Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #60 on May 9, 2009, 11:47pm »
Yes, sorry, just another opinion. I don't like poetry that 'drips over' onto another line without following the visual aspect in terms of the rythmn of reading.
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #62 on May 19, 2009, 5:16am »
Where is the horse gone? Where is the rider? Where is the giver of treasure? Where are the seats at the feast? Where are the revels in the hall? Alas for the bright cup! Alas for the mailed warrior! Alas for the splendour of the prince! How that time has passed away, dark under the cover of night, as if it had never been!
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.
Joined: Jan 2013 Gender: Female Posts: 400 Location: NOLA,USA
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #63 on May 21, 2009, 1:02pm »
Letter to N.Y. by Elizabeth Bishop
In your next letter I wish you'd say where you are going and what you are doing; how are the plays, and after the plays what other pleasures you're pursuing:
taking cabs in the middle of the night, driving as if to save your soul where the road goes round and round the park and the meter glares like a moral owl,
and the trees look so queer and green standing alone in the big black caves and suddenly you're in a different place where everything seems to happen in waves,
and most of the jokes you just can't catch, like dirty words rubbed off a slate, and the songs are loud but somehow dim and it gets so terribly late,
and coming out of the brownstone house to the gray sidewalk,the watered street, one side of the buildings rises with the sun like a glistening field of wheat.
Wheat,not oats,dear. I'm afraid if it's wheat it's none of your sowing, nevertheless I'd like to know what you are doing and where you are going.
(Feeling terribly homesick for NYC this a.m. Nothing quite like springtime in Manhattan.)
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 25,798 Location: Mexico
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #64 on May 21, 2009, 2:29pm »
I don't know "The Wanderer". Who wrote it and when? The excerpt is beautiful and stately.
Great Elizabeth Bishop poem. It's really evocative, and some of the individual bits are incredible: "the meter glares like a moral owl"; "one side of the buildings rises with the sun".
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 25,798 Location: Mexico
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #67 on May 21, 2009, 4:06pm »
Wow -- that is heady stuff! I love how clear and definite it is, yet so poetic. Some of the lines are like a cross between the old testament and the I Ching -- proverbs for right living, but not in excessively flowery language.
The whole thing is quotable. Here is the part where the wanderer is dreaming that the dear good days are back again, but:
Then the friendless man wakes up again, He sees before him fallow waves Sea birds bathe, preening their feathers, Frost and snow fall, mixed with hail.
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #68 on May 21, 2009, 7:15pm »
The excerpt I used was essentially 'homaged' by Tolkien in the Lord Of The Rings, and in the film. Can't remember exactly where it was in the book, although I think it was definitely a song, but in the film, Theoden (Bernard Hill) speaks a poem based soundly on that text just prior to the battle of Helms Deep.
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.
The poem in tonight's episode of "Poet's Guide to Britain" was Arnold's "Dover Beach":
The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 35,186 Location: Paris, France
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #70 on May 25, 2009, 9:10pm »
Very poetic. I hate it! (Just kidding -- it actually seems quite nice, but my attention wanders the moment that unusual adjectives are used. I so love simple language, since I am a simpleton.)
Joined: Jan 2013 Gender: Female Posts: 400 Location: NOLA,USA
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #71 on May 27, 2009, 2:52pm »
Counting the Mad
by Donald Justice
This one was put in a jacket, This one was sent home, This one was given bread and meat But would eat none, And this one cried No No No No All day long
This one looked at the window As though it were a wall, This one saw things that were not there, And this one cried No No No No All day long
This one thought himself a bird, This one a dog, And this one thought himself a man, An ordinary man, And cried and cried No No No No All day long.
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #73 on May 27, 2009, 5:30pm »
Atlas (by UA Fanthorpe)
There is a kind of love called maintenance Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it Which checks the insurance, and doesn't forget The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs; Which answers letters; which knows the way The money goes; which deals with dentists And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains, And postcards to the lonely; which upholds The permanently rickety elaborate Structures of living, which is Atlas. And maintenance is the sensible side of love, Which knows what time and weather are doing To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring; Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps My suspect edifice upright in air, As Atlas did the sky.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 4,441 Location: England
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #79 on May 28, 2009, 8:28pm »
YOU ARE EVERYWHERE
I'd go to Kathmandu with you, and Zanzibar's not far. I'd tour Japan and Vietnam, South and North of course. On Shanghai streets or Alpine peaks, along the Sussex Downs, Sur-la-mere or in the air - you are everywhere!
In Hydra glyph and Arabic, the writing's on the wall. Stowed away or first class paid, in either case one way. I've Googled you, you're on Yahoo and I know your domain name, As for the rest I can but guess - you are everywhere!
Bridge
You are here; you are there, between my toes and in my hair. In the clouds, in the sky, in that place called Don't Know Why... Don't know why.
I'd ramble through a bramble wood, and catalogue the flowers. I'd set my sights by satellite or navigate by stars. And be a tune that rocks, a ship that docks, the birds in Berkeley Square, Like Fred Astaire I dance on air - you are everywhere!
22.09.04.
These are the lyrics of a song that was composed for me. I no longer see the author/composer.
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 4,441 Location: England
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #81 on May 29, 2009, 1:58pm »
Actually that person had no education to speak of...he's dyslexic and comes from a very disadvantaged background. He did well to write that. And as you say, the sentiments are flattering to me.
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #85 on May 30, 2009, 9:09am »
The BBC are going to town on their poetry season. On successive nights this week, we've had films about Donne, Milton and Beowulf, and last night a wonderful film in which Sheila Hancock (not much known outside the UK, perhaps?) presented and discussed poems that are important to her, among them this, by Primo Levi:
To My Friends
Dear friends, and here I say friends In the broad sense of the word: Wife, sister, associates, relatives, Schoolmates of both sexes, People seen only once Or frequented all my life; Provided that between us, for at least a moment, A line has been stretched, A well-defined bond.
I speak for you, companions of a crowded Road, not without its difficulties, And for you too, who have lost Soul, courage, the desire to live; Or no one, or someone, or perhaps only one person, or you Who are reading me: remember the time Before the wax hardened, When everyone was like a seal. Each of us bears the imprint Of a friend met along the way; In each the trace of each. For good or evil In wisdom or in folly Everyone stamped by everyone.
Now that the time crowds in And the undertakings are finished, To all of you the humble wish That autumn will be long and mild.
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #86 on Jun 1, 2009, 12:57pm »
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year's bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide
There are a hundred places where I fear To go,—so with his memory they brim And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, "There is no memory of him here!" And so stand stricken, so remembering him
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.
Joined: Jan 2013 Gender: Female Posts: 400 Location: NOLA,USA
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #88 on Jun 6, 2009, 2:49pm »
Reverence Julie Cadwallader-Staub
The air vibrated with the sound of cicadas on those hot Missouri nights after sundown when the grownups gathered on the wide back lawn sank into their slung-back canvas chairs tall glasses of iced tea beading in the heat
and we sisters chased fireflies reaching for them in the dark admiring their compact black bodies their orange stripes and seeking antennas as they crawled to our fingertips and clicked open into the night air.
In all the days and years that have followed, I don't know that I've ever experienced that same utter certainty of the goodness of life that was as palpable as the sound of the cicadas on those nights:
my sisters running around with me in the dark, the murmur of the grown-ups voices, the way reverence mixes with amazement to see such a small body emit so much light.
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #89 on Jun 6, 2009, 7:24pm »
Cas, it's Edna St. Vincent Millay. It starts off sounding very negative and despairing, but I don't think it is. From experience, that's EXACTLY how grief is, but I think the last 5 lines are SO accurate and ring so true in a positive, respectful longing that essentially means nothing can replace a loss, but everything can contain life.
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.
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