Poetry!!!

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Very thoughtful and moving radio this morning. Clive James (the Australian author and critic) is 74 years old and is terminally ill with leukaemia and emphysema. If you have 15 minutes spare this evening, listen to his interview on the Today programme this morning, then to him reading his poem 'Sentenced to Life' afterwards. The interview starts slowly, but unwinds with incredible insight.

1. Interview: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01zk57r" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2. 'Sentenced to life': http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01zk4r8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Once, I would not have noticed; nor have known
The name for Japanese anemones,
So pale, so frail. But now I catch the tone
Of leaves. No birds can touch down in the trees
Without my seeing them. I count the bees."

I know I have been banging on about my Matisse programme, but this is a powerful articulation of why I am moved by Matisse's late work. I'm sure he came to count the bees too.

If you make it this far, then I recommend his essay in the TLS. The last paragraph... bloody hell. http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1410176.ece" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I can't help but feel that an affinity for poetry is something my generation lacks. I don't remember ever looking at any poetry at school that wasn't war-related.

Feck. What've you done to me. I read that Sentenced to Life and wept.

[bwfcdan94]

Very thoughtful and moving radio this morning. Clive James (the Australian author and critic) is 74 years old and is terminally ill with leukaemia and emphysema. If you have 15 minutes spare this evening, listen to his interview on the Today programme this morning, then to him reading his poem 'Sentenced to Life' afterwards. The interview starts slowly, but unwinds with incredible insight.

1. Interview: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01zk57r" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2. 'Sentenced to life': http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01zk4r8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Once, I would not have noticed; nor have known
The name for Japanese anemones,
So pale, so frail. But now I catch the tone
Of leaves. No birds can touch down in the trees
Without my seeing them. I count the bees."

I know I have been banging on about my Matisse programme, but this is a powerful articulation of why I am moved by Matisse's late work. I'm sure he came to count the bees too.

If you make it this far, then I recommend his essay in the TLS. The last paragraph... bloody hell. http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1410176.ece" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I can't help but feel that an affinity for poetry is something my generation lacks. I don't remember ever looking at any poetry at school that wasn't war-related.

Listened to the interview and then to the poem, I and several others could learn from his positive outlook in life, despite such a bleak future.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Feck. What've you done to me. I read that Sentenced to Life and wept.

Did you listen to it too? It's very affecting in his voice.

When his voice breaks on "I count the bees" and he pulls himself together to bask in the light of the homeland that is now unavailable to him. Christ.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Feck. What've you done to me. I read that Sentenced to Life and wept.

Did you listen to it too? It's very affecting in his voice.

When his voice breaks on "I count the bees" and he pulls himself together to bask in the light of the homeland that is now unavailable to him. Christ.

Yup. The closest I've come to that before was Johnny Cash singing Hurt.

[bwfcdan94]

There was an old vicar from Devon.
Who told everyone about Heaven.
But after a while,
Made everyone smile,
By driving his bike in the Severn.

, so harsh but so funny.

[Prufrock]

Currently reading one per day from Martin Amis' selection of Philip Larkin poems. In his intro Amis nails what I was trying to get at when talking recently about both Hitchens and Clive James' writing abilities when he say of Larkin,

"His greatest stanzas, for all their unexpectedness, make you feel that a part of your mind was already prepared to receive them - was anxiously awaiting them. They seem ineluctable, or predestined. Larkin, often, is more than memorable. He is instantly unforgettable".

It's that ability to write something that draws the instant, 'Yes! That!' response.

[clapton is god]

A bit of afternoon delight from Christopher Marlowe:

Extract from Ovid's Elegies, Book I, Elegia V
"Corinnae Concubitus"

In summer's heat, and mid-time of the day,
To rest my limbs upon a bed I lay;
One window shut, the other open stood,
Which gave such light as twinkles in a wood,
Like twilight glimpse at setting of the sun,
Or night being past, and yet not day begun;
Such light to shamefaced maidens must be shown,
Where they may sport, and seem to be unknown:
Then came Corinna in a long loose gown,
Her white neck hid with tresses hanging down,
Resembling fair Semiramis going to bed,
Or Lais of a thousand wooers sped.
I snatched her gown; being thin, the harm was small,
Yet strived she to be covered therewithal;
And striving thus, as one that would be cast,
Betrayed herself, and yielded at the last.
Stark naked as she stood before mine eye,
Not one when in her body could I spy.
What arms and shoulders did I touch and see,
How apt her breasts were to be pressed by me!
How smooth a belly under her waist saw I,
How large a leg, and what a lusty thigh!
To leave the rest, all liked me passing well;
I clinged her naked body, down she fell:
Judge you the rest: being tired she bade me kiss;
Jove send me more such afternoons as this.

[Prufrock]

Still going with the Larkin, though I've not managed one per day as, as much as I love him, I'd have hanged myself by now! Today's offering 'Next, please':

"Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; every day
Till then we say,

Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear
Sparkling armada of promises draw near.
How slow they are! And how much time they waste,
Refusing to make haste!

Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks
Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks
Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinked,
Each rope distinct,

Flagged, and the figurehead with golden tits
Arching our way, it never anchors; it's
No sooner present than it turns to past.
Right to the last

We think each one will heave to and unload
All good into our lives, all we are owed
For waiting so devoutly and so long.
But we are wrong:

Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break."

[Bruce Rioja]

Last night I caught a bit of Room 101. On it, during a piece about the Jeremy Kyle Show, Robert Webb (of Mitchell & Webb) recited an extract from a poem (presumably) by Wordsworth that had me go 'Wow'.

So, proper long shot here, I know, but did (a) anyone else see it, and (b) recognise where the piece was from?

[bobo the clown]

Last night I caught a bit of Room 101. On it, during a piece about the Jeremy Kyle Show, Robert Webb (of Mitchell & Webb) recited an extract from a poem (presumably) by Wordsworth that had me go 'Wow'.

So, proper long shot here, I know, but did (a) anyone else see it, and (b) recognise where the piece was from?

Yes I did see it.

It was from Wordsworth's "Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" ... or, as my A Level teacher said "that'll be Monmouth then".

http://www.shmoop.com/tintern-abbey/summary.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Bruce Rioja]

Last night I caught a bit of Room 101. On it, during a piece about the Jeremy Kyle Show, Robert Webb (of Mitchell & Webb) recited an extract from a poem (presumably) by Wordsworth that had me go 'Wow'.

So, proper long shot here, I know, but did (a) anyone else see it, and (b) recognise where the piece was from?

Yes I did see it.

It was from Wordsworth's "Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" ... or, as my A Level teacher said "that'll be Monmouth then".

http://www.shmoop.com/tintern-abbey/summary.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good work, Bobo. Good work, Sir.

[William the White]

Going to London this weekend for the latest grandchild's first birthday party.

My youngest daughter and I are going to this: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatso ... pass-92272" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Sometimes writing poetry is a dangerous habit to get into!

[thebish]

"HOME," by Somali poet Warsan Shire:

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbours running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won't let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it's not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn't be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i've become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here.

by Somali poet, Warsan Shire

[William the White]

Stunning.

Thank you bish.

I shall circulate this poem as widely as I can.

Where did you find it?

[Lost Leopard Spot]

The bish has posted a poem, by a Somali poet, on how refugees might feel, on the Poetry thread.

I think it is stunning, intense, moving and, above all, true.

I suspect hoboh, bobo and LLS will be immune, but I'd be genuinely interested in their response to it. I say this without aggression or argumentative intent of any kind.

But I'd like every other reader of this thread who, by definition, has some kind of interest in politics to read it also - I think it's good to be able to hear this voice.

Many thanks to thebish for this post.

And in answer to your question, yes I am immune to it. But that would be because I'm pretty much immune to any poetry (even the stuff that rhymes, and in that regard the one you've highlighted is a stinker - not a single rhyme anywhere ).
I'd also like to point out (as you asked) (and I'm not saying this with aggression or argumentative intent of any kind) that whatever emotion or empathy it might have stirred during the reading (which in my case was precious little) was instantly wiped away by the tag line. The words should speak for themselves, I hate it when a qualifier is added to give 'depth' (or for whatever reason it is intended to supply) - I mean, people don't go around printing/distributing stuff by, for example, the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, and if they did they shouldn't.
And not only that, no matter that I could see what his/her perspective was, the repeated use of "no one leaves home unless..." rang false - mainly because in my mind's eye I had a vision of shutting up my house and going away on holiday which clashed horribly with the intent of the poem, and leaving aside holidays or other trivial quibbles, plenty of people leave home to 'emigrate' - you don't have to be a refugee; lots of people emigrated from the UK to Australia/Canada for example and the majority were not driven to it by either a complete loss of hope or an unbearable burden of fear, which kind of makes the "no one leaves home unless..." a little hollow. I'd have been happier with 'when you leave home because...' which is more real, more honest, but then that wouldn't have imparted the hyperbole which the poem depends on to work.
That's my two pennyworth.

[Lord Kangana]

Isn't there a verse missing where it says they all traipse thousands of miles risking death, rape and starvation because of the lure of 50 quid a week in benefits?

[thebish]

Stunning.

Thank you bish.

I shall circulate this poem as widely as I can.

Where did you find it?

I think a friend linked it on facebook...

[Hoboh]

Oh dear! No wonder he's an economic migrant if his poetry is so bad, never make a decent living out of it anywhere except over here with the liberal pinko's.

[TANGODANCER]

Oh dear! No wonder he's an economic migrant if his poetry is so bad, never make a decent living out of it anywhere except over here with the liberal pinko's.

Pssst, Hoboh, "He" is a "she". Edit it quickly....

[Hoboh]

Oh dear! No wonder he's an economic migrant if his poetry is so bad, never make a decent living out of it anywhere except over here with the liberal pinko's.

Pssst, Hoboh, "He" is a "she". Edit it quickly....

Whatever