Poetry!!!

[thebish]

Have a nice day Bish. I'm off to build my model ship......cos I'm worth it.

was this you as a young man Tango - it looks uncannily feasible!!!

http://alexnberra.files.wordpress.com/2 ... me-034.jpg

[TANGODANCER]

Have a nice day Bish. I'm off to build my model ship......cos I'm worth it.

but what makes you LIKE building model ships Tango - does it move you?

Endeavour.

[thebish]

[William the White]

Always been a fan of Kipling's

IF.....

The 'My Way' of poetry...

Loved by so many, who think it speaks for them, though it doesn't, and can't ever, for no-one can match all those 'correct' choices of 'If' or do it 'My Way' because we are all profoundly flawed.

It's sanctimonious shit.

couldn't agree more... but I think Kipling has his moments (as you have also suggested) - for instance, I love the vaguely melancholic and wistful feeling of The Way Through the Woods... (no sex in it though!)

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods….
But there is no road through the woods.

I don't much like this, bish, to be honest. there are some forced rhymes, and rhythmic stumbles (and dull thuds) that speak eloquently of a truly mediocre poetic talent. Not without heart, i agree, nor without sleeve on which to place it and give it a good petting...

Oh - I like the highlighted... what was he remembering?

[Jakerbeef]

Here's my favorite by WB Yeats.


The Stolen Child

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
We give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the rolling streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

[thebish]

I don't much like this, bish, to be honest. there are some forced rhymes, and rhythmic stumbles (and dull thuds) that speak eloquently of a truly mediocre poetic talent. Not without heart, i agree, nor without sleeve on which to place it and give it a good petting...

Oh - I like the highlighted... what was he remembering?

in this case it is not the rhyme or the metre that attracts me. I like the idea of a path that once was and now isn't. It might be a literal overgrown path that nature has reclaimed - but I think it might be the regret of a path not taken in his youth and now not open to him - a regret... maybe it was a woman - hence the swish of a skirt - though, i think (bearing in mind the line before and after) the "skirt" is part of a horse's apparel. some consider it might be a ghostly presence on a path long unused - but i think that's fanciful and a bit literalist...

there was once a road - but now there isn't - like in my youth I had dreams that now are closed off... I think it's a kind of cross (bastard child?) between Frost's "Road Less Travelled" and Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (which i have already quoted). Frost is by FAR the better poet - but Kipling succeeds in drawing me in and making me pause to think here (which is a contrast to my reaction to "If") - so, I still offer him my mild plaudit.

[thebish]

I have now learned 5 poems since January 1st...

the fifth (for several reasons) was O Simplicitas by Madeleine L'Engle:

An angel came to me
And I was unprepared
To be what God was using.
Mother I was to be.
A moment I despaired,
Thought briefly of refusing.
The angel knew I heard.
According to God's Word
I bowed to this strange choosing.

A palace should have been
The birthplace of a king
(I had no way of knowing).
We went to Bethlehem;
It was so strange a thing.
The wind was cold, and blowing,
My coat was old, and thin.
They turned us from the inn;
The town was overflowing.

God's Word, a child so small,
Who still must learn to speak,
Lay in humiliation.
Joseph stood strong and tall.
The beasts were warm and meek
And moved with hesitation.
The Child born in a stall?
I understood it: all.
Kings came in adoration.

Perhaps it was absurd:
A stable set apart,
The sleepy cattle lowing;
And the incarnate Word
Resting against my heart.
My joy was overflowing.
The shepherds came, adored
The folly of the Lord,
Wiser than all men's knowing.

I am drawn to the strange simplicity of this - and I think it is primarily in the metre - the slightly odd 667 pattern that forces an economy of words - not easy to do, as those who have tried to write alternative words to Bunessan (Morning has Broken) have found!

The economy of words makes for simplicity - but the skill is in squeezing mystery out of such pausity - and I think L'Engle does this well.

however... while I was looking he up to find out summat about who she was - I came across this that she also wrote - which (as i am in the process of preparing for another series of local bereavement support groups) - tapped into what I was saying earlier in the thread about poetry and the experience of death - and what she writes I have heard so many times - but not so poetically expressed...

"How long your closet held a whiff of you,
Long after hangers hung austere and bare.
I would walk in and suddenly the true
Sharp sweet sweat scent controlled the air
And life was in that small still living breath.
Where are you? since so much of you is here,
Your unique odour quite ignoring death.
My hands reach out to touch, to hold what's dear
And vital in my longing empty arms.
But other clothes fill up the space, your space,
And scent on scent send out strange false alarms.
Not of your odour there is not a trace.
But something unexpected still breaks through
The goneness to the presentness of you."

[William the White]

Here's my favorite by WB Yeats.


The Stolen Child

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

I like the refrain very much, more than straight jacket of metre and rhyme scheme...

My favourite Yeats is his short play, cathleen ni houlihan, where a mysterious old woman, the personification of oppressed Ireland, tempts a young man (the groom at a wedding, maybe, been a while since I read it) to fight for the national cause against the british...

brilliant, heartfelt drama... and touched by a poet's sensibility and delight in language...

[William the White]

So, the bish...

When it comes to addressing the Christian version of the Messiah story has any poet dealt with it better for a time when faith and doubt are permitted than that anglo-catholic, sexually-repressed, conservative, high-tory genius, T S Eliot.

Do you like 'The Journey of the Magi'?

I love it partly for the truth of the narrator's opening lines, as one of the wise men grumbles at being called on this difficult journey that is, perhaps, 'all folly'. He gives it a humanity that childish versions of the myth lack, and speaks for a time where doubt can be addressed openly (a recent development in the history of christianity). Here the human trudge towards what may (perhaps) be 'glory' is a hard journey from the beginning... As was his (Eliot's) towards a faith he held against all the odds and his own intelligence...

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The way deep and the weather sharp,
the very dead of winter.
and the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.

and on it goes, grumbling away, and not quite sure what is discovered in the end...

what a wonderful poem...

do you know this one, Tango? wonder what you make of it, as a believer, a poem by a believer (and 'almost' a catholic)

Edit: Here, Eliot reads the poem, complete with vinyl recording hiss and scratch...

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarch ... oemId=7070

[thebish]

So, the bish...

When it comes to addressing the Christian version of the Messiah story has any poet dealt with it better for a time when faith and doubt are permitted than that anglo-catholic, sexually-repressed, conservative, high-tory genius, T S Eliot.

Do you like 'The Journey of the Magi'?

yes - unreservedly! (it is on my list to be learned) I haved always insisted on it being read at candelight lessons and carol services because it fits what I always want to say about the circumstances of jesus' birth (as related by Luke and Matthew - regardless of whether you believe them or not) have not one shred of romance, prettiness or pleasantness - they are, rather, a backdrop of cold, dark and death...

I have loved the coming for the Magi since I was quite small - (back then, simply for the word "refractory"!)

but then in later years - the bleakness of it - and the phrasing...

how great is this section...

And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This:

fantastic! It is a great poem for the dramatically minded to read out loud...

I'd be glad of another death... what a way to end a poem - something threatening and lingering and unresolved

[TANGODANCER]

Do you like 'The Journey of the Magi'?

... As was his (Eliot's) towards a faith he held against all the odds and his own intelligence...

do you know this one, Tango? wonder what you make of it, as a believer, a poem by a believer (and 'almost' a catholic)

I make of it a seasonal story poem, ie a "poem"(or a dialogue?) based on well-known legendary vist of the three wise men to the birthplace of Christ. It's a version by the author based purely on his own imagination (how does anyone know how the Magi felt about it all?) ; interesting enough, but then again a story that needs a slant to make if different. The slant works well enough but Elliot has one of the drollest voices I ever heard. Bit like a Jack Daerden match commentary. Hardly did th poem justice.

Why did Elliot hold on to his faith against his own intelligence? This I don't understand unless he stated it somewhere. Is it that or your own view? Just interested.

[TANGODANCER]

Wonder what our poetic intellectuals make of this?

The wiles of fate are knots that loose and tie,
Securing all our hopes towards the sky.
Then letting slip the ties that we have made,
And leaving us to weep, and wonder why?

Some slip and fall too far: forever lost.
Into despair's dark sea our dreams are tossed.
And only heartache clings as darkness falls,
But lo, we live, survivors at what cost?

Though the rage of grief its pain may loudly roar,
Tiny star of hope, stay near to me and soar,
That the shattered pieces of my dreams I may yet find
And build them back the way they were, once more.

Come soon my love, naught else can help me now regain,
The wall of dreams that kept at bay my pain.
And you, the builder, the face that will forever
Be near me, and buried in my heart remain.

[Bruce Rioja]

Now I'm no poetic intellectual, Tango, but I don't like that at all. It just reads like the ramblings of a grieving woman to me. It doesn't engage me on any level. Unto each - their own etc. etc.

[thebish]

Wonder what our poetic intellectuals make of this?

who would they be?

(to me - it reads a bit like a very long and overblown Hallmark card...)

[TANGODANCER]

Now I'm no poetic intellectual, Tango, but I don't like that at all. It just reads like the ramblings of a grieving woman to me. It doesn't engage me on any level. Unto each - their own etc. etc.

Fair comment Buce. As you say, unto each his own. The story behind the poem is this:

It was written by a man to his poetically inclined true love. They were being kept apart by that most formidable of barriers, her family. He was a Christian, she a Muslim. He hoped that time would change things and wanted to give her a last message to cling on to. He did it in poetic mode as he knew it would appeal to her. It looked a pretty lost cause whn he wrote it, but he clung to hope. That's the theme of it.

[William the White]

Do you like 'The Journey of the Magi'?

... As was his (Eliot's) towards a faith he held against all the odds and his own intelligence...

do you know this one, Tango? wonder what you make of it, as a believer, a poem by a believer (and 'almost' a catholic)

I make of it a seasonal story poem, ie a "poem"(or a dialogue?) based on well-known legendary vist of the three wise men to the birthplace of Christ. It's a version by the author based purely on his own imagination (how does anyone know how the Magi felt about it all?) ; interesting enough, but then again a story that needs a slant to make if different. The slant works well enough but Elliot has one of the drollest voices I ever heard. Bit like a Jack Daerden match commentary. Hardly did th poem justice.

Why did Elliot hold on to his faith against his own intelligence? This I don't understand unless he stated it somewhere. Is it that or your own view? Just interested.

I'm surprised you don't like it more. All writers use their imagination (it's in the job description) but this seems a grudging response to such a powerful poem.

Eliot struggled to attain faith (see Ackroyd's biography) - and, allegedly his embrace of Anglo-Catholicism seriously upset his first wife (who, to be fair, spent her life upset - see section two of 'The Wasteland'. Section five of this brilliant poem is where he makes public, in coded poetic form his imminent 'return' to christianity.).

For Eliot the embrace of faith was a clear comfort in a world he had a bleak take on. It was a denial of his intelligence only in the sense that he that embraced superstition to avoid reality. I'm not the only one to have this view, of course, but Eliot never - as far as I know - expressed himself in that way. Believers don't - because they are believers. Though they do in recovery. See for instance: apostatesofislam.com.

[TANGODANCER]

Wonder what our poetic intellectuals make of this?

who would they be?

(to me - it reads a bit like a very long and overblown Hallmark card...)

You could have put it in black Bish. Edit, you did. Fair comment.

[thebish]

Wonder what our poetic intellectuals make of this?

who would they be?

(to me - it reads a bit like a very long and overblown Hallmark card...)

You could have put it in black Bish.

i can't be diasgreeing with you yet - because you didn't say whether you liked it or not....

[TANGODANCER]

Wonder what our poetic intellectuals make of this?

who would they be?

(to me - it reads a bit like a very long and overblown Hallmark card...)

You could have put it in black Bish.

i can't be diasgreeing with you yet - because you didn't say whether you liked it or not....

I'm not sure if I like it bish, but I did write it. It's in my novel "Moro" and was written to suit an occasion. I suppose my point in putting it here was to prove that poetry can be written to suit any mood, occasion or situation.

[thebish]

I'm not sure if I like it bish, but I did write it. It's in my novel "Moro" and was written to suit an occasion. I suppose my point in putting it here was to prove that poetry can be written to suit any mood, occasion or situation.

I'm not sure that was ever under dispute was it?