, eating,
being eaten.



Now, no complaints on how long it is - it's only one sentence.

[Virgil]

chmpman - That is a really fine poem. I've never heard of Ramnujan. It's a poem of definition; he's defining himself, and wonderfully imaginative. Almost every line is a winner, but I love the humor in this:

add uncle's eleven fingers
making shadow-plays of rajas
and cats, hissing,

becoming fingers again, the look
of panic on sister's face
an hour before

her wedding,

I'm going to assume he was Hindu. He captures the circularity of the Hindu perspective of life in the closing lines:

caterpillar on a leaf, eating,
being eaten.
I enjoyed that.

[formality hater]

can i post my own poem or song?

[Virgil]

You can do that in the personal poetry section. Just start a thread with your poem or song. Poem of the Day and Poem of the Week is for analysis of published poems.

Welcome to lit net, by the way.

[genoveva]

and even as I add,
I lose, decompose
into my elements,

into other names and forms,
past, and passing, tenses
without time,



I especially like the above. Nice, all around. Is he an Indian poet?

[chmpman]

He grew up in India. He was anthologized in my Norton of British Lit. We didn't discuss him in class, but I came across a few of his poems while just perusing the book. I liked this one a lot. Especially the lines quoted above by both Virgil and Genoveva.

[chmpman]

I also like:

and the sweet
twisted lives of epileptic saints

[The Unnamable]

1st May 2006

For Bartleby The Scrivener


"Every time we get a big gale around here
some people just refuse to batten down."

we estimate that

ice skating into a sixty
mile an hour wind, fully exerting
the legs and swinging arms

you will be pushed backward
an inch every twenty minutes.

in a few days, depending on
the size of the lake,
the backs of your skates
will touch land.

you will then fall on your ***
and be blown into the forest.

if you gather enough speed
by flapping your arms
and keeping your skates pointed

you will catch up to other
flying people who refused to batten down.
you will exchange knowing waves
as you ride the great wind north.

Billy Collins

[genoveva]

Hmm...I will have to try that sometime...

[Petrarch's Love]

"Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!"

Thanks Unnamable. I had read this poem some time ago and it had made an impression so that I remembered parts of it, but never could recall the title or the author. I'm glad to have found it again, and I understand it better now having read the Melville, which I had not when I first encountered it (doubtless why I had forgotten the title). Now I've got a picture of you in skates battling on against the gale force winds of ignorance.

Genoveva--Good idea. Maybe next time Chicago has really strong winter winds I'll have to strap the skates on and see if I get blown across lake Michigan. :lol:

[Virgil]

I don't get it though. What's the connection with Melville's story? What is it that Bartleby says, "I prefer not to." Is that it?

[Riesa]

April 3, 2005

One More
by Raymond Carver

He arose early, the morning tinged with excitement,
eager to be at his desk. He had toast and eggs, cigarettes
and coffee, musing all the while on the work ahead, the hard
path through the forest. The wind blew clouds across
the sky, rattling the leaves that remained on the branches
outside his window. Another few days for them and they'd
be gone, those leaves. There was a poem there, maybe;
he'd have to give it some thought. He went to
his desk, hesitated for a long moment, and then made
what proved to be the most important decision
he'd make all day, something his entire flawed life
had prepared him for. He pushed aside the folder of poems-
one poem in particular still held him in its grip after
a restless night's sleep. (But, really, what's one more, or
less? So what? The work would keep for a while yet,
wouldn't it?) He had the whole wide day opening before him.
Better to clear his decks first. He'd deal with a few items
of business, even some family matters he'd let go far
too long. So he got cracking. He worked hard all day-love
and hate getting into it, a little compassion (very little), some
fellow-feeling, even despair and joy.
There were occasional flashes of anger rising, then
subsiding, as he wrote letters, saying "yes" or "no" or "it
depends" -explaining why, or why not, to people out there
at the margin of his life or people he'd never seen and never
would see. Did they matter? Did they give a damn?
Some did. He took some calls too, and made some others, which
in turn created the need to make a few more. So-and-so, being
unable to talk now, promised to call back next day.
Toward evening, worn out and clearly (but mistakenly, of course)
feeling he'd done something resembling an honest day's work,
he stopped to take inventory and note the couple of
phone calls he'd have to make next morning if
he wanted to stay abreast of things, if he didn't want to
write still more letters, which he didn't. By now,
it occurred to him, he was sick of all business, but he went on
in this fashion, finishing one last letter that should have been
answered weeks ago. Then he looked up. It was nearly dark outside.
The wind had laid. And the trees-they were still now, nearly
stripped of their leaves. But, finally, his desk was clear,
if he didn't count that folder of poems he was
uneasy to look at. He put the folder in a drawer, out
of sight. That was a good place for it, it was safe there and
he'd know just where to go lay his hands on it when he
felt like it. Tomorrow! He'd done everything he could do
today. There were still those few calls he'd have to make,
and he forgot who was supposed to call him, and there were a
few notes he was required to send due to a few of the calls,
but he had it made now, didn't he? He was out of the woods.
He could call today a day. He'd done what he had to do.
What his duty told him he should do. He'd fulfilled his sense of
obligation and hadn't disappointed anybody.

But at that moment, sitting there in front of his tidy desk,
he was vaguely nagged by the memory of a poem he'd wanted
to write that morning, and there was that other poem
he hadn't gotten back to either.

So there it is. Nothing much else needs be said, really. What
can be said for a man who chooses to blab on the phone
all day, or else write stupid letters
while he lets his poems go unattended and uncared for, abandoned-
or worse, unattempted. This man doesn't deserve poems
and they shouldn't be given to him in any form.
His poems, should he ever produce any more,
ought to be eaten by mice.

More about Raymond Carver (http://www.todayinliterature.com/biography/raymond.carver.asp)

[Scheherazade]

Thanks for giving me the chance to read my first Carver poem, Riesa.

After reading it couple of times, all I can say is that I love the flowing rythm however I am also wondering: When I finished reading it, I felt the kind of satisfaction I would feel after reading a beautifully written short story. If written in prose, I am not sure if I could tell that this was a poem.

What makes it a poem? Or what makes a poem?

Wondering.

[chmpman]

I thought the same thing the first time through it (this is also my first Carver poem). Then I went back through it and I suppose the lines do have a sort of integrity of their own, which I think makes it poetic. I liked it, and sadly, related to it.

[Virgil]

I liked these lines in particular:

There were occasional flashes of anger rising, then
subsiding, as he wrote letters, saying "yes" or "no" or "it
depends" -explaining why, or why not, to people out there
at the margin of his life or people he'd never seen and never
would see. Did they matter? Did they give a damn?

The rhythm is particularly strong in those lines. It's a nice poem, but at places I felt the lines got a little too prosey.

Like here:

There were still those few calls he'd have to make,
and he forgot who was supposed to call him, and there were a
few notes he was required to send due to a few of the calls,
but he had it made now, didn't he? He was out of the woods.
He could call today a day. He'd done what he had to do.
What his duty told him he should do. He'd fulfilled his sense of
obligation and hadn't disappointed anybody.

Not only that. Almost every sentence there is a cliche. I got to believe he did that on purpose. There's too many for them to be accidental. "Out of the woods" is one of the most common phrases you will ever find. He's making an aestheitic statement, although I'm not sure what that is.

[chmpman]

Hey Riesa, shouldn't that be May 3rd?

[genoveva]

...and 2006 ;-)

[chmpman]

Ahhh, I didn't even notice that.

[genoveva]

Interesting guy, huh? He's dead, but he's got a place on "myspace"?
From Oregon!

[Isagel]

4/5 2006

rom "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"
by William Carlos Williams


Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
like a buttercup
upon its branching stem-
save that it's green and wooden-
I come, my sweet,
to sing to you.
We lived long together
a life filled,
if you will,
with flowers. So that
I was cheered
when I came first to know
that there were flowers also
in hell.
Today
I'm filled with the fading memory of those flowers
that we both loved,
even to this poor
colorless thing-
I saw it
when I was a child-
little prized among the living
but the dead see,
asking among themselves:
What do I remember
that was shaped
as this thing is shaped?
while our eyes fill
with tears.
Of love, abiding love
it will be telling
though too weak a wash of crimson
colors it
to make it wholly credible.
There is something
something urgent
I have to say to you
and you alone
but it must wait
while I drink in
the joy of your approach,
perhaps for the last time.
And so
with fear in my heart
I drag it out
and keep on talking
for I dare not stop.
Listen while I talk on
against time.
It will not be
for long.
I have forgot
and yet I see clearly enough
something
central to the sky
which ranges round it.
An odor
springs from it!
A sweetest odor!
Honeysuckle! And now
there comes the buzzing of a bee!
and a whole flood
of sister memories!
Only give me time,
time to recall them
before I shall speak out.
Give me time,
time.
When I was a boy
I kept a book
to which, from time
to time,
I added pressed flowers
until, after a time,
I had a good collection.
The asphodel,
forebodingly,
among them.
I bring you,
reawakened,
a memory of those flowers.
They were sweet
when I pressed them
and retained
something of their sweetness
a long time.
It is a curious odor,
a moral odor,
that brings me
near to you.
The color
was the first to go.
There had come to me
a challenge,
your dear self,
mortal as I was,
the lily's throat
to the hummingbird!
Endless wealth,
I thought,
held out its arms to me.
A thousand tropics
in an apple blossom.
The generous earth itself
gave us lief.
The whole world
became my garden!
But the sea
which no one tends
is also a garden
when the sun strikes it
and the waves
are wakened.
I have seen it
and so have you
when it puts all flowers
to shame.
Too, there are the starfish
stiffened by the sun
and other sea wrack
and weeds. We knew that
along with the rest of it
for we were born by the sea,
knew its rose hedges
to the very water's brink.
There the pink mallow grows
and in their season
strawberries
and there, later,
we went to gather
the wild plum.
I cannot say
that I have gone to hell
for your love
but often
found myself there
in your pursuit.
I do not like it
and wanted to be
in heaven. Hear me out.
Do not turn away.
I have learned much in my life
from books
and out of them
about love.
Death
is not the end of it.
There is a hierarchy
which can be attained,
I think,
in its service.
Its guerdon
is a fairy flower;
a cat of twenty lives.
If no one came to try it
the world
would be the loser.
It has been
for you and me
as one who watches a storm
come in over the water.
We have stood
from year to year
before the spectacle of our lives
with joined hands.
The storm unfolds.
Lightning
plays about the edges of the clouds.
The sky to the north
is placid,
blue in the afterglow
as the storm piles up.
It is a flower
that will soon reach
the apex of its bloom.
We danced,
in our minds,
and read a book together.
You remember?
It was a serious book.
And so books
entered our lives.
The sea! The sea!
Always
when I think of the sea
there comes to mind
the Iliad
and Helen's public fault
that bred it.
Were it not for that
there would have been
no poem but the world
if we had remembered,
those crimson petals
spilled among the stones,
would have called it simply
murder.
The sexual orchid that bloomed then
sending so many
disinterested
men to their graves
has left its memory
to a race of fools
or heroes
if silence is a virtue.
The sea alone
with its multiplicity
holds any hope.
The storm
has proven abortive
but we remain
after the thoughts it roused
to
re-cement our lives.
It is the mind
the mind
that must be cured
short of death's
intervention,
and the will becomes again
a garden. The poem
is complex and the place made
in our lives
for the poem.
Silence can be complex too,
but you do not get far
with silence.
Begin again.
It is like Homer's
catalogue of ships:
it fills up the time.
I speak in figures,
well enough, the dresses
you wear are figures also,
we could not meet
otherwise. When I speak
of flowers
it is to recall
that at one time
we were young.
All women are not Helen,
I know that,
but have Helen in their hearts.
My sweet,
you have it also, therefore
I love you
and could not love you otherwise.
Imagine you saw
a field made up of women
all silver-white.
What should you do
but love them?
The storm bursts
or fades! it is not
the end of the world.
Love is something else,
or so I thought it,
a garden which expands,
though I knew you as a woman
and never thought otherwise,
until the whole sea
has been taken up
and all its gardens.
It was the love of love,
the love that swallows up all else,
a grateful love,
a love of nature, of people,
of animals,
a love engendering
gentleness and goodness
that moved me
and that I saw in you.
I should have known,
though I did not,
that the lily-of-the-valley
is a flower makes many ill
who whiff it.
We had our children,
rivals in the general onslaught.
I put them aside
though I cared for them.
as well as any man
could care for his children
according to my lights.
You understand
I had to meet you
after the event
and have still to meet you.
Love
to which you too shall bow
along with me-
a flower
a weakest flower
shall be our trust
and not because
we are too feeble
to do otherwise
but because
at the height of my power
I risked what I had to do,
therefore to prove
that we love each other
while my very bones sweated
that I could not cry to you
in the act.
Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
I come, my sweet,
to sing to you!
My heart rouses
thinking to bring you news
of something
that concerns you
and concerns many men. Look at
what passes for the new.
You will not find it there but in
despised poems.
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
Hear me out
for I too am concerned
and every man
who wants to die at peace in his bed
besides.



( when I copy this poem the way the lines are written on the page change - to see how it is supposed to be - see this link: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15541)

[Virgil]

Thanks Isagel. I had heard of this poem but had never read it before. Just some quick impressions:
1. Very lovely in its feeling and imagery.
2. I was surprised at how prosey it was in spots. It could have been prose sentences broken into poetic lines. Rhythm and voice was consistent. Like the poem from Chandler the day before it's hard to hear the poetry when the poet consciously tries to not elevate the language.
3. The second poem this week (Poem of the Week, Milton's "Lycidas") with the word "guerdon" in it. I found that ironic.
4. Oh, no, another irony: odor of honeysuckle; just had that in Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" in Book Forum of the month. [Riesa, no laughing]

[Riesa]

Hey Riesa, shouldn't that be May 3rd?



...and 2006 ;-)


Okay, genoveva and chmpman, :lol: :lol: :lol:

You see I am out of time, it's amazing I can brush my own teeth, let alone drive a car. sheesh. :lol:

[Isagel]

.
3. The second poem this week (Poem of the Week, Milton's "Lycidas") with the word "guerdon" in it. I found that ironic.


It would be nice to pretend that I meant for that to happen. But you are much more attentive than me. I had to look up guerdon - just in case there is someone else that do not know: it means reward or payment, according to my dictionary.

I also had to look up asphodel:

"The plant is about 3 feet high, with large, white, terminal flowers, and radical, long, numerous leaves. It is only cultivated in botanical and ornamental gardens, though it easily grows from seeds or division of roots.
The roots must be gathered at the end of the first year.

The ancients planted the flowers near tombs, regarding them as the form of food preferred by the dead, and many poems refer to this custom. The name is derived from a Greek word meaning sceptre.

The roots, dried and boiled in water, yield a mucilaginous matter that in some countries is mixed with grain or potato to make Asphodel bread. In Spain and other countries they are used as cattle fodder, especially for sheep. In Barbary the wild boars eat them greedily. "

[Scheherazade]

Shame that we cannot read it in original but still:


Get Drunk!

Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
Get drunk and stay that way.

On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.

And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:

"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk!
Stay drunk!
On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!"

Charles Baudelaire

[Petrarch's Love]

:lol: Thanks Sher. I enjoyed that one. I think I'm going to go see if that Chianti is still in the cupboard to go with my pasta tonight. ;)

Et voila, l'orginal (since I happened to be on a French lit site in another window anyway I figured I'd paste it here for those who know the language--it doesn't have the pretty shape that Sher's does though :():


XXXIII. Enivrez-vous

Il faut être toujours ivre. Tout est là: c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.

Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous.

Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous réveillez, l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l'étoile, à l'oiseau, à l'horloge, à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est et le vent, la vague, l'étoile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vous répondront: "Il est l'heure de s'enivrer! Pour n'être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps, enivrez-vous; enivrez-vous sans cesse! De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise."

[Riesa]

Thanks, Scher, that was great, It brought me back to my youth; I remember reading it years ago, and had forgotten all about it, what a shame. It's wonderful. Enjoy your chianti, Petrarch. :)

[Virgil]

Chianti? Did I hear chianti? Given that it's a French poem shouldn't we open a Bordeaux? :nod:

[Petrarch's Love]

:lol: Oui, bien sur, but Bordeaux with penne arrabiata? I think non. Besides, I think the only french wine I have on hand is white, and white wine definately doesn't go with arrabiata sauce. The chianti, on the other hand was perfect.

[genoveva]

Mmm...Baudelaire, one of my favorites. This is a fun, light hearted poem! And mmm...wine, another favorite of mine. For now, a glass of homebrewed beer will do.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I was on my way to work but that poem almost persuaded me to get bladdered instead. The power of art! :D

[Scheherazade]

I am glad you guys enjoy the poem! Thought we needed a break from the more 'serious' discussions that have been going on.

It is Friday, it is spring, the weather is promising...

Have a great day, everyone! :nod:

[rachel]

well I don't drink alchohol, it has never appealed to me, but to be drunk on virtue sounds intoxicating. Or totally smashed with kindness or love of humanity, with good works, I like that and try to live that. It really somehow does keep you numbed from all lot of the ugly mundane things in life. It is really simply to be passionate about what you are passionate about and drink it to the last drop, revel in it and be drunk.
very wise and beautiful really.

[Petrarch's Love]

So now that it really is the right day to post a new poem (sorry Scher). I'll put this one up, since Rachel's comment above reminded me of it (though there is a danger of this turning into the "Poem Association Game" thread :)).

April 6

I TASTE a liquor never brewed--
From Tankards scooped in Pearl--
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an Alcohol!

Inebriate of Air--am I--
And Debauchee of Dew--
Reeling--thro endless summer days--
From inns of Molten Blue--

When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove's door--
When Butterflies renounce their "drams"--
I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats--
And Saints--to windows run--
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the--Sun--

Emily Dickinson (1861)

[Virgil]

If she wrote that today, I might think she was referring to alcohol free beer. :lol:

I've come to love Dickinson poems, but while I don't dislike this one, it wouldn't rank near my favorites. It seems awfully conventional for her. Plus the fact that it's alcohol free... ;)

[ktd222]

I must reply because I don't think were giving this poem due justice. I've always been amazed by this poem because it displays her unique imagination:
By taking something common as alcohol and empowering it with almost(maybe even) divine qualities. First of all, the first stanza talks about something amazing and rare that it can only be comparable to alcohol made from the Rhine. And even with this, --Not all the Vats upon the Rhine yield such an Alcohol!. Read the first stanza and hear how the word Alcohol just echoes and expands out. This Alcohol must have some amazing power in it.

Then read the rest of the stanzas and see just what kind of power this Alcohol allows in her: To see the little Tippler Leaning against the--Sun--. As though from earth she has risen about 90 million miles and now is physically Leaning against the--Sun--. Just below the highest order of celestial beings, the Seraphs, whos function it is to be the caretakers of God's throne(Wikipedia) and above the Saints. Because of this alcohol, she is closer to physically reaching God than the Saints will ever be.

I'm telling you this definitely gets one WOW!

And there is so much more to the sounds and images in this poem, but since this is the thread for Poem of the Day...

It is one of my favorites.

[Virgil]

Fair enough, ktd. I do like the last lines of the tippler leaning against the sun.
You say:

By taking something common as alcohol and empowering it with almost(maybe even) divine qualities

Well she's neither the first nor the last to endow alcohol with divine qualities. Goodness it must go back to the Romans and Greeks. You know, I pray to the god Bacchus every night with my two glasses of wine and for the powers it endows on me. ;)

[ktd222]

Fair enough, ktd. I do like the last lines of the tippler leaning against the sun.
Me too.


Well she's neither the first nor the last to endow alcohol with divine qualities. Goodness it must go back to the Romans and Greeks.

Yes, but she just somehow is able to give her words their own breaths and puts the image in just the most imaginitive context, especially in this poem, that I'm dumbfounded every time I read it.


You know, I pray to the god Bacchus every night with my two glasses of wine and for the powers it endows on me.

LOL. Some people pray for world peace, then, there is you.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Who says alcohol doesn't have supernatural powers? How dare you insult my god like that? I'll fight the lot of ya! You're my best mate you are, hic, my bestest mate in the whole world. Where's that ******* bottle?

Why is the world all gone sidewards.....?

[Virgil]

Who says alcohol doesn't have supernatural powers? How dare you insult my god like that? I'll fight the lot of ya! You're my best mate you are, hic, my bestest mate in the whole world. Where's that ******* bottle?

Why is the world all gone sidewards.....?
:lol: :lol:

You know, Xam, since you don't participate in the Compliment the Above Person thread, I'm going to take this opportunity to say that the PAM is one the funniest person I've have ever met. Your wit just amazes me.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Sorry - not being witty - just blotto - hic. ;)

[jackyyyy]

Gads, Scher! The moment I leave town, you throw a party?


Get Drunk!

Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
You know, this is typical of the French, and thankyou, Petreach, for the original, though the English is actually perfect in announcing that most simple of directive... "You have a problem, or you don't have a problem, well then.. Go get drunk! And now, stupid person, you are bothering me if you are not drunk, therefore... Get drunk, be normal like the rest of France!". I know people that talk this way. Interesting to think that Baudelaire may have seeded 'haute couture' with this poem, else they'd have been too sober to design poodle haircuts, that weird 60s stuff, and of course, those strange French cars. :lol: Cheers, Baudee!

[Jay]

A Lecture Upon The Shadow - John Donne

Stand still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, Love, in Love's philosophy.
These three hours that we have spent,
Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produced.
But, now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread,
And to brave clearness all things are reduced.
So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did, and shadows, flow
From us and our cares ; but now 'tis not so.

That love hath not attain'd the highest degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see.

Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind
Others, these which come behind
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.
If our loves faint, and westerwardly decline,
To me thou, falsely, thine
And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day ;
But O ! love's day is short, if love decay.

Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his short minute, after noon, is night.

[Nightshade]

I like this one :nod:
but I have a few questions what does

So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did, and shadows, flow

mean??
Also does it mean that the 'highest degree' of love only lasts a very little and then it spoilt by shadows??

[Scheherazade]

I don't know what it is exactly about Donne's poetry but I really like it. The title 'lecture' sounds very sarcastic and have a very critical opinion of love (clever man! ;))

[Nightshade]

I don't know what it is exactly about Donne's poetry but I really like it.[/QUOTE ]
:nod: :nod: :nod: :nod:

[QUOTE]Stand still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, Love, in Love's philosophy.
And actually was thinking about it if you stand still at noon then you dont have a shadow at all-or rather you cant see it at all.

[jackyyyy]

I am confused by this poem because it seems contradictory. On the one hand, love is at its peak then wains as the shadow lengthens, and till a new burst of sun and new love, and on the other hand he writes:

Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his short minute, after noon, is night.

I wonder if anyone else feels its contradictory or does he mean its taking a new form?

[Virgil]

A Wallace Stevens poem:


THIS SOLITUDE OF CATARACTS by Wallace Stevens

He never felt twice the same about the flecked river,
Which kept flowing and never the same way twice, flowing

Through many places, as if it stood still in one,
Fixed like a lake on which the wild ducks fluttered,

Ruffling its common reflections, thought-like Monadnocks.
There seemed to be an apostrophe that was not spoken.

There was so much that was real that was not real at all.
He wanted to feel the same way over and over.

He wanted the river to go on flowing the same way,
To keep on flowing. He wanted to walk beside it,

Under the buttonwoods, beneath a moon nailed fast.
He wanted his heart to stop beating and his mind to rest

In a permanent realization, without any wild ducks
Or mountains that were not mountains, just to know how it would be,

Just to know how it would feel, released from destruction,
To be a bronze man breathing under archaic lapis,

Without the oscillations of planetary pass-pass,
Breathing his bronzen breath at the azury center of time.

[Virgil]

I'm not sure if anyone's looking at this thread any longer, so I'm going to bend the rules and post another.

This is a poem by Robert Penn Warren. He's mostly known as a novelist and literary critic, but he has published a significant amount of poetry too. I came across this poem a number of years back and its stuck with me.



Mortal Limit by Robert Penn Warren

I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over Wyoming.
It rose from coniferous darkness, past gray jags
Of mercilessness, past whiteness, into the gloaming
Of dream-spectral light above the lazy purity of snow-snags.

There--west--were the Tetons. Snow-peaks would soon be
In dark profile to break constellations. Beyond what height
Hangs now the black speck? Beyond what range will gold eyes see
New ranges rise to mark a last scrawl of light?

Or, having tasted that atmosphere's thinness, does it
Hang motionless in dying vision before
It knows it will accept the mortal limit,
And swing into the great circular downwardness that will restore

The breath of earth? Of rock? Of rot? Of other such
Items, and the darkness of whatever dream we clutch?

[RJbibliophil]

Nice Poem Virgil! I have one I can post so will have to do that Monday...

[Petrarch's Love]

You're right Virg, I'd forgotten to look at this thread--and here you've been faithfully stocking it with excellent poems. I like the Stevens you posted earlier, especially the opening lines:


He never felt twice the same about the flecked river,
Which kept flowing and never the same way twice, flowing

Through many places, as if it stood still in one,

Not to mention I learned a new word from it, Monadnock (the definition of which contained the word "peneplain" which I also had to look up, so my vocabulary is just expanding a mile a minute :)). I'm still not sure why he capitalized "Monadnocks" though. I haven't read much Stevens. Does he often capitalize irregularly for some kind of emphasis? The end of the poem reminds me of the end to "Sailing to Byzantium" (only of course Stevens is set in the Bronze age rather than the Golden one ;)).

The "Mortal Limit" you posted today is good too. The language of it flows easily. The poet expresses himself in such a compelling way that he makes what is at heart a pretty old conceit seem absolutely fresh and original. I like the way he plays with words. He seems interested with unfolding multiple meanings in words in a way that I think is a little reminiscent of Shakespeare (though I don't think anyone can thrash as many meanings out of a word as Willy). You can see this in lines like these where he re-uses the word "range":

Hangs now the black speck? Beyond what range will gold eyes see
New ranges rise to mark a last scrawl of light?
And obviously there's similar play in the title of the poem, written again in the eleventh line. His description of the eagle's sight as a "dying vision" before the "mortal limit" neatly suggests both the mortal limit of sight and the limit of death that mortals face. Nice choice. I really enjoyed this poem.

[Virgil]

Not to mention I learned a new word from it, Monadnock (the definition of which contained the word "peneplain" which I also had to look up, so my vocabulary is just expanding a mile a minute :)). I'm still not sure why he capitalized "Monadnocks" though. I haven't read much Stevens. Does he often capitalize irregularly for some kind of emphasis? The end of the poem reminds me of the end to "Sailing to Byzantium" (only of course Stevens is set in the Bronze age rather than the Golden one ;)).
I didn't realize monadnock was a word in its own right. I took it as a place name, which Stevens loves to do. Apparently it's both. Here from M-W:

monadnock

Main Entry: mo·nad·nock
Pronunciation: m&-'nad-"näk
Function: noun
Etymology: Mt. Monadnock, N.H.
: INSELBERG
So, it's a mountain in N.H. and a word for an isolated place. He does not like Dickinson capitalize for emphasis, at least I'm not aware of it.



The "Mortal Limit" you posted today is good too. The language of it flows easily. The poet expresses himself in such a compelling way that he makes what is at heart a pretty old conceit seem absolutely fresh and original. I like the way he plays with words. He seems interested with unfolding multiple meanings in words in a way that I think is a little reminiscent of Shakespeare (though I don't think anyone can thrash as many meanings out of a word as Willy). You can see this in lines like these where he re-uses the word "range":

And obviously there's similar play in the title of the poem, written again in the eleventh line. His description of the eagle's sight as a "dying vision" before the "mortal limit" neatly suggests both the mortal limit of sight and the limit of death that mortals face. Nice choice. I really enjoyed this poem

This poem has always reminded me of the space program, and I'm sure there is a connection. It does have special meaning to me as an engineer of just to what heights man's ability can reach and yet an understandng, or perhaps a better word is testing, of our limits. If you notice it would be a perfect sonnet except for one thing. The length of the lines are way beyond pentameter, as if it's striving beyond allowed limits. And also, it's so American, the language, the setting, the striving and dream to go beyond.

[Petrarch's Love]

So, it's a mountain in N.H. and a word for an isolated place. He does not like Dickinson capitalize for emphasis, at least I'm not aware of it.

And now I get a geography lesson too. :) I thought it was a place name at first, but the plural threw me (and still seems strange, since it's the name of a single mountain and not a range). Also, I was lazy and only looked at the definition without clicking for the etymology when I looked it up in the OED, which defines "monadnock" this way:
A hill, mountain, or ridge of erosion-resistant rock rising above a peneplain.
The etymology link mentions the mountain in NH and gives a quote from Melville referring to "his great Monadnock hump" in Moby Dick. It's an interesting word, since it seems to have some sort of status between been a proper noun referring to a specific mountain, and a sort of adjective that can be both pluralized and applied to whales and such.


This poem has always reminded me of the space program, and I'm sure there is a connection. It does have special meaning to me as an engineer of just to what heights man's ability can reach and yet an understandng, or perhaps a better word is testing, of our limits. If you notice it would be a perfect sonnet except for one thing. The length of the lines are way beyond pentameter, as if it's striving beyond allowed limits. And also, it's so American, the language, the setting, the striving and dream to go beyond.

I hadn't thought of it in relation to the space program, but I think you've got a good point there. I had noticed the sonnet form (another thing that made me think of Shakespearean influence in his work). I like the long, irregular lines. You're right that it fits with the poem's central concern with "the mortal limit." It is a very American poem, and I think a very well done American poem.

[Virgil]

And now I get a geography lesson too. :) I thought it was a place name at first, but the plural threw me (and still seems strange, since it's the name of a single mountain and not a range). Also, I was lazy and only looked at the definition without clicking for the etymology when I looked it up in the OED, which defines "monadnock" this way:
The etymology link mentions the mountain in NH and gives a quote from Melville referring to "his great Monadnock hump" in Moby Dick. It's an interesting word, since it seems to have some sort of status between been a proper noun referring to a specific mountain, and a sort of adjective that can be both pluralized and applied to whales and such.

I love Wallace Stevens poetry, but frankly I can't claim to understand him entirely. There is something in his language that I'm attracted to. I wish I could take a class on him.

[Petrarch's Love]

I agree both about the appealing quality of the language and the not understanding entirely bit. I've never really looked at Stevens much. Part of that is no doubt due to the fact that the professors most responsible for my knowledge of 20th century poetry were not at all interested in American lit. (one of them, being Irish, hardly got to anyone apart from Yeats :lol:). I agree it would be intersting to take a class that examined Stevens' work. Now you've got me thinking about looking into sitting in on a class on American poetry next year. We've got a scholar here who's supposed to be pretty good in the field and since I'll be done with official coursework this term (:banana: :banana: :banana: ) I could sit in on it just for the sake of the knowledge (if I ever do it I'll promise to share my notes with you ;)).

[atiguhya padma]

Some thought on Donne's poem:

I think Donne is reflecting on the changing nature of our confidence and openness in the course of love. When we first love, we seek to impress and may give a false image of ourselves, in order to win another's heart:

<So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did, and shadows, flow
From us and our cares ; but now 'tis not so.>

When sufficient time has passed, our concerns are shared, we trust in the love of each other, and our shadows therefore become one. Furthermore, in the early years of love, we may portray a nonchalant and casual attitude to the one we love, when in front of peers, as we do not wish to give the impression of being dependent and besotted, especially whilst the future of one's love is so uncertain. But once time has elapsed, these shadows disappear.

<That love hath not attain'd the highest degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see.>

If you cannot be open to everyone about your love, then your love still has some way to grow, to mature.

The rest of the poem, I think, talks about the need to focus on what you have and where you are going. Once you reach that point at which your love is constant, strong, perfect, this isn't the end of the road, but rather that spot on the summit with the greatest viewpoint. Love is maintained through focus.

AP

[genoveva]

5/14

Penelope

In the pathway of the sun,
In the footsteps of the breeze,
Where the world and sky are one,
He shall ride the silver seas,
He shall cut the glittering wave.
I shall sit at home, and rock;
Rise, to heed a neighbour's knock;
Brew my tea, and snip my thread;
Bleach the linen for my bed.
They will call him brave.

~Dorothy Parker

[Virgil]

Interesting. I like it but I'm not sure the rhyme scheme works with wave and brave so far apart.

[genoveva]

The poem should have some indents that the forum did not like (?).
So, imagine an indent before the second and fourth lines, and then a double indent at the fifth and last line. Does that help any?

[RJbibliophil]

May 15th 2006

Bond and Free
By Robert Frost

Love has earth to which she clings
With hills and circling arms about--
Wall within wall to shut fear out.
But Thought has need of no such things,
For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

On snow and sand and turf, I see
Where Love has left a printed trace
With straining in the world's embrace.
And such is Love and glad to be.
But Thought has shaken his ankles free.

Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom
And sits in Sirius' disc all night,
Till day makes him retrace his flight,
With smell of burning on every plume,
Back past the sun to an earthly room.

His gains in heaven are what they are.
Yet some say Love by being thrall
And simply staying possesses all
In several beauty that Thought fares far
To find fused in another star.


This poem is especially for Pensive. ;)

[jackyyyy]

This makes me, and easily.

Wall within wall to shut fear out.

Yet some say Love by being thrall
And simply staying possesses all

Thanks, RJbibliophil.

[Petrarch's Love]

Thanks RJ. Another Frost poem, and one I haven't read in a long while. I like this one. I've been studying all day for a big project coming up, but I think I'll take a break now from looking for beauty "fused in another star" and call the folks at home.:)

[jackyyyy]

I always thought I knew what 'thrall' mean't, but I took the time to look it up anyway.

thrall (thrôl)
n.

One, such as a slave or serf, who is held in bondage.
One who is intellectually or morally enslaved.
Servitude; bondage: “a people in thrall to the miracles of commerce” (Lewis H. Lapham).
tr.v. Archaic., thralled, thrall·ing, thralls.
To enslave.

[Middle English, from Old English thrǣl, from Old Norse thrǣll.]

thrall'dom or thral'dom n.

Frost is so easy to read, his message comes across clear as silk, perfectly laid out, while leaving a barely discernible trace of something else in the air, and in case we think we're so sure. I have to put Frost in my favourites category. Why does it make me think of the 'Ex-Queen' poem, in that thread, I am wondering?

[RJbibliophil]

Frost seems simple if one considers them, but often there is a deeper meaning, or a meaning that might be there if only one could find it.

[Bandini]

Can't stand Frost myself I'm afraid.

[Scheherazade]

Mr. Grumpledump's Song

Everything's wrong,
Days are too long,
Sunshine's too hot,
Wind is too strong.
Clouds are too fluffy,
Grass is too green,
Ground is too dusty,
Sheets are too clean.
Stars are too twinkly,
Moon is too high,
Water's too drippy,
Sand is too dry.
Rocks are too heavy,
Feathers too light,
Kids are too noisy,
Shoes are too tight.
Folks are too happy,
Singin' their songs.
Why can't they see it?
Everything's wrong!

-Shel Silverstein

[jackyyyy]

Mr. Grumpledump's Song

Everything's wrong,I can't quite put my finger on it, seems something is wrong.

[Bandini]

Sorry - got to run; lunch over- but promised Rachel I'd post this somewhere and no time to remember how to post thread. Please leave it on!

Be Kind


we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.

one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.

but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.

not their fault?

whose fault?
mine?

I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.

age is no crime

but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life

among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives

is.


Charles Bukowski

[Virgil]

Nice poem Bandini. I owe Bukowski an apology. I have condemed him at times, since I don't think I ever came across a poem of his that I even thought was poetry. But this is pretty good. He makes the most of this by the way he shapes the lines. [I'm not sure I share the sentiment. I tend to respect my elders, even when I don't agree with them. And who's to call someone's life a waste?]

Here's what I think is the key stanza:

one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.

I'm not sure I quite understand: Is he saying that their lives are wasted because they were kind or that his kindness to them is a waste because of their errors?

[rachel]

Thank you so much Bandini.
Virgil, I respectfully disagree. Having worked for years in a seniors' residence and being drawn into most of the client's confidences I clearly saw that those words are very true. Just because someone is aged does not mean they are WORTHY of respect. We give it because it is the proper thing to do so to speak. You are a Christian and it says to stand up in the presence of grey hair and to be respectful for God's sake not the person.
And Scripture also says very clearly"by their fruits you shall know them" and I saw dreadful dead, warped, thorny, noxious fruit in many of those people. That IS a total waste of life, to have lived one's days with hatred, cruelty extreme selfishness. I saw many of their children and read in their haggard faces and tired eyes that their parents were yet even now still demanding and unaware deliberately or not of their effect on the lives of those children who came day after day to show love and honor to these individuals.
That is why the ones who had, regardless of social standing or wealth, tried to live a life of at least a modicum of human kindness glowed like rare diamonds in a room full of black coal.
I like this poem very much.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I quite agree Rachel. Someone that is obnoxious, racist, greedy, selfish, callous, etc., etc., gains no veneer of respect in my eyes merely by outstaying their welcome on the planet long enough to develop a few grey hairs. It's an interesting poem, and one which I identify with completely. I think Virgil is slipping into "PC" mode again. :D

[Virgil]

I quite agree Rachel. Someone that is obnoxious, racist, greedy, selfish, callous, etc., etc., gains no veneer of respect in my eyes merely by outstaying their welcome on the planet long enough to develop a few grey hairs. It's an interesting poem, and one which I identify with completely. I think Virgil is slipping into "PC" mode again. :D
:lol: I said "tend to respect". OK, I should have added until they prove unworthy of it. I find that most older people have mellowed out their issues and on average are not as bad as younger people. Though, granted, not perfect.

And what do you mean by "again?" Do I have a tendency of slipping into PC mode? ;)

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I don't find that older people's prejudices and issues mellow at all - they merely become more adept at concealing them from those that are likely to take offence.

Where the young racist will wear his skinhead and Doc Martins with pride and carry swastika banners at neo-nazi marches, the old racist shows no such obvious, outward signs - he and his ilk content themselves by passing their poison on to the next generation insiduously. I remember making the same point in another thread months ago.

And thinking about it, I think that you rarely slip out of PC mode. :lol:

[rachel]

Here is an example you might consider Virg. One of the ladies I cared for was a retired nurse. I and my sons went out of our way outside of work time to take her about and help her. She was rude hateful and demanding. The last two months I worked at the seniors residence she started demanding I come up and cater to her in her suite. I had seventy two other sick and dying patients and was on alone and had to help paramedics when emergencies came about. She screamed at me and I was constantly being threatened by my boss to not get her angry because of her wealth.
Well one night she demanded I come up. I had to walk all the flights of stairs because the elevator sometimes didn't work and if stuck help had to come from a city far away.
I was exhausted because no matter who I trained to take over so I could have holiday they quit after a couple of days. The woman was very ill and had a serious infectious disease so we weren't to go near her if possible, just leave it to the registered nurses when they came.She had been a seniour nurse and knew full well what she was doing.
She ordered me to do something and then tried to slap me. I told her lovingly but firmly she could not assault me. So she waited until my face was near hers and then deliberately coughed her phlem all over me. I rushed out and cleaned but unhappily I got pnuemonia in both lungs and nearly perished because of it and she died of it.
No, I don't see that type of person mellowing out at all for the most part.I must disagree and yes dear you do tend to slip back into that mode, but you are still a sweetheart.

[Scheherazade]

I have a feeling that we are missing the main point of this poem...

To me, this poem is not about old people and how prejudiced they are or whether we should respect them or not but about about how we live our lives: It is your responsibilty to make something out of your life; live it in a way that when you look back at the end of your life, it won't be wasted.

And what the persona in the poem suggesting is that is one fails to do so, they have no one but themselves to blame for it. You can't expect to be respect simply because you are old unless you have lived a life to deserve it.

PS: Not a bad poem but I still don't like Bukowski! :D

[Virgil]

I
And thinking about it, I think that you rarely slip out of PC mode. :lol:
:lol: I'm sorry if I'm old fashion. I don't think of it as PC. I call that etiquette and manners and decency. :p


No, I don't see that type of person mellowing out at all for the most part.

Perhaps you're both right on that. Let me just say I give people the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

[Virgil]

I have a feeling that we are missing out the main point of this poem...

To me, this poem is not about old people and how prejudiced they are or whether we should respect them or not but about about how we live our lives: It is your responsibilty to make something out of your life; live it in a way that when you look back at the end of your life, it won't be wasted.

And what the persona in the poem suggesting is that is one fails to do so, they have no one but themselves to blame for it. You can't expect to be respect simply because you are old unless you have lived a life to deserve it.

PS: Not a bad poem but I still don't like Bukowski! :D
No one has answered my question in my first post on this on the stanza that I highlight. "waste with kindliness" Is he saying it's a waste to be kindly or that their lives were a waste because they were kindly? It seems ambiguous to me and I don't think he means for both to be true.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I think it's obvious that he is saying that we are not under obligation to view wasted lives with kindliness (ie. the adverb 'with kindliness' is qualifying the act of viewing the lives, NOT the act of wasting them).

[Scheherazade]

No one has answered my question in my first post on this on the stanza that I highlight. "waste with kindliness" Is he saying it's a waste to be kindly or that their lives were a waste because they were kindly? It seems ambiguous to me and I don't think he means for both to be true.
one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged. It is interesting that my interpretation of those lines are very different from your both suggestions, Virgil. I read it as 'one is asked to view their (people who have failed to lead 'worthy' lives) errors with kindliness, especially if they are old.'

To me, it is not 'their life is wasted with kindliness' or 'it is a waste to be kindly to them'. It is 'error of their lives' and 'their life-waste'; they wasted their lives because they did not do anything worthwhile. Later on he emphasises that it was their error not to make something out of their lives hence such people don't deserve to be respected (and viewed kindly) purely because they are old.

*edit*

Agree with XC. I didn't see his post while I was typing mine and talking on the phone. :D

[Xamonas Chegwe]

*edit*

Agree with XC. I didn't see his post while I was typing mine and talking on the phone. :D

I read half your post and was poised to be sarcastic (for once...:D). Fortunately, unlike some others, I was prepared to read to the end of a post before attacking. :lol:

[Virgil]

It is interesting that my interpretation of those lines are very different from your both suggestions, Virgil. I read it as 'one is asked to view their (people who have failed to lead 'worthy' lives) errors with kindliness, especially if they are old.'

To me, it is not 'their life is wasted with kindliness' or 'it is a waste to be kindly to them'. It is 'error of their lives' and 'their life-waste'; they wasted their lives because they did not do anything worthwhile. Later on he emphasises that it was their error not to make something out of their lives hence such people don't deserve to be respected (and viewed kindly) purely because they are old.

*edit*

Agree with XC. I didn't see his post while I was typing mine and talking on the phone. :D
Oh, yeah Scher, you're right. The dash through me off. It's "life-waste". I was reading it "their life, waste with kindliness". Sorry. Although I wonder if the ambiguity is intentional. No Bukowski is not that good a poet.

[The Unnamable]

In Memory of My Mother

I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happily

Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday--
You meet me and you say:
'Don't forget to see about the cattle--'
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.

And I think of you walking along a headland
Of green oats in June,
So full of repose, so rich with life--
And I see us meeting at the end of a town

On a fair day by accident, after
The bargains are all made and we can walk
Together through the shops and stalls and markets
Free in the oriental streets of thought.

O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us -- eternally.

Patrick Kavanagh

[Virgil]

That is beautiful. I love it!

[Isagel]

After the poem of the week this feels like balm for my soul.

[Dark Lady]

I feel like it would be a really happy poem if it weren't for the repetition of, "lying in the wet clay." You can't finnish the poem without remembering that she is dead and isn't doing all the things he talks of any more. It's especially the fact he uses 'wet clay' and not something nicer. Despite the continual assurance (or maybe because of it) that he is not thinking of her dead it seems that he constantly is.

[Petrarch's Love]

Thank you for this one Unnamable. It's beautiful, and I don't think I've come across this poet before.


I feel like it would be a really happy poem if it weren't for the repetition of, "lying in the wet clay."

But isn't that what's most hopeful and loving about this poem. My favorite line is this: "Among your earthiest words the angels stray." Her earthiness is what was so wonderful about her in life. It was her being a part of the earth that made her angelic, and now that she's literally a part of the earth, she is more angelic still. This poem draws its heaven from the ground.

[The Unnamable]

That is beautiful.
For once Virgil, I entirely agree with you.


After the poem of the week this feels like balm for my soul.
You have no idea how happy it makes me feel to read that. “Beautiful” is the only word that can do it justice. It almost makes me believe I have a soul. ;)

Dark Lady, I think it’s a beautiful poem but I don’t think it’s meant to be a ‘happy poem’ – she is dead, after all. I wouldn’t like the poem at all if he simply tried to prettify the situation. It would reduce genuine emotion to mere sentiment.

[The Unnamable]

I don't think I've come across this poet before.

Her earthiness is what was so wonderful about her in life. It was her being a part of the earth that made her angelic, and now that she's literally a part of the earth, she is more angelic still. This poem draws its heaven from the ground.
Patrick Kavanagh is a sadly under-appreciated Irish poet. Your point about the importance of the land is right. Here’s another of his:

Shancoduff

My black hills have never seen the sun rising,
Eternally they look north towards Armagh.
Lot's wife would not be salt if she had been
Incurious as my black hills that are happy
When dawn whitens Glassdrummond chapel.

My hills hoard the bright shillings of March
While the sun searches in every pocket.
They are my Alps and I have climbed the Matterhorn
With a sheaf of hay for three perishing calves
In the field under the Big Forth of Rocksavage.

The sleety winds fondle the rushy beards of Shancoduff
While the cattle-drovers sheltering in the Featherna Bush
Look up and say: ‘Who owns them hungry hills
That the water-hen and snipe must have forsaken?
A poet? Then by heavens he must be poor.'
I hear and is my heart not badly shaken?

Great last line.

[Bandini]

Nice poem Bandini. I owe Bukowski an apology. I have condemed him at times, since I don't think I ever came across a poem of his that I even thought was poetry. But this is pretty good. He makes the most of this by the way he shapes the lines. [I'm not sure I share the sentiment. I tend to respect my elders, even when I don't agree with them. And who's to call someone's life a waste?]

Here's what I think is the key stanza:


I'm not sure I quite understand: Is he saying that their lives are wasted because they were kind or that his kindness to them is a waste because of their errors?


I don't think he is saying it is a waste to be kind; he is saying don't respect your elders, jsut because they are your elders! It's a crazy social construct after all - isn't it? Respect people who earn your respect - what ever their age. It's illogical and false to do other wise. I see what you are saying, and you have to make allowances for the fact that they may be 'waning'! But don't elevate them to 'respected' purely because they are old(er)!

But for me this resonates the most:

we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.

- the age is not important to me; as it shouldn't be when considering 'respect'!

[Petrarch's Love]

Great last line.

Indeed. I'll have to put Kavanagh's work on my ever increasing list of things to read this summer.

[Dark Lady]

I think it’s a beautiful poem but I don’t think it’s meant to be a ‘happy poem’ – she is dead, after all. I wouldn’t like the poem at all if he simply tried to prettify the situation. It would reduce genuine emotion to mere sentiment.

Don't get me wrong I wouldn't like the poem to gloss over the death either that was just my initial thought on it. It just has that great balance of happy memories being slightly shadowed by the present reality.

[The Unnamable]

It just has that great balance of happy memories being slightly shadowed by the present reality.
That’s a good description of life at its least awful. :D


CUBA

My eldest sister arrived home that morning
In her white muslin evening dress.
'Who the hell do you think you are,
Running out to dances in next to nothing?
As though we hadn't enough bother
With the world at war, if not at an end.'
My father was pounding the breakfast-table.


'Those Yankees were touch and go as it was -
If you'd heard Patton at Armagh -
But this Kennedy's nearly an Irishman
So he's not much better than ourselves.
And him with only to say the word.
If you've got anything on your mind
Maybe you should make your peace with God.'


I could hear May from beyond the curtain.
'Bless me. Father, for I have sinned.
I told a lie once, I was disobedient once.
And, Father, a boy touched me once.'
'Tell me, child. Was this touch immodest?
Did he touch your breast, for example?'
'He brushed against me, Father. Very gently.'

[chmpman]

Hey now, I thought we had a routine going about double posting poems.... Actually I like this one, although the second stanza is a bit of a jumble to me. Perhaps I should study my history a bit better, especially being an American. Although maybe British Lit. is where it's at. Ha, also I think The Unnamable forgot the writer of the poem. Infallible my ***!!

[The Unnamable]

I’m pretty sure that I posted it but it seems to have been bowdlerised. As I received neither a notification nor any explanation for why this was done, I don’t know. Anyway, Paul Muldoon wrote the poem. chmpman, may I ask what you mean by “Perhaps I should study my history a bit better, especially being an American”?

[blp]

Patrick Kavanagh is a sadly under-appreciated Irish poet.

Not to be confused with PJ Kavanagh, a younger Anglo-Irish poet, also with a pastoral bent.

Apparently, the two men were once, by chance, left alone together in a pub. PJ was still quite young and in awe of the more famous Patrick and went quiet, hoping for some acknowledgement from the elder sage. All he got was: 'Why don't you change yer ****in' name?'

[blp]

Sorry - got to run; lunch over- but promised Rachel I'd post this somewhere and no time to remember how to post thread. Please leave it on!

Be Kind


we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.

one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.

but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.

not their fault?

whose fault?
mine?

I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.

age is no crime

but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life

among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives

is.


Charles Bukowski

This fits an experience I had the other night extraordinarily well. I was out with my mother and her boyfriend and an old friend of hers, a psychotherapist. I started ribbing my mother, good naturedly I though, about how neither I nor her boyfriend were following the table manners she'd taught me as a kid - elbows on the table, asking for things within reach to be passed to you etc. The psychotherapist lady started badly losing her cool, first asking me to understand that my mother and her were 'very old' and then saying that these rules were simply ways of ensuring 'consideration' for other people. I started to point out that these rules were often as much about unkindness as kindness in various ways and she simply snapped at me, looking genuinely distressed, that it was an 'argument' she didn't want to have.

[blp]

I don't think he is saying it is a waste to be kind; he is saying don't respect your elders, jsut because they are your elders! It's a crazy social construct after all - isn't it? Respect people who earn your respect - what ever their age. It's illogical and false to do other wise. I see what you are saying, and you have to make allowances for the fact that they may be 'waning'! But don't elevate them to 'respected' purely because they are old(er)!

But for me this resonates the most:

we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.

- the age is not important to me; as it shouldn't be when considering 'respect'!

I think the 'be kind' title is irony. It underlines the idea that kindness to someone who's made obnoxiousness or thoughtlessness a credo may be an unkindness to oneself.

[blp]

No poem yet today?

Elegy for Jane

(My student, thrown by a horse)

I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,
A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.
The shade sang with her;
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,
And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.

Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,
Even a father could not find her:
Scraping her cheek against straw,
Stirring the clearest water.

My sparrow, you are not here,
Waiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow.
The sides of wet stones cannot console me,
Nor the moss, wound with the last light.

If only I could nudge you from this sleep,
My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.
Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover.

Theodore Roethke

[The Unnamable]

Neither father nor lover.

Sometimes it’s very difficult to avoid being at least one of these. Didn’t Roethke marry an ex-student?

[blp]

Sometimes it’s very difficult to avoid being at least one of these. Didn’t Roethke marry an ex-student?

That's more than I know about him. I'd say there's a certain amount of longing that goes beyond the elegiac here though.

[Jay]

since feeling is first by e.e. cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

[chmpman]

Hmm, I'm not sure I like it, partially because of the lack of a period at the end.

[The Unnamable]

Jay, could you explain the poem for me? Could you possibly give me a rough paraphrase of that last line? Isn’t “kisses are a far better fate / than wisdom” the philosophy of a bimbo, of one who ‘flutters’ her eyelids?

[Isagel]

Hmm, I'm not sure I like it, partially because of the lack of a period at the end.

How strange these things are. I like it because of the lack of a period.

"since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things"

"for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis"

If there had been one, ee cummings would have contradicted the point he makes, wouldn´t he?

[Bandini]

Hmm, I'm not sure I like it, partially because of the lack of a period at the end.

I thought I was pedantic! I think that the fact that he chose to write his name 'e.e. cummings' tells us his views on punctuation.

[Bandini]

Jay, could you explain the poem for me? Could you possibly give me a rough paraphrase of that last line? Isn’t “kisses are a far better fate / than wisdom” the philosophy of a bimbo, of one who ‘flutters’ her eyelids?

I think not. I think he is probably indulging in hyperbole to emphasise the lure of the aesthetically pleasing and living for the day; perhaps suggesting that taking life too seriously can lead to a lack of joy?. Wisdom is great, but 'a thing of beauty is a joy forever' and all that?

[Virgil]

I like it. I never saw this cummings poem before. Might over time become my favorite. I would paraphrase the poem as it's more important to live life in the blood (a D.H. Lawrence term!) than in the mind. "my blood approves".

[genoveva]

since feeling is first by e.e. cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis


What a beautiful poem! I want to read more e.e. cummings now.

[blp]

Brrr. I love cummings at his best, but he's only a short step away from bullying with this kind of simplistic, proto-hippie anti-intellectualism. Pay no attention, kids. Syntax is important!

[chmpman]

If there had been one, ee cummings would have contradicted the point he makes, wouldn´t he?

I think you're right, and I was attempting to be blatantly pedantic. On first reading I just didn't see the gravity of the poem, after a closer reading, it's a little better, but not a favorite of mine.

[Scheherazade]

Since there aren't many of us who are willing to post poems daily, I think we will change the rules to have more flexibility:


'Same person cannot post poems within 5 days.'


the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church's protestant blessings
daughters, unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow,both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things-
at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
....the Cambridge ladies do not care,above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

by E. E. Cummings

[Virgil]

I love the closing lines:

....the Cambridge ladies do not care,above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy
Very pretty. But frankly I have no idea what this poem is about. For the non-Americans, there is a Cambridge in Massachusetts.

[Scheherazade]

For the non-Americans, there is a Cambridge in Massachusetts.And it is where Harvard is, isn't it? ;)

Whether British or American, they are both university towns. :)
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D

[blp]

I love the closing lines:

Very pretty. But frankly I have no idea what this poem is about. For the non-Americans, there is a Cambridge in Massachusetts.

No idea at all? None?

[blp]

Here's one by George Oppen, with no title, just a number from his Discrete Series

2

...........Thus
Hides the

Parts -- the prudery
Of Frigidaire, of
Soda-jerking ---------

Thus

Above the

Plane of lunch, of wives
Removes itself
(As soda-jerking from
the private act

Of
Cracking eggs);

big-Business

[jackyyyy]

I was thinking... he really didn't need to be discrete here, could have expanded on it. I mean, not too much, because then we would know what its about. Why does this remind of Andy Warhole?

[blp]

Expanded? No, I don't think he needed to.

Not sure I've totally 'cracked' it myself, but I think it's all there, so to speak. Start at the beginning, work through to the end, go back to the beginning again. What hides the parts? The parts of what? big-Business. Down at the soda counter, we can believe we're just living a life, even that we're free. None of this is as innocent as it seems.

I'm interested in the use of capitalisations - which I've reproduced faithfully.

[Shanna]

The Bookburning (Die Bücherverbrennung)

When the Regime ordered that books with dangerous teachings
Should be publicly burnt and everywhere
Oxen were forced to draw carts full of books
To the funeral pyre, an exiled poet,
One of the best, discovered with fury, when he studied the list
Of the burned, that his books
Had been forgotten. He rushed to his writing table
On wings of anger and wrote a letter to those in power.
Burn me, he wrote with hurrying pen, burn me!
Do not treat me in this fashion. Don't leave me out. Have I not
Always spoken the truth in my books? And now
You treat me like a liar! I order you:
Burn me!

Bertolt Brecht

[Xamonas Chegwe]

What a lovely poem Shanna - My avatar shows the inevitable response of the authorities. :D

[Virgil]

Somehow this poem seems appropriate to how I feel right now.


Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art by John Keats

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

[Petrarch's Love]

Thank you Virgil. That is a poem I have long loved. I'm glad I stopped in to read it before going to bed tonight.

[Scheherazade]

from Pippa Passes

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his Heaven -
All's right with the world!

Robert Browning

[Virgil]

Love the way the rhythm complements the theme. Great image in "dew-pearled." Browning was probably looking for a rhyme for "world" and stumbled on a great image.

[Virgil]

Since no one's puitting any out, I'll grab this opportunity. This is an anonymous tenth century Welsh poem, translated into modern English.


Spring Song (Anonymous, translated by Wesli Court)

Earthspring, the sweetest season,
Loud the birdsong, sprouts ripple,
Plough in furrow, ox in yoke,
Sea like smoke, fields in stipple.

Yet when cuckoos call from trees
I drink the lees of sorrow;
Tongue bitter, I sleep with pain--
My kinsman come not again.

On mountains, mead, seaborne land,
Wherever man, wends his way,
What path he take boots not,
He shall not keep from Christ's eye.

[RJbibliophil]

A very interesting and thought provoking poem with an unusual pattern. It would appear the author has a reason to be sad in the spring, something about a kindsman.

[Jarndyce]

Something nice and uplifting for a Friday morning....



Paradise Motel
by Charles Simic


Millions were dead; everybody was innocent.
I stayed in my room. The President
Spoke of war as of a magic love potion.
My eyes were opened in astonishment.
In a mirror my face appeared to me
Like a twice-canceled postage stamp.

I lived well, but life was awful.
there were so many soldiers that day,
So many refugees crowding the roads.
Naturally, they all vanished
With a touch of the hand.
History licked the corners of its bloody mouth.

On the pay channel, a man and a woman
Were trading hungry kisses and tearing off
Each other's clothes while I looked on
With the sound off and the room dark
Except for the screen where the color
Had too much red in it, too much pink.

[Virgil]

:lol: What does that all mean?

[Petrarch's Love]

I think it's trying to say that humans are animals.

Since I missed Virg.'s poem yesterday, I thought I'd say I enjoyed it. Makes me wish I could read the original Welsh...say tenth century Welsh isn't anything like Old English is it? Well...probably not, but the translation of the Welsh poem reminds me of a lot of the things I've read in early medieval English poetry.

[blp]

'I lived well, but life was awful'

There's the key. Come on Virgil, try a bit harder!

[Virgil]

I think it's trying to say that humans are animals.

Since I missed Virg.'s poem yesterday, I thought I'd say I enjoyed it. Makes me wish I could read the original Welsh...say tenth century Welsh isn't anything like Old English is it? Well...probably not, but the translation of the Welsh poem reminds me of a lot of the things I've read in early medieval English poetry.
I don't know what any Welch sounds like unfortunately. I would imagine it would sound Gaelic, but then I don't know. I would wonder how much of the welch was infleuenced by Latin prior to Anglo-Saxon conquest and then by Germanic languages after that. The translator does have old English in mind. The translated poem has a Gerard Manly Hopkins feel to it.

[Virgil]

'I lived well, but life was awful'

There's the key. Come on Virgil, try a bit harder!
You're right. I was blinded by the last stanza with the red and the pink! :D

[RJbibliophil]

I think I preferred the previous poem.

[smoothherb]

capture my mind in your eyes
It can be seen if you look deep
Like looking through a face to find a lie
Test my madness by being blind
But only blind to my exterior
You have to look far into my eyes
Then you'll see my thougts and fears
See that my anger has came from love
My pride has been smashed yet I still don't care
I've banished my demons
Now I just need A reason to keep them away


any opinions on this poem

[Virgil]

smoothherb

This thread is for estabished, published poems. The personal poetry forum is for our poetry.

[Riesa]

Orion

Far back when I went zig-zagging
through tamarack pastures
you were my genius, you
my cast-iron Viking, my helmed
lion-heart king in prison.
Years later now you're young

my fierce half-brother, staring
down from that simplified west
your breast open, your belt dragged down
by an oldfashioned thing, a sword
the last bravado you won't give over
though it weighs you down as you stride

and the stars in it are dim
and maybe have stopped burning.
But you burn, and I know it;
as I throw back my head to take you in
an old transfusion happens again:
divine astronomy is nothing to it.

Indoors I bruise and blunder,
break faith, leave ill enough
alone, a dead child born in the dark.
Night cracks up over the chimney,
pieces of time, frozen geodes
come showering down in the grate.

A man reaches behind my eyes
and finds them empty
a woman's head turns away
from my head in the mirror
children are dying my death
and eating crumbs of my life.

Pity is not your forte.
Calmly you ache up there
pinned aloft in your crow's nest,
my speechless pirate!
You take it all for granted
and when I look you back

it's with a starlike eye
shooting its cold and egotistical spear
where it can so least damage.
Breathe deep! No hurt, no pardon
out here in the cold with you
you with your back to the wall.

Adrienne Rich

[Virgil]

Wow, very nice choice Riesa. I really like this. Nice lines:

Indoors I bruise and blunder,
break faith, leave ill enough
alone, a dead child born in the dark.

Here a little melodramaitc, but still nice:

A man reaches behind my eyes
and finds them empty
a woman's head turns away
from my head in the mirror

[RJbibliophil]

Interesting poem, seems to be rather "starry" and sad.

[Virgil]

Since no one has posted in a few days, I'll post another.


At Melville's Tomb by Hart Crane

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death's bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.

Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.

Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides . . . High in the azure steeps,
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.

[Hyacinth Girl]

Wonderful choice Virgil.

[Virgil]

Thank you Hyacinth


I believe there is there has always been controversy as to the openning sentence:

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath
An embassy.
Does anyone comprehend what it means? I'm baffled.

[Hyacinth Girl]

Virgil, I will give this a stab, but I'm really rusty at exegesis, so bear with me. :D

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
I view this as referring to the ocean, seen as a wide expanse from the "ledge" of land. "wide" also seems to denote distance - the ocean being far from Melville's particular "ledge".

The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath/an embassy
The "dice" of dead sailors indicate chance, and the vagaries of Fortune/Fate that caused their gamble to fail. It also echoes "The Tempest" slightly, and I do mean slightly :"those are pearls that were his eyes/his bones of coral made"(I'm probably misquoting a tetch, as I do this from memory) in that dice were once made of ivory. The bones "bequeath an embassy" - they seem to move across the wide expanse beneath the waves as an ambassador to those on land, to the living. In the next line they "beat upon the dusty shore" - carried along under the waves, but fail in their mission to reach the "ledge" of the land. The use of "dusty" seems to echo "dust to dust" - the bones seem to seek their proper place among the buried , "and were obscured" - returning under the water to the deep expanse they journeyed from, their ambassadorial mission incomplete. The lack of burial and tombstone seems to lend to their being "obscured," due to the absence of a physical memorial.

[RJbibliophil]

Nice poem Virgil, and very good analysis Hyacinth! You are actually quite good, and it makes sense.

[Scheherazade]

No man is an island

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne

[Virgil]

Virgil, I will give this a stab, but I'm really rusty at exegesis, so bear with me. :D

I view this as referring to the ocean, seen as a wide expanse from the "ledge" of land. "wide" also seems to denote distance - the ocean being far from Melville's particular "ledge".

The "dice" of dead sailors indicate chance, and the vagaries of Fortune/Fate that caused their gamble to fail. It also echoes "The Tempest" slightly, and I do mean slightly :"those are pearls that were his eyes/his bones of coral made"(I'm probably misquoting a tetch, as I do this from memory) in that dice were once made of ivory. The bones "bequeath an embassy" - they seem to move across the wide expanse beneath the waves as an ambassador to those on land, to the living. In the next line they "beat upon the dusty shore" - carried along under the waves, but fail in their mission to reach the "ledge" of the land. The use of "dusty" seems to echo "dust to dust" - the bones seem to seek their proper place among the buried , "and were obscured" - returning under the water to the deep expanse they journeyed from, their ambassadorial mission incomplete. The lack of burial and tombstone seems to lend to their being "obscured," due to the absence of a physical memorial.
By Jove, I think you've done it. Thanks. :thumbs_up

[Virgil]

No man is an island

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne
I have always loved that piece of writing. Fabulous. It doesn't diminish with time.

[RJbibliophil]

The Scales of Justice
Jeff Mondak

It's true I've fried a knight or two--
I left them lightly toasted.
But dragons' caves are private homes--
We all have warnings posted.

We dragons are a peaceful lot--
You'll often find us dancing.
Those knights should take up violin
And stop with all this lancing.

I'd never roast a blacksmith, Judge,
I'd never grill a farmer.
Those knights attacked my humble lair
With swords and suits of armor.

They came at me with weapons drawn
To slice me full of gashes,
So what was I supposed to do
But burn them all to ashes?

It's clear that this was self-defense.
You know the knights conspired.
You've got to say I'm innocent--
Or else you might be fired!

Sorry, couldn't resist!

For Pendragon, the only dragon, knight, and ghost of my acquaintance. ;)

[genoveva]

Thank you for those last two poems, especially!

[Virgil]

Piglet

That is so cute. It is charming. I hope Pen sees it.

[Petrarch's Love]

That's great Piglet! I needed a nice laugh. :lol: It reminds me of a short story I once wrote from a dragon's eye view.

[RJbibliophil]

Thanks, I couldn't resist. I like the last line especially.

I did send it to Pen in a pm. :D

[Hyacinth Girl]

Since no one has posted yet today. . .

The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

[Virgil]

Great poem Hyacinth. One of my all time favorites. Do you like Walac Stevens?

[Petrarch's Love]

Thanks Hyacinth. That's a great poem. I'm glad it's not winter now as I'm reading this though. ;)

[RJbibliophil]

Very nice Hyacinth. :D It is a poem where rythm and sound is more important than the rhyme. I like that in a poem.

The meaning here kind of escapes me. Does anyone else understand it? Would it be a snow man, whose mind is made of snow?

[Nightmare9870]

Poem for June 14:




I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The vi'lets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,--
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember,
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heav'n
Than when I was a boy.

-Thomas Hood

[Petrarch's Love]

I like the way the memories of childhood are described in this poem. The comparison with the present loss of innocence is perhaps a bit predictable, but still an enjoyable poem.

[RJbibliophil]

nice

nostalgic

[Hyacinth Girl]

Hello everyone; sorry I haven't replied to you . . they actually expect me to WORK here occasionally! Go figure.

Do you like Walac Stevens - Yes, Virgil, I do. One of my profs in grad school, Robert Pack, set me on Stevens, and I've been reading him ever since.


Would it be a snow man, whose mind is made of snow - Piglet, I think that is part of the poems ambiguity at work. I think the "mind of winter" belongs to a snowman, but can also apply to a "snow man" - a man made of snow, or like stuff. In other words, a man of ephemerality with the appearance of substantiality. I think Stevens is using this to articulate the human condition. The term "snow man" also echoes Eliot's "hollow man" in some respects. :cold:

[Hyacinth Girl]

I like the way the memories of childhood are described in this poem. The comparison with the present loss of innocence is perhaps a bit predictable, but still an enjoyable poem.

I agree, and as a good Wordsworthian, I have to feel sorry for the speaker that cannot recapture some glimmer of the lost child -

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

[tinwhistler]

I agree, and as a good Wordsworthian, I have to feel sorry for the speaker that cannot recapture some glimmer of the lost child -


This is the loss of memory referred to in my version of "Deep Purple:"

When the purple turtle drowns
And the Irish elf wears browns,
Then the lights begin to dim out from my eye.
With the loss of my memory
You color my reverie,
Making me blue,
I know not why.

[tinwhistler]

Ode

The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heav'ns, a shining frame,
Their great original proclaim:
Th' unwearied Sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator's power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty Hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The Moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the list'ning Earth
Repeats the story of her birth:
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets, in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though, in solemn silence, all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball?
What though nor real voice nor sound
Amid their radiant orbs be found?
In Reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
For ever singing, as they shine,
'The Hand that made us is Divine.'

Joseph Addison

[Scheherazade]

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

by Maya Angelou

[Virgil]

Well, I had never actually read this poem, although I have heard of it. There are those who scoff at it and those who praise it, and so now that i've read it I've got a right to an opinion. Put me in the camp that thinks it's crap. I'm sorry. I've never read Maya Angelou's poetry, so I will not judge her as a poet, but this poem is very second rate at best. Frankly I'm not sure it's even third rate. And before I get myself in trouble, let me say I in no way am disparaging her theme.

[Pensive]

A New Song By Langston Hughes

I speak in the name of the black millions
Awakening to action.
Let all others keep silent a moment
I have this word to bring,
This thing to say,
This song to sing:
Bitter was the day
When I bowed my back
Beneath the slaver's whip.
That day is past.
Bitter was the day
When I saw my children unschooled,
My young men without a voice in the world,
My women taken as the body-toys
Of a thieving people.
That day is past.
Bitter was the day, I say,
When the lyncher's rope
Hung about my neck,
And the fire scorched my feet,
And the oppressors had no pity,
And only in the sorrow songs
Relief was found.
That day is past.
I know full well now
Only my own hands,
Dark as the earth,
Can make my earth-dark body free.
O thieves, exploiters, killers,
No longer shall you say
With arrogant eyes and scornful lips:
"You are my servant,
Black man-
I, the free!"
That day is past-
For now,
In many mouths-
Dark mouths where red tongues burn
And white teeth gleam-
New words are formed,
Bitter
With the past
But sweet
With the dream.
Tense,
Unyielding,
Strongand sure,
They sweep the earth-
Revolt! Arise!
The Black
And White World
Shall be one!
The Worker's World!
The past is done!
A new dream flames
Against the
Sun!

[RJbibliophil]

Very nice Pensy! :) This poem has a meaning, a reason to be. This poem wants to help change the world.

[Pensive]

Thanks RJ, I love this poem and some of the other poems of Hughes. They are based on opposition to racial discrimination basically. You should check out some others by him as well such as The Negro Speaks. . .

[Hyacinth Girl]

Wow! What a contrast between the two poems. Nice job Pensive/Scher. When I first read the Angelou poem, I found it attractive, but after reading the Hughes poem, I found the Angelou poem to have a completely different tone than what I had first realized. Both poems are similar as they draw upon the horrors of the past, and emphasize the strength of character found among the descendants of an enslaved people. Angelou's poem seems to mock and berate modern oppressors as well, imaginary or not, and its speaker takes a passive role compared to the Hughes poem. Hughes' speaker chooses to focus upon hope for the future, a hope that is dependent upon the actions of the former slaves, not their former oppressors. Hughes wants the black and white world to unite into a "Workers World" - Angelou seems content to taunt (as well she might) and continue on unbowed instead of working toward a solution. I feel that it is the weaker poem, as both emphasize the endurance of a people, but Hughes' speaker seeks a way to actually end the antagonism.

[Virgil]

I feel, however, that it is the weaker poem, both in structure and in message.
The messages in both are admirable in their own way. The problem I have with the Angelou poem is that it's maudlin number one, but more importantly there are hardly no poetic lines in the entire piece. I like the conceits of the "black ocean" and of the "dust rising." But the rest of the poem is no different than a pop song, and perhaps with the right music this would be an excellent pop song. But as far as poetry goes, it's quite limited. In my humble (are any of my opinions humble? ;) ) opinion.

[Hyacinth Girl]

The messages in both are admirable in their own way

I agree Virgil, that both carry an admirable message (see my edited post), I just feel that Angelou undermines herself by "maudlin", to use your own term, navel-gazing. I do not say this to disparage her message or her poem, but her message seems to say, "Whatever you do to me, I will continue to rise up" - an admirable message. Hughes, however, says, "We were slaves, now we are free, and we will use that freedom to our advantage, not just to prove our strength, but to also work towards an understanding". I think Angelou's failure to reach out for a solution that does not involve just endurance, but acceptance "weakens" her message.
*Note: I use the authors' names, but I mean "speakers" :D

[ShoutGrace]

I think Angelou's failure to reach out for a solution that does not involve just endurance, but acceptance "weakens" her message.

I think so too. Perhaps the implication is there, but she doesn't actually say it. If she (the oppressed African American peoples?) merely continues to rise again and again while she keeps getting trounced upon, what is the poem really saying?

Though she does at one point in the poem say that

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I like the Hughes poem because I can identify it's themes easier; though I'm not sure if that is just because they are stereotypical.


Bitter was the day, I say,
When the lyncher's rope
Hung about my neck,
And the fire scorched my feet,
And the oppressors had no pity,
And only in the sorrow songs
Relief was found.

I didn't really relate to the oil pumps and gold mines in Angelou's poem . . . she's saying that despite getting grieved and oppressed she will present/employ/exert/conduct herself as if she had . . . . money?

Besides which, I really like African American Gospel music, and oral traditions.

I think that the Hughes poem had a lot more imagery that made it better for me personally.


Dark mouths where red tongues burn
And white teeth gleam-
New words are formed,
Bitter
With the past
But sweet
With the dream.

[Virgil]

but her message seems to say, "Whatever you do to me, I will continue to rise up" - an admirable message. Hughes, however, says, "We were slaves, now we are free, and we will use that freedom to our advantage, not just to prove our strength, but to also work towards an understanding". I think Angelou's failure to reach out for a solution that does not involve just endurance, but acceptance "weakens" her message.

In all fairness to Angelou, this is but one lyric poem not a comprehensive opus that explores various aspects of the African-American experience. Perhaps she has a simliar theme to Hughes' poem elsewhere, but a simple lyric poem focuses on one emotion not several and this is what she chooses for this one poem. I just don't think it's well done.

[Hyacinth Girl]

I all fairness to Angelou, this is but one lyric poem not a comprehensive opus that explores various aspects of the African-American experience.

Again, Virgil, I agree with you. This is simply one poem of many in Angelou's collection. My point is that when comparing the two works, Angelou's falls short in scope (and in my opinion, hope) by comparison. That is why I say that particular poem is weaker than Hughes' in both structure and message. Her work as a whole, however, does not necessarily do so.

Besides, what do I know, I'm a Ren scholar! :lol:

[Hyacinth Girl]

Since no one has posted a new poem in a couple days, here is one that I have been pondering of late:

Solitude
George Gordon, Lord Byron

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude, 'tis but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.

But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam alone, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

[Reason is a cow]

;) awesome.

[Hyacinth Girl]

;) awesome.

Thank you. . . the university really TRIED to brainwash me into being a Romantic! :brow:

[Pensive]

Edits: Poem Deleted. Didn't think about the rule while posting:

The same person can't post within five days.

[Psycheinaboat]

Ooh, can I post one? I don't think I ever have.

Poetry
By Marianne Moore


I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all
this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a
flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician--
nor is it valid
to discriminate against 'business documents and

school-books'; all these phenomena are important. One must
make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
'literalists of
the imagination'--above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, 'imaginary gardens with real toads in them', shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.

[Virgil]

Oh I lve this poem Psyche. Great choice. I love these lines:


the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a
flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician--

[fitzgolden]

My first posting on this thread:

I'm not a great Plath fan, but I love this one



Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike
I am not cruel, only truthful –
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Sylvia Plath

[Hyacinth Girl]

This is one of my favorite things by Plath.
I especially like the closing lines:


In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

In my reading, not only do these lines represent the passage of time and the tragedy of aging, but they make the woman complicit in her own aging by the drowning of the young girl of her youth. The poem, in some respects, warns others of the peril they face by allowing the "terrible fish" of the old woman to rise unchallenged and drowning the image of their youth. The mirror/lake must tell the truth - it cannot hide age, but allowing youth to "drown" creates a permanent state that is not only physical, but mental as well.

Ever since reading this poem for the first time I have made it a point not to drown my "young girl" by mooning beside a lake, or by suppressing her thoughts. Instead I seek each day to make her live, at least for a moment, whether by the twinkle in my eye, or a laugh at the beauty of the morning. My mirror/lake may show the rise of the "terrible fish" of age, but it also reveals the young girl and the old woman meeting and having a cup of tea.

I think that Plath was warning us about the death of youth, of joy, and of naivite, all through the construct of a mirror/lake that is objective in a way that other human beings can never be ("I have no preconceptions/ Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.")

[Madhuri]

Where the Mind is Without Fear -- Rabindranath Tagore

This poem is from Tagore's book named Gitanjali (Offering of Songs)

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

[Hyacinth Girl]

Lovely poem Madhuri, full of longing and hope

[Madhuri]

It was written during Indian freedom struggle, that is why it portrays the hope Tagore had and the land he wanted after freedom.

[Hyacinth Girl]

And yet it is relevant in today's society as well . . . it should be the goal of every country to achieve that kind of "heaven of freedom" (I'm going to stop there before this heads into the taboo realm of politics!:D)
I especially like the lines: "Where the world has not been broken up into fragments/
By narrow domestic walls" - I think that can apply to a country being isolated from the world, but it also applies on the level of the individual. That feeling of isolation, of a fragmentary world seems to be a part of modern existence that we are constantly trying to overcome.

[Madhuri]

In some way or the other in today's times as well, we are forever wanting to gain freedom from the boundaries set by others, or our surroundings, forever trying to create that heaven of freedom.

The idea behind posting it was not politics, but as Hayacinth rightly interpreted, its relevance in our lives.

[genoveva]

1909

The lady's dress was
Of purple corded silk
And her gold-broidered tunic
Was formed of two panels
Fitted at the shoulder

Her eyes danced like angels
She laughed she laughed
Her face showed France's colors
Blue eyes white teeth and lips of scarlet
Her face showed France's colors

Her dress was scooped low front and back
Her hair was waved a la Recamier
And O the fair bare arms she had

Will midnight never toll the hour

The lady clad in the purple corded silk
And the gold-broidered tunic
Scooped low front and back
Tossed her curls
Her gold bandeau
And trailed wee buckled shoes

She was so beautiful
You wouldn't have dared love her

I used to love dreadful women in crowded slums
Where each day a few new creatures were born
Iron was their blood and flame their brain
I loved I loved the clever tribe of machines
Luxury and beauty are only their spume
That woman was so beautiful
She frightened me

~Guillaume Apollinaire
(translated by Anne Hyde Greet)

[Hyacinth Girl]

That was lovely. . . I haven't read Apollinaire in a long time, and this has spurred me on to pulling him out and reading him again. Thank you.

I really enjoy the juxtaposition of ethereal woman (purple silk, bare arms and wavy hair) and the terrestrial one (iron, flame, machine). While one would imagine from the speaker's description that the lady in silk would be the object of desire, the expectation is dashed, and the "dreadful" women of earthiness, of industry and its slums, are the chosen. They are loved, and they remain, while "Luxury and beauty are only their spume" to be discarded and feared.

[Petrarch's Love]

I also enjoyed reading the Apollinaire again. I was wondering, Genoveva (or anyone else for that matter), do you have it in the original french and could post that? I've read it before in translation, but always wondered what the original sounds like.

[genoveva]

I was wondering, Genoveva (or anyone else for that matter), do you have it in the original french and could post that? I've read it before in translation, but always wondered what the original sounds like.

1909

La dame avait une robe
En ottoman violine
Et sa tunique brodee d'or
Etait composee de deux panneaux
S'attachant sur l'epaule

Les yeux dansants comme des anges
Elle riait elle riait
Elle avait un visage aux couleurs de France
Les yeux bleus les dents blanches et les levres tres rouges
Elle avait un visage aux couleurs de France

Elle etait decolletee en rond
Et coiffee a la Recamier
Avec de beaux bras nus

N'etendra-t-on jamais sonner minuit

La dame en robe d'ottoman violine
Et en tunique brodee d'or
Decolletee en rond
Promenait ses boucles
Son bandeau l'or
Et trainait ses petits souliers a boucles

Elle etait si belle
Que tu n'aurais pas ose l'aimer

(apologies for not knowing French, nor knowing how to insert French punctuation on my computer. Hope it makes sense nonetheless!) :blush:

[Petrarch's Love]

Merci Beaucoup Genoveva. Yes, it makes perfect sense, but the last stanza was missing. I managed to finally track it down online, so here's just the last stanza (which is great in the french) for those who can read it:

J'aimais les femmes atroces dans les quartiers énormes
O� naissaient chaque jour quelques êtres nouveaux
Le fer était leur sang la flamme leur cerveau
J'aimais j'aimais le peuple habile Des machines
Le luxe et la beauté NE sont que son Žcume
Cette femme était si belle
Qu'elle me faisait peur.

[genoveva]

Whoops- yep, forgot to flip the page!

[RJbibliophil]

Interesting poem (the english one, that is). Thank you!

[Virgil]

Today's poem of the day, "London" by William Blake. I think this is a great poem


Londonby William Blake

I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

[Petrarch's Love]

Every time I read this poem it seems even more grimly well written to me. It's so powerful the way the sounds of poverty take on a life of their own, becoming physically manifested in the world around them. Sighs become blood, the harlot's cries become blight and plague etc. The most (justifiably) famous phrase is, of course the "mind-forged manacles." This poem is so effective in conveying the way external ugliness comes from within the human mind and soul.

[Virgil]

Frankly this is one of the most perfect poems I have ever read. The words just interconnect so beautifully: "chartered" with "marks" (as in marking a map) with the city of London with "mind" (which contains the internal map of the city) with "streets." "Marks of woe" with all the curses and plague and tears; "cry with "sigh" with appall. And how we go from infant to marriage to hearse. "Blackening" with "midnight". And these are great lines:

And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.
Such a jump in thought from a simple sigh to a bloody revolution, a revoluton that could be just around the corner.

[Hyacinth Girl]

Here is my all-time favorite Langston Hughes poem:

THEME FOR ENGLISH B
By Langston Hughes
The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you---
Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York too.) Me---who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records---Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white---
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me---
although you're older---and white---
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

1951

[Pensive]

Great Poem, Hyacinth! I always like Hughes's poetry!

[Hyacinth Girl]

Thank you. . . I enjoy him immensely. What I appreciate most about his poetry, especially this poem, is his acknowledgment of race and the inherent tensions between them, yet he constantly seeks for some sort of resolution, as in:


Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me---