oblig; never gets any worse either
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand; A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
― cozen, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 16:48 (fourteen years ago) link
this is one of those threads where I point at myself and go "lol CS guy"
― Marni and Louboutin: coming to Tuesdays this fall on FOX (HI DERE), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 16:49 (fourteen years ago) link
this is one of those threads where I go 'lol I wasn't cast in 3 Yeats poems' and get SB'd by about 15 ardent Yeats fanboys
I plead fire, water, air and dirt / fukkin magnets / how do they work?
― acoleuthic, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 17:01 (fourteen years ago) link
I will stan for W.B. Yeats any day of the week. He was at or near the pinnacle of the 20th century, which was a hell of a century for poetry in English.
But, the other Willie gets my vote. Shakespeare could write emo, write tragedy, write comedy, write allegory. You name it, he wrote it and it still stands up after 400 years. Try that yourself and see how far you get. I mean, you need a commentary by a specialist to dig the mummified jokes out of Aristophanes, but you can send just about anyone to see A Midsummer Night's Dream and they'll laugh like a hyena.
― Aimless, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 17:54 (fourteen years ago) link
NOW as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied onesAppear and disappear in the blue depth of the skyWith all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
ronnie james dio r.i.p.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:07 (fourteen years ago) link
you need a commentary by a specialist to dig the mummified jokes out of Aristophanes,
this is not true of my beloved Plautus btw
Rome ftw
― in which we apologize for sobering up (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:10 (fourteen years ago) link
virgil vs shakespeare would be more apt, yeats I'd line up vs willim garlos cilliams maybe? hmm.
― acoleuthic, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:14 (fourteen years ago) link
My hard drive is named Apemantus.
― frozen cookie (Abbott), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:14 (fourteen years ago) link
naw lj I disagree. Yeats's only proper company is with the biggest hitters there are. Shakespeare, Chaucer, Propertius, maybe Vergil, really hard to think of Vergil in anybody's company except Homer imo
― in which we apologize for sobering up (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:22 (fourteen years ago) link
virgil smokes homer ten ways to byzantium
― acoleuthic, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:23 (fourteen years ago) link
The only poets writing in English that rival Yeats in the first half of the century: Frost and Stevens.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:27 (fourteen years ago) link
I'd consider WCW a huge hitter, personally, although I'm probably very biased.
If we're drawing up a canon of stone-cold greats I think there should be at least one American in there. I'd also really REALLY want to put GMH in too, but again that's completely subjective.
Not read any Propertius; would definitely dust off my Latin if he's as good as you say.
Favourite Greek writer = well, this is Favourite Tragedian really. Did we poll them? Euripides vs Sophocles, although we've probably got an Aeschylus contrarian somewhere up in this thang
Don't actually know any Frost. Am very glad nobody has mentioned TS Eliot yet. Dude's a little overrated IMO.
― acoleuthic, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:29 (fourteen years ago) link
ffs even I know Frost
― Marni and Louboutin: coming to Tuesdays this fall on FOX (HI DERE), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:29 (fourteen years ago) link
"The Most of It" rivals late Yeats in the chills department:
He thought he kept the universe alone;for all the voice in answer he could wakeWas but the mocking echo of his ownFrom some tree-hidden cliff across the lake.Some morning from the boulder-broken beachHe would cry out on life, that what it wantsIs not its own love back in copy speech,But counter-love, original response.And nothing ever came of what he criedUnless it was the embodiment that crashedin the cliff's talus on the other side,And then in the far distant water splashed,But after a time allowed for it to swim,Instead of proving human when it nearedAnd someone else additional to him,As a great buck it powerfully appeared,Pushing the great water up ahead,And landed pouring like a waterfall,And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread,And forced the underbrush--and that was all.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:30 (fourteen years ago) link
One of my favorite Stevens poems, "The Plain Sense of Things":
After the leaves have fallen, we returnTo a plain sense of things. It is as ifWe had come to an end of imagination,Inanimate in an inert savoir.
It is difficult even to choose the adjectiveFor this blank cold, this sadness without cause.The great structure has become a minor house.No turban walks across the lessened floors.
The greenhouse never so badly needed paint.The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side.A fantastic effort has failed, a repetitionIn a repetitiousness of men and flies.
Yet the absence of the imagination hadItself to be imagined. The great pond,The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves,Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silence
Of a sort, silence of a rat come out to see,The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all thisHad to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge,Required, as a necessity requires.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:31 (fourteen years ago) link
shakespeare
― max, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:34 (fourteen years ago) link
― acoleuthic, Tuesday, May 25, 2010 3:23 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark
bullshit!
― goole, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:36 (fourteen years ago) link
gonna start that poll after the greek tragedians one is over i think
― acoleuthic, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:40 (fourteen years ago) link
are there translations of homer, virgil etc to look out for? I've never read either, to my shame
― cozen, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:45 (fourteen years ago) link
I think I'm probably biased in favour of Virgil because I've studied and fully understood the original Latin to a minute degree, whereas the Homer, although I have studied it in Greek, didn't connect quite so well in the original language.
― acoleuthic, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:46 (fourteen years ago) link
More Yeats: "Adam's Curse". Note the cadence, its mastery of the demotic. Surprisingly my students love it.
We sat together at one summer's end,That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,And you and I, and talked of poetry.I said, "A line will take us hours maybe;Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.Better go down upon your marrow-bonesAnd scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stonesLike an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;For to articulate sweet sounds togetherIs to work harder than all these, and yetBe thought an idler by the noisy setOf bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymenThe martyrs call the world." And thereuponThat beautiful mild woman for whose sakeThere's many a one shall find out all heartacheOn finding that her voice is sweet and lowReplied, "To be born woman is to know --Although they do not talk of it at school --That we must labour to be beautiful."I said, "It's certain there is no fine thingSince Adam's fall but needs much labouring.There have been lovers who thought love should beSo much compounded of high courtesyThat they would sigh and quote with learned looksprecedents out of beautiful old books;Yet now it seems an idle trade enough."
We sat grown quiet at the name of love;We saw the last embers of daylight die,And in the trembling blue-green of the skyA moon, worn as if it had been a shellWashed by time's waters as they rose and fellAbout the stars and broke in days and years.I had a thought for no one's but your ears:That you were beautiful, and that I stroveTo love you in the old high way of love;That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grownAs weary-hearted as that hollow moon.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:51 (fourteen years ago) link
This is totally impossible btw - c1600 (Henry IV pt I - Anthony and Cleopatra) Shakespeare feels as close to some sort of godlike as it's possible to get, but at the opposite end of the spectrum, tho on the same level, Yeats sits close to the heart.
I'd probably choose The Circus Animals' Desertion as a favourite, partly because it makes no sense without all his poetry, his magical poetry, but also because... (several insertions and deletions later) ach, I can't say why:
Maybe at last, being but a broken manI must be satisfied with my heart ..
It could in fact be a lost Shakespeare speech - Prospero looking at his broken staff in a state of denuded humanity.
Keep up your bright swords or the dew will rust them, for this one I think. (voted Shakey fwiw)
― GamalielRatsey, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:53 (fourteen years ago) link
ws
― Brad C., Tuesday, 25 May 2010 21:05 (fourteen years ago) link
If we're drawing up a canon of stone-cold greats I think there should be at least one American in there.
Yeah, it's Frost, head and shoulders above all the other Americans imo - not iconoclastic or school-of-poetry-leading. Just the best at writing poetry from this country, imo.
― in which we apologize for sobering up (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 21:13 (fourteen years ago) link
ha i don't see why necessarily.
(i don't really know anything about poetry tbh)
― goole, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 21:15 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm just wondering what's going to happen when I eventually bring up Maya Angelou
― Marni and Louboutin: coming to Tuesdays this fall on FOX (HI DERE), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 21:16 (fourteen years ago) link
She's going to fart in your face.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 21:16 (fourteen years ago) link
Frost is taken for granted because he's so popular (one of my most prized possessions is a kids anthology of Frost poems my mom bought me in eighth grade). But the man's work is swathed in darkness.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 21:17 (fourteen years ago) link
Frost probably just doesn't reach Britain. It's odd. His stuff is pretty good as I can see
― acoleuthic, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 21:22 (fourteen years ago) link
And his reputation was first made in England!
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 21:23 (fourteen years ago) link
this is really weird, like a decade-long blind-spot
― acoleuthic, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 21:27 (fourteen years ago) link
Frost is close after Whitman and Stevens.
Frost probably just doesn't reach Britain.
Not a lot I guess. But Glyn Maxwell decided to follow him.
― alimosina, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 21:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Impossible to make a case against either, but Yeats, for me, mastered language and cadence to an extent I find it difficult to believe even with the words printed in front of me.
― May be half naked, but knows a good headline when he sees it (darraghmac), Wednesday, 26 May 2010 00:02 (fourteen years ago) link
It's a bit complicated because of the Frost/Edward Thomas thing maybe? Mates and style buddies, so our (Britishes) last A1 pre-modernist shares a lot of inflections with Frost – they're like a pair of poets who write incredible plainish formal verse about absences, dead ends, strange pauses, empty spaces. And Frost gets a bit dull to me after those first three unbelievable volumes - flat, folksy, rather than the what-was-that of eg The Mountain. But the cultural heft really doesn't carry across - don't think he's ever been a popular/ist poet here.
I would take Stevens as my top US poet of the century - probably said elsewhere I'm not a Make-It-New Pound/WCW man, and Wallace S is precise, sonically astonishing and able to take you out into depths. Sings and thinks. M. Moore's my other, but that's an odd choice I know.
Auden for England.
Still not sure how I want to vote here. Leaning Shaks.
― woof, Wednesday, 26 May 2010 00:23 (fourteen years ago) link
and Frost gets a bit dull to me after those first three unbelievable volumes
It's true, but check out the volume A Further Range.
This thread has made me really happy -- and persuaded me to reach for the top of my bookshelf for Yeats and Stevens.
We should start a thread in which we name our favorite 20th century poets.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 26 May 2010 00:32 (fourteen years ago) link
I agree, for a start that would be a better option than using the thread where we explain why Yeats > (just) Shakespeare
― May be half naked, but knows a good headline when he sees it (darraghmac), Wednesday, 26 May 2010 00:35 (fourteen years ago) link
― cozen, Wednesday, May 26, 2010 4:45 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark
for homer, fagles is the most recently celebrated one. but I've read robert fitzgerald's translation of the odyssey and prefer it to the fagles - fagles is a little too modern & poetic.
for virgil, I'm a fan of the allen mandelbaum. track down the copy w/ illustrations by barry moser.
― Face Book (dyao), Wednesday, 26 May 2010 01:22 (fourteen years ago) link
"Auden for England."
i second that emotion. i should say that i have read a lot more auden than yeats. but this thread does make me want to read more yeats.
"M. Moore's my other, but that's an odd choice I know."
i dig her but sometimes i feel like i'm too slow for her. or i should take a class on her. elizabeth bishop is more my speed.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 26 May 2010 16:35 (fourteen years ago) link
i need more larkin in my life. he's my kinda guy.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 26 May 2010 16:40 (fourteen years ago) link
ooh read a bio before you say that
or better, don't
― in which we apologize for sobering up (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Wednesday, 26 May 2010 16:47 (fourteen years ago) link
larkin is very, very, very much not my kinda guy, for what that's worth
― acoleuthic, Wednesday, 26 May 2010 16:48 (fourteen years ago) link
larkin's my kinda poet. know nothing about him besides.
― May be half naked, but knows a good headline when he sees it (darraghmac), Wednesday, 26 May 2010 17:06 (fourteen years ago) link
frost? really?
― thomp, Wednesday, 26 May 2010 17:14 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah i meant poetry-wise.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 26 May 2010 17:15 (fourteen years ago) link
that was more to everyone
what is "two girls in silk kimonos" from? paul muldoon does something with it in 'meeting the british'
― thomp, Wednesday, 26 May 2010 17:16 (fourteen years ago) link
the only two poets of the twentieth century who can keep company with frost are yeats and hardy in my opinion, thom, for whatever that's worth. his will specified that his complete poetry always be available at low price; I can't recommend his collected poems strongly enough.
― in which we apologize for sobering up (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Wednesday, 26 May 2010 17:19 (fourteen years ago) link
OTHERS taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs Always wrong to the light, so never seeing Deeper down in the well than where the water Gives me back in a shining surface picture My myself in the summer heaven, godlike Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs. Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb, I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture, Through the picture, a something white, uncertain, Something more of the depths—and then I lost it. Water came to rebuke the too clear water. One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom, Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness? Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.
^^^ the spirituality of America in the 20th century summed up in fifteen lines imo
― in which we apologize for sobering up (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Wednesday, 26 May 2010 17:21 (fourteen years ago) link
that's pretty spooky, in a great way
― acoleuthic, Wednesday, 26 May 2010 17:23 (fourteen years ago) link
best fifteen-line metaphysical ghost story ever
― acoleuthic, Wednesday, 26 May 2010 17:24 (fourteen years ago) link
Muldoon mangles that Yeats poem ("In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz") - "Two girls in silk kimonos, one a gazebo" iirc
― woof, Wednesday, 26 May 2010 17:29 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeats after the fall
― post you had fecund thoughts about (darraghmac), Friday, 10 April 2015 06:16 (nine years ago) link
ive had the first four lines of wild swans at Cooke in my head all day idk why.
how do the rhythms even work. idk.
― thoughts you made second posts about (darraghmac), Monday, 8 June 2015 00:08 (nine years ago) link
anyway, 150th bday this week rte running a course of events across TV and radio to look fwd to
― thoughts you made second posts about (darraghmac), Monday, 8 June 2015 00:09 (nine years ago) link
Yeats employed a superb bassist
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 8 June 2015 00:19 (nine years ago) link
How do I shot Yeats through guitar amp?
― Maria Felix Kept On Walking (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 8 June 2015 00:23 (nine years ago) link
giving yis both a dry downturning mouth rn
― thoughts you made second posts about (darraghmac), Monday, 8 June 2015 00:29 (nine years ago) link
On R3 also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05xq6b0
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 8 June 2015 04:54 (nine years ago) link
Players and painted stage took all my love,And not those things that they were emblems of.
God almighty
― tremendous crime wave and killing wave (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Friday, 14 August 2015 23:27 (nine years ago) link
√
― irl lol (darraghmac), Friday, 14 August 2015 23:38 (nine years ago) link
interesting that nobody talks abt shakespeare ITT anymore, interesting and telling imo Yeats in the long run at a canto imo
― post you had fecund thoughts about (darraghmac), Thursday, April 9, 2015 11:39 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― deejerk reactions (darraghmac), Monday, 28 September 2015 15:42 (eight years ago) link
*folds arms, raises eyebrows at shakespeare*
― MONKEY had been BUMMED by the GHOST of the late prancing paedophile (darraghmac), Tuesday, 17 November 2015 23:23 (eight years ago) link
no way of comparing...
― doing my Objectives, handling some intense stuff (LocalGarda), Tuesday, 17 November 2015 23:43 (eight years ago) link
i was gonna read Deidre, one of the plays, this week.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 17 November 2015 23:56 (eight years ago) link
I'm easily riled but It's been a while since I've seen something that's riled me this much. This is an object lesson on hot to not read a great poem. And how to dress badly to boot. What on earth is she doing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0VuBD-yxVI
― CRANK IT YA FILTHY BISM! (jed_), Sunday, 22 May 2016 03:53 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPB_17rbNXk
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Sunday, 22 May 2016 05:05 (eight years ago) link
I've already had that misfortune^. Not the whole thing, obviously.
― CRANK IT YA FILTHY BISM! (jed_), Sunday, 22 May 2016 05:32 (eight years ago) link
"Watch this video on youtube. Playback on other sites has been disabled by this owner"
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 22 May 2016 09:03 (eight years ago) link
Think I've seen Shaw read Shakespeare on TV. That's when you know your voice is the best voice.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 22 May 2016 09:09 (eight years ago) link
I know not what the younger dreams --Some vague Utopia -- and she seems,When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,An image of such politics.
― have you ever even read The Drudge Report? Have you gone on Stormfron (k3vin k.), Tuesday, 2 August 2016 04:38 (eight years ago) link
I read a page of a yeats short story aloud yesterday and jeez there was a guy who needed the breaks forced onto him. Rhythm and cadence was there but sentences were running sevenclause deep.
― poor fiddy-less albion (darraghmac), Wednesday, 3 August 2016 00:03 (eight years ago) link
yet his Autobiographies is beautiful, and so is a meditational reverie called "Per Amica Silentia Lunae."
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 3 August 2016 00:11 (eight years ago) link
I dont doubt it, the 'aloud' part was what caused me the problems.
― poor fiddy-less albion (darraghmac), Wednesday, 3 August 2016 00:15 (eight years ago) link
anyone read yeats' plays? the collection i've got has "calvary" and "purgatory"
― have you ever even read The Drudge Report? Have you gone on Stormfron (k3vin k.), Thursday, 11 August 2016 01:56 (eight years ago) link
Yes. Read The Words Upon the Windowpane for realistic drama, Purgatory in his spare Noh phase.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 August 2016 01:59 (eight years ago) link
oh these are super short too
― have you ever even read The Drudge Report? Have you gone on Stormfron (k3vin k.), Thursday, 11 August 2016 02:03 (eight years ago) link
A Deep-sworn Vow
OTHERS because you did not keep That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine; Yet always when I look death in the face, When I clamber to the heights of sleep, Or when I grow excited with wine, Suddenly I meet your face.
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, 26 April 2017 00:08 (seven years ago) link
ughhhh
― k3vin k., Wednesday, 26 April 2017 00:45 (seven years ago) link
stop soul-reading me, WBY
― k3vin k., Wednesday, 26 April 2017 00:50 (seven years ago) link
WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
― k3vin k., Monday, 14 August 2017 14:01 (seven years ago) link
Always enjoyed the hints of malice/goes in that one
― jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Monday, 14 August 2017 15:21 (seven years ago) link
/glee
The entire social concept of friendzoning justified in the most beautiful whines imaginable
― jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Monday, 14 August 2017 15:23 (seven years ago) link
The leaden echo and the golden echo is the best poem
― remember the lmao (darraghmac), Sunday, 10 December 2017 10:03 (six years ago) link
the boss just made a reference to "the second coming", you know the "slouching towards bethlehem" bit. "we've all been slouching towards bethlehem a little bit". it wasn't an allusion that was cleaving closely to the original - she was emphasizing the slouching towards something, there was no hint of apocalypse. a co-worker piped in "that was christmas"
― findom haddie (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 18 April 2019 18:37 (five years ago) link
haha
― mick signals, Friday, 19 April 2019 14:53 (five years ago) link
Dreamt recently I made an illustrated small book of Wandering Aengus which ended with the Flammarion engraving for the final 2 lines.
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, 19 April 2019 15:32 (five years ago) link
“I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace, For people die and dieAnd after cried he, “God forgive! My body spake, not I!”This one is a bit cheesy but it does remain one of the few poems I still know by heart (and can rattle off primary school style too).
― fă-ți cercetările (gyac), Wednesday, 12 August 2020 00:04 (four years ago) link