Poetry!!!

[thebish]

to inject some christmas spirit!

The wicked fairy at the manger - by U A Fanthorpe

My gift for the child:

No wife, kids, home;
No money sense. Unemployable.
Friends, yes. But the wrong sort –
The work shy, women, wimps,
Petty infringers of the law, persons
With notifiable diseases,
Poll tax collectors, tramps;
The bottom rung.
His end?
I think we’ll make it
Public, prolonged, painful.

Right, said the baby. That was roughly
What we had in mind.

[CrazyHorse]

to inject some christmas spirit!

The wicked fairy at the manger - by U A Fanthorpe

My gift for the child:

No wife, kids, home;
No money sense. Unemployable.
Friends, yes. But the wrong sort –
The work shy, women, wimps,
Petty infringers of the law, persons
With notifiable diseases,
Poll tax collectors, tramps;
The bottom rung.
His end?
I think we’ll make it
Public, prolonged, painful.

Right, said the baby. That was roughly
What we had in mind.

Doesn't rhyme very well does it?

[jimbo_bwfc]

My poetry pallet doesn't extend much further than war poetry we had to do at school and abit of Robert Frost. Few have mentioned Road Not Taken, that's probably a favourite of mine too.

However, one from Gervais...

“I froze your tears and made a dagger,
and stabbed it in my cock forever.
It stays there like Excalibur,
Are you my Arthur?
Say you are.

Take this cool dark steeled blade,
Steal it, sheath it, in your lake.
I’d drown with you to be together.
Must you breathe? Cos I need Heaven.”

[boltonboris]

Dawns face after he recited that! Brilliant!

[William the White]

Carol Ann Duffy is making the Poet Laureate position meaningful - at least for those interested in poetry - turning it from some sort of honorific position to an advocate for the most difficult of all literary arts...

Saturday's Guardian had three pages of poems for her 'celebration' of the Queen's 60 years on the throne... (It's historically part of the job for the Poet Laureate to commemorate royal occasions)... And Carol Ann has recruited sixty poets to write a poem for a collection called 'Jubilee Lines' - one poem for each year of her beloved's reign.

The taster offered is very engaging... and, of course, she has saved the current year for herself... a poem on the Thames, what it has nourished, what it has swallowed...

Excellent...

[Sponge]

Carol Ann Duffy is making the Poet Laureate position meaningful - at least for those interested in poetry - turning it from some sort of honorific position to an advocate for the most difficult of all literary arts...

Saturday's Guardian had three pages of poems for her 'celebration' of the Queen's 60 years on the throne... (It's historically part of the job for the Poet Laureate to commemorate royal occasions)... And Carol Ann has recruited sixty poets to write a poem for a collection called 'Jubilee Lines' - one poem for each year of her beloved's reign.

The taster offered is very engaging... and, of course, she has saved the current year for herself... a poem on the Thames, what it has nourished, what it has swallowed...

Excellent...

Meh, everything I've read by her has been middle-brow pap—perfect Guardian fodder in other words. Geoffrey Hill laid into her in his inaugral speech as professor of poetry at OU and, while I don't particularly care for him as a poet, I agree with much of what he said.

You can listen to the speech here: http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/news-events ... al-lecture" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Whether or not you agree with his comments on Carol Ann Duffy, it's well worth a listen:

"Do poets approach language as the neutral instrument for confessional themes, on occasion themes of perjury? Or do they, in the very act of writing, manifestly reveal language itself, particularly language twisted into poetic shapes, as a substance of imagination radically perjured?"

[Wandering Willy]

"Do poets approach language as the neutral instrument for confessional themes, on occasion themes of perjury? Or do they, in the very act of writing, manifestly reveal language itself, particularly language twisted into poetic shapes, as a substance of imagination radically perjured?"

I've read this twice and can't decide if:

a) it's pretentious rubbish, or
b) I'm stupid.

I'll accept there is a possibility c) - that both are true.

[TANGODANCER]

My very first introduction to poetry was in junior school; William Blake's "Piping down the vallys wild" to be exact. Cargoes, Fighting Temeraire, Oh to be in England and all the rest of the poems found in school poetry books followed, primary school, technical college, Burns, Browning, Kipling etc, etc. Must have read a million over my 72 years. Strange to feel now that I actually know less about the topic than when I started, except that supposed great poetry, like supposed great art, is usually defined so by literary and art critics telling us it's so rather than by personal preference. .

[thebish]

Strange to feel now that I actually know less about the topic than when I started, except that supposed great poetry, like supposed great art, is usually defined so by literary and art critics telling us it's so rather than by personal preference.

I suspect that what happens is not as far away from "personal preference" as you seem to suggest.

Great Art is usually affirmed as such across generations - it endures and survives and speaks across cultures and generations - which is well beyond the power of today's favourite art-critic. Not-great art fades into obscurity pretty quickly - it doesn't stand the test of time. Something that stands the test of time usually does so because it is a lot of peoples' personal preference.

do you really believe that art critics define great art? if so - how do they do that?

[Sponge]

"Do poets approach language as the neutral instrument for confessional themes, on occasion themes of perjury? Or do they, in the very act of writing, manifestly reveal language itself, particularly language twisted into poetic shapes, as a substance of imagination radically perjured?"

I've read this twice and can't decide if:

a) it's pretentious rubbish, or
b) I'm stupid.

I'll accept there is a possibility c) - that both are true.

What don't you understand?

[Sponge]

My very first introduction to poetry was in junior school; William Blake's "Piping down the vallys wild" to be exact. Cargoes, Fighting Temeraire, Oh to be in England and all the rest of the poems found in school poetry books followed, primary school, technical college, Burns, Browning, Kipling etc, etc. Must have read a million over my 72 years. Strange to feel now that I actually know less about the topic than when I started, except that supposed great poetry, like supposed great art, is usually defined so by literary and art critics telling us it's so rather than by personal preference. .

Now it's my turn to be confused. What exactly are you lamenting here?

[TANGODANCER]

do you really believe that art critics define great art? if so - how do they do that?

Not getting into a full-blown debate on art as we were talking poetry, but art critics are usually the only voices heard quite so publicly. They constantly tell us the Tracy Emins' etc are great artists. I reservethe right to disagree even in the light of being seen as a "no-nowt". End.

"I do not love you, Except because I love you" (Pablo Neruda) has a bearing.

[TANGODANCER]

My very first introduction to poetry was in junior school; William Blake's "Piping down the vallys wild" to be exact. Cargoes, Fighting Temeraire, Oh to be in England and all the rest of the poems found in school poetry books followed, primary school, technical college, Burns, Browning, Kipling etc, etc. Must have read a million over my 72 years. Strange to feel now that I actually know less about the topic than when I started, except that supposed great poetry, like supposed great art, is usually defined so by literary and art critics telling us it's so rather than by personal preference. .

Now it's my turn to be confused. What exactly are you lamenting here?

Lamenting not, just expressing how the arguments surounding it seem to overshadow the actual works. Read them, like/dislike them as you will. It's all opinionism and never truly universal. Why all the hoo-haa?

[Montreal Wanderer]

"Do poets approach language as the neutral instrument for confessional themes, on occasion themes of perjury? Or do they, in the very act of writing, manifestly reveal language itself, particularly language twisted into poetic shapes, as a substance of imagination radically perjured?"

I've read this twice and can't decide if:

a) it's pretentious rubbish, or
b) I'm stupid.

I'll accept there is a possibility c) - that both are true.

What don't you understand?

I think I understand it (no doubt being less stupid than Sponge ) but it could well go in to Private Eye's Pseuds' Corner if that still exists. The point could have been made in simpler and less confusing language.

[thebish]

do you really believe that art critics define great art? if so - how do they do that?

Not getting into a full-blown debate on art as we were talking poetry, but art critics are usually the only voices heard quite so publicly. They constantly tell us the Tracy Emins' etc are great artists. I reservethe right to disagree even in the light of being seen as a "no-nowt". End.

"I do not love you, Except because I love you" (Pablo Neruda) has a bearing.

but they don't really succeed, do they? is Tracey Emin seen by that many people as "great art"? You seem immune to them, and I don't think enough time has passed to tell if Tracey Emin's work is "great art" - so that's at least two of us as yet unconvinced!

surely most stuff that is acknowledged as "great art" is simply stuff that is liked by a vast number of people across a long period of time - in other words, personal preference... which is what you seem to be in favour of!

(also - you don't need to reserve the right to disagree - nobody has ever suggested you have to agree with an art critic - have they?)

[TANGODANCER]

"So tell me bard", the northman said,
"A poem my heart to thrill,
A sonnet bold in in this good thread,
Since we have time to kill."

"A single line will quite suffice
But make it quite poetic
Say words of fire, or even ice
But something that phrophetic"

"Forsooth, my friend", then I'll proceed
The bard took up his quill
"A very easy task indeed,
"Whites three, and Tottenham nil."

[Montreal Wanderer]

Works for me, Tango.

[Wandering Willy]

"Do poets approach language as the neutral instrument for confessional themes, on occasion themes of perjury? Or do they, in the very act of writing, manifestly reveal language itself, particularly language twisted into poetic shapes, as a substance of imagination radically perjured?"

I've read this twice and can't decide if:

a) it's pretentious rubbish, or
b) I'm stupid.

I'll accept there is a possibility c) - that both are true.

What don't you understand?

This bit :

particularly language twisted into poetic shapes,

Well all of it really but that bit in particular.

[Montreal Wanderer]

"Do poets approach language as the neutral instrument for confessional themes, on occasion themes of perjury? Or do they, in the very act of writing, manifestly reveal language itself, particularly language twisted into poetic shapes, as a substance of imagination radically perjured?"

I've read this twice and can't decide if:

a) it's pretentious rubbish, or
b) I'm stupid.

I'll accept there is a possibility c) - that both are true.

What don't you understand?

This bit :

particularly language twisted into poetic shapes,

Well all of it really but that bit in particular.

Well I'd guess it means language that is not natural but twisted to suit a rhyme or meter.

[Wandering Willy]

Oh - don't you start.