Author Topic: The Official Poetry Thread  (Read 21607 times)

Clovis8

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The Official Poetry Thread
« on: May 12, 2010, 10:14:37 PM »
I thought we could use a thread for our favorite poetry. I will try to update it once in awhile but I hope others have favorites they will add.

I will start with my favorite poet, Leonard Cohen and my favorite poem.

Beneath My Hands

I am speechless
because you have fallen beside me
because your eyelashes
are the spines of tiny fragile animals.

I dread the time
when your mouth
begins to call me hunter.

When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want to summon
the eyes and hidden mouths
of stone and light and water
to testify against you.

I want them
to surrender before you
the trembling rhyme of your face
from their deep caskets.
When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want my body and my hands
to be pools
for your looking and laughing.

¡Keith!

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2010, 10:35:51 PM »
I've seen the greatest minds of my generation
Something Something...

Clovis8

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #2 on: May 12, 2010, 10:36:26 PM »
Resume
by
Dorthy Parker

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Clovis8

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #3 on: May 12, 2010, 10:41:06 PM »
Dust of Snow
by Robert Frost


The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Clovis8

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2010, 10:43:34 PM »
Decade
by Amy Lowell

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.

oneaprilday

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2010, 11:35:32 PM »
Good idea, Clov. :)


Gift by Czeslaw Milosz

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

sdedalus

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #6 on: May 13, 2010, 01:12:27 AM »
Been reading Leaves of Grass off and on the last few weeks.  Here's the last stanza of Song of Myself:

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab
    and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
The End of Cinema

Seattle Screen Scene

"He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?"

oneaprilday

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #7 on: May 13, 2010, 01:43:04 AM »
Been reading Leaves of Grass off and on the last few weeks. 

I find Whitman alternately maddening and fabulous. This is some of the fabulous stuff. :) Makes me think I should assign portions of Song of Myself next year for my students instead of just the Preface to Leaves and some of the short poems as I did this quarter.

Btw, didn't Robin Williams quote this in Dead Poets:  "I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world" ??

Clovis8

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #8 on: May 13, 2010, 01:47:51 AM »


Btw, didn't Robin Williams quote this in Dead Poets:  "I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world" ??

yes

sdedalus

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #9 on: May 13, 2010, 01:54:51 AM »
It's "rooftops" in the movie, IIRC.  Could be a different version of the poem.

I liked Song of Myself more than the Preface, but I really liked them both.

So far, I find Whitman alternately awesome and icky.
The End of Cinema

Seattle Screen Scene

"He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?"

 

love