National Poetry Day

[stu in nottingham]

It's National Poetry Day (http://www.nationalpoetryday.co.uk/) today with the theme of 'Heroes and Heroines'.

Whilst being very much a reader and hopefully an appreciator of good quality writing, I'm not particularly a person that reads poetry so much. some of it leaves me a little confused or even underwhelmed. I was however brought up on Burns, Byron and a little Shelley, Keats and Wordsworth etc. for good measure. I still appreciate some of that wonderful work.

As a young teenager I discovered, amongst others, Dylan Thomas. I loved much of what he wrote and one poem in particular that really 'spoke' to me.

I'd like to offer this as my favourite poem for National Poetry Day today. Do others, whilst not being necessarily that interested in poetry, have a particular piece of verse that they enjoy, that means something to the them personally maybe? Perhaps a little piece of earthy verse from our own terrific Robert Burns? Even a 'Boy stood on the burning deck' limerick! It all counts.

Here's mine anyway. By Dylan Thomas:

Love in the Asylum (http://stuartfrew.wordpress.com/2007/08/09/love-in-the-asylum/)

[LiverpoolHibs]

I absolutely despise 'initiatives' like National Poetry Day but I'll post a couple anyway.

Probably just about my favourite poem.

Aubade by Phillip Larkin

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.



And to counteract Larkin's brilliant miserabilism,

Get Drunk by Baudelaire

Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
Get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.
And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:
"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk!
Stay drunk!
On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!"

Which can be read in the original French here...

http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/11613-Charles-Baudelaire-Get-Drunk

[Jack]

All these poets, all school boys dread
Their rhyme a spinning in their head
Shelley, Keats it just gets worse
I’ll bet each one was a swotty er$e

[stu in nottingham]

I absolutely despise 'initiatives' like National Poetry Day but I'll post a couple anyway.


Great poems.

I tend to agree with your sentiments about 'initiatives'. In my experience though, such events certainly serve a good purpose in schools in particular.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Great poems.

I tend to agree with your sentiments about 'initiatives'. In my experience though, such events certainly serve a good purpose in schools in particular.

Probably true, but it shouldn't have to.

Another (short) one. A beautiful untitled poem (unsurprisingly) by Emily Dickinson.

Those - dying then,
Knew where they went -
They went to God’s Right Hand -
That Hand is amputated now
And God cannot be found -

The abdication of Belief
Makes the Behaviour small -
Better an ignis fatuus
That no illume at all


Actually, two because they're both equally amazing,


Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there was
A time when it was not.
It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

[Betty Boop]

Dulce et Decorum Est


Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

8 October 1917 - March, 1918

[sleeping giant]

Kipling wrote this after he lost his son...

My Boy Jack

“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Has any one else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind —
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

[Peevemor]

Norman MacCaig -


Visiting Hour

The hospital smell
combs my nostrils
as they go bobbing along
green and yellow corridors.

What seems a corpse
is trundled into a lift and vanishes
heavenward.

I will not feel, I will not
feel, until
I have to.

Nurses walk lightly, swiftly,
here and up and down and there,
their slender waists miraculously
carrying their burden
of so much pain, so
many deaths, their eyes
still clear after
so many farewells.

Ward 7. She lies
in a white cave of forgetfulness.
A withered hand
trembles on its stalk. Eyes move
behind eyelids too heavy
to raise. Into an arm wasted
of colour a glass fang is fixed,
not guzzling but giving.
And between her and me
distance shrinks till there is none left
but the distance of pain that neither she nor I
can cross.

She smiles a little at this
black figure in her white cave
who clumsily rises
in the round swimming waves of a bell
and dizzily goes off, growing fainter,
not smaller, leaving behind only
books that will not be read
and fruitless fruits.

[Moulin Yarns]

Cousin Daisy's favourite sport
was standing on street corners
She contracted with ease
A social disease
Notwithstanding

(Roger McGough)

[Isaac_Refvik]

My Dearest Flo
I love you so
Especially in yor nightie

When the moonlight flits
Across your t*ts
Oh Jesus Christ Almighty!


Bing Hitler 1982

[Phil D. Rolls]

Poetry day is a joyous time
To find your muse and write some lines
You may travel every road and range
But you won't find a word to rhyme with orange
Isn't that very strange?

[Phil D. Rolls]

[FONT=Verdana][SIZE=2]Norman MacCaig -



I love Norman MacCaig's stuff, and remember him as a regular at Milnes Bar.

Do you know the name of the one that has the lines (I paraphrase):

I met some Americans the other day
They said they'd been to 16 castles in 15 days
"How American", I thought.
14 of them were ruined.
I thought, "How Scottish"

[Peevemor]

I love Norman MacCaig's stuff, and remember him as a regular at Milnes Bar.

Do you know the name of the one that has the lines (I paraphrase):

I met some Americans the other day
They said they'd been to 16 castles in 15 days
"How American", I thought.
14 of them were ruined.
I thought, "How Scottish"

I had a good few pints with him in the Heb over the years. :agree:

Edit - to answer your question, sorry I don't.

[Dashing Bob S]

Here is one, as a light sleeper that always strikes a chord. It's by American Poet Laurete Billy Collins, one of my favourite poets.

Insomnia

Even though the house is deeply silent
and the room, with no moon,
is perfectly dark,
even though the body is a sack of exhaustion
inert on the bed,

someone inside me will not get off his tricycle,
will not stop tracing the same tight circle
on the same green threadbare carpet.

It makes no difference whether I lie
staring at the ceiling
or pace the living-room floor,
he keeps on making his furious rounds,'little pedaler in his frenzy
my own worst enemy, my oldeset friend.

What is there to do but close my eyes
and watch him circling the night,
schoolboy in an ill-fitting jacket,
leaning forward, his cap on backwards,
wringing the handlebars,
maintaining a certain speed?

Does anything exist at this hour
in this nest of dark rooms
but the spectacle of him
and the hope that before dawn
I can lift out some curious detail
that will carry me off to sleep-
the watch that encircles his pale wrist,
the expandable band,
the tiny hands that keep pointing this way and that.

---------- Post added at 08:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:41 PM ----------




Dulce et Decorum Est


Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

8 October 1917 - March, 1918

Wonderful stuff. "It is noble and fitting to die for one's country."

My arse.

[Betty Boop]

Here is one, as a light sleeper that always strikes a chord. It's by American Poet Laurete Billy Collins, one of my favourite poets.

Insomnia

Even though the house is deeply silent
and the room, with no moon,
is perfectly dark,
even though the body is a sack of exhaustion
inert on the bed,

someone inside me will not get off his tricycle,
will not stop tracing the same tight circle
on the same green threadbare carpet.

It makes no difference whether I lie
staring at the ceiling
or pace the living-room floor,
he keeps on making his furious rounds,'little pedaler in his frenzy
my own worst enemy, my oldeset friend.

What is there to do but close my eyes
and watch him circling the night,
schoolboy in an ill-fitting jacket,
leaning forward, his cap on backwards,
wringing the handlebars,
maintaining a certain speed?

Does anything exist at this hour
in this nest of dark rooms
but the spectacle of him
and the hope that before dawn
I can lift out some curious detail
that will carry me off to sleep-
the watch that encircles his pale wrist,
the expandable band,
the tiny hands that keep pointing this way and that.

---------- Post added at 08:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:41 PM ----------



Wonderful stuff. "It is noble and fitting to die for one's country."

My arse.

:agree:

[Phil D. Rolls]

Dulce et Decorum Est


Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

8 October 1917 - March, 1918

I think he wrote that in Craiglockhart Hospital (my trivia titbit for the day).

[Betty Boop]

I think he wrote that in Craiglockhart Hospital (my trivia titbit for the day).

I never knew that, just googled it. Wilfrid Owen wrote some brilliant poetry highlighting the futility of war.


ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH


What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

September - October, 1917

[steakbake]

I think he wrote that in Craiglockhart Hospital (my trivia titbit for the day).

I read that, too.

[Dashing Bob S]

I read that, too.

Yes, that's the case.

[Just Jimmy]

Not a poetry fan in general, although I enjoy first world war poetry.

Wilfrid Owen's stuff, Dulce Et Decorum Est in particular is my favourite.

Also John McRae's 'In flanders fields'. Having stood where he wrote it, and seen the conditions somewhat he tried to work in, it makes its point wonderfully.

In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae, May 1915


In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

[stu in nottingham]

Not a poetry fan in general, although I enjoy first world war poetry.

Wilfrid Owen's stuff, Dulce Et Decorum Est in particular is my favourite.

Also John McRae's 'In flanders fields'. Having stood where he wrote it, and seen the conditions somewhat he tried to work in, it makes its point wonderfully.

In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae, May 1915


In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

That is a great poem.

'To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high..'

is the Montreal Canadiens motto.

[The Green Goblin]

People generally find poems tricky to `get` because they usually make the mistake of reading them like books, expecting answers after one read through.

Poems are close to music in word form and should ideally be performed out loud, but if read, require thought, questions and re-reading many many times.

This `meditation` on poems, reading, wondering and thinking about them is what reveals the layers beneath and the discovery of meaning.

Here`s one of my favourites:



The Mower


The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.

Philip Larkin (1922-1985)

GG

[steakbake]

I love this one. Once saw Billy Connolly perform it from Dundee Law on his World Tour of Scotland series. Not a fan of "The Big Yin", but he did the poem justice:

The Tay Bridge Disaster,
William Topaz MacGonagall (1825-1902)

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem'd to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem'd to say-
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay."

When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers' hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say-
"I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay."

But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

So the train sped on with all its might,
And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sight,
And the passengers' hearts felt light,
Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year,
With their friends at home they lov'd most dear,
And wish them all a happy New Year.

So the train mov'd slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o'er the town,
Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill'd all the peoples hearts with sorrow,
And made them for to turn pale,
Because none of the passengers were sav'd to tell the tale
How the disaster happen'd on the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

[Phil D. Rolls]

I never knew that, just googled it. Wilfrid Owen wrote some brilliant poetry highlighting the futility of war.


ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH


What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

September - October, 1917

Get a hold of Regeneration by Pat Barker, it is based on Owen and Seigfried Sassoon's time recuperating at Craiglockhart, it is a great book on many levels and is particularly poignant at this time of year.

The hospital is now part of Napier University, and if you go up you'll see a lot of artefacts commerating Sassoon and Owen. Amazingly, there is no record of Sassoon, or Owen, or any of the other ex-servicemen at Craiglockhart walking around in Hearts strips saying "we won the war". :devil:

[Betty Boop]

Get a hold of Regeneration by Pat Barker, it is based on Owen and Seigfried Sassoon's time recuperating at Craiglockhart, it is a great book on many levels and is particularly poignant at this time of year.

The hospital is now part of Napier University, and if you go up you'll see a lot of artefacts commerating Sassoon and Owen. Amazingly, there is no record of Sassoon, or Owen, or any of the other ex-servicemen at Craiglockhart walking around in Hearts strips saying "we won the war". :devil:

I will definitely make a point of getting this book. The imagery in his poetry is fantastic, I would love to have seen his take on current conflicts across the globe.

:faf: Are you sure?

[Phil D. Rolls]

I will definitely make a point of getting this book. The imagery in his poetry is fantastic, I would love to have seen his take on current conflicts across the globe.

:faf: Are you sure?

It seems they didn't care too much for the glory of war, and preferred to mock the idiots who did. People like the ladies that sent white feathers to young men, and brought the pressure to bear on a team of footballers to set an example.

[Phil D. Rolls]

I
The Tay Bridge Disaster,
William Topaz MacGonagall (1825-1902)


Whilst perusing the internet
Some poetic gems for to get
I came upon this marvellous set
Of poetry in the McGonagall style
I'm happy to say it still makes me smile

http://www.taynet.co.uk/users/mcgon/bglink6.htm