Poetry, the rhymes we love for the literati here Options

[Igmeister]

That's in my top 3.

It's so moving isn't it? Sasoon's the reason I started reading poetry, could never get into it until I had to do some GCSE coursework on the war poets. Glad school gave me something.

This post has been edited by Igmeister: Aug 29 2005, 10:05 PM

[spacegurl]

Independence - A.A Milne

I never did, I never did,
I never did like "Now take care, dear!"
I never did, I never did,
I never did want "Hold-my-hand";
I never did, I never did,
I never did think much of "Not up there, dear!"
It's no good saying it.
They don't understand.

Not my favourite but one that I used to enjoy as a child. I still like it.

This post has been edited by spacegurl: Aug 30 2005, 01:28 AM

[maian]

Try Saul Williams, he's an excellent modern poet.

Saw him at Reading doing his drum & bass/hip-hop stylings, strange but compelling.

I love Robert Frost's stuff, though mainly because me and my Eng Lit class used to make fun of some of it (in a good way, we always used to think it was funny how he could make a sunny day a metaphor for death). My personal favourite though would have to be the work of Emily Dickinson, particulary this poem:

254

''Hope'' is the thing with feathers-
That perches in the soul-
And sings the tune without the words-
And never stops-At all-

And sweetest-in the Gale-is heard-
And sore must be the storm-
That could abash the little Bird
Who kept so many warm-

I've heard it in the chillest land-
And on the strangest Sea-
Yet, never, in Extremity
It asked a crumb-of Me.

A lovely poem, and I remember talking about it in class and getting a round of applause. Good times

[Raven]

To my mind you can't beat a bit of Betjeman, but I also like Coleridge’s Kubla Khan and Alfred Noye's The Highwayman.

Oh, and Shelley’s Ozymandias is a good un too!

[widowspider]

A few of my favourites, nothing really modern at all:

"The Flea" by John Donne
The whole conceit is just excellent, a great example of metaphysical poetry.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot
My first real experience of analysing allusions, Eliot once said that "Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal".  He was a very mature poet.

Love John Donne - I left all my poetry books back in London so I can't go through and find my favourites, but one of them is The Sun Rising:

BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think ?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

She's all states, and all princes I ;
Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

Other favourite poets: Wilfred Owen and Charles Beaudelaire. When my poetry books get over here, I'll write up my favourites.

[m0r1arty]

Widowspiders right about the other war poets, I read em at school. Really touching moving (and sometimes amazingly graphic) accounts of the front line in the great war.

John Cooper Car is just a nutter though feck off!, if you like him you should check out some stuff like 'The Ruttles' and the 'bonzo dog doo dah band'

I was into the beatnik stuff for a bit there a while back. There is a good CD of Kerouac stuff read by some decent famous people. Don't rate it as highly anymore (well apart from Rolf!)

-m0r

[Igmeister]

On the war poet theme, Dulce et Decorum Est by Wifred Owen.

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.

[widowspider]

On the war poet theme, Dulce et Decorum Est by Wifred Owen.
...

One of my favourite poems of all time, that. I love Wilfred Owen's stuff.

[Igmeister]

One of my favourite poems of all time, that. I love Wilfred Owen's stuff.

Just for you then Widowspider, here's another Wilfred Owen, 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 good-byes.
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.

[ronlogan1977]

Every rose has its thorn
Just Like every cowboy sings a sad sad song

Bill and Ted

[Zoe]

Heart still patters with last night's poison.
The spiteful world squats on each optic nerve,
wrenches my head towards the blaring window.

As if my brain had snapped its stalk---
it steadies queasily
as oily water slopped clumsily round a tank.

A mallet-blow belled over my left eye all morning.
Worse---it faded hour by hour,
a barbed stiletto skewered from the skull.

I've hung for hours
over the hurtful purity of the lavatory,
its white, deepening, accusatory lens.

My mind possesses all the sharpness
of a fluffy, liquefying peach in a dish.
I feed it deliberately with scenes

of long tawny glasses slid across the table-spills.
Hands receive them of their own accord.
But at the touch of liquid to lip, a trap-door

bangs open, brain's a torrent of sand
rocketing from my mouth
to make the only eye that sees me blind.

[Julie]

Thats one very pretty hangover.

[Jinx]

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

[ipse dixit]

^ I like that, Jinx.


The Secret - John Clare
I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.
And when I saw a stranger face
Where beauty held the claim,
I gave it like a secret grace
The being of thy name.
And all the charms of face or voice
Which I in others see
Are but the recollected choice
Of what I felt for thee.

[Zoe]

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

I've met her, she's been to my theatre, a very nice woman.