Poets

[amber]

Originally Posted by JazmenFlowers

see...I do have substance...I'm more than sun-ripened raspberries and polished eyebrows...

I love The Windhover and The Darkling Thrush - thanks for posting those...I love the alliteration and sibilance in those poems.

I wrote a "response" to Dylan Thomas' Fern Hill that I should post...it won a couple of awards.

You should, I love that poem. In fact it's the only one that came to mind....

[The Tower]

My great-grandfather was a published poet in the early 20th century. I not all that big on "the written word" poetry as much as poetry that happens to be set to music (and by this I am not talking about something like "Listen to the Rain"....).

The Evening Primrose by Benjamin Britten

When once the sun sinks in the West
And dew drops pearl the evenings breast
Almost as pale as moonbeams are
Or its companionable star

The evening primrose ope's anew
Its delicate blossom to the dew
And hermit-like, shunning the light
Wakes its fair bloom upon the night

Who blindfold to its fond caresses
Knows not the beauty he possesses

Thus it blooms on while night is by
When day looks out with open eye
Bashed at the gaze it cannot shun
It faints and withers and is gone

[amber]

That was a nice poem, Towie.

I'm going to put Ferhill, in case no one has read it. "Time held me green and dying, though I sang in my chains like the sea" - oh, that line gets me every time. Why can't Stevie write a Fernhill based song???

This is like, my mind's theme poem. Geez, I knew I shouldn't have stopped to read it, now I'm crying.




Fern Hill

by Dylan Thomas

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

[Jyqm]

Originally Posted by The Tower

My great-grandfather was a published poet in the early 20th century. I not all that big on "the written word" poetry as much as poetry that happens to be set to music (and by this I am not talking about something like "Listen to the Rain"....).

The Evening Primrose by Benjamin Britten

When once the sun sinks in the West
And dew drops pearl the evenings breast
Almost as pale as moonbeams are
Or its companionable star

The evening primrose ope's anew
Its delicate blossom to the dew
And hermit-like, shunning the light
Wakes its fair bloom upon the night

Who blindfold to its fond caresses
Knows not the beauty he possesses

Thus it blooms on while night is by
When day looks out with open eye
Bashed at the gaze it cannot shun
It faints and withers and is gone

Nice! The second line in particular is just fantastic.

I know there's other people around here who have written poetry of their own. Don't be shy, kids.

[JazmenFlowers]

I found this on postsecret.com and thought it was pretty interesting...

[GypsySorcerer]

My favorite poet is William Blake, and my favorite works of his are found in Songs of Innocence and Experience. http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/sinex10h.htm

I also enjoy Adrienne Rich, Walt Whitman, and Sylvia Plath.

[irishgrl]

I have always thought Paul Simon was a poet. some of the imagery he evokes is just powerful:

hello darkness my old friend, Ive come to talk to you again.....
************
Its a still life watercolor....from a now late afternoon
and the sun shines thru the curtain lace, and shadows wash the room
**************
Old friends, old friends,
Sat on their parkbench like bookends
A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes
of the high shoes of the old friends
************
They say that Richard Cory owns one half of this whole town,
With political connections to spread his wealth around.
Born into society, a banker's only child,
He had everything a man could want: power, grace, and style.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I'm living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

[Jyqm]

I think this thread should be kept going. Ideally, it should end up longer than the "This could get tricky" thread. Keep the poems comin', people!

Here's "Seascape," by Elizabeth Bishop (the way she constructs the scene, and the total control she has over her images, is just breathtaking):

This celestial seascape, with white herons got up as angels,
flying high as they want and as far as they want sidewise
in tiers and tiers of immaculate reflections;
the whole region, from the highest heron
down to the weightless mangrove island
with bright green leaves edged neatly with bird-droppings
like illumination in silver,
and down to the suggestively Gothic arches of the mangrove roots
and the beautiful pea-green back-pasture
where occasionally a fish jumps, like a wildflower
in an ornamental spray of spray;
this cartoon by Raphael for a tapestry for a Pope:
it does look like heaven.
But a skeletal lighthouse standing there
in black and white clerical dress,
who lives on his nerves, thinks he knows better.
He thinks that hell rages below his iron feet,
that that is why the shallow water is so warm,
and he knows that heaven is not like this.
Heaven is not like flying or swimming,
but has something to do with blackness and a strong glare
and when it gets dark he will remember something
strongly worded to say on the subject.

[Richard B]

Originally Posted by irishgrl

I have always thought Paul Simon was a poet. some of the imagery he evokes is just powerful:

I completely agree with you. The man is a poet. He sees life in poetry. He married another beatnik poet, Edie Brickell. A match made in heaven.

Down among the reeds and rushes
A baby boy was found
His eyes as clear as centuries
His silky hair was brown

Never been lonely
Never been lied to
Never had to scuffle in fear
Nothing denied to
Born at the instant
The church bells chime
And the whole world whispering
Born at the right time

Me and my buddies we are travelling people
We like to go down to restaurant row
Spend those Euro-dollars
All the way from Washington to Tokyo
I see them in the airport lounge
Upon their mother's breast
They follow me with open eyes
Their uninvited guest

Never been lonely
Never been lied to
Never had to scuffle in fear
Nothing denied to
Born at the instant
The church bells chime
And the whole world whispering
Born at the right time

Too many people on the bus from the airport
Too many holes in the crust of the earth
The planet groans
Every time it registers another birth

But among the reeds and rushes
A baby girl was found
Her eyes as clear as centuries
Her silky hair was brown

Never been lonely
Never been lied to
Never had to scuffle in fear
Nothing denied to
Born at the instant
The church bells chime
And the whole world whispering
Born at the right time