Poetry

[JohnM]

Given its cropped up on the EU thread, why not move the poetic references  under one heading free from Rebrexitmainlining? 

I, like CKN didn't get poetry at school, though that might be because I went to a technical school and we didn't do English Literature. It was all maths, phyisics, chemistry, engineering drawing and afvanced level bullying. However,  maybe thanks to University Challenge, some excellent BBC Four historical progs and of course Wikipedia, I have become acquainted with some  really evocative stuff, for example Ozymandias.  Having a go at Khubla KHan,  too.

Anyone else any pointers?

[Bearman]

It can be tricky finding something to rhyme with Australia in Limericks 

There was a young man from Australia,

Who painted his asre like a Dahlia 

At 5p per smell,

He did quite well

But, 10p a lick was a failure

[tonyXIII]

My all-time favourite is (are) The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, as rendered into English by Edward Fitzgerald. It is a philosophical masterpiece in which he considers the human condition and questions the existence of God. One well-known verse is:

The moving finger writes and, having writ,

Moves on; nor all thy piety nor wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line

Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

(NB. The is/are thing is because 'rubaiya' is the arabic for 'verse' and 'rubaiyat' is the plural. At least afaik) When he starts to compare God to a potter, he really lays into God. "Did the hand of the potter shake?" If you want more, just ask.

 

[tonyXIII]

12 minutes ago, Bearman said:

It can be tricky finding something to rhyme with Australia in Limericks 

There was a young man from Australia,

Who painted his asre like a Dahlia 

At 5p per smell,

He did quite well

But, 10p a lick was a failure

I like limericks. Try these:

There was a young woman from Thrace

Whose corsets no longer would lace

Her mother said "Nelly,

There's more in your belly

Than ever went in through your face.

 

Or:

The sermon our pastor rt. rev.

Began might have had a rt. clev.

But his talk though consistent

Kept the end so far distant

That we left since we thought he mt. nev.

It requires a bit of thought. "rt. rev." means "right reverend". Try that with the rest.

[CanaBull]

My favourite is The Odyssey, I go through that at least once a year, which often feeds into Treasure Island.  There’s a well thumbed copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh in my bookcase also.

As much as the ancient stories hold my interest I can pin the moment where I started being more into poetry to when we as a class of middle school yobs went to see Roger McGough and it seemed all, teachers and kids alike connected to ‘The Lesson’:

Chaos ruled OK in the classroom 
as bravely the teacher walked in 
the nooligans ignored him 
his voice was lost in the din 

'The theme for today is violence 
and homework will be set 
I'm going to teach you a lesson 
one that you'll never forget' 

He picked on a boy who was shouting 
and throttled him then and there 
then garrotted the girl behind him 
(the one with grotty hair) 

Then sword in hand he hacked his way 
between the chattering rows 
'First come, first severed' he declared 
'fingers, feet or toes' 

He threw the sword at a latecomer 
it struck with deadly aim 
then pulling out a shotgun 
he continued with his game 

The first blast cleared the backrow 
(where those who skive hang out) 
they collapsed like rubber dinghies 
when the plug's pulled out 

'Please may I leave the room sir? ' 
a trembling vandal enquired 
'Of course you may' said teacher 
put the gun to his temple and fired 

The Head popped a head round the doorway 
to see why a din was being made 
nodded understandingly 
then tossed in a grenade 

And when the ammo was well spent 
with blood on every chair 
Silence shuffled forward 
with its hands up in the air 

The teacher surveyed the carnage 
the dying and the dead 
He waggled a finger severely 
'Now let that be a lesson' he said

[Exiled Townie]

35 minutes ago, tonyXIII said:

My all-time favourite is (are) The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 

Or, as Benny Hill called it, The Rubber Yacht Of Hymie Cohen … 

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

In these days of YouTube and the like, JohnM, it is worth remembering that you don't have to read poetry yourself; you can have it read to you.  If the reader is the poet himself, than arguably so much the better.  Dylan Thomas's Do not go gentle into that good night is a fine poem; read by Thomas himself it is stunning!

I enjoyed some WB Yeats which I studied at school, including Easter, 1916.  Incidentally, if, like me, you think that Brass was one of the funniest (and arguably most underrated) comedy series ever on British TV - with Timothy West as the unscrupulous, northern town, coal and textile baron - you will have enjoyed some of the subtle jokes in it (I, no doubt, missed more than I spotted)  At one point, Hardaker, who has radical, money-making plans for his town, which is called Utterley, looks with satisfaction across its skyline and says, if I remember correctly, "all is changed, changed in utterly; a terrible beauty is born" and smirks crudely.  This is a parody of lines in Easter, 1916.

John Masefield has some wonderfully descriptive moments, as in Sea fever and Cargoes.  In his long poem, The everlasting mercy, he evidently rather shocked early 20th century society, with his frank use of English as he heard it spoken in rural Herefordshire.  The hero of the piece, in a rage about a farmer who, he feels, as acted badly towards him, says, "And one of these dark winter nights, he'll learn I mean to have my rights.  I'll bl**dy him a-bl**dy-fix, I'll bl**dy burn his bl**by ricks."  Contemporary society would have recognised rick-burning as a traditional form of revenge in rural disputes (along with cattle maiming), but would no doubt have been a bit shocked by the dialogue here about it!

I studied some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales at school.  That is a very good example of poetry that is easier to understand if listened to, rather than read, I think.

Hope that is of interest!

 

[tim2]

I've got a poetry pamphlet coming out this year. There, I admitted it. I am a poet.

My top 10 dead poets

10 Philip Larkin

9 Dylan Thomas

8 William Worsworth

7 Percy Bysshe Shelley

6 John Clare

5 Seamus Heaney

4 William Blake

3 W H Auden

2 Charles Causley

1 Wilfred Owen

If we're going to quote Shelley, I would go for The Masque of Anarchy ("we are many, they are few") or my favourite seditious sonnet, England 1819

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King;
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,

But leechlike to their fainting country cling
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
A people starved and stabbed in th' untilled field;
An army, whom liberticide and prey

Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed—

Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day

 

[tim2]

1 minute ago, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

In these days of YouTube and the like, JohnM, it is worth remembering that you don't have to read poetry yourself; you can have it read to you.  If the reader is the poet himself, than arguably so much the better.  Dylan Thomas's Do not go gentle into that good night is a fine poem; read by Thomas himself it is stunning!

I enjoyed some WB Yeats which I studied at school, including Easter, 1916.

 

 

Richard Burton's reading is better IMO.

Yeats missed the cut of my top 10, as did Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou.

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

7 minutes ago, tim2 said:

Richard Burton's reading is better IMO.

Yeats missed the cut of my top 10, as did Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou.

Burton or Thomas is a close run thing, for sure!  I love Richard Burton as the narrator in Dylan Thomas's Under Milkwood.

Was Betjeman near your top ten?

 

[Phil]

“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes

I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

[Kayakman]

1 hour ago, CanaBull said:

My favourite is The Odyssey, I go through that at least once a year, which often feeds into Treasure Island.  There’s a well thumbed copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh in my bookcase also.

As much as the ancient stories hold my interest I can pin the moment where I started being more into poetry to when we as a class of middle school yobs went to see Roger McGough and it seemed all, teachers and kids alike connected to ‘The Lesson’:

Chaos ruled OK in the classroom 
as bravely the teacher walked in 
the nooligans ignored him 
his voice was lost in the din 

'The theme for today is violence 
and homework will be set 
I'm going to teach you a lesson 
one that you'll never forget' 

He picked on a boy who was shouting 
and throttled him then and there 
then garrotted the girl behind him 
(the one with grotty hair) 

Then sword in hand he hacked his way 
between the chattering rows 
'First come, first severed' he declared 
'fingers, feet or toes' 

He threw the sword at a latecomer 
it struck with deadly aim 
then pulling out a shotgun 
he continued with his game 

The first blast cleared the backrow 
(where those who skive hang out) 
they collapsed like rubber dinghies 
when the plug's pulled out 

'Please may I leave the room sir? ' 
a trembling vandal enquired 
'Of course you may' said teacher 
put the gun to his temple and fired 

The Head popped a head round the doorway 
to see why a din was being made 
nodded understandingly 
then tossed in a grenade 

And when the ammo was well spent 
with blood on every chair 
Silence shuffled forward 
with its hands up in the air 

The teacher surveyed the carnage 
the dying and the dead 
He waggled a finger severely 
'Now let that be a lesson' he said

I'm getting more and more worried about you as time moves forward Canabull...I also like the Odyssey and Gilgamesh and Treasure Island...et al.

The poem you have highlighted here is a cracker.  Every teachers delight!

I love the poetry of Wordsworth...I really do.

[Phil]

Dulce et Decorum est

BY WILFRED OWEN

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

 

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

 

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

[Kayakman]

18 minutes ago, tim2 said:

Richard Burton's reading is better IMO.

Yeats missed the cut of my top 10, as did Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou.

Yeats is certainly top 10!  Like come on!

[Kayakman]

Just now, Phil said:

Dulce et Decorum est

BY WILFRED OWEN

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

 

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

 

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

I know this one off by heart...I recite it often to a large group, just before  every Nov.11.

[Phil]

2 hours ago, JohnM said:

Given its cropped up on the EU thread, why not move the poetic references  under one heading free from Rebrexitmainlining? 

I, like CKN didn't get poetry at school, though that might be because I went to a technical school and we didn't do English Literature. It was all maths, phyisics, chemistry, engineering drawing and afvanced level bullying. However,  maybe thanks to University Challenge, some excellent BBC Four historical progs and of course Wikipedia, I have become acquainted with some  really evocative stuff, for example Ozymandias.  Having a go at Khubla KHan,  too.

Anyone else any pointers?

Great thread John, thank you 

[ckn]

3 hours ago, JohnM said:

Given its cropped up on the EU thread, why not move the poetic references  under one heading free from Rebrexitmainlining? 

I, like CKN didn't get poetry at school, though that might be because I went to a technical school and we didn't do English Literature. It was all maths, phyisics, chemistry, engineering drawing and afvanced level bullying. However,  maybe thanks to University Challenge, some excellent BBC Four historical progs and of course Wikipedia, I have become acquainted with some  really evocative stuff, for example Ozymandias.  Having a go at Khubla KHan,  too.

Anyone else any pointers?

The high school I went to was a proper old comprehensive with selective element as it was the only school that did Highers in the area, if you were assessed at primary school as likely to go onto do highers then that’s where you went rather than the mining village high schools that stopped at O-Grades.  We were extraordinarily lucky that that school attracted the better teachers. I struggled badly with English as it was just too slow for me, “read pages 10-20 for next week” when I’d already finished the book.

If you’re after a place to sate your short literary desires in another media then this site has impressed me for the last few years.  The author has slowed down his pace now he’s off doing other stuff but there’s plenty of poems he’s illustrated and it helps bring them to life.  Quite a bit of the site is just quotes but there’s a good few poems done there, I’d recommend just going through from the start but the drop-down list top-centre gives you freedom to pick & choose.

[JohnM]

Thanks, phil. Ckn.

Roger McGough The Lesson is great, but less endearing is (was) Poetry Please , Saturday night,  Radio 4, 11.30  which to be honest put me off.  

Once read "Ode", Arthur O'Shaunghnessy,  "We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams......" Just revisiting the Penguin Book of Irish Verse ( very largely unread, of course and might remain so) 

Must look at William Blake, too.

Just watched the 1991Wigan season review video. Edwards,  Gregory, Hanley, Lydon, Bell, Hampson, Preston, Myers and more. True poetry in motion.

[Phil]

Hic Jacet Arthurus Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus

Francis Brett Young

Arthur is gone…Tristram in Careol
Sleeps, with a broken sword - and Yseult sleeps
Beside him, where the Westering waters roll
Over drowned Lyonesse to the outer deeps.

Lancelot is fallen . . . The ardent helms that shone
So knightly and the splintered lances rust
In the anonymous mould of Avalon:
Gawain and Gareth and Galahad - all are dust.

Where do the vanes and towers of Camelot
And tall Tintagel crumble? Where do those tragic
Lovers and their bright eyed ladies rot?
We cannot tell, for lost is Merlin's magic.

And Guinevere - Call her not back again
Lest she betray the loveliness time lent
A name that blends the rapture and the pain
Linked in the lonely nightingale's lament.

Nor pry too deeply, lest you should discover
The bower of Astolat a smokey hut
Of mud and wattle - find the knightliest lover
A braggart, and his lilymaid a slut.

And all that coloured tale a tapestry
Woven by poets. As the spider's skeins
Are spun of its own substance, so have they
Embroidered empty legend - What remains?

This: That when Rome fell, like a writhen oak
That age had sapped and cankered at the root,
Resistant, from her topmost bough there broke
The miracle of one unwithering shoot.

Which was the spirit of Britain - that certain men
Uncouth, untutored, of our island brood
Loved freedom better than their lives; and when
The tempest crashed around them, rose and stood

And charged into the storm's black heart, with sword
Lifted, or lance in rest, and rode there, helmed
With a strange majesty that the heathen horde
Remembered when all were overwhelmed;

And made of them a legend, to their chief,
Arthur, Ambrosius - no man knows his name -
Granting a gallantry beyond belief,
And to his knights imperishable fame.

They were so few . . . We know not in what manner
Or where they fell - whether they went
Riding into the dark under Christ's banner
Or died beneath the blood-red dragon of Gwent.

But this we know; that when the Saxon rout
Swept over them, the sun no longer shone
On Britain, and the last lights flickered out;
And men in darkness muttered: Arthur is gone…

 

[Wiltshire Rhino]

My favourite poet - Mr Robert Zimmerman 

 

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

[CanaBull]

Came across this in my late teens, it’s hovered behind my shoulder just barely in earshot for the last 25 years.

Emptiness, by Spike Milligan

I've learned mine can't be filled, 
only alchemized. Many times 
it's become a paragraph or a page. 
But usually I've hidden it, 
not knowing until too late 
how enormous it grows in its dark. 
Or how obvious it gets 
when I've donned, say, my good 
cordovans and my fine tweed vest 
and walked into a room with a smile. 
I might as well have been a man 
with a fez and a faux silver cane. 
Better, I know now, to dress it plain, 
to say out loud 
to some right person 
in some right place 
that there's something not there 
in me, something I can't name. 
That some right person 
has just lit a fire under the kettle. 
She hasn't said a word. 
Beneath her blue shawl 
she, too, conceals a world. 
But she's been amazed 
how much I seem to need my emptiness, 
amazed I won't let it go.

[Niels]

2 hours ago, JohnM said:

Thanks, phil. Ckn.

Roger McGough The Lesson is great, but less endearing is (was) Poetry Please , Saturday night,  Radio 4, 11.30  which to be honest put me off.  

Once read "Ode", Arthur O'Shaunghnessy,  "We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams......" Just revisiting the Penguin Book of Irish Verse ( very largely unread, of course and might remain so) 

Must look at William Blake, too.

Just watched the 1991Wigan season review video. Edwards,  Gregory, Hanley, Lydon, Bell, Hampson, Preston, Myers and more. True poetry in motion.

I liked Roger McGough in the Scaffold.

 

[CanaBull]

McGough was more of a conduit really.  These upper class romantics and university arts educated sorts didn’t really have much in common with rough northern comprehensive kids; he and others like the Liverpool Poets made it more accessible and not so out of reach.

Certainly made me confront some of my early prejudices, as poetry can so often do.

[tim2]

5 hours ago, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

Burton or Thomas is a close run thing, for sure!  I love Richard Burton as the narrator in Dylan Thomas's Under Milkwood.

Was Betjeman near your top ten?

 

No

[tim2]

5 hours ago, Kayakman said:

I know this one off by heart...I recite it often to a large group, just before  every Nov.11.

Me too. I also know "Anthem for Doomed Youth" and "Futility". I throw in Siegfried Sassoon's "The General" too.

“Good-morning, good-morning!” the General said

When we met him last week on our way to the line.

Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,

And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.

“He's a cheery old card,” grunted Harry to Jack

As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

 

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.