Poetry

[Bunnylump]

OK being as how it's National Poetry Day today I thought I'd give you some interesting reading, This might at first glance seem like quite a pessimistic poem...but who can tell me how you might be able to see something quite different in it?

LOST GENERATION
I'm a part of Lost Generation
and I refuse to believe that
I can change the world
I realize this may be a shock but
"Happiness comes from within"
is a lie, and
"Money will make me happy"
So in thirty years I'll tell my children
They are not the most important thing in my life
My employer will know that
I have my priority straight because
Work
Is more important than
Family
I tell you this
Once upon a time
Families stay together
But this will not be true in my era
This is a quick fix society
Experts tell me
Thirty years from now I will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my divorce
I do not concede that
I will live in a country of my own making
In the future
Environmental destruction will be the norm
No longer can it be said that
My peers and I care about this earth
It will be evident that
My generation is apathetic and lethargic
It is foolish to presume that
There is hope

And all of this will come true unless we reverse it.

[Scurra]

Tim Minchin has a song called "Cont" which has a similar sort of idea.
It goes like this... (I tried to edit out the most egregious sweary bits!)

I don't like Jews
Neither should you
They're ethically and spiritually poor
That's a fact

I don't like black people
It's just not acceptable
There should be some kind of law
That is that

And I get the shits
With Inuits
They get on my tits
The little bastards

And women
Just make me so mad
Does that make me bad?
Am I bad?
Is that bad?

And lesbians and the bi-curious
Make me furious
It's not their fault I know
But still...
Grr...

And **** Christians
I just want to punch them in their faces

And I'm not comfortable with Muslims on the tube

And I can't stand publicly breast-feeding mothers

And I hate gays who talk happily

And the Chinese make me angry

I hate the rich

I hate the poor

I hate bitches

I hate whores

I hate Africans

I hate Japanese

I hate the disabled

I hate Burmese

Yeah I don't care about your color or your creed
I will judge you for no reason

“Crap, Sorry. That's the trouble with trying out new stuff. I had half the lyrics covered up. I think we should probably do it again. I think if we leave it there I might run the risk of being misconstrued. It's not even called 'Cont', it called 'Context'.”

I don't like Jews
Who make and distribute kiddy porn
Neither should you
Their ethically and spiritually poor
That's a fact

I don't like black people
Who risk billions of other peoples money gambling on future derivatives
It's just not acceptable
There should be some kind of law
That is that

And I get the shits
With Inuits
Who find out what job I do
And regale me with a racist joke or two
They get on my tits
The little bastards

And women
Who judge other women for not holding the some views as them vis-a-vis career and mothering
Just make me so mad
Does that make me bad?
Am I bad?
Is that bad?

And lesbians and the bi-curious
Make me furious
When their pride parade blocked the traffic flow
when my baby had asthma and had to go to the hospital
It's not their fault I know
But still...
Grr...

And **** Christians
Who lean on their horn when my wife is being cautious at an intersection
I just want to punch them in their faces
Although my anger is fleeting
I understand their frustration
She's a little too hesitant

And I'm not comfortable Muslims on the tube
Who look over my shoulder when I'm readin'

And I can't stand publicly breast-feeding mothers
Who smoke cigarettes while their feeding

And I hate gays who talk happily
During the final act of King Lear

And the Chinese make me angry
When they make sham erection potions out of the horns of endangered rhinoceros

I hate the rich who use their wealth as an excuse for bigotry

I hate the poor who use their poverty as an excuse for bigotry

I hate bitches who get rabies and try to bite babies

I hate whores who wont accept visa

I hate Africans racists

I hate Japanese homophobes

I hate those disabled rapists

I hate Burmese cats

Yeah I don't care about your color or your creed
I will judge you for no reason
But your deeds

[MBH]

I think I should just keep my mouth shut on this thread.... I love rhythm and rhyme and the clever use of words BUT.....

I.... DON'T.... understand.... poetry

It may have been last poetry day (or the one before) that I tried with a book of fan-created poetry about Star Trek [thinking that if I'm into the subject matter then I'd get into the poetry] - Nothing! [Whereas I think "Ode to Spot" is brilliant]

I've tried the Stephen Fry book that is regularly quoted on the subject - got a couple of chapters in (and did the 'exercises') then packed it in for wizards and space ships.

On the Lost Generation one I read from the first word to the word "World" without a pause or a breath - so why do the lines end where they do?

It's not something I try to think about because it is very frustrating to simply not understand something that other people enjoy.

[Scurra]

For the Lost Generation one, the puzzle is indeed in exactly why the lines end where they do...

As for whether you "get" poetry or not - well, I suppose it's the same as other people who don't "get" puzzles.

[Laura]

Don't worry MBH. I understand music and poetry, but I have a complete blank spot as far as physical art goes. I can appreciate when something is a good likeness to the original, but other than that, I just don't get it. My family love the Yorkshire Sculpture Park which is 10 mins away from us, and I just think it's a load of stuff spoiling an otherwise beautiful view. There are also far too many sheep there for my liking, but that's just because I'm scared of them!!!

[Bunnylump]

Note folks, do make sure you read ALL of the song Scurra posted. Don't just give up in horror after a few lines...

[MBH]

For the Lost Generation one, the puzzle is indeed in exactly why the lines end where they do...

OK - I've been told what to look for in this and I'd never have seen that in a million years.... but I'm claiming puzzler-points for noticing what I noticed I wouldn't have solved it but I might have given a team-mate a clue

To celebrate the day I'll offer a recent item from someone I like - Kate Fox (who I once met - although I didn't know she was a poet at the time). This is from her experience of the Great North Run.

From the Great North Run Culture website:

On April 5 2011 Kate launched her residency at the Great North Run Hall of Fame with the poem You Don't Look Like a Runner.

You Don't Look Like A Runner
You? You couldn't run for a bus
or to the end of our street.
You haven't got the right shoes,
You haven't got the right feet,

You make Jabba the Hutt look graceful,
You just weren't Born to Run,
You couldn't pace set for a snail,
You're more funeral than fun.

You're more gradual than evolution,
Slower than a three toed sloth's brain,
You suffer more delays than
A GNER train.


You are...well you're hefty,
You've got wobbly bits and breasts
And bingo wings and lumps
That weren't designed for vests.

Your only experience of half a Marathon,
Is scoffing a renamed chocolate bar,
If you could you'd get to your kitchen
By driving there in your car.

I reply with all the numbers,
The pounds that I will lose
The pounds that I will make
The calories I will use.

The 50 000 other runners,
The 30 years of history,
The 21 water stations,
The millions raised for charity.

But I don't have to be a mathematician either,
And reach for numbers ever bigger,
To show the impressive shrinkage
In my sweating or my figure.

I don't have to be an athlete,
I don't have to make like Zola Budd,
I don't have to beat a record
In order to feel good.

I just want to feel connected,
To be part of something more,
To train my body and my mind
To reach something they've never reached before.

I still won't look like a runner,
And a runner won't look like me
But when I've done my 13 miles
A Great North Runner is what I'll be.


EDIT: I've just found out that I never got to see her finished piece - Short lines, but powerful stuff.

http://www.greatnorthrunculture.org/blo ... e-run-poem

[Bunnylump]

Just in case anyone is still mystified...
If you read the poem backwards (one line at a time) it totally alters the feeling of the poem from a pessimistic tone to an optimistic one.

[Bunnylump]

I'm currently working with a year 11 class on the poetry module for GCSE, and really enjoying it. With the best will in the world, we don't tend to get round to reading new poetry, do we? So I thought I would share them with you here as I work through them. Feel free to ignore if you don't like poems! The module we are studying is relationships. I thought this one was poignant.

Harmonium

The Ferrand Chapelette was gathering dust
In the shadowy porch of Marsden Church,
And was due to be bundled off to the skip.
Or was mine, for a song, if I wanted it.

Sunlight, through stained glass, which day to day
could beatify saints and raise the dead,
had aged the harmonium's softwood case
and yellowed the fingernails of its keys.
And one of its notes had lost its tongue
and holes were worn in both the treadles
where the organist's feet, in grey, woollen socks
and leather-soled shoes, had pedalled and pedalled.

But its hummed harmonics still struck a chord:
for a hundred years that organ had stood
by the choristers' stalls, where father and son,
each in their time, had opened their throats
and gilded finches - like high notes - had streamed out.

Through his own blue cloud of tobacco smog,
with smoker's fingers and dottled thumbs,
he comes to help me cart it away.
And we carry it flat, laid on its back.
And he, being him, can't help but say
that the next box I'll shoulder through this nave
will bear the freight of his own dead weight.
And I, being me, then mouth in reply
some shallow or sorry phrase or word
too starved of breath to make itself heard.

[Scurra]

With the best will in the world, we don't tend to get round to reading new poetry, do we?

Speak for yourself. Thanks for that though.

On the other hand, I do generally prefer Roger McGough.

The only problem
with haiku is that you just
get started and then

[Wulfruna]

Thanks Bunny - I enjoyed that.

[Bunnylump]

Today's poem for you...

Nettles

My son aged three fell in the nettle bed
"Bed" seemed a curious name for those green spears,
That regiment of spite behind the shed;
It was no place for rest. With sobs and tears
The boy came seeking comfort and I saw
White blisters beaded on his tender skin.
We soothed him till his pain was not so raw.
At last he offered us a watery grin.
And then I took my hook and honed the blade
And went outside and slashed in fury with it
Till not a nettle in that fierce parade
Stood upright any more. Next task, I lit
A funeral pyre to burn the fallen dead.
But in two weeks the busy sun and rain
Had called up tall recruits behind the shed.
My son would often feel sharp wounds again.

[Bunnylump]

And another (quite like this one, reminds me of my youth, when lots of rolling around in the straw occurred!! Obviously the undertones about the man not reciprocating, and being rich don't apply though!!!! )

HOUR

Love's time's beggar, but even a single hour
bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.
We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers
or wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.

For thousands of seconds we kiss; your hair
like treasure on the ground; the Midas light
turning your limbs to gold. Time slows, for here
we are millionaires, backhanding the night

so nothing dark will end our shining hour,
no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spit
hung from the blade of grass at your ear,
no chandelier or spotlight see you better lit

than here. Now. Time hates love, wants love poor,
but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw.

[Bunnylump]

I rather liked this one.

QUICKDRAW

I wear the two, the mobile and the landline phones,
like guns, slung from the pockets on my hips I'm all
alone. You ring, quickdraw, your voice a pellet
in my ear, and hear me groan.

Next time, you speak after the tone I twirl the phone,
then squeeze the trigger of my tongue, wide of the mark.
You choose your spot, then blast me.

And this is love, high noon, calamity, hard liquor
in the old Last Chance saloon. I show the mobile
to the Sherriff; in my boot, another one's

concealed. You text them both at once. I reel.
Down on my knees, I fumble for the phone,
read the silver bullets of your kiss. Take this...
and this...and this...and this...and this...

[Bunnylump]

And this one is lovely.

PRAISE SONG FOR MY MOTHER

You were
water to me
deep and bold and fathoming

You were
moon's eye to me
pull and grained and mantling

You were
sunrise to me
rise and warm and streaming

You were
the fishes red gill to me
the flame tree's spread to me
the crap's leg / the fried plantain smell
Replenishing replenishing

Go to your wide futures, you said.