Official TRF Poetry Appreciation Thread™ (redux)

[goose]

Poetry...

 

...the art of uniting pleasure with truth. Samuel Johnson

...language at its most distilled and most powerful. Rita Dove

...begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. Robert Frost

 

There have been other poetry threads, but no harm in starting another. So, here's an open invitation to share your thoughts on your favorite poets, poems that have moved you, your thoughts on poetry, or your favorite poetry-related quotes. I'll start with a well-known one from Robert Frost, appropriate for a wintery night.

 

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

[blueschica]

Poetry...

 

...the art of uniting pleasure with truth. Samuel Johnson

...language at its most distilled and most powerful. Rita Dove

...begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. Robert Frost

 

There have been other poetry threads, but no harm in starting another. So, here's an open invitation to share your thoughts on your favorite poets, poems that have moved you, your thoughts on poetry, or your favorite poetry-related quotes. I'll start with a well-known one from Robert Frost, appropriate for a wintery night.

 

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

 

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

 

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

 

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

 

A wonderful choice! My dad had to memorize a poem every week in 10th grade and still remembers most of them at age 85. My daughter had to memorize one in 10th grade for the Poetry Out Loud competition. They both spout them at random times (mostly my dad) and I love it! :D :D

[Blue J]

Nikki Giovanni has some really powerful things. This one is among my very favourites. I picked up this book of hers when I was about 20 years old, and I was just blown away.

 

 

Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day

 

Don't look now

I'm fading away

Into the gray of my mornings

Or the blues of every night

 

Is it that my nails

keep breaking

Or maybe the corn

on my second little piggy

Things keep popping out

on my face

or

of my life

 

It seems no matter how

I try I become difficult

to hold

I am not an easy woman

to want

 

They have asked

the psychiatrists psychologists politicians and

social workers

What this decade will be

known for

There is no doubt it is

loneliness

 

If loneliness were a grape

the wine would be vintage

If it were a wood

the furniture would be mahogany

But since it is life. it is

Cotton Candy

on a rainy day

The sweet soft essence

of possibility

Never quite maturing

 

I have prided myself

On being in the great tradition

albeit circus

That the show must go on

Though in my community the vernacular is

One monkey don't stop the show

 

We all line up

at some midway point

To thread our way through

the boredom and futility

Looking for the blue ribbon and gold medal

 

We are consumed by people who sing

the same old song

STAY: as sweet as you are

in my corner

 

Or perhaps. just a little bit longer

But whatever you do. don't change baby don't change

Something needs to change

Everything. some say. will change

I need a change

of pace. face. attitude and life

Though I long for my loneliness

I know I need something

Or someone

Or...

 

I strangle my words as easily as I do my tears

I stifle my screams as frequently as I flash my smile

it means nothing

I am cotton candy on a rainy day

the unrealized dream of an idea unborn

 

I share with the painters the desire

To put a three-dimensional picture

On a one-dimensional surface

[Verena]

-- I simply adore Robert Frost's poetry. Your choice fits, Goose, for the quality and simplicity.

(Love for the winter here.)

 

-- Blue J, I never heard of Nikki Giovanni until your post. Very intimate and observant poetry.

I'll read more about her.

 

 

My choice for this post is William Blake.

 

Hear The Voice

 

HEAR the voice of the Bard,

Who present, past, and future, sees;

Whose ears have heard

The Holy Word

That walk'd among the ancient trees;

 

Calling the lapsed soul,

And weeping in the evening dew;

That might control

The starry pole,

And fallen, fallen light renew!

 

'O Earth, O Earth, return!

Arise from out the dewy grass!

Night is worn,

And the morn

Rises from the slumbrous mass.

 

'Turn away no more;

Why wilt thou turn away?

The starry floor,

The watery shore,

Is given thee till the break of day.'

Edited November 30, 2015 by rhyv

[blueschica]

I love the choices so far. I had not thought about Nikki Giovanni in ages; and sad to say, had never actually read any of William Blake's poetry. Beautiful choice, Rhyv.

My sisters and I are nuts for the ocean, so this one is a favorite of all of ours-

 

Sea Fever

BY JOHN MASEFIELD

 

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

 

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

 

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Edited November 30, 2015 by blueschica

[Citizen of the World]

The Second Coming W.B. Yeats

 

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: 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?

Edited December 1, 2015 by Citizen of the World

[goose]

I love the structure of "Sea Fever", BC. It has the flow of the water and the tides, and the repetition of "And all I ask is a..." is wonderful. And Rhyv, William Blake...you can't go wrong there.

[goose]

Hey, CotW, I'm just finishing up reading The Guns of August, a detailed account of the first months of WWI. You poem is a perfect follow-up to reading that book in that it captures the despair that must have gripped Europe after the War had ended. The millions dead, the destruction as a result of years of endless shelling, the collapsing economies... When I visit Europe I am amazed at their resilience.

[Lost In Xanadu]

Is this a good place to quote Andrew Dice Clay?

[goose]

Thomas Hardy's powerful reflection on the sinking of the Titanic...

 

The Convergence of the Twain

 

I

In a solitude of the sea

Deep from human vanity,

And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

 

II

Steel chambers, late the pyres

Of her salamandrine fires,

Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

 

III

Over the mirrors meant

To glass the opulent

The sea-worm crawls — grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

 

IV

Jewels in joy designed

To ravish the sensuous mind

Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

 

V

Dim moon-eyed fishes near

Gaze at the gilded gear

And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" ...

 

VI

Well: while was fashioning

This creature of cleaving wing,

The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

 

VII

Prepared a sinister mate

For her — so gaily great —

A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

 

VIII

And as the smart ship grew

In stature, grace, and hue,

In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

 

IX

Alien they seemed to be;

No mortal eye could see

The intimate welding of their later history,

 

X

Or sign that they were bent

By paths coincident

On being anon twin halves of one august event,

 

XI

Till the Spinner of the Years

Said "Now!" And each one hears,

And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

Edited December 1, 2015 by goose

[Verena]

:o

 

Yes, really truthful one, Goose.

I like the rythm this poem has.

[Verena]

What the Thunder Said, by T. S. Eliot

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces

After the frosty silence in the gardens

After the agony in stony places

The shouting and the crying

Prison and palace and reverberation

Of thunder of spring over distant mountains

He who was living is now dead

We who were living are now dying

With a little patience

 

Here is no water but only rock

Rock and no water and the sandy road

The road winding above among the mountains

Which are mountains of rock without water

If there were water we should stop and drink

Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think

Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand

If there were only water amongst the rock

Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit

Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit

There is not even silence in the mountains

But dry sterile thunder without rain

There is not even solitude in the mountains

But red sullen faces sneer and snarl

From doors of mudcracked houses

If there were water

And no rock

If there were rock

And also water

And water

A spring

A pool among the rock

If there were the sound of water only

Not the cicada

And dry grass singing

But sound of water over a rock

Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees

Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop

But there is no water

 

Who is the third who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together

But when I look ahead up the white road

There is always another one walking beside you

Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded

I do not know whether a man or a woman

- But who is that on the other side of you?

 

What is that sound high in the air

Murmur of maternal lamentation

Who are those hooded hordes swarming

Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth

Ringed by the flat horizon only

What is the city over the mountains

Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air

Falling towers

Jerusalem Athens Alexandria

Vienna London

Unreal

 

A woman drew her long black hair out tight

And fiddled whisper music on those strings

And bats with baby faces in the violet light

Whistled, and beat their wings

And crawled head downward down a blackened wall

And upside down in air were towers

Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours

And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

 

In this decayed hole among the mountains

In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing

Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel

There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.

It has no windows, and the door swings,

Dry bones can harm no one.

Only a cock stood on the rooftree

Co co rico co co rico

In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust

Bringing rain

 

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves

Waited for rain, while the black clouds

Gathered far distant, over Himavant.

The jungle crouched, humped in silence.

Then spoke the thunder

DA

Datta: what have we given?

My friend, blood shaking my heart

The awful daring of a moment's surrender

Which an age of prudence can never retract

By this, and this only, we have existed

Which is not to be found in our obituaries

Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider

Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor

In our empty rooms

DA

Dayadhvam: I have heard the key

Turn in the door once and turn once only

We think of the key, each in his prison

Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison

Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours

Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus

DA

Damyata: The boat responded

Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar

The sea was calm, your heart would have responded

Gaily, when invited, beating obedient

To controlling hands

 

I sat upon the shore

Fishing, with the arid plain behind me

Shall I at least set my lands in order?

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

 

Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina

Quando fiam ceu chelidon - O swallow swallow

Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie

 

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

 

Shantih shantih shantih

Edited December 1, 2015 by rhyv

[Lost In Xanadu]

never been much into poetry, but this has always been a favorite

 

[Blue J]

rhyv, I've read some Eliot, but I didn't know that one at all. Wow!

 

It's brilliant.

[Blue J]

This is the very first poem, THE ONE, that truly got me interested in poetry.

 

Thanatopsis, by William Cullen Bryant

 

O him who in the love of Nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language; for his gayer hours

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile

And eloquence of beauty, and she glides

Into his darker musings, with a mild

And healing sympathy, that steals away

Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight

Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,

Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart;--

Go forth, under the open sky, and list

To Nature's teachings, while from all around--

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--

Comes a still voice--Yet a few days, and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,

Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up

Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix for ever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock,

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.

 

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down

With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings,

The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good,

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,

All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills

Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun,--the vales

Stretching in pensive quietness between;

The venerable woods; rivers that move

In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadows green; and, pour'd round all,

Old Ocean's grey and melancholy waste,--

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,

Are shining on the sad abodes of death,

Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread

The globe are but a handful to the tribes

That slumber in its bosom.--Take the wings

Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods

Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound

Save his own dashings--yet the dead are there:

And millions in those solitudes, since first

The flight of years began, have laid them down

In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone.

So shalt thou rest: and what if thou withdraw

In silence from the living, and no friend

Take note of thy departure? All that breathe

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh

When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care

Plod on, and each one as before will chase

His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come

And make their bed with thee. As the long train

Of ages glides away, the sons of men,

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes

In the full strength of years, matron and maid,

The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man--

Shall one by one be gathered to thy side

By those who in their turn shall follow them.

 

So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan which moves

To that mysterious realm where each shall take

His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged by his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

[Verena]

rhyv, I've read some Eliot, but I didn't know that one at all. Wow!

 

It's brilliant.

 

I like how he describes the environment in this poem. What happens, how it happens.

 

 

The poem you chose, by William Cullen Bryant is amazing.

It's understandable that it provoked your interest in poetry. :D

Edited December 1, 2015 by rhyv

[goose]

Here is no water but only rock

Rock and no water and the sandy road

The road winding above among the mountains

Which are mountains of rock without water

If there were water we should stop and drink

Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think

Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand

If there were only water amongst the rock

Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit

Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit

There is not even silence in the mountains

But dry sterile thunder without rain

 

Rhyv, that's some powerful imagery!

 

ETA: Just now saw your post right above! Like minds...

Edited December 2, 2015 by goose

[goose]

never been much into poetry, but this has always been a favorite

 

A great poem that's trickier than it seems. At first read, it appears that the author is celebrating his life choice, to take a road less traveled. But looking closer, you sense that it's written instead with regret, not joy, for the road not taken by him.

[goose]

rhyv, I've read some Eliot, but I didn't know that one at all. Wow!

 

It's brilliant.

 

 

 

The poem you chose, by William Cullen Bryant is amazing.

 

Yet a few days, and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,

Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up

Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix for ever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock,

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.

 

 

Any doubt left about the temporal nature of our exsitance on this earth? :D

 

Great choice, BlueJ!

[goose]

Into my heart an air that kills... - A.E. Housman

 

Into my heart an air that kills

From yon far country blows:

What are those blue remembered hills,

What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,

I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went

And cannot come again.

 

 

 

 

Here's an interesting reflection on the artist's collection (trite nostalgia?) and on the first line of this poem (brilliantly constructed*).

 

http://georgeszirtes...t-one-line.html

 

* "There is an unconscious understanding in poems, particularly of the very short lyrical sort, whereby the body enacts, as if by implication, but an implication we actually experience physically, an experience in language. It seems in the hearing and reading a kind of miracle: the mind and emotions feel something, then, in the course of moving into language, those feelings are transformed by language and end up permeating the whole body in a new, unexpected, even more powerful form of feeling, one that breaks down the barrier between body and mind. It is poetry's version of transubstantiation: the imagined presence becoming the real presence. None of the other lines in the poem does the same thing with quite this intensity of effect."

Edited December 3, 2015 by goose

[Blue J]

rhyv, I've read some Eliot, but I didn't know that one at all. Wow!

 

It's brilliant.

 

 

 

The poem you chose, by William Cullen Bryant is amazing.

 

Yet a few days, and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,

Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up

Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix for ever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock,

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.

 

 

Any doubt left about the temporal nature of our exsitance on this earth? :D

 

Great choice, BlueJ!

 

It was my junior year in high school, and my English teacher, Mr. Kuehn (who also introduced me to Ernest Hemingway's novels), is the one who turned me on to poetry, with this poem. We had an assignment for it- we had to translate the language, each line of each verse, into what we thought he was trying to say (using our own, more basic, non-poetic language). It was fascinating how many different interpretations there were.

 

Thanatopsis, Mr. Kuehn told us, is defined as "a lamentation on death and dying". I was in a pretty dark place, at age 16, and reading that poem, and working on interpreting it my own way, it made such an impression on me...the way that such a subject could be expressed so eloquently, and so beautifully. It was what encouraged me to start writing on my own.

 

At my 20-year high school reunion weekend, in 2011, I took a tour of the school (which had changed a lot), and the tour was conducted by a teacher who was there when I went there (and whose wife was my first grade teacher, back in the late '70s)...and I asked him about my old English teacher. He said, "Oh, yeah, he and I have breakfast together on Saturdays about once a month." So I asked him if he'd give me an email address, or anything like that, so I could get in touch with Mr. Kuehn, just to let him know what an amazing impression he made on me. And he did pass along some contact info, and so I did that. And after 28 years of teaching, and having been retired for 15 years, at that point, he remembered exactly who I was- just one student of his, for one school year, in 1989-'90. And we've continued to keep in touch. So I've now been friends, as an adult, with my old English teacher- a mentor of mine, really- for a few years now.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Blue J

[goose]

Another from W.B. Yeats...

 

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

 

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate,

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

[Blue J]

Another from W.B. Yeats...

 

I love Yeats! Great choice, goose.

 

I have a favourite of his that I'll post here in a bit.

[bean-tor]

There are some wonderful choices in here already (I've exhausted my likes but I'll be back, ha)! I'll try to post some of my favourites by poets who aren't yet represented in the thread.

 

 

 

Message - Allen Ginsberg

 

Since we had changed

rogered spun worked

wept and pissed together

I wake up in the morning

with a dream in my eyes

but you are gone in NY

remembering me Good

I love you I love you

& your brothers are crazy

I accept their drunk cases

It's too long that I have been alone

it's too long that I've sat up in bed

without anyone to touch on the knee, man

or woman I don't care what anymore, I

want love I was born for I want you with me now

Ocean liners boiling over the Atlantic

Delicate steelwork of unfinished skyscrapers

Back end of the dirigible roaring over Lakehurst

Six women dancing together on a red stage naked

The leaves are green on all the trees in Paris now

I will be home in two months and look you in the eyes

[bean-tor]

Postscript - Seamus Heaney

 

 

And some time make the time to drive out west

Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,

In September or October, when the wind

And the light are working off each other

So that the ocean on one side is wild

With foam and glitter, and inland among stones

The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit

By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,

Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,

Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads

Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.

Useless to think you'll park and capture it

More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,

A hurry through which known and strange things pass

As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways

And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.