Adventurous poets

[kev67]

Which poet had the most interesting life? My mother used to quote the first two verses of Leisure while doing housework. Years later, I heard a program on the radio discussing a poet who lived much of his life as a hobo. He crossed the Atlantic and criss-crossed America until one day he jumped off a train and injured his foot so badly it had to be amputated. This poet turned out to be W.H. Davies, the author of Leisure, his most famous poem. I only really like the first two verses of that poem, but it cheers me to think someone with that humble background managed to win some small lasting fame.

[cacian]

Beautiful poem indeed:

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

And to answer your post I would like to nominate W H Auden an English born poet also a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential.

This is one my favourite poem of his:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

[kev67]

W H Auden sounds like a high achiever, but was he adventurous?

[cacian]

Hi Kev it all depends what you mean by adventurous. How would you define adventurous and in which context? :)

[kev67]

Did he get into any scrapes? Did he undertake any risky, physical endeavours? Did he risk getting cold and wet or hungry or bit or bruised?

[Ecurb]

Aeschylus, the great playwright, fought at Marathon (and probably Salamis). Although he is honored 2500 years later for his literary talents, there is no mention of them on his tombstone, which reads:

"Aeschylus, the Athenian, Euphorion's son, is dead. This tomb in Gela's cornlands covers him. His glorious valour the hallowed field of Marathon could tell, and the longhaired Persians had knowledge of it."

Personally, I wouldn't have messed with the guy.

[Ecurb]

Byron fought against the Turks in the Greek war of independence, and is still revered in Greece today. He also swam across the Hellespointe, and had many scandalous affairs.

[JBI]

Li Bai (Li Po, Li Bo) who supposedly was a vigilante swordsman before turning to poetry. Xie Lingyun also, but he was more concerned was expanding his massive estate and doing whatever he wanted, to the upset of his local governor, who he essentially told to f off, and who retaliated by exiling him.

[OrphanPip]

The "war poets" like Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sasoon, and John McRae would be obvious choices. Also, if I remember correctly Sir Philip Sidney died in battle fighting the Spanish in Holland. Some of the cavalier poets of the seventeenth century also went to war, like Richard Lovelace.

[mortalterror]

Archillochus and Rimbaud were both mercenaries. Dante was a soldier and an exile. Tasso went insane and wandered from town to town. Milton was a revolutionary. Horace was a soldier on the losing side of a Roman civil war. Camoes was a soldier and lost one of his eyes in battle, was imprisoned several times. Sir Walter Raleigh was an aristocrat, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer who colonized America and died by execution. Christopher Marlowe was a spy. Chaucer was a page captured during the hundred year war. William IX Duke of Aquitaine was a crusader. Bertran de Born seemed to spend his whole life in one violent conflict after another. Francois Villon was a vagabond hung as a thief. Petofi was a revolutionary who died in battle.

[ennison]

Iain Lom was a poetic Arkan. Somhairle Maclean served with the Eighth Army. Domhnull Ruadh Corunna was severely wounded on the Western Front. Duncan Ban Macintyre was a sort of part time soldier but I cannot imagine him but doing his best not to shoot at another human.Vernon Scannell I believe was a boxer but was court-martialled for desertion in North Africa. Keith Douglas was killed in Normandy. On the other hand the very unadventurous ASJ Tessimond went into hiding to avoid being conscripted. Robert Service served on the Western Front and has some brutally frank poems describing the experience. More adventure there than one needs!

[Lokasenna]

What about Christopher Marlowe? Not only one of the greatest dramatists of all time, but also a secret agent, open atheist, and quite possibly homosexual - and almost certainly assassinated for those reasons.

[JuniperWoolf]

^That's my favorite death of a writer story.


Byron fought against the Turks in the Greek war of independence, and is still revered in Greece today. He also swam across the Hellespointe, and had many scandalous affairs.

He was pretty "adventerous" with the Shelleys. They were all well ahead of their time (hell, they were ahead of our time).

[kev67]

I have been reading about Laurie Lee, who was a poet, but is more famous for his autobiographical books, in particular, Cider with Rosie. He decided to just take off with next to nothing in his pockets and wander around Spain playing musical instruments. Then he fought in the Spanish Civil War for the International Brigade. Take note, he was a volunteer, not an enlisted man. This is interesting to me: I have long wanted to read an Ernest Hemmingway novel, and For Whom The Bell Tolls about the Spanish Civil War is often reckoned his greatest novel. I have already read George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, so Laurie Lee's book, A Moment of War, should do for the Spanish Civil War.

*wonders if it is a bit callous reducing the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War to a book reading project*

[kev67]

Archillochus and Rimbaud were both mercenaries. Dante was a soldier and an exile. Tasso went insane and wandered from town to town. Milton was a revolutionary. Horace was a soldier on the losing side of a Roman civil war. Camoes was a soldier and lost one of his eyes in battle, was imprisoned several times. Sir Walter Raleigh was an aristocrat, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer who colonized America and died by execution. Christopher Marlowe was a spy. Chaucer was a page captured during the hundred year war. William IX Duke of Aquitaine was a crusader. Bertran de Born seemed to spend his whole life in one violent conflict after another. Francois Villon was a vagabond hung as a thief. Petofi was a revolutionary who died in battle.

Sir Walter Raleigh sounds like a winner, but what was his poetry like? It might have sucked.