the most recent poem you have read

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by YesNo

If you take the Fitzgerald translation and pretend the line breaks aren't there, couldn't you read it as prose?

---

I find it a 'long ordeal and difficult passage'. But let's try it:

Almighty Juno, filled with pity for this long ordeal and difficult passage, now sent Iris down out of Olympus to set free the wrestling spirit from the body's hold. For since she died, not at her fated span nor as she merited, but before her time enflamed and driven mad, Proserpina had not yet plucked from her the golden hair, delivering her to Orcus of the Styx. So humid Iris through bright heaven flew on saffron-yellow wings, and in her train a thousand hues shimmered before the sun. At Dido's head she came to rest. "This token Sacred to Dis I bear away as bidden And free you from your body." Saying this, she cut a lock of hair. Along with it her body's warmth fell into dissolution, and out into the winds her life withdrew."

I'm sorry, but this just doesn't work as prose. Also it makes things rather opaque, was that 'long ordeal and passage' a journey by ship? But West's prose version also has problems, take the first line of our passage:

"Almighty Juno took pity on her long anguish and difficult death and sent Iris down to free her struggling spirit and loosen the fastening of her limbs."

'to free her struggling spirit and loosen the fastening of her limbs' is very awkward & opaque. I much prefer Fitzgerald's, 'to set free the wrestling spirit from the body's hold'. And I'm not sure how West can get away with avoiding scholarly apparatus for that passage - surely the average Penguin reader would require definitions of Proserpina, Orca, Styx, Dido, Dis, and explanations of things like 'plucked from her the golden hair.'

All in all, as my Oxford Companion to Classical Literature says, "the poem is immensely complex"!

All the purple prose (or whatever it's called) makes it hard to read. Here's my translation:

Out of pity, Juno sent Iris down to make sure Dido was dead.

Here's the most recent stanza I've read:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

- from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mal4mac

Here's the most recent stanza I've read:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

- from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

---

and what is the meaning of this passage? :)

I read this poem by Maya Angelou to my class after her death recently.

Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Maya Angelou

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

To an Athlete Dying Young
By E.A. Housman


The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

I hardly read any poetry but I'm working on it, and recently I read and loved Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Here is a random quote, and an audio clip can be found here - http://www.public.asu.edu/~gelderen/AUDIO.htm


Now ridez þis renk þurȝ þe ryalme of Logres,
Sir Gauan, on Godez halue, þaȝ hym no gomen þoȝt.
Oft leudlez alone he lengez on nyȝtez
Þer he fonde noȝt hym byfore þe fare þat he lyked.
Hade he no fere bot his fole bi frythez and dounez,
Ne no gome bot God bi gate wyth to karp,
Til þat he neȝed ful neghe into þe Norþe Walez.
Alle þe iles of Anglesay on lyft half he haldez,
And farez ouer þe fordez by þe forlondez,
Ouer at þe Holy Hede, til he hade eft bonk
In þe wyldrenesse of Wyrale; wonde þer bot lyte [folio 100v]
Þat auþer God oþer gome wyth goud hert louied.
And ay he frayned, as he ferde, at frekez þat he met,
If þay hade herde any karp of a knyȝt grene,
In any grounde þeraboute, of þe grene chapel;
And al nykked hym wyth nay, þat neuer in her lyue
Þay seȝe neuer no segge þat watz of suche hwez
of grene.
Þe knyȝt tok gates straunge
In mony a bonk vnbene,
His cher ful oft con chaunge
Þat chapel er he myȝt sene.
Mony klyf he ouerclambe in contrayez straunge,
Fer floten fro his frendez fremedly he rydez.
At vche warþe oþer water þer þe wyȝe passed
He fonde a foo hym byfore, bot ferly hit were,
And þat so foule and so felle þat feȝt hym byhode.
So mony meruayl bi mount þer þe mon fyndez,
Hit were to tore for to telle of þe tenþe dole.

here is the next one I read:

To Celia is a poem published after March 1616 by Ben Jonson. It became the lyrics of a song, Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes, composed sometime after 1770.— Excerpted from To Celia on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

drink to me only with thine eyes

Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I'll not look for wine
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine
But might I of Jove's nectar sup
I would not change for thine

I sent thee late a rosy wreath
Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be
But thou thereon didst only breathe
And sent'st it back to me
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear
Not of itself but thee!

The most recent poem I've read is The Garden of Proserpine by Algernon C. Swinburne.

Here's a bit of it :) :

Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.

TO THE RIVER AVEN
By ERNEST DOWSON 25th January, 1898

Is lotus eating lost in an old story,
And is the Golden Age departed when
Gorse lined these hills in a great golden glory,
Where river runs to sea from Pont-Aven?

Fate hath no arrows left in any quiver,
This is the land of all oblivious men:
How many dreams, and dead desires this river
Hath borne to the waste sea from Pont-Aven?

Wilfred Owen

move him into the sun-
gently its touch awoke him once
at home, whispering of fields unsown
always it awoke him, even in France
until this morning and this snow
if anything might rouse him now
the kind old sun will know

think how it wakes the seeds
woke, once, the clays of a cold star
are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
full-nerved,--still warm,--too hard to stir?
was it for this the clay grew tall?
--o what made fatuous sunbeams toil
to break earth's sleep at all?

A Graveyard
BY MARIANNE MOORE


Man, looking into the sea—
taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you have it to yourself—
it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing
but you cannot stand in the middle of this:
the sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave.
The firs stand in a procession—each with an emerald turkey-foot at the top—
reserved as their contours, saying nothing;
repression, however, is not the most obvious characteristic of the sea;
the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.
There are others besides you who have worn that look—
whose expression is no longer a protest; the fish no longer investigate them
for their bones have not lasted;
men lower nets, unconscious of the fact that they are desecrating a grave,
and row quickly away—the blades of the oars
moving together like the feet of water-spiders as if there were no such thing as death.
The wrinkles progress upon themselves in a phalanx—beautiful under networks of foam,
and fade breathlessly while the sea rustles in and out of the seaweed;
the birds swim through the air at top speed, emitting cat-calls as heretofore—
the tortoise-shell scourges about the feet of the cliffs, in motion beneath them
and the ocean, under the pulsation of light-houses and noise of bell-buoys,
advances as usual, looking as if it were not that ocean in which dropped things are bound to sink—
in which if they turn and twist, it is neither with volition nor consciousness.

Wanting to Die, Anne Sexton.


Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the almost unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention,
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have so simply declared myself,
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,
have taken on his craft, his magic.

In this way, heavy and thoughtful,
warmer than oil or water,
I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.

I did not think of my body at needle point.
Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.
Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they don’t always die,
but dazzled, they can’t forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue!—
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death’s a sad bone; bruised, you’d say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.

Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet,
raging at the fruit a pumped-up moon,
leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,

leaving the page of the book carelessly open,
something unsaid, the phone off the hook
and the love whatever it was, an infection.



You can listen to Sexton reading her own poem, just write the title in "Youtube". And of course, we know that Sexton had committed suicide after few years.

I really like this one. Billy Collins writes with a great deal of humour, but this one really is a vivid description of Goya.

CANDLE HAT (Billy Collins)

In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:
Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,
Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather
from painting The Blinding of Sampson.

But in this one Goya stands well back from the mirror
and is seen posed in the clutter of his studio
addressing a canvas tilted back on a tall easel.

He appears to be smiling out at us as if he knew
we would be amused by the extraordinary hat on his head
which is fitted around the brim with candle holders,
a device that allowed him to work into the night.

You can only wonder what it would be like
to be wearing such a chandelier on your head
as if you were a walking dining room or concert hall.

But once you see this hat there is no need to read
any biography of Goya or to memorize his dates.

To understand Goya you only have to imagine him
lighting the candles one by one, then placing
the hat on his head, ready for a night of work.

Imagine him surprising his wife with his new invention,
the laughing like a birthday cake when she saw the glow.

Imagine him flickering through the rooms of his house
with all the shadows flying across the walls.

Imagine a lost traveler knocking on his door
one dark night in the hill country of Spain.
"Come in, " he would say, "I was just painting myself,"
as he stood in the doorway holding up the wand of a brush,
illuminated in the blaze of his famous candle hat.

Billy Collins