Author Topic: The Official Poetry Thread  (Read 21608 times)

oneaprilday

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #10 on: May 13, 2010, 09:58:16 AM »
I liked Song of Myself more than the Preface, but I really liked them both.

So far, I find Whitman alternately awesome and icky.
That, too, for sure.  :D

FLYmeatwad

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #11 on: May 13, 2010, 10:14:22 AM »
Whitman's fun when you read his prose next to his poetry. He gets compared to Dickinson in every class I've ever had that remotely mentions Whitman. Dickinson I used to dislike incredibly, but she's pretty bad ass.

oneaprilday

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #12 on: May 24, 2010, 11:47:04 PM »
Since I'm teaching William Carlos Williams tomorrow, here's one of my favorites of his:

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

FifthCityMuse

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #13 on: May 25, 2010, 12:11:32 AM »
I studied the poetry of Judith Wright, an Australian poet, in year 12 Literature, and was quite taken by much of it. Here is one I really loved.


Smalltown Dance
Two women find the square-root of a sheet.
That is an ancient dance:
arms wide: together: again: two forward steps: hands meet
your partner’s once and twice.
That white expanse
reduces to a neat
compression fitting in the smallest space
a sheet can pack in on a cupboard shelf.

High scented walls there were of flapping white
when I was small, myself.
I walked between them, playing Out of Sight.
Simpler than arms, they wrapped and comforted—
clean corridors of hiding, roofed with blue—
saying, Your sins too are made Monday-new;
and see, ahead
that glimpse of unobstructed waiting green.
Run, run before you’re seen.

But women know the scale of possibility,
the limit of opportunity,
the fence,
how little chance
there is of getting out. The sheets that tug
sometimes struggle from the peg,
don’t travel far. Might symbolise
something. Knowing where danger lies
you have to keep things orderly.
The household budget will not stretch to more.

And they can demonstrate it in a dance.
First pull those wallowing white dreamers down,
spread arms: then close them. Fold
those beckoning roads to some impossible world,
put them away and close the cupboard door.

oneaprilday

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #14 on: May 25, 2010, 12:24:39 AM »
I really like that. Wonderful imagery.

mañana

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #15 on: June 04, 2010, 12:50:55 AM »
"To Whom it Concerns"
By: Darlene Conner/Joss Whedon

To whom it concerns, Darlene's work will be late,
It fell on her pancakes and stuck to her plate.

To whom it concerns, my mom made me write this,
And I'm just her kid, so how could I fight this.

To whom it concerns, I lost my assignment,
Maybe I'll get lucky, solitary confinement.

To whom it concerns, Darlene's great with the ball,
But guys don't watch tomboys when they're cruising the hall.

To whom it concerns, I just turned thirteen,
Too short to be quarterback, too plain to be queen.

To whom it concerns, I'm not made of steel,
When I get blindsided my pain is quite real.

I don't mean to squawk, but it really burns
I just thought I'd mention it, to whom it concerns.


 :)
There's no deceit in the cauliflower.

oldkid

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #16 on: June 04, 2010, 01:30:18 AM »
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

-T.S. Eliot
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Pseuds

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #17 on: June 05, 2010, 07:08:07 AM »
Here's a bit of bush poetry by Jake Drake. Its only the second half of it, since its so long:

Then faintly drifting on the wind, a whip rang soft and clear
with creak of harness muffled by the drum of running gear.
There came a spectral Cobb and Co across the moon’s pale face
with tramp of reefing leaders and a groaning thoroughbrace.

He sat in silent wonder as dead years passed him by,
His shearing and his swaggie mates against a moonlit sky.
The storekeeper. The Publican. The trooper and the rest.
Comrades of the huts and camps that dot the endless west.

He yearned towards the next, a face remembered and so dear.
His only love by fever struck half through her eighteenth year.
Small, shy smile and huge dark eyes, that face he loved the best.
He prayed “God let me follow her”, heart rising in his breast.

He slumped beside that dying fire all done with hurt and fear.
Soul left shell to heed the call that only he could hear.
He shrugged off his unwanted life, earth’s harsh existence cast
and joined that phantom retinue. The Spectres of the Past.


It's one of my favorites.
He made me feel like a third class witch doctor.

IDrinkYourMilkshake

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #18 on: June 05, 2010, 08:24:29 AM »
The Valley of the Lost Wome by Johnny Clarke

the windows are frigidaire icebergs
frozen in prickly heat
the vanishing cream victims
are drip-fed amnesia neat
where the test card melodies warm you
in powder blue pseudo bel air
germs and flies alarm you
they whisper the word expelair
the eyes of the night sub-zero
peep through the windows of sleep
everyone's husband is a hero
and ghost insurance men creep
through the valley of the long-lost women
dreaming under the driers
eating and sleeping and slimming
according to what is required
they walk through three-colour brochures
depicting palms on aqua-marine
in the half-built hotels out of focus
they're mending the vending machines
where sixty italian love songs
are sung to a million guitars
they lick their frozen drinks on sticks
among the men with important cigars
numb to the digital numbers
none two three
four five six
lost in a far away rhumba
where the oil-drums are beaten with sticks
she left her heart in frisco
she left her room in a mess
she left her hat in the disco
she never left her address
the diving board springs to assistance
throws you off from the shore
telephones ring in the distance
there are lifts getting stuck between floors
a truck turns into a cul-de-sac
springtime turns to ice
rucksacks turn into hunchbacks
musclemen turn into mice
in a painless panorama
with its perpendicular might
the women are going bananas
and disappearing from sight

...what do the girls say?


Howl is objectively great, too. After that i tend to mainly read war poetry. Sassoon, Owen, etc etc
"What should have been an enjoyable 90 minutes of nubile, high-school flesh meeting a frenzy of blood-caked blades, becomes instead an exploitational and complex parable of the conflicting demands of agrarianism and artistry. I voted a miss."

Clovis8

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Re: The Official Poetry Thread
« Reply #19 on: June 05, 2010, 08:35:21 AM »


Howl is objectively great

I agree. I have probably read it more times than any other poem. I love it so much.

Allen Ginsberg Reading Howl (Part 1)