Poetry

[MightyAphrodite]

i like that too, although i tend to think he ran out of steam with the last 2 lines

yeah a bit...but no ones perfect.

esp not parents according to larkin.

 

[Dillinger4]

xxix by Philip Larkin

Pour away that youth
That overflows the heart
Into hair and mouth;
Take the graves part,
Tell the bone's truth

Throw away that youth
That jewel in the head
That bronze in the breath;
Walk with the dead
For fear of death

 

[scifisam]

It seems unusual to me cos he's read it for 'fun' not to study and previously was mostly a politics, history and scifi reader. And he loves his 'psychogeography'.

You chopped off most of my boasting.

I think it is slightly unusual to have read Dante and Beowulf for fun (Blake not so much), but it's not that unusual.

 

[_pH_]

Prolly not my most favouritist larkin, but i do like this one, for the onomatapaeia at the end.

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

 

[scifisam]

Should we have a thread where we can post up our own poetry, or would that be a disaster?

 

[Dillinger4]

oh oh!

I also like Rainer Maria Rilke. He has done some excellent poetry - again, even in translation. I also like his Letters to a young poet.

If that doesn't get you writing, nothing will.

http://www.sfgoth.com/~immanis/rilke/letter1.html

All there, for anybody who is interested.

I was tempted to read Holderlin, after Rilke, but I have heard that he doesn't translate so well.

I think I am getting over stimulated.

 

[MightyAphrodite]

Should we have a thread where we can post up our own poetry, or would that be a disaster?

YEAH! DISASTERPOETRY .


(it could work!)

 

[Dillinger4]

Should we have a thread where we can post up our own poetry, or would that be a disaster?

I believe there is one about, somewhere! But go for it, if you cant find it. I would love to read it.

 

[_pH_]

I think I am getting over stimulated.

calm down dilly

 

[MightyAphrodite]

I think I am getting over stimulated.

 

[Dillinger4]

calm down dilly

*deep breath's*

 

[foo]

Bukowski's about as far as I get. And that's kind of anti-poetry.

yep, him and a couple of others.

i'm not good with poetry.

i can live with that.

 

[scifisam]

YEAH! DISASTERPOETRY .


(it could work!)

Actually, that could be fun!

 

[DotCommunist]

I was looking for a decent Leonard Cohen haiku (found two with syllables way out) but came across this which is pretty raw

For you
I will be a ghetto jew
and dance
and put white stockings
on my twisted limbs
and poison wells
across the town
For you
I will be an apostate jew
and tell the Spanish priest
of the blood vow
in the Talmud
and where the bones
of the child are hid
For you
I will be a banker jew
and bring to ruin
a proud old hunting king
and end his line
For you
I will be a Broadway jew
and cry in theatres
for my mother
and sell bargain goods
beneath the counter
For you
I will be a doctor jew
and search
in all the garbage cans for foreskins
to sew back again
For you
I will be a Dachau jew
and lie down in lime
with twisted limbs
and bloated pain
no mind can understand

 

[MightyAphrodite]

Actually, that could be fun!

it certainly could. go for it i say.

 

[Dillinger4]

I was looking for a decent Leonard Cohen haiku (found two with syllables way out) but came across this which is pretty raw

Excellent.

 

[DotCommunist]

it certainly could. go for it i say.

If someone does it I'll post my attempt emulate michael whatsis name, oondjati or similar.

you have been warned

 

[Dillinger4]

I am almost a little embarrassed to say this, but sometimes poetry, almost make me feel drunk, or something.

 

[scifisam]

I am almost a little embarrassed to say this, but sometimes poetry, almost make me feel drunk, or something.

Aww. You are just the most adorable assassin ever.

 

[isitme]

'If I was a poem I would play for england'

 

[bluestreak]

I am almost a little embarrassed to say this, but sometimes poetry, almost make me feel drunk, or something.

yeah, i know that one. It's fucking drugs!

*goes off to read some*

 

[bluestreak]

hee hee, just stood up and declaimed prufrock to myself.

oooh i enjoyed that.

 

[scifisam]

hee hee, just stood up and declaimed prufrock to myself.

oooh i enjoyed that.

Perve!

I love TS Eliot, but had never read the cats poems before. I'd assumed the cats were metaphors for people or something. No, they're just cats. It's greetings card stuff - quite embarrassing.

 

[Orang Utan]

I read them as a kid and loved them

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I used to read some poetry back in my angst-filled twenties, but not much since then. Life seemed to become more prosaic after that.

 

[marty21]

i buy poetry now and again, last thing i bought was Hugo Williams, "Billy's rain"

 

[Orang Utan]

i buy poetry now and again, last thing i bought was Hugo Williams, "Billy's rain"

And you're too modest to mention that you are an actual published poet

 

[Belushi]

I hardly read, let alone poetry. I do have a love of Kipling though,

God of our fathers, known of old--
Lord of our far-flung battle line
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the law--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard--
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!

 

[Belushi]

And the greatest of all Welsh Poets, RS Thomas

Iago Prytherch his name, though, be it allowed,
Just an ordinary man of the bald Welsh hills,
Who pens a few sheep in a gap of cloud.
Docking mangels, chipping the green skin
From the yellow bones with a half-witted grin
Of satisfaction, or churning the crude earth
To a stiff sea of clods that glint in the wind—
So are his days spent, his spittled mirth
Rarer than the sun that cracks the cheeks
Of the gaunt sky perhaps once in a week.
And then at night see him fixed in his chair
Motionless, except when he leans to gob in the fire.
There is something frightening in the vacancy of his mind.
His clothes, sour with years of sweat
And animal contact, shock the refined,
But affected, sense with their stark naturalness.
Yet this is your prototype, who, season by season
Against siege of rain and the wind's attrition,
Preserves his stock, an impregnable fortress
Not to be stormed, even in death's confusion.
Remember him, then, for he, too, is a winner of wars,
Enduring like a tree under the curious stars.

 

[spanglechick]

poetry is what I miss about teaching english - and this thread has made me realise how much I really miss it.

It's the density of writing. you can mine it down and down and down... but also be left reeling by the sounds and shapes of a first reading.

I used to write, in my early twenties. Re reasd it about five years ago and was surprised by how unshit it actually was.