I think this is definitely a 'working class poem' despite his protestations, to the contrary, that he's written only one of those ('an elliptical stylus'). again, this, like that, challenges the reader's (or writer's) impulse towards indentification and is actually more emetic than angering, I think. the first 7 lines of the second stanza are quite flat I think, clichéd almost ('strafed', 'mumbling', the careful breaking), perhaps it's intent made apparent. you can almost feel the rhythm of the poem stop, with its lift, as if your body, your thoughts have ceased to progress but yet your eyes, drawn in by the poem, on rails now, your eyes read on and, on surface, take in what the rest of you doesn't take in. that shift into italics, a shift into another person's voice heard rather than spoken. god, what a poem.
what does it mean? thread?
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 26 June 2004 22:05 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 26 June 2004 22:08 (nineteen years ago) link
Cozen, you should! I don't know what yours means either, but I'd love to hear what people thought, it's pretty extraordinary.
― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Saturday, 26 June 2004 23:44 (nineteen years ago) link
I wish I had written that. *sigh*
From Cardigan Bay (by Leslie Norris)
For those who live hereAfter our daylight, ICould wish us to lookOut of the darknessWe have become, teachingThem happiness, a true love.
What more could we (or anyone) wish for on a Sunday morning than happiness, a true love?
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Sunday, 27 June 2004 16:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 27 June 2004 23:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 28 June 2004 08:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 28 June 2004 09:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 28 June 2004 09:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 28 June 2004 09:35 (nineteen years ago) link
I am going to read Don Paterson's sonnets anthology, myself. I have it, here.
― the pomefox, Monday, 28 June 2004 12:55 (nineteen years ago) link
And Edwin Morgan's take on Cage is great, the pure form of that pleasing squareness of sonnets than DP talks about in the intro.
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 28 June 2004 13:21 (nineteen years ago) link
Archel, I have written a few sonnets where I have tried to make the break between A and B be at the golden mean point in the sonnet -- towards the end of the 9th line.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 28 June 2004 17:53 (nineteen years ago) link
A golden mean point in a sonnet is an interesting idea. I'm trying to imagine how that works.
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Monday, 28 June 2004 19:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 28 June 2004 19:05 (nineteen years ago) link
The proportion of a sonnet's 14 lines that divides it up along the golden mean is approximately 8.75:5.25. So three-quarters of the way through eighth line, you can introduce the second part. Most sonnets are divided 8:6, which is fairly close, and allows for your traditional ABBACDDCEFFEFE type rhyme scheme.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 28 June 2004 20:07 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 28 June 2004 21:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 06:10 (nineteen years ago) link
Here's a topping 14-line one though:
The Bright Field
I have seen the sun break throughto illuminate a small fieldfor a while, and gone my wayand forgotten it. But that was the pearlof great price, the one field that hadthe treasure in it. I realize nowthat I must give all that I haveto possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering afteran imagined past. It is the turningaside like Moses to the miracleof the lit bush, to a brightnessthat seemed as transitory as your youthonce, but is the eternity that awaits you.
- RS Thomas
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 11:42 (nineteen years ago) link
I have added a batch of new stuff to the webzine/ongoing collection of writing that I edit, and I think some of it's rather good:http://www.buzzwords.ndo.co.uk
And if any writing ILBers want to contribute, that would be nice :)
― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 1 July 2004 08:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― Fred (Fred), Thursday, 1 July 2004 20:48 (nineteen years ago) link
Please come and post here instead!http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wordshare/
― Archel (Archel), Friday, 2 July 2004 09:23 (nineteen years ago) link
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: somewhere in sands of the desert 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 Reel 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?
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 2 July 2004 10:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Saturday, 17 July 2004 18:17 (nineteen years ago) link
I have read and written a fair bit of poetry lately. Not having Ilx obviously agrees with me.
Jist ti Let Yi No
(from the American of Carlos Williams)
ahv drankthi speshlzthat wurrinthi frij
n thityiwurr probblihodn backfurthi pahrti
awrightthey wur greatthaht stroangthaht cawld
---Tom Leonard
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 19 July 2004 11:46 (nineteen years ago) link
I do not want to be reflective any moreEnvying and despising unreflective thingsFinding pathos in dogs and undeveloped handwritingAnd young girls doing their hair and all the castles of sandFlushed by the children's bedtime, level with the shore. [...]
(when I say for PF I mean because he mentioned Macneice, not because the particular poem is somehow relevant to him. Though it may be. It is to me.)
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 20 July 2004 11:29 (nineteen years ago) link
Brazil? He twirled a button,Without a glance my way:"But, madam, is there nothing elseThat we can show to-day?"
― Fred (Fred), Tuesday, 20 July 2004 14:15 (nineteen years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Friday, 23 July 2004 15:58 (nineteen years ago) link
...I don't know exactly what a prayer is.I do know how to pay attention, how to fall downinto the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,which is what I have been doing all day.Tell me, what else should I have done?Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life?
--Mary Oliver
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Saturday, 24 July 2004 14:07 (nineteen years ago) link
― Fred (Fred), Saturday, 24 July 2004 19:29 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 25 July 2004 15:32 (nineteen years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Saturday, 31 July 2004 15:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 31 July 2004 16:03 (nineteen years ago) link
--
If You Had Two Husbands
If you had two husbands.If you had two husbands.Well, not exactly.If you had two husbands would you be willing to take everything and be satisfied to live in a large house with love and a view and plenty of flowers and friends at table and the young ones and cousins who said nothing.This is what happened.
She expressed everything.She is worthy of signing a will.And mentioning what she wished.She was brought up by her mother or her father. She had meaning and she was careful in reading. She read marvelously. She moved.She was pleased. She was thirty-four. She was flavored by reason of much memory and recollection.
[...]
[Michael Coffey, from "Sweet Suite: Gertrude Stein"]
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 31 July 2004 18:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Saturday, 31 July 2004 19:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 1 August 2004 03:14 (nineteen years ago) link
I am not certain about that pome - what MacNeice is saying; whether he is being more original and searching than he looks.
Cozen, when are we going to discuss Don Paterson?
― the pomefox, Sunday, 1 August 2004 10:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 1 August 2004 16:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Sunday, 1 August 2004 18:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 1 August 2004 21:44 (nineteen years ago) link
Robert Frost - Directive
― bnw (bnw), Monday, 2 August 2004 03:15 (nineteen years ago) link
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'We are not now that strength which in the old daysMoved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;One equal-temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
(Tennyson - Ulysses)
― Mog, Monday, 2 August 2004 12:35 (nineteen years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 2 August 2004 12:38 (nineteen years ago) link
(from 'My Last Duchess' by Robert Browning)
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:45 (nineteen years ago) link
"O my pretty pink frock,I sha'n't be able to wear it!Why is he dying just now? I hardly can bear it!
"He might have contrived to live on;But they say there's no hope whatever:And must I shut myself up, And go out never?
"O my pretty pink frock,Puff-sleeved and accordion-pleated!He might have passed in July, And not so cheated!"
-T.H.
― Fred (Fred), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 20:48 (nineteen years ago) link
We're foot-slog-slog-slog-sloggin' over Africa -Foot-foot-foot-foot-sloggin' over Africa -(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again!)There's no discharge in the war!
Seven-six-eleven-five-nine-an'-twenty mile to-day -Four-eleven-seventeen-thirty-two the day before -(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again!)There's no discharge in the war!
Don't-don't-don't-don't-look at what's in front of you.(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again)Men-men-men-men-men go mad with watchin' em,An' there's no discharge in the war!
Try-try-try-try-to think o' something different -Oh-my-God-keep-me from goin' lunatic!(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again!)There's no discharge in the war![...]
-Rudyard Kipling
― Fred (Fred), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 20:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 5 August 2004 01:11 (nineteen years ago) link
Meanwhilelet us cast one shadowin air or water
our mouths wide as saucersour tongues at work in their tunnelsour shut eyes unimportant as freckles.
Let us turn to, untilthe giant flashlightcomes down on us
and we are rammed home on the corkscrew gigone at a timeand lugged off belly to belly.
TURNING TO, Maxine Kumin
(Whatever your particular political persuasions may be, watch out for those giant flashlights, corkscrew gigs, and keep your shut eyes open....)
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Thursday, 5 August 2004 14:42 (nineteen years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 5 August 2004 20:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, 5 August 2004 23:14 (nineteen years ago) link