Poetry!!!

[thebish]

So fair is she!
So fair her face
So fair her pulsing figure

Not so fair
The maniacal stare
Of a husband who's much bigger.

we did have some Milligan on page 4...

Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I'll draw a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?

[TANGODANCER]

I've come across both the Burns poems quoted on, of all places a flamenco forum, some years ago. Once had a right to do with a Professor of Ethics about Burns glorifying child stealing when I moved on to "The Pied Piper". He also indicated that of course the Gypsies ( very flamenco associated) would no doubt be associated with the stealing and blasted Burns for the poem. Imagine my great delight in informing him the Piper was written by Robert Browning.

[Dujon]

I read the following bon mot last night (it comes from a Robert Heinlein novel) which is not attributed and so assume it his own, that brought to mind this thread and made me chuckle:

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.

[William the White]

The wonderful Carol Ann Duffy is just brilliantly clever and funny (and, in her collection Rapture emotionally soaring.

This is from her collection The World's Wife - which takes the irrefutable position that behind all the most famous men in the world was a wife whose greater profunity and intelligence and good sense made him what he was...

It's also the shortest poem she ever wrote (so far)...

Mrs Darwin...

7 April 1852.

Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him-
Something about that Chimpanzee over there
reminds me of you.

One christmas everyone I knew got 'The World's Wife' - apart from me dad who got a new Wanderers scarf and a bottle of whisky...

[thebish]

The wonderful Carol Ann Duffy is just brilliantly clever and funny (and, in her collection Rapture emotionally soaring.

This is from her collection The World's Wife - which takes the irrefutable position that behind all the most famous men in the world was a wife whose greater profunity and intelligence and good sense made him what he was...

It's also the shortest poem she ever wrote (so far)...

Mrs Darwin...

7 April 1852.

Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him-
Something about that Chimpanzee over there
reminds me of you.

'tis amusing WtW - not sure it displays anything emotionally soaring!

when does an aphorism or bon-mot become a poem?

[William the White]

The wonderful Carol Ann Duffy is just brilliantly clever and funny (and, in her collection Rapture emotionally soaring.

This is from her collection The World's Wife - which takes the irrefutable position that behind all the most famous men in the world was a wife whose greater profunity and intelligence and good sense made him what he was...

It's also the shortest poem she ever wrote (so far)...

Mrs Darwin...

7 April 1852.

Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him-
Something about that Chimpanzee over there
reminds me of you.

'tis amusing WtW - not sure it displays anything emotionally soaring!

when does an aphorism or bon-mot become a poem?

The World's Wife is clever and funny.

Rapture - her collection about a new love affair published about 4-5 years ago is emotionally powerful...

As point made above

[thebish]

The wonderful Carol Ann Duffy is just brilliantly clever and funny (and, in her collection Rapture emotionally soaring.

This is from her collection The World's Wife - which takes the irrefutable position that behind all the most famous men in the world was a wife whose greater profunity and intelligence and good sense made him what he was...

It's also the shortest poem she ever wrote (so far)...

Mrs Darwin...

7 April 1852.

Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him-
Something about that Chimpanzee over there
reminds me of you.

'tis amusing WtW - not sure it displays anything emotionally soaring!

when does an aphorism or bon-mot become a poem?

The World's Wife is clever and funny.

Rapture - her collection about a new love affair published about 4-5 years ago is emotionally powerful...

As point made above

ahh - you didn't expect me to read your WHOLE post did you???

[thebish]

a couple of days after we hear about deadline day and Steve Bruce having trouble with his fax machine..

the only poem I know that mentions faxes and deadlines....

How to Leave the World that Worships should (Ros Barber)

Let faxes butter-curl on dusty shelves.
Let junkmail build its castles in the hush
of other people’s halls. Let deadlines burst
and flash like glorious fireworks somewhere else.
As hours go softly by, let others curse
the roads where distant drivers queue like sheep.
Let e-mails fly like panicked, tiny birds.
Let phones, unanswered, ring themselves to sleep.

Above, the sky unrolls its telegram,
immense and wordless, simply understood:
you’ve made your mark like birdtracks in the sand -
now make the air in your lungs your livelihood.
See how each wave arrives at last to heave
itself upon the beach and vanish. Breathe.



ahhhhhhh - relax!

[William the White]

a couple of days after we hear about deadline day and Steve Bruce having trouble with his fax machine..

the only poem I know that mentions faxes and deadlines....

How to Leave the World that Worships should (Ros Barber)

Let faxes butter-curl on dusty shelves.
Let junkmail build its castles in the hush
of other people’s halls. Let deadlines burst
and flash like glorious fireworks somewhere else.
As hours go softly by, let others curse
the roads where distant drivers queue like sheep.
Let e-mails fly like panicked, tiny birds.
Let phones, unanswered, ring themselves to sleep.

Above, the sky unrolls its telegram,
immense and wordless, simply understood:
you’ve made your mark like birdtracks in the sand -
now make the air in your lungs your livelihood.
See how each wave arrives at last to heave
itself upon the beach and vanish. Breathe.



ahhhhhhh - relax!

that is a really, really nice poem, humane, insightful...

[Prufrock]

a couple of days after we hear about deadline day and Steve Bruce having trouble with his fax machine..

the only poem I know that mentions faxes and deadlines....

How to Leave the World that Worships should (Ros Barber)

Let faxes butter-curl on dusty shelves.
Let junkmail build its castles in the hush
of other people’s halls. Let deadlines burst
and flash like glorious fireworks somewhere else.
As hours go softly by, let others curse
the roads where distant drivers queue like sheep.
Let e-mails fly like panicked, tiny birds.
Let phones, unanswered, ring themselves to sleep.

Above, the sky unrolls its telegram,
immense and wordless, simply understood:
you’ve made your mark like birdtracks in the sand -
now make the air in your lungs your livelihood.
See how each wave arrives at last to heave
itself upon the beach and vanish. Breathe.



ahhhhhhh - relax!

that is a really, really nice poem, humane, insightful...

I like it, it does serenity very well.

I was going to say it has a nice contrast but I think it is more subtle than that, thats too simplistic, the first stanza has a distant, far away feel, and the second does peacefulness very well. Seems good for de-stressing.

[thebish]

I'll proffer another contemporary poet - Kate Clanchy - with a poem about breaking up... (because I like it - and as a bonus it mentions a well known list member!)


I imagined that you'd miss me, thought
you'd pace your hardwood floor in odd
worn socks, watch the clocks sit stuck,

get late to work, type my name caps lock,
press and hold shift / break, miss buses, meals
or sit with fork half way, lost, for minutes,

hours, sleep badly, late, dream chases, shake,
send fingers out to pad the pillow, find
my hollow, start awake, roll over, hug a gap,

an ache, take a walk, damp dawn, of course,
wrapped in your mac, with the collar up, glimpse a slice
of face, tap a stranger's back, draw a blank;

as I have. Each time, I run to press your face
to mine, mine, shining with imagined rain.



(I'm guessing she's been dumped.....)

(her italics)

[William the White]

I'll proffer another contemporary poet - Kate Clanchy - with a poem about breaking up... (because I like it - and as a bonus it mentions a well known list member!)


I imagined that you'd miss me, thought
you'd pace your hardwood floor in odd
worn socks, watch the clocks sit stuck,

get late to work, type my name caps lock,
press and hold shift / break, miss buses, meals
or sit with fork half way, lost, for minutes,

hours, sleep badly, late, dream chases, shake,
send fingers out to pad the pillow, find
my hollow, start awake, roll over, hug a gap,

an ache, take a walk, damp dawn, of course,
wrapped in your mac, with the collar up, glimpse a slice
of face, tap a stranger's back, draw a blank;

as I have. Each time, I run to press your face
to mine, mine, shining with imagined rain.



(I'm guessing she's been dumped.....)

(her italics)

Fab poem. Love it.

[William the White]

And to offer a different take on the dumping experience... Fleur Adcock's wonderfully malicious Advice to a Discarded Lover.

Think, now: if you have found a dead bird,
not only dead, not only fallen,
but full of maggots: what do you feel -
more pity or more revulsion?

Pity is for the moment of death,
and the moments after. It changes
when decay comes, with the creeping stench
and the wriggling, munching scavengers.

Returning later, though, you will see
a shape of clean bone, a few feathers,
an inoffensive symbol of what
once lived. Nothing to make you shudder.

It is clear then. But perhaps you find
the analogy i have chosen
for our dead affair rather gruesome -
too unpleasant a comparison.

It is not accidental. In you
I se maggots close to the surface.
You are eaten up by self-pity,
crawling with unlovable pathos.

If I were to touch you I should feel
against my fingers fat, moist worm-skin.
Do not ask me for charity now:
go away until your bones are clean.

Or - in other words, consider yourself well and truly and definitively dumped...

[Dujon]

Lovely, WtW, much better than a short test message methinks. If only looks could kill.

[thebish]

And to offer a different take on the dumping experience... Fleur Adcock's wonderfully malicious Advice to a Discarded Lover.



Or - in other words, consider yourself well and truly and definitively dumped...

that is quite a startling and arresting metaphor for the grief of breaking up and the time it takes to heal... "go away until your bones are clean"... that's fantastic!

[Bruce Rioja]

And to offer a different take on the dumping experience... Fleur Adcock's wonderfully malicious Advice to a Discarded Lover.



Or - in other words, consider yourself well and truly and definitively dumped...

that is quite a startling and arresting metaphor for the grief of breaking up and the time it takes to heal... "go away until your bones are clean"... that's fantastic!

Would you ever want to go out with a girl that's capable of coming out with that little lot anyway? I wouldn't!

[Prufrock]

And to offer a different take on the dumping experience... Fleur Adcock's wonderfully malicious Advice to a Discarded Lover.

Think, now: if you have found a dead bird,
not only dead, not only fallen,
but full of maggots: what do you feel -
more pity or more revulsion?

Pity is for the moment of death,
and the moments after. It changes
when decay comes, with the creeping stench
and the wriggling, munching scavengers.

Returning later, though, you will see
a shape of clean bone, a few feathers,
an inoffensive symbol of what
once lived. Nothing to make you shudder.

It is clear then. But perhaps you find
the analogy i have chosen
for our dead affair rather gruesome -
too unpleasant a comparison.

It is not accidental. In you
I se maggots close to the surface.
You are eaten up by self-pity,
crawling with unlovable pathos.

If I were to touch you I should feel
against my fingers fat, moist worm-skin.
Do not ask me for charity now:
go away until your bones are clean.

Or - in other words, consider yourself well and truly and definitively dumped...

That's horrible! Viciously, wonderfully horrid!

[William the White]

And sometimes you despair, and just cannot, cannot mend... Here's the Romanian poet Nina Cassian, in conflicted agony...

Since you walked out on me
I'm getting lovelier by the hour.
I glow like a corpse in the dark.
No one sees how round and sharp
my eyes have grown
how my carcass looks like a glass urn,
how I hold up things in the rags of my hands,
the way I can stand though crippled by lust.
No, there's just your cruelty circling
my head like a bright rotting halo.

[thebish]

many of the examples we have quoted and responded to are about death - breaking up - tragedy..... it seems to me that something makes it easier for poetry to tap into that than into joy and elation. Poems about joy and elation very easily sound trite and shallow to my ears..

so - has anyone got any good examples of poems about sheer joy, beauty, tranquility and elation.... (note to william - no rotting corpse imgery allowed! )


I'll offer one...

Kona MacPhee: Melbourne, evening, summertime -

the flies settling, passing the torch
of insect purpose to moths, mosquitoes
(the night shift's proletariat); the sun
now tucking in until the morning, furling
the eucalypt linen of clean blue ranges
to its chin; the murmured benedicite
of late sea breezes to the exorcised heat;

and we, alone on lawns, or jointly laid
in the mitred corners of urban parks,
curled in deckchairs, swingchairs, armchairs,
rocked on bayside boats, or dieselling home
on end-of-workday tractors as the mendicant sky
sums up its last small change of sun,

we find our warmth in evening's cool,
see drawn like sweat our gentlest selves,
are loosed to float on the slow emotions
stirred by twilight and the rightness of things.

[thebish]

(looks like that challenge killed the poetry thread then!)