Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Could you be so kind as to share with us your favorite poet, poem, and the reasons why you find this poet out of the ordinary?

Cindi, I have a feeling that we may choose the same poet, but I am not sure about the poem!  ;)

My favorite poet:  Robert Frost
Poem: Fire and Ice
Reason: Being a non-native English speaker, I like simplicity in a language. 
IMO Robert Frost utilizes simple syntax and grammar structure in his poems; however, he is able to convey such uncomplicated words into beautiful, intense imagery.





Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost



tink :icon_chick:

I absolutely adore John Donne. Whilst other poets of his era wrote quite prissy poetry comparing lovers to rosy cheeked shepherdesses, he put his woman next to him in bed. Read Elegie XIX Going to bed and feel for yourself.

"Licence my roving hands, and let them go,
Before, behind, between, above, below.
Oh my America my new-found-land
My kingdom, safeliest when one man man'd."

I find that stanza totally mind-blowing, yet erudite, thoughtful, intellectually stimulating.  He is the tops, the jewel in the crown. ;)

henry wadsworth longfellow is my favorite of all poets. for me, his poems evoke a [keener] sense of the world around me than anyone else's. they are less full of social commentary than of the wonder of the world; yet i also enjoy browning, frost, wordsworth and Kilmer.


Dante by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms of gloom,
With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes,
Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise,
Like Farinata from his fiery tomb.
Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom;
Yet in thy heart what human sympathies,
What soft compassion glows, as in the skies
The tender stars their clouded lamps relume!
Methinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks,
By Fra Hilario in his diocese,
As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks,
The ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease;
And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks,
Thy voice along the cloister whispers, "Peace!"

I have a few favorites and this one is definitely in the top 5:

W. Wordsworth


hugs & smiles
helen

Theodore Roethke
"The Shape of the Fire"

   Because Roethke uses words and imagery in a manner that feels like it came from me, but that I had just lost or forgotten it until I rediscovered it. It feels like returning to a place where I belong.
   I like a lot of other stuff too. The ones mentioned so far in this thread are also knockouts to me.
   Plus Stephen Crane; Edna St. Vincent Milay; Lawrence Ferlinghetti; oh yeah, and me (though I stink).


The Shape of the Fire
by Theodore Roethke

1

      What's this? A dish for fat lips.
      Who says? A nameless stranger.
      Is he a bird or a tree? Not everyone can tell.

Water recedes to the crying of spiders.
An old scow bumps over black rocks.
A cracked pod calls.

      Mother me out of here. What more will the bones allow?
      Will the sea give the wind suck? A toad folds into a stone.
      These flowers are all fangs. Comfort me, fury.
      Wake me, witch, we'll do the dance of rotten sticks.

Shale loosens. Marl reaches into the field. Small birds pass over water.
Spirit, come near. This is only the edge of whiteness.
I can't laugh at a procession of dogs.

      In the hour of ripeness the tree is barren.
      The she-bear mopes under the hill.
      Mother, mother, stir from your cave of sorrow.

A low mouth laps water. Weeds, weeds, how I love you.
The arbor is cooler. Farewell, farewell, fond worm.
The warm comes without sound.


2

      Where's the eye?
      The eye's in the sty.
      The ear's not here
      Beneath the hair.
      When I took off my clothes
      To find a nose,
      There was only one shoe
      For the waltz of To,
      The pinch of Where.

Time for the flat-headed man. I recognize that listener,
Him with the platitudes and rubber doughnuts,
Melting at the knees, a varicose horror.
Hello, hello. My nerves knew you, dear boy.
Have you come to unhinge my shadow?
Last night I slept in the pits of a tongue.
The silver fish ran in and out of my special bindings;
I grew tired of the ritual of names and the assistant keeper of the
mollusks:
Up over a viaduct I came, to the snakes and sticks of another winter,
A two-legged dog hunting a new horizon of howls.
The wind sharpened itself on a rock;
A voice sang:

      Pleasure on ground
      Has no sound,
      Easily maddens
      The uneasy man.

      Who, careless, slips
      In coiling ooze
      Is trapped to the lips,
      Leaves more than shoes;

      Must pull off clothes
      To jerk like a frog
      On belly and nose
      From the sucking bog.

My meat eats me. Who waits at the gate?
Mother of quartz, your words writhe into my ear.
Renew the light, lewd whisper.


3

The wasp waits.
      The edge cannot eat the center.
The grape glistens.
      The path tells little to the serpent.
An eye comes out of the wave.
      The journey from flesh is longest.
A rose sways least.
      The redeemer comes a dark way.


4

Morning-fair, follow me further back
Into that minnowy world of weeds and ditches,
When the herons floated high over the white houses,
And the little crabs slipped into silvery craters.
When the sun for me glinted the sides of a sand grain,
And my intent stretched over the buds at their first trembling.

That air and shine: and the flicker's loud summer call:
The bearded boards in the stream and the all of apples;
The glad hen on the hill; and the trellis humming.
Death was not. I lived in a simple drowse:
Hands and hair moved through a dream of wakening blossoms.
Rain sweetened the cave and the dove still called;
The flowers leaned on themselves, the flowers in hollows;
And love, love sang toward.


5

To have the whole air!—
The light, the full sun
Coming down on the flowerheads,
The tendrils turning slowly,
A slow snail-lifting, liquescent;
To be by the rose
Rising slowly out of its bed,
Still as a child in its first loneliness;
To see cyclamen veins become clearer in early sunlight,
And mist lifting out of the brown cat-tails;
To stare into the after-light, the glitter left on the lake's surface,
When the sun has fallen behind a wooded island;
To follow the drops sliding from a lifted oar,
Held up, while the rower breathes, and the small boat drifts quietly shoreward;
To know that light falls and fills, often without our knowing,
As an opaque vase fills to the brim from a quick pouring,
Fills and trembles at the edge yet does not flow over,
Still holding and feeding the stem of the contained flower.

Gabriela Mistral most definately.  For her fortitude and candor. 


I Am Not Alone

The night, it is deserted
from the mountains to the sea.
But I, the one who rocks you,
I am not alone!

The sky, it is deserted
for the moon falls to the sea.
But I, the one who holds you,
I am not alone !

The world, it is deserted.
All flesh is sad you see.
But I, the one who hugs you,
I am not alone!

Quote from: Pia on May 25, 2007, 04:53:11 AM
Gabriela Mistral

She is indeed one of the best.  I couldn't find the poem you posted in Spanish. Do you happen to know if it is available?  My favorite Gabriela Mistral's poem is piececitos.


Piececitos


Piececitos de niño,
azulosos de frío,
¡cómo os ven y no os cubren,
Dios mío!

¡Piececitos heridos
por los guijarros todos,
ultrajados de nieves
y lodos!

El hombre ciego ignora
que por donde pasáis,
una flor de luz viva
dejaís;

que allí donde ponéis
la plantita sangrante,
el nardo nace más
fragrante.

Sed, puesto que marcháis
por los caminos rectos,
heróicos como sois
perfectos.

Piececitos de niño,
dos joyitas sufrientes,
¡cómo pasan sin veros
las gentes!

Gabriela Mistral

***************************************************************

English Translation

Little Feet

Little feet of children
blue with cold,
how can they see you and not cover you—
dear God!

Little wounded feet
cut by every stone,
hurt by snow
and mire.

Man, blind, does not know
that where you pass,
you leave a flower
of living light.

And where you set
your little bleeding foot,
the spikenard blooms
more fragrant.

Walking straight paths,
be heroic, little feet,
as you are
perfect.

Little feet of children,
two tiny suffering jewels,
how can people pass
and not see you!




I am sorry to say this.  It is not intended as an offense to anyone, but to translate this poem into English using such simple words and imagery is a total sacrilege.  There's no way that the meaning of the original poem can be conveyed in a foreign language, absolutely no way.

tink :icon_chick:

It not a poem, it's a song lyric by a band form Texas called Mineral. This song's lyrics and the song itself move me, especially "I want to know the difference between what sparkles and what is gold" because that pretty much sums up how I feel and have felt for quite a while. What is gold = what will make me happy, vs. what sparkles = the other stuff i do to pass time:

The humble and righteous and meek
Are teaching me who's will to seek
But who really knows how to speak
About these things

Questions of where can he go
When he is feeling so low
And kicking himself just to show
How he still bleeds

And I want to know the difference between
What sparkles and what is gold

I wonder how many eyes
Are fixed like a vulture's on me
Now I wonder if I can even move or breathe
Without disappointing someone

And I know what they call themselves
But I don't remember inviting them
To put me on this pedastal
And make me feel so naked

Afraid to look down
Afraid to turn around

I bring it on myself
I know I bring it on myself

And I want to know the difference between
What sparkles and what is gold

I walked along beside the purple mountains beneath the orange sky
Imagined what it all might look like with these planks out of my eyes
I wondered if the big white horse was coming down tonight
I wanted to taste that victory but my mouth was dry

There is only tonight and the light that bleeds from your heart

  :angel:

Meghan

Rabindranath Tagore, and I absolutely adore Where The Mind is Without Fear because it is almost like a curious affirmation which the mind makes in its constant search for truth. :)

Where The Mind is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
   and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.



     

I wish I could read poems.
I'm a huge fan of writing, but I just can't enjoy a poem...There is always this.

Curmudgeon and the Clouds

Hardly no cloud is ever lonely - Clouds only come in hoards
Like a silent army what creep and loom along the wide horizon
Some people see them and it makes them sigh 'Look' they say, 'a silver lining', which makes me think they're colour blind; that's not silver
        – that's grey.

Some people think that clouds are soft and that to play in their cottony softness is a very heaven
But clouds aint soft - they're damp
And flouncing around won't make them special 'cos It's not like clouds are special or pointing them out is new...

Why rhapsodise about gatherings of dew? You can't even see shapes in them - not real ones anyway, not ones I can show to someone nearby - If there was anyone, but there isn't.




I'm not a cloud.

My favourite poet is Friedrich Schiller.  His poem, Die Bürgschaft, is one of the best written in German literature.  I like Schiller because he was one of the few poets who finds the smallest things interesting. He was a person who loved nature and seemed very wise in his approach to indirect messages.





Die Bürgschaft


Zu Dionys, dem Tyrannen, schlich
Damon, den Dolch im Gewande:
Ihn schlugen die Häscher in Bande,
»Was wolltest du mit dem Dolche? sprich!«
Entgegnet ihm finster der Wüterich.
»Die Stadt vom Tyrannen befreien!«
»Das sollst du am Kreuze bereuen.«
»Ich bin«, spricht jener, »zu sterben bereit
Und bitte nicht um mein Leben:
Doch willst du Gnade mir geben,
Ich flehe dich um drei Tage Zeit,
Bis ich die Schwester dem Gatten gefreit;
Ich lasse den Freund dir als Bürgen,
Ihn magst du, entrinn' ich, erwürgen.«

Da lächelt der König mit arger List
Und spricht nach kurzem Bedenken:
»Drei Tage will ich dir schenken;
Doch wisse, wenn sie verstrichen, die Frist,
Eh' du zurück mir gegeben bist,
So muß er statt deiner erblassen,
Doch dir ist die Strafe erlassen.«

Und er kommt zum Freunde: »Der König gebeut,
Daß ich am Kreuz mit dem Leben
Bezahle das frevelnde Streben.
Doch will er mir gönnen drei Tage Zeit,
Bis ich die Schwester dem Gatten gefreit;
So bleib du dem König zum Pfande,
Bis ich komme zu lösen die Bande.«

Und schweigend umarmt ihn der treue Freund
Und liefert sich aus dem Tyrannen;
Der andere ziehet von dannen.
Und ehe das dritte Morgenrot scheint,
Hat er schnell mit dem Gatten die Schwester vereint,
Eilt heim mit sorgender Seele,
Damit er die Frist nicht verfehle.

Da gießt unendlicher Regen herab,
Von den Bergen stürzen die Quellen,
Und die Bäche, die Ströme schwellen.
Und er kommt ans Ufer mit wanderndem Stab,
Da reißet die Brücke der Strudel herab,
Und donnernd sprengen die Wogen
Dem Gewölbes krachenden Bogen.

Und trostlos irrt er an Ufers Rand:
Wie weit er auch spähet und blicket
Und die Stimme, die rufende, schicket.
Da stößet kein Nachen vom sichern Strand,
Der ihn setze an das gewünschte Land,
Kein Schiffer lenket die Fähre,
Und der wilde Strom wird zum Meere.

Da sinkt er ans Ufer und weint und fleht,
Die Hände zum Zeus erhoben:
»O hemme des Stromes Toben!
Es eilen die Stunden, im Mittag steht
Die Sonne, und wenn sie niedergeht
Und ich kann die Stadt nicht erreichen,
So muß der Freund mir erbleichen.«

Doch wachsend erneut sich des Stromes Wut,
Und Welle auf Welle zerrinnet,
Und Stunde an Stunde ertrinnet.
Da treibt ihn die Angst, da faßt er sich Mut
Und wirft sich hinein in die brausende Flut
Und teilt mit gewaltigen Armen
Den Strom, und ein Gott hat Erbarmen.

Und gewinnt das Ufer und eilet fort
Und danket dem rettenden Gotte;
Da stürzet die raubende Rotte
Hervor aus des Waldes nächtlichem Ort,
Den Pfad ihm sperrend, und schnaubert Mord
Und hemmet des Wanderers Eile
Mit drohend geschwungener Keule.

»Was wollt ihr?« ruft er vor Schrecken bleich,
»Ich habe nichts als mein Leben,
Das muß ich dem Könige geben!«
Und entreißt die Keule dem nächsten gleich:
»Um des Freundes willen erbarmet euch!«
Und drei mit gewaltigen Streichen
Erlegt er, die andern entweichen.

Und die Sonne versendet glühenden Brand,
Und von der unendlichen Mühe
Ermattet sinken die Kniee.
»O hast du mich gnädig aus Räubershand,
Aus dem Strom mich gerettet ans heilige Land,
Und soll hier verschmachtend verderben,
Und der Freund mir, der liebende, sterben!«

Und horch! da sprudelt es silberhell,
Ganz nahe, wie rieselndes Rauschen,
Und stille hält er, zu lauschen;
Und sieh, aus dem Felsen, geschwätzig, schnell,
Springt murmelnd hervor ein lebendiger Quell,
Und freudig bückt er sich nieder
Und erfrischet die brennenden Glieder.

Und die Sonne blickt durch der Zweige Grün
Und malt auf den glänzenden Matten
Der Bäume gigantische Schatten;
Und zwei Wanderer sieht er die Straße ziehn,
Will eilenden Laufes vorüber fliehn,
Da hört er die Worte sie sagen:
»Jetzt wird er ans Kreuz geschlagen.«

Und die Angst beflügelt den eilenden Fuß,
Ihn jagen der Sorge Qualen;
Da schimmern in Abendrots Strahlen
Von ferne die Zinnen von Syrakus,
Und entgegen kommt ihm Philostratus,
Des Hauses redlicher Hüter,
Der erkennet entsetzt den Gebieter:

»Zurück! du rettest den Freund nicht mehr,
So rette das eigene Leben!
Den Tod erleidet er eben.
Von Stunde zu Stunde gewartet' er
Mit hoffender Seele der Wiederkehr,
Ihm konnte den mutigen Glauben
Der Hohn des Tyrannen nicht rauben.«

»Und ist es zu spät, und kann ich ihm nicht,
Ein Retter, willkommen erscheinen,
So soll mich der Tod ihm vereinen.
Des rühme der blut'ge Tyrann sich nicht,
Daß der Freund dem Freunde gebrochen die Pflicht,
Er schlachte der Opfer zweie
Und glaube an Liebe und Treue!«

Und die Sonne geht unter, da steht er am Tor,
Und sieht das Kreuz schon erhöhet,
Das die Menge gaffend umstehet;
An dem Seile schon zieht man den Freund empor,
Da zertrennt er gewaltig den dichter Chor:
»Mich, Henker«, ruft er, »erwürget!
Da bin ich, für den er gebürget!«

Und Erstaunen ergreifet das Volk umher,
In den Armen liegen sich beide
Und weinen vor Schmerzen und Freude.
Da sieht man kein Augen tränenleer,
Und zum Könige bringt man die Wundermär';
Der fühlt ein menschliches Rühren,
Läßt schnell vor den Thron sie führen,

Und blicket sie lange verwundert an.
Drauf spricht er: »Es ist euch gelungen,
Ihr habt das Herz mir bezwungen;
Und die Treue, sie ist doch kein leerer Wahn -
So nehmet auch mich zum Genossen an:
Ich sei, gewährt mir die Bitte,
In eurem Bunde der dritte!«

Quote from: Yvonne on May 26, 2007, 03:57:51 PM
My favourite poet is Friedrich Schiller.  His poem, Die Bürgschaft, is one of the best written in German literature.  I like Schiller because he was one of the few poets who finds the smallest things interesting. He was a person who loved nature and seemed very wise in his approach to indirect messages.

    By coincidence, Theodore Roethke was a German immigrant to the U.S. I think the Germans have a lot going on that people don't seem to notice. When I was in Germany, I felt at home.

Quote from: Yvonne on May 26, 2007, 03:57:51 PM
My favourite poet is Friedrich Schiller.  His poem, Die Bürgschaft, is one of the best written in German literature.  I like Schiller because he was one of the few poets who finds the smallest things interesting. He was a person who loved nature and seemed very wise in his approach to indirect messages.





Die Bürgschaft


Zu Dionys, dem Tyrannen, schlich
Damon, den Dolch im Gewande:
Ihn schlugen die Häscher in Bande,
»Was wolltest du mit dem Dolche? sprich!«
Entgegnet ihm finster der Wüterich.
»Die Stadt vom Tyrannen befreien!«
»Das sollst du am Kreuze bereuen.«
»Ich bin«, spricht jener, »zu sterben bereit
Und bitte nicht um mein Leben:
Doch willst du Gnade mir geben,
Ich flehe dich um drei Tage Zeit,
Bis ich die Schwester dem Gatten gefreit;
Ich lasse den Freund dir als Bürgen,
Ihn magst du, entrinn' ich, erwürgen.«

Da lächelt der König mit arger List
Und spricht nach kurzem Bedenken:
»Drei Tage will ich dir schenken;
Doch wisse, wenn sie verstrichen, die Frist,
Eh' du zurück mir gegeben bist,
So muß er statt deiner erblassen,
Doch dir ist die Strafe erlassen.«

Und er kommt zum Freunde: »Der König gebeut,
Daß ich am Kreuz mit dem Leben
Bezahle das frevelnde Streben.
Doch will er mir gönnen drei Tage Zeit,
Bis ich die Schwester dem Gatten gefreit;
So bleib du dem König zum Pfande,
Bis ich komme zu lösen die Bande.«

Und schweigend umarmt ihn der treue Freund
Und liefert sich aus dem Tyrannen;
Der andere ziehet von dannen.
Und ehe das dritte Morgenrot scheint,
Hat er schnell mit dem Gatten die Schwester vereint,
Eilt heim mit sorgender Seele,
Damit er die Frist nicht verfehle.

Da gießt unendlicher Regen herab,
Von den Bergen stürzen die Quellen,
Und die Bäche, die Ströme schwellen.
Und er kommt ans Ufer mit wanderndem Stab,
Da reißet die Brücke der Strudel herab,
Und donnernd sprengen die Wogen
Dem Gewölbes krachenden Bogen.

Und trostlos irrt er an Ufers Rand:
Wie weit er auch spähet und blicket
Und die Stimme, die rufende, schicket.
Da stößet kein Nachen vom sichern Strand,
Der ihn setze an das gewünschte Land,
Kein Schiffer lenket die Fähre,
Und der wilde Strom wird zum Meere.

Da sinkt er ans Ufer und weint und fleht,
Die Hände zum Zeus erhoben:
»O hemme des Stromes Toben!
Es eilen die Stunden, im Mittag steht
Die Sonne, und wenn sie niedergeht
Und ich kann die Stadt nicht erreichen,
So muß der Freund mir erbleichen.«

Doch wachsend erneut sich des Stromes Wut,
Und Welle auf Welle zerrinnet,
Und Stunde an Stunde ertrinnet.
Da treibt ihn die Angst, da faßt er sich Mut
Und wirft sich hinein in die brausende Flut
Und teilt mit gewaltigen Armen
Den Strom, und ein Gott hat Erbarmen.

Und gewinnt das Ufer und eilet fort
Und danket dem rettenden Gotte;
Da stürzet die raubende Rotte
Hervor aus des Waldes nächtlichem Ort,
Den Pfad ihm sperrend, und schnaubert Mord
Und hemmet des Wanderers Eile
Mit drohend geschwungener Keule.

»Was wollt ihr?« ruft er vor Schrecken bleich,
»Ich habe nichts als mein Leben,
Das muß ich dem Könige geben!«
Und entreißt die Keule dem nächsten gleich:
»Um des Freundes willen erbarmet euch!«
Und drei mit gewaltigen Streichen
Erlegt er, die andern entweichen.

Und die Sonne versendet glühenden Brand,
Und von der unendlichen Mühe
Ermattet sinken die Kniee.
»O hast du mich gnädig aus Räubershand,
Aus dem Strom mich gerettet ans heilige Land,
Und soll hier verschmachtend verderben,
Und der Freund mir, der liebende, sterben!«

Und horch! da sprudelt es silberhell,
Ganz nahe, wie rieselndes Rauschen,
Und stille hält er, zu lauschen;
Und sieh, aus dem Felsen, geschwätzig, schnell,
Springt murmelnd hervor ein lebendiger Quell,
Und freudig bückt er sich nieder
Und erfrischet die brennenden Glieder.

Und die Sonne blickt durch der Zweige Grün
Und malt auf den glänzenden Matten
Der Bäume gigantische Schatten;
Und zwei Wanderer sieht er die Straße ziehn,
Will eilenden Laufes vorüber fliehn,
Da hört er die Worte sie sagen:
»Jetzt wird er ans Kreuz geschlagen.«

Und die Angst beflügelt den eilenden Fuß,
Ihn jagen der Sorge Qualen;
Da schimmern in Abendrots Strahlen
Von ferne die Zinnen von Syrakus,
Und entgegen kommt ihm Philostratus,
Des Hauses redlicher Hüter,
Der erkennet entsetzt den Gebieter:

»Zurück! du rettest den Freund nicht mehr,
So rette das eigene Leben!
Den Tod erleidet er eben.
Von Stunde zu Stunde gewartet' er
Mit hoffender Seele der Wiederkehr,
Ihm konnte den mutigen Glauben
Der Hohn des Tyrannen nicht rauben.«

»Und ist es zu spät, und kann ich ihm nicht,
Ein Retter, willkommen erscheinen,
So soll mich der Tod ihm vereinen.
Des rühme der blut'ge Tyrann sich nicht,
Daß der Freund dem Freunde gebrochen die Pflicht,
Er schlachte der Opfer zweie
Und glaube an Liebe und Treue!«

Und die Sonne geht unter, da steht er am Tor,
Und sieht das Kreuz schon erhöhet,
Das die Menge gaffend umstehet;
An dem Seile schon zieht man den Freund empor,
Da zertrennt er gewaltig den dichter Chor:
»Mich, Henker«, ruft er, »erwürget!
Da bin ich, für den er gebürget!«

Und Erstaunen ergreifet das Volk umher,
In den Armen liegen sich beide
Und weinen vor Schmerzen und Freude.
Da sieht man kein Augen tränenleer,
Und zum Könige bringt man die Wundermär';
Der fühlt ein menschliches Rühren,
Läßt schnell vor den Thron sie führen,

Und blicket sie lange verwundert an.
Drauf spricht er: »Es ist euch gelungen,
Ihr habt das Herz mir bezwungen;
Und die Treue, sie ist doch kein leerer Wahn -
So nehmet auch mich zum Genossen an:
Ich sei, gewährt mir die Bitte,
In eurem Bunde der dritte!«

I wish I understood German.  Do you happen to know if there's an English, French, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish translation of this poem?  Thanks for sharing, Yvonne. :)

tink :icon_chick:

Quote from: Tink on May 26, 2007, 07:21:03 PM

Quote from: Yvonne on May 26, 2007, 03:57:51 PM
My favourite poet is Friedrich Schiller.  His poem, Die Bürgschaft, is one of the best written in German literature.  I like Schiller because he was one of the few poets who finds the smallest things interesting. He was a person who loved nature and seemed very wise in his approach to indirect messages.

Die Bürgschaft

I wish I understood German.  Do you happen to know if there's an English, French, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish translation of this poem?  Thanks for sharing, Yvonne. :)

tink :icon_chick:

Just for laughs, I tossed it to babelfish and this is a sample of what I got:

QuoteThe endorsement To Dionys, the Tyrannen, schlich Damon, the dolch in the garb: It those struck Hae in gang, "what wanted you with that dolche? speak!" Answers to it darkly raging Erich. "the city from the Tyrannen release!" "you are to repent that at the cross." "I am", speak that one, "to die ready and please not around my life: But you want to give me grace, I flehe you around three days time, until I the sister the husband gefreit; I leave the friend to you as a defiency guarantee, it like you, escape ' I, to erwuergen." There the king with bad cunning smiles and speaks after short doubt: "three days I want to give you; But knows, if it elapsed, which ' you are given to period, Eh back me, then he must plae instead of yours, but you is the punishment issued."

I know it's not the same as a real translation, but you get an idea of what it's about (not much idea).

Never had words made such an impact as I read this while still in high school.  I knew that I was bright, I knew that I would be successful, and I knew that I had a severe problem (my GID).  Except for back then in the 70's, I did not know it was GID.  I just thought that I was the only one in the world that was so strange to want to be a girl.  

For some reason, this poem picked me up.  It showed me that my path would be different and that I would be a better person for it.  I've long held it close to my heart.  I even convinced the choral director that we should perform a composition with this poem set as the lyrics.  We did so in my senior year.  

Also, when I was a senior, I talked our English teacher granting us the period out to read Frost under the birch trees when spring came.  She of course decided against it when the time came, so I convinced the class that it was perfectly within our rights to do it.  So we did.  We all took the period off, took our books out under the birch trees, and read Frost.  He wrote a poem about birch trees and of course that was one of our readings.  We were all officially reprimanded with a smile from the principal.  Our teacher did the same with a grin. I was very popular that day.  It was a good feeling.

Robert Frost has since become my favorite poet.  His verse and meter make sense to me. His words are simple but the meaning conveyed is great. His poetry always gives me something important to think about... or just a good nostalgic feeling taking me back to a moment in his life.



-  Cindi


The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,  
And sorry I could not travel both  
And be one traveler, long I stood  
And looked down one as far as I could  
To where it bent in the undergrowth;    
 
Then took the other, as just as fair,  
And having perhaps the better claim,  
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;  
Though as for that the passing there  
Had worn them really about the same,        
 
And both that morning equally lay  
In leaves no step had trodden black.  
Oh, I kept the first for another day!  
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,  
I doubted if I should ever come back.        
 
I shall be telling this with a sigh  
Somewhere ages and ages hence:  
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—  
I took the one less traveled by,  
And that has made all the difference.          

Thank you Becca.  I should have thought of that.  Duh! ;D
There you are my angel, thank you for sharing that amazing poem... :)

tink :icon_chick:

Quote from: Tink on May 26, 2007, 08:08:01 PM
Thank you Becca.  I should have thought of that.  Duh! ;D
There you are my angel, thank you for sharing that amazing poem... :)

tink :icon_chick:

No Problem.  Thanks for calling me Becca! it's my favorite nickname.   Yay for me!

My favourite poem is Green by Paul Verlaine. This is one reason I like green so much.  The French original version, makes me cry (over and over) I guess its because, this poem was written for me on my birthday, by the only person I have ever loved.
If you know French, try look up the Original version... I ve copied the English one ....not so good....Still . ...



GREEN

See, blossoms, branches, fruit, leaves I have brought,

And then my heart that for you only sighs;

With those white hands of yours, oh, tear it not,

But let the poor gift prosper in your eyes.



The dew upon my hair is still undried,--

The morning wind strikes chilly where it fell.

Suffer my weariness here at your side

To dream the hour that shall it quite dispel.



Allow my head, that rings and echoes still

With your last kiss, to lie upon your breast,

Till it recover from the stormy thrill,--

And let me sleep a little, since you rest
--- ---

French version

Voici des fruits, des fleurs, des feuilles et des branches
Et puis voici mon coeur qui ne bat que pour vous.
Ne le déchirez pas avec vos deux mains blanches
Et quà vos yeux si beaux lhumble présent soit doux.

Jarrive tout couvert encore de rosée
Que le vent du matin vient glacer à mon front.
Souffrez que ma fatigue à vos pieds reposée
Rêve des chers instants qui la délasseront.

Sur votre jeune sein laissez rouler ma tête
Toute sonore encor de vos derniers baisers ;
Laissez-la sapaiser de la bonne tempête.
Et que je dorme un peu puisque vous reposez.

              I have no favorite poet
              this is my favorite work today
              because it's the real deal

                HOWL BY ALLEN GINSBERG

                    For Carl Solomon

                           I

       I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
              madness, starving hysterical naked,
       dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
              looking for an angry fix,
       angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
              connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
              ery of night,
       who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
              up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
              cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
              contemplating jazz,
       who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
              saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tene-
              ment roofs illuminated,
       who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
              hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
              among the scholars of war,
       who were expelled from the academies for crazy &
              publishing obscene odes on the windows of the
              skull,
       who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burn-
              ing their money in wastebaskets and listening
              to the Terror through the wall,
       who got busted in their pubic beards returning through
              Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
       who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in
              Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their
              torsos night after night
              ...
       
Unfortunately I can not continue, without potentially arousing The Censors

Buddy Wakefield-Human The Death Dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w3ZJoLgCt8


Because it's so beautiful.




Last Edit by Tink
Reason:  to embed video into page

Poem: The Road Less Traveled

Author: Robert Frost

The Road Less Travelled

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,   
And sorry I could not travel both   
And be one traveler, long I stood   
And looked down one as far as I could   
To where it bent in the undergrowth;           5

Then took the other, as just as fair,   
And having perhaps the better claim,   
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;   
Though as for that the passing there   
Had worn them really about the same,           10

And both that morning equally lay   
In leaves no step had trodden black.   
Oh, I kept the first for another day!   
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,   
I doubted if I should ever come back.           15

I shall be telling this with a sigh   
Somewhere ages and ages hence:   
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—   
I took the one less traveled by,   
And that has made all the difference.

Reason:  This poem speaks of my life so strongly I just feel that it is me to a tee

Ny favorite poem is This Is Who I Am (http://webpages.charter.net/dtech/ladyofmystery.html) by Cheryl C. Helynck. Though it is not, one would almost think it was written about transgender life.

i can't hold my breath no longer. I hate 'em. I hate poems. Why can't any of that be said in a nice story or a single sentence. Why dress up a simple thought in twaddle or reduce a complicated one into dull preaching? Why not tell a story?

why not tell a story that has a beat, some rhymes, syllables in metre or rhythm.

I detest most poetry myself. My act of criticism is writing 'poetry', my dam self.

I'd prefer it having a melody or having enough happening rhythmically to where you'd call it *music*.

[I posted here a while back that I am my own fave poet, the fave poem is whatever I just made, the reason, because of these two facts.

Of course as 'modest as I am', I deleted it...

is that conflicted or what?  :-\]

i posted the only poem i ever wrote and it is still there.

LOL!

but why did you not post a story? if I keep seeing all this stuff on here, in EG: iambic pentameter, verse after verse, lorda mercy I'm going to be forced to post a LOT more of my garbagio...

and:
        I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
              madness, starving hysterical naked,
       dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
              looking for an angry fix,

is a purty compelling story line if you axe me.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, Susan Larson has written a very good poem "Echo's abound in the silence of the heart (http://webpages.charter.net/dtech/susans.html)."

i just like the space of a story. my shortest story is on my blog. I would love to like poems, I can understand from far away what might be good about them and would like to know them. Maybe i need tuition.

there is something claustro about words in metre, to me too; I approached the whole thing initially from the blank verse or prose-poesy point.

right now I am so p'o'd about religions making war that I occasionally come up with some pointed rhymes... I got beats to 'em now, even.

[I am so tempted to continue with this lame self-promo act, but, I should prefer not.]

that sounds like rapping...oooodear....

well, the beat to the thing that goes:

Yer Jew baby's stuck in a Cath'lic's Limbo
The Rapture spells doom "for all the rest o' y'all"
But I'm screwin' six dozen virgins up in Allah's Joint
And I say it's alla you, thet's bound for a fall


is in 7/8, with a separating bar of 4/4 betwen stanzas, so no worries. then, the instrumental section poses fives in the time of each two of the seven, for a scansion of 17.5, so it doesn't hoppity too dam hippity if you gets my drift


I think Dumb All Over is a good proto-rap choon:

Whoever we are
Wherever we're from
We shoulda noticed by now
Our behavior is dumb

And if our chances
Expect to improve
It's gonna take a lot more
Than tryin' to remove

The other race
Or the other whatever
From the face
Of the planet altogether

They call it THE EARTH
Which is a dumb kinda name
But they named it right
'Cause we behave the same...

We are dumb all over
Dumb all over,
Yes we are
Dumb all over,
Near 'n far
Dumb all over
Black 'n white
People, we is not wrapped tight

Nurds on the left
Nurds on the right
Religious fanatics
On the air every night

Sayin' the Bible
Tells the story
Makes the details
Sound real gory

'Bout what to do
If the geeks over there
Don't believe in the book
You got over here

You can't run a race
Without no feet
'N pretty soon
There won't be no street

For dummies to jog on
Or doggies to dog on
Religious fanatics
Can make it be all gone

(I mean it won't blow up
'N disappear
It'll just look ugly
For a thousand years...)

You can't run a country
By a book of religion
Not by a heap
Or a lump or a smidgeon

Of foolish rules
Of ancient date
Designed to make
You all feel great

While you fold, spindle
And mutilate
Those unbelievers
From a neighboring state

TO ARMS! TO ARMS!
Hooray! That's great
Two legs ain't bad
Unless there's a crate
They ship the parts
To mama in

For souvenirs: two ears (Get down!)
Not his, not hers (but what the hey?)
The Good Book says:
"It's gotta be that way!"

But their book says:
"REVENGE THE CRUSADES. . .
With whips 'n chains
'N hand grenades. . ."

TWO ARMS? TWO ARMS?
Have another and another
Our God says:
"There ain't no other!"

Our God says
"It's all okay!"
Our God says "This is the way!"

It says in the book:
"Burn 'n destroy. ..
'N repent, 'n redeem
'N revenge, 'n deploy
'N rumble thee forth
To the land of the unbelieving scum on the other side

'Cause they don't go for what's in the book
'N that makes 'em BAD
So verily we must choppeth them up
And stompeth them down

Or rent a nice French bomb
To poof them out of existence
While leaving their real estate just where we need it
To use again
For temples in which to praise OUR GOD
("Cause he can really GO HAWAIIAN!")

And when his humble TV servant
With humble white hair
And humble glasses
And a nice brown suit
And maybe a blonde wife who takes phone calls
Tells us our God says
It's okay to do this stuff
Then we gotta do it,
'Cause if we don't do it,
We ain't gwine up to hebbin!

(Depending on which book you're using at the time...
Can't use theirs. . .it don't work . . .it's all lies...Gotta use mine...)
Ain't that right?
That's what they say
Every night...
Everyday. ..

Hey, we can't really be dumb
If we're just following
God's Orders
Hey, let's get serious...
God knows what he's doin'
He wrote this book here
An'the book says:
He made us all to be just like Him,"
so...
If we're dumb...
Then God is dumb...
(An' maybe even a little ugly on the side)

Well, there was the who sprech-sang thing...blue light is my fave of them...

By the way...The catholic church have got rid of the idea of limbo now. it is not papal bull, but they have spent the last four years and have now decided that god might be a bit nicer than all that.

Quote from: Pica Pica on June 15, 2007, 04:58:46 PM
Well, there was the who sprech-sang thing...blue light is my fave of them...

By the way...The catholic church have got rid of the idea of limbo now.

ayup, that's what inspired the rhymes in the first place, my Yahooooooooooooooooo! hepped me to tha newz.

I did a sprechgesang sum 20 yrs ago called Like Jerry Lewis In One of Those Old Movies.
The French think I'm genius.

of course the french have stopped smoking now, apart from cheese it was what they were best at.

smoking anywhere other than your own property is illegal in an adjacent-to-here county...
guess which state?

and how off-topic are we?

California, they feel that if they never touch a cigarette again they will live forever. Our own public enclosed space ban starts and the first of the month.

no smoking in enclosed spaces, no es problemas, but we're talking out-of-doors, over in contra costa county

I just realized, looking at 'contra costa', what is that? 'counter coast'? 'against coast'?

it's too hot to do much else here... I mean, it must be 80 degrees out.

back on topic, ayup:

     

Quote from: Tink on May 25, 2007, 09:05:21 PM
Piecitos

English Translation

Little Feet

Little feet of children
blue with cold,
how can they see you and not cover you—
dear God!

Little wounded feet
cut by every stone,
hurt by snow
and mire.

Man, blind, does not know
that where you pass,
you leave a flower
of living light.

And where you set
your little bleeding foot,
the spikenard blooms
more fragrant.

etc...

I am sorry to say this.  It is not intended as an offense to anyone, but to translate this poem into English using such simple words and imagery is a total sacrilege.  There's no way that the meaning of the original poem can be conveyed in a foreign language, absolutely no way.

It completely bites dust in this translation, I concur

sorry for hijacking yr topic tink
but. love is never haffing to say yer sorry...:-*

---

            00

It must be inexorable, this groove -
or well-nigh -
Before she'll sit down on it
A chair of the first order
(to balance ass-gravity)
A polar magnetic
(to counter-act levity)
Before she'll let it pull her in
To a center
On the One
Zeroed In.

The equal-but-apposite attraction -
if full-on -
Appears rare as spun silk
Hard-as-diamonds to cut
(thru opaqueness-in-noise, hanging)
The true lingua franca
(by way of speaking, softly)
Might now suffice to lull her
In too deep
Into vortex
Zeroed Out.

Erased, Negated
Circular, Vacuous
Vessel In Sacra
Naked,
Holy

Pulling, Pulsating
Viscous, Electric
Word-In-Semina
Compleat,
Perfected.

La Petit Morte
case of a little death
going a long way

Empty/full
Blinding in its brilliance
In hot black compulsion
Action-painted
Jet-injected
Inter-coursing thru channels

Subsuming, consummate
She's all-in
Sublime, in-all
& All-Out

OM

---

     
Another One (01)

Her Angelic Voice (Vox Humana)
Melismatically washes my eyes
A torrent to match the sky's output;

A seasonal outpouring, as if to counter
Commercial, Sentimental, Strictly
The particular, especial function

Of a zone, and in accordance
With the accumulative effect
The accumulating affect

Supreme product of:
Superlatively produced for:
Hunted, gathered, bundled, packaged

En masse-ive inspiration, in that
New World Aspiration, bought from
Old School Derivation

An Enlightened Age's Evil Twin
Sibling giants, Towering, Destined
For a fall, for it's a harder rain will come -

Our sky, split apart at the seams
Our collective heart, breaking as one
(into Two, into Dieux, in to Deus)

Two: passing, spinning, dancing
Inextricable, inexplicable

Entwined, in embrace, In Aeterna, in tandem
Joining, spiralling, pulling, pushing
at outer limits, *Sins Fronteras*

Pointing to Infinity, where
There meets here, when
Matter finds its long-lost mate, we'll

Begin again, Finnegan
(& we all lost our chin, agin)
& Sleepers will Awake, in:

Your Honor; by your Offer; through
Your Heard Plea now answered
when the Dreamed meet the Dreamer

In an instant,
in a heartbeat,
in a starburst

Exploding/clarifying/momentous
Illuminating
Explicating All

Finally
In Sum
Totally

AUM


©2006 by My Favorite Poet

USED BY PERMISSION.

I think the Pica was just playing devil's advocate, or posing what Adorno calls a negative dialectic.

On the other hand, it is a matter of taste.
See, Pica's a Brit, and they got such awful food over there, and they drink something terrible, so... have some sympathy  :D

Do you have a fave poem-maker, Ell? Or do you tend to eschew such a limiting view of the necessary superlative?

nota

Wait!   I want to get in on the Pica bashing!   :D

Actually, Ms. Pica,

    If you listen to poetry it is much much better than reading it. There are recordings of lots of different poetry out there. The first one I heard was an old LP record of Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading "A Coney Island of the Mind".  Then, when I was in Germany, I borrowed some records from the Library on base and heard Orson Welles reading some great American poetry. And I heard some other stuff. It sounds better than it reads.  The older stuff is read in a funny manner because there used to be a 'proper' way of speaking and reading, but it still sounds cool.
    I'll bet there's lots of new stuff.

    T.S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland' sounds fab too.

Quote from: Ell on June 19, 2007, 09:12:50 PM
gosh, you sound like someone who hasn't yet realized that English is a beautiful, a glorious language. many of it's finest moments are in poetry. you seem to love music, but not to know that lyrics are are very close kin to poems. please bite your tongue, take back what you said, and keep looking. say you take it back.

I will not take it back.

I adore the English Language, I think it is wonderful and expressive, poetic techniques eke out the relationships between the signs and their signifiers, between the sounds and the meanings. I think the devices of poetry and the raw material of words are great things. But I think a poem is the worst example of those techniques in action. Because what I love about language, as well as it's sound is it's ability to communicate, and I don't think poems communicate in an atmosphere which lives and breathes.

They are fully formed and fully packed. There seems (for me) to be so little dialogue with the audience  in a poem. It's a little shining golden turd served proudly with garnish and a smug smile. If you want to enjoy language I think a good novel, play, joke or even conversation offers a much better chance to see language glisten and shine and communicate.

As for lyrics, they are part of the music, without the music most lyrics lose a lot of their life. Similarly a poem read becomes almost music. Poems are a pleasure of sounds and words for their own sake, to me anyway. No devils advocate, I don't like poems.

I hate critics who don't make stuff. Talk about a lot of useless words, signifying:

Nothing.

ARF.

Quote from: RebeccaFog on June 20, 2007, 08:37:02 AM

    If you listen to poetry it is much much better than reading it.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading "A Coney Island of the Mind". 

    T.S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland' sounds fab too.

Ginsberg reading HOWL, is rock and fricken ROLL

i make stuff, just most of my eggs are currently incubating

Didn't say you didn't. Yer still a critic, which is disgusting  :police:  ;)

love
nota

---

s'ok, I became a pedant today, which may be as bad

oh god, you might be right. and all i ever thought i was being was a mate in a pub with an opinion.

Quote from: Pica Pica on June 20, 2007, 09:45:34 AM
I adore the English Language, I think it is wonderful and expressive, poetic techniques eke out the relationships between the signs and their signifiers, between the sounds and the meanings. I think the devices of poetry and the raw material of words are great things. But I think a poem is the worst example of those techniques in action. Because what I love about language, as well as it's sound is it's ability to communicate, and I don't think poems communicate in an atmosphere which lives and breathes.

They are fully formed and fully packed. There seems (for me) to be so little dialogue with the audience  in a poem. It's a little shining golden turd served proudly with garnish and a smug smile. If you want to enjoy language I think a good novel, play, joke or even conversation offers a much better chance to see language glisten and shine and communicate.

As for lyrics, they are part of the music, without the music most lyrics lose a lot of their life. Similarly a poem read becomes almost music. Poems are a pleasure of sounds and words for their own sake, to me anyway. No devils advocate, I don't like poems.

I can't say that I even understand most of what you said there, but what thinkest thee of this?

Quote
                             Rocketman





"I want to make love to it." – groans

             the scientist

                                who has just designed

               a new missile

and wants nothing less

than to marry it

and live with it forever

in one long euphoric orgasm

to remind him of his genius

(until he can build a better one)



"No artist exists

           whose work is half as great

          as mine is." –

                                             , he moans,

confident that his relationship with truth –

                                        is secure.

   I think it's by 'anomolous'

Quote from: Ell on June 20, 2007, 11:44:17 PM


Robert Wallace said that "poetry is feeling, the expression of feeling, and the exploration and discipline of feeling."

I've said it's not. ;) And I've heard of me, so I think I win :) Actually I think poems are expressions of feelings, I agree with mister man Wallace. I just am very unsure that (for myself as an audience) a snapshot of feeling is enough, i want the space and freedom and depth of narrative to see that feeling tested, to see it tethered to the world, to see it live. Rather than presented for my delectation.

I read the poem, it's a man looking at the sea and being reminded of things he's heard of, and dropping the odd classical name in there for good measure and to make his musings seem less a meandering waste of words. The clash of pebbles reminds him of the clash of war, the ebbs of tides make him think of Sophocles talking about the ebb of fortunes.

However, there are some lovely phrases, thinking of the sea as a connection between a warring france and britain, of the pebbles sounding as the battle, it's all nice stuff. The first stanza is very involving, all the demands to look and listen, and the descriptions are beautifully done. Imagine if the first stanza, or even the poem was the start of a novel about the french/english wars? Imagine that it is an opening monologue in a play about a village where an old mine washes up and causes conflict and resurfaces old memories (you could also have sea/memory things as well).


Similarly Rebecca, your poem provides a nice picture. But I want to see more of the scientist. I want to see how he treats his wife, if he has one. I want it to be developed. I have numbers of ideas like that in my notebooks, little pictures which show something in a light and show a feeling. But I would feel lazy and shortchanging if I were to leave it like that and not develop it. For me creative writing is at it's most enjoyable when you go through the what ifs and the whys, to give me a starting place and nothing else feels like a cheat.

I think that many poems would work better being unravelled more, i spose that for the poem enthusiast it is the unravelling that provides the pleasure. It is a tight packed twine of a feeling, or feelings and the reader has to work out how it is arranged.  But that is often a way for a poet to be lazy, to put undigested thoughts on the table and pretend that those thoughts seem half-cooked because they are expressed obliquely, not because they are half cooked. (I myself am thinking on my feet, but you can see that - i am not trying to hide it.)

Basically I find poetry (often) used as a way to hide simple ideas or unthought ideas, or unexplored ideas in pretty words and is thus deceiving the reader that they are getting more than they are. In other words, it reminds me of philosophy. (Infact that might be it, I used to like a bit of poetry until I took philosophy).

My favorite poem would have to be the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. Such an odd story with lots of memorable quotes

"As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean."

"Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink."

Quote from: Pica Pica on June 21, 2007, 12:38:26 PM

Basically I find poetry (often) used as a way to hide simple ideas or unthought ideas, or unexplored ideas in pretty words and is thus deceiving the reader that they are getting more than they are. In other words, it reminds me of philosophy. (Infact that might be it, I used to like a bit of poetry until I took philosophy).

The Illinois Enema Bandit
I heard he's on the loose
I heard he's on the loose
Lord, the pitiful screams
Of all them college-educated women. . .
He just be tyin' 'em up
(They be all bound down!)
Just be pumpin' every one of 'em up with all the bag fulla
The Illinois Enema Bandit Juice
He just be pumpin' every one of 'em up with all the bag fulla
The Illinois Enema Bandit Juice

And I think I needs to send him Pica's way pretty quick here, jeez.

"It must be just what they all needs . . ''


I was having a convo with an actual poet one day. We were talking about the 'difference' (VIVA LA!) between lyrics and poems. We agreed that one tends to mistrust music a whole lot less than words. I look at words on a page, or on a screen, with a jaded (or chicken-plucked blind-) eye, much of the time. [Oh No, I Don't Believe It]

Oh no. this is sounding so Plato-nic. "One of these days I'm gonna call myself onna phone and tell myself to shut up."

nota

Quote from: Pica Pica on June 21, 2007, 12:38:26 PM

Quote from: Ell on June 20, 2007, 11:44:17 PM


Robert Wallace said that "poetry is feeling, the expression of feeling, and the exploration and discipline of feeling."

Basically I find poetry (often) used as a way to hide simple ideas or unthought ideas, or unexplored ideas in pretty words and is thus deceiving the reader that they are getting more than they are. In other words, it reminds me of philosophy. (Infact that might be it, I used to like a bit of poetry until I took philosophy).

They say that when you read a poem, you're supposed to taste, smell, hear and feel the words.  Just let your mind go with each stanza, the rest is just like a gateway to undiscovered experiences. ;)


What Is Poetry

The medieval town, with frieze
Of boy scouts from Nagoya? The snow
That came when we wanted it to snow?
Beautiful images? Trying to avoid

Ideas, as in this poem? But we
Go back to them as to a wife, leaving

The mistress we desire? Now they
Will have to believe it

As we believed it. In school
All the thought got combed out:

What was left was like a field.
Shut your eyes, and you can feel it for miles around.

Now open them on a thin vertical path.
It might give us--what?--some flowers soon?


John Ashbery


tink :icon_chick:

P.S.  Did you feel the coldness of the snow? did you see the beauty of the mistress?
Did you smell the freshness of the recent sharpened pencils in your old school? Did you hear the chirping of the birds in the vast greenness of the meadows?  ;)

Quote from: Tink on June 21, 2007, 07:31:20 PM

Quote from: Pica Pica on June 21, 2007, 12:38:26 PM

Quote from: Ell on June 20, 2007, 11:44:17 PM


Robert Wallace said that "poetry is feeling, the expression of feeling, and the exploration and discipline of feeling."

Basically I find poetry (often) used as a way to hide simple ideas or unthought ideas, or unexplored ideas in pretty words and is thus deceiving the reader that they are getting more than they are. In other words, it reminds me of philosophy. (Infact that might be it, I used to like a bit of poetry until I took philosophy).

They say that when you read a poem, you're supposed to taste, smell, hear and feel the words.
...

P.S.  Did you feel the coldness of the snow? did you see the beauty of the mistress?
Did you smell the freshness of the recent sharpened pencils in your old school? Did you hear the chirping of the birds in the vast greenness of the meadows?  ;)

I did not. I totally did not, and I don't necessarily think it's my failure of imagination. If I took some acid I might be able to smell a word. If it smelled real strong. :P

none

Quote from: None of the Above on June 21, 2007, 07:44:38 PM

I did not. I totally did not, and I don't necessarily think it's my failure of imagination. If I took some acid I might be able to smell a word. If it smelled real strong. :P

none

or, if the word was literally the word "smell" or "stink", or "poo".

Quote from: RebeccaFog on June 21, 2007, 08:02:13 PM

Quote from: None of the Above on June 21, 2007, 07:44:38 PM

I did not. I totally did not, and I don't necessarily think it's my failure of imagination. If I took some acid I might be able to smell a word. If it smelled real strong. :P

none

or, if the word was literally the word "smell" or "stink", or "poo".

On acid it'd be a moot point. "Literally smell", by means of words on a screen, I ain't feeling it today.

NB: We are now hip-deep waders in the field of aesthetic philosophy here. Pica has turned into a critic, and I'm about to lose my religion here, too, so I better be Bartleby and prefer not.

not a...

---

I just got the joke, Rebecca. [I think.] If *the word* was something I am not allowed to type here, even with a strike-thru, that word would figuratively sum up the whole question of this flowery poetry bidness. For me.

N.OT.A.

not
off-topic
am I?

Quote from: Ell on June 21, 2007, 09:07:50 PM

ok i'm not going to hit you with a steel pica ruler after all. you've made some real progress.

here's a slightly different take on Arnold's theme:

The Dover Bitch      

So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
And he said to her, ''Try to be true to me,
And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
All over, etc., etc.''
Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read
Sophocles in a fairly good translation
And caught that bitter allusion to the sea,
But all the time he was talking she had in mind
The notion of what his whiskers would feel like
On the back of her neck. She told me later on
That after a while she got to looking out
At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad,
Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds
And blandishments in French and the perfumes.
And then she got really angry. To have been brought
All the way down from London, and then be addressed
As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort
Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty.
Anyway, she watched him pace the room
And finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit,
And then she said one or two unprintable things.
But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is,
She's really all right. I still see her once in a while
And she always treats me right. We have a drink
And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year
Before I see her again, but there she is,
Running to fat, but dependable as they come.
And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d' Amour.

-Anthony Hecht.

Now this is much better, I got people, I got story - I got people who move and think like real people not aesthetic-bots. All it needs to do is learn proper sentences, instead of the poem broken up look and it would be eminently readable. It even talks about reading Sophocles as if it was something anyone can do, rather than the other poem dropping him in like an instant intelligence increaser.

yeah that one ain't half bad. Y'all kin have that John Ashberry dreck though.  :P

None of that aesthetic

The hand of the day unfolds
Three small clouds
And these few words.

Octavio Paz

Paz won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990.

In these few words he had described many a morning that I stood speechless at the wonder of a new day.

Ok, since I have been such an ass thus far, might as well go for the gusto. Here's why the Ashberry don't work, for me:

Quote
The medieval town, with frieze
Of boy scouts from Nagoya? The snow

works quite well, rhythmically, until it subverts itself with this break in the line:

Quote
That came when we wanted it to snow?
Beautiful images? Trying to avoid

STOP which becomes the rhythmic device of the piece:

Quote
Ideas, as in this poem? But we
Go back to them as to a wife, leaving

Here we go again, tighter. It doesn't work in the first place, for me. It's crap music.

Quote
The mistress we desire? Now they

then he does this (which I understand, according to his rhythm, he cadences well, I mean I am not saying he lacks craft, but, I would think from this work, that he lacks talent.):

Quote
Now open them on a thin vertical path.
It might give us--what?--some flowers soon?

But, still: "--what?-- some flowers soon?" Is awkward in more ways that I even want to describe.

signed
my favorite critic

 To be honest there are so many repls here I have not read them all.
But my favorite poem is Robert Frost. He was at my high school ( which shows you how old I am).

"The Road less travelled" and it has made all the differance in my life.

  Bobbi

Quote from: TG-Bobbi on June 22, 2007, 03:48:45 PM
To be honest there are so many repls here I have not read them all.
But my favorite poem is Robert Frost. He was at my high school ( which shows you how old I am).

"The Road less travelled" and it has made all the differance in my life.

  Bobbi

No sweat, Bobbi, as long as you can't say you've met Stephen Crane.

Quote from: Pica Pica on June 22, 2007, 11:23:13 AM
All it needs to do is learn proper sentences, instead of the poem broken up look and it would be eminently readable.

::)
I guess The Bandit got seriously delayed at the airport, Homeland Security and that

A good prose writer breaks the rules of syntax and all that. And has the freedom to choose to break the rules of syntax as opposed to poetry when it is a rule of itself.

The bandit is still trying to explain the length of rubber hose.

Quote from: Pica Pica on June 24, 2007, 11:48:05 AM
A good prose writer breaks the rules of syntax and all that. And has the freedom to choose to break the rules of syntax as opposed to poetry when it is a rule of itself.

The bandit is still trying to explain the length of rubber hose.

- as well as the specific density of the bag leading to the hose.

So, prose is free, and poetry is not, is your half-baked (at best) argument.

Nah, I don't buy it, prose is merely very very cheap.

can't say all my arguments are good. :D (or any possibly)

I think at heart my problem is that a poem seems an elaborate game, where prose is a sustained bit of communication which really can go where it would wish. In the right hands....I would count early forms of writing as prose rather than poetry - the Illiads and Gilgameshes of this world. But maybe that is just cos i want to claim them for my own...

Well neither of them are actually music, but poems come a good deal closer, so I think
I win   ^-^

Posted on: June 24, 2007, 02:32:34 PM

---

Quote from: Rebis on June 20, 2007, 08:26:28 PM

Quote
                             Rocketman





"I want to make love to it." – groans

             the scientist

                                who has just designed

               a new missile

and wants nothing less

than to marry it

and live with it forever

in one long euphoric orgasm

to remind him of his genius

(until he can build a better one)



"No artist exists

           whose work is half as great

          as mine is." –

                                             , he moans,

confident that his relationship with truth –

                                        is secure.

   I think it's by 'anomolous'

Took me a while to come round to this, but I realize now what a good pome-thing this here is.

The design of the space conveys with the rhythm of the words, it works. I didn't see it til I heard it.

Quote from: None of the Above on July 18, 2007, 12:53:52 AM

Took me a while to come round to this, but I realize now what a good pome-thing this here is.

The design of the space conveys with the rhythm of the words, it works. I didn't see it til I heard it.

Are you serious?  Or, are you gouging my red & sickened eye (with your tongue)?

       -  nah, it's good, I think...

see, I actually resist poetry, strenuously enough sometimes


  and that whole, ee cummings-style,

              poetry on a page, visual poetry gig -

           I resist that most of all.


  - a lot of it seems to do that to obfuscate the fact

           that it rhythmically sucks, like this one I am making..


your thing appears to work.


(: the critic)


not everyone can do it, as I have just demonstrated.

Thank you, Miss.

I became disgusted
with myself
because
for a long time,
I had lost
my rhythm.

I was trying to write like Steven Crane, but present it as ee.

Maybe it seems okay because the content & the rhythm were first & the form was last.

Form before content can work, but the content is the thing that matters. Empty forms are boring boring boring.  Now excuse me, I have some books to burn.

I almost forgot.  You can do it. You need to ignore the form until you've established a rhythm.  I apologize if I am speaking as if I know something. I have never discussed THE PROCESS with anyone.  Probably I have no idea of what I'm talking about.

I have trouble with the idea of form before content, unless it's - form's - a rhythmic scheme that is based on a very successful improvisation in the first place.

which come to think of it is form and content simultaneously

---

while I'm in full-on critic mode,

(and thanks so much for causing it  ^-^)

I might point out that the people who read poetry these days
tend more and more to be the upper-stratified,

ivory-tower intellectumals

and the creator begins to reflect the audience - and vice versa - to the extent of:

more and more, upper-stratified experience is what determines the content -

dinner parties in fine restaurants

elaborate machinations, fancy thoughts, dressed up in fine language

to impress the object, fleeting objects, of desire
guys bu-lshi-ting girls (or guys), trying to 'get lucky'

and what you get is John Ashberry
or Ralph Angel, who is worse...

so burn those two suckers' books down, I won't protest


Posted on: July 19, 2007, 08:25:15 AM

---

I totally would go with:

'I had lost my rhythm' in one line,
I don't like breaking the line at the cadence


(: the teacher)

Okay. Not only will I burn their books, but I will burn them down to. may as well go right to the source of the trouble. [i wish there was a 'mean face' emoticon]

Please try and not make martyrs of mediocrities, though...

is this yer mean face?  >:(

I like the one called 'azn' -

which reads ASIAN:

it's INSCRUTABLE!  ^-^

heh

 >:( works for me  >:(

There is this poet; unknown is his name.  Waves flowing through his mind.  Memories crossing mine.


Our First Kiss

A physical manifestation
of the passion
conjured through words written by, hopeful, disconnected lovers
meeting to confirm the reality of repressed feelings and desires.  An urgent, yet brief, expression
of decadent sensations
meant to reveal the validity of desires
communicated but not experienced.

A Pandora's box of intimate secrets
tasted with eager mouths
devoured with reckless abandon
and hinting of the indescribable power contained within.

No other kiss will ever be like it, as the next will feed off the first and become something new and infinitely more powerful, continuing with ever increasing need until the ultimate expression of this emerging ecstasy is experienced, transforming the latent desire into a separate entity of two people merged in a lovers naked embrace.

Unknown Author

**************************************************************



Love in the Making


You touch my hand and my body goes weak
With sweet, gentle motion, your kiss meets my cheek
Your lips search for mine, so soft and so light
And flames of desire burst forth and ignite

Your arms wrap around me, you pull me so tight
My wanting and need, I can no longer fight
My body now quivering with each move you make
With thirst for fullfillment, I tremble and shake

So gentle you are, as I bear you my soul
To have you completely is my burning goal
Like poetry in motion, we search and explore
With desire still building, our passions both soar

With rythm so perfect, each kiss a delight
Our love in the making is a beautiful sight
Our passionate frenzy climbs higher still
As we give up our all, with this need to fullfill

Hearts beating faster, no mountain's too high
With fires now blazing, we soon touch the sky
Our two souls entwining as we melt into one
And euphoric elation has finally began

Wondrous explosions bring moans of pure joy
Satisfaction's unbounded as we wind down our play
Sweet words of, "I love you", you breathe in my ear
Our love in the making, so true and sincere.

Unknown Author



tink :icon_chick:

Quote from: Tink on July 21, 2007, 04:15:39 AM

With sweet, gentle motion, your kiss meets my cheek
Your lips search for mine, so soft and so light
And flames of desire burst forth and ignite

oh my. i do believe i am gettin' the vapors!   *fans her neck with her hand*

Quote from: Rebis on July 19, 2007, 10:06:31 AM

I almost forgot.  You can do it. You need to ignore the form until you've established a rhythm. 

nah, F that. If I try to separate 'form' from 'rhythm', then I am truly Rogered. and if it takes any work at all, I'll just pick up my messikin stratocaster or go beat on something instead.

(: the dilettante)

I found the perfect synthesis...

David Baders, One Hundred Great Books In Haiku

For example;

Herodotus Histories

Go tell the spartans-
the persion hordes are fierce and
wear funny slippers


Alexandre Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo

Gallant Avenger.
Egg-dipped cheese sandwich. Thy name
is Monte Cristo

etc..etc...etc


and Finally


"Who dat fine knight be?"
asked the saucy Moorish wench.
"Dat be Ivan, ho."