Sheer Poetry

[MBH]

I'm putting this link on here, as I heard this poem on local radio tonight.

First a little about myself and 'The Arts' - artworks (of any medium) should take skill and effort [not just a good story for the press] If I could physically do it, then I probably don't consider it art. Likewise poetry should generally have rhythm and rhyme [although I do think Haiku can be very clever]. I KNOW that sets me at odds with more cultured people who hold different views - that's just the way my brain works.

So when I heard the following on Frank Wappat's program - read in the local accent - it caught my ear and had me laughing in a number of places:

http://webspace.webring.com/people/oc/c ... lsto2.html

[Note: The poem goes back at least to the 1960s with the political figures being Wilson and de Gaulle]

[Scurra]

Thanks for that. Very amusing (I'm sure I've read a version of it from Liverpool before.)

Likewise poetry should generally have rhythm and rhyme [although I do think Haiku can be very clever]. I KNOW that sets me at odds with more cultured people who hold different views - that's just the way my brain works.

Here's a book to add to your reading list then. Stephen Fry: The Ode Less Travelled

It's one of the best "crash-courses" in poetry you'll find, and I think you'll find it also explains an awful lot about why poetry is what it is, and how to begin to grasp why rhythm and rhyme aren't essential. Plus Stephen Fry is as naturally engaging on the page as he is on screen.

[MBH]

Thanks Scurra I'm sure the last time I got into this discussion the exact same book was suggested. It was a couple of weeks ago, with a girl I work with in the library. She knew some of my reading habits, and as it was "Poetry Month" she had suggested a book of fan written Star Trek 'poetry'.

A quick look through found (to MY eye) random, wandering words that did not resemble poetry as I definied it (from my OWN opinion), and worse still didn't include "Ode to Spot"..... I know - it was fan written - but since that was the major poetic presentation in "Next Gen" you'd hve think they would have included it

It was one of those awful situations where you wanted an interesting discussion for an hour of two, but needed to be at your next work session in 15 minutes (and it was 10 minutes drive away) So I dived on the Internet and printed "Ode to Spot" out for her (which she had never heard of).

I'll hunt down the Stephen Fry book then see if I can pick up the conversation with her again in the future.

[Bunnylump]

Loved the poem, MBH. I would have loved it more read in a Geordie accent (but I can't do one of those in my head).

BUT I must say, I like poetry which DOESN'T rhyme or scan or anything. I like poems which are INDIVIDUAL and conjure up a picture in my mind. To me it's the use of language and the choice of words which is the important thing. Same with books. Which is why I think Reader's digest is such an abomination. That writer sweated blood and tears to have those words IN THAT ORDER, and without random chunks removed. It's also the reason I read so little. I have to read EVERY word and EVERY sentence carefully, savour it, and move on. So it's an excruciatingly slow process. SCANNING is my idea of hell.

Yes, I know I'm odd.

[clvrlad]

hate to say it but im firmly on the fence
course my bit of the fence is down the road to on side
i do like some rhyming couplets well some mostly funny ones
but i like some of the non rhyming ones too
mostly i like evocative funny poems that dont take them selves too seriously
my fave poem is i wandered lonely as a cloud
which strangely enough was written in the area im living now......as a pub i go in proudly says on the wall
and just to be awkward

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
what wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

[Bunnylump]

MBH sent me this link, which I think is so funny. Have a listen!!

(A special treat for those ladies who like the sound of a Geordie accent).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19YrgkXGxWU

[Cenwulf]

A verse which I would have sent in to the Countdown Limerick Competition if I'd actually bothered to enter.

The TV presenter Jeff Stelling
Hosts a show about numbers and spelling
While the fair Rachel Riley
Looks at him quite shyly -
Is it love? We don't know - they're not telling.

[MBH]

Very good. I LIKE Limericks (as you all may have guessed from my comments about rhyme, etc)

Any style with strong 'rules' like this (or those amazing haiku we were all creating) means you end up with clever use of the language to tell the full story and stay within the rules. O read a good book about them once by Robert A Heinlein who was a keen Limirisist

[Redfraggle]

I love limericks and I love all different kinds of poetry. Im especially touched by this one.

http://ingeb.org/songs/atdawnof.html

I also love this one, I got it in an e-mail.

A drunk man in an Oldsmobile
They said had run the light
That caused the six-car pileup
On 109 that night.

When broken bodies lay about
And blood was everywhere,
The sirens screamed out eulogies,
For death was in the air.

A mother, trapped inside her car,
Was heard above the noise;
Her plaintive plea near split the air:
Oh, God, please spare my boys!

She fought to loose her pinned hands;
She struggled to get free,
But mangled metal held her fast
In grim captivity.

Her frightened eyes then focused
On where the back seat once had been,
But all she saw was broken glass and
Two children's seats crushed in.

Her twins were nowhere to be seen;
She did not hear them cry,
And then she prayed they'd been thrown free,
Oh, God, don't let them die!

Then firemen came and cut her loose,
But when they searched the back,
They found therein no little boys,
But the seat belts were intact.

They thought the woman had gone mad
And was traveling alone,
But when they turned to question her,
They discovered she was gone.

Policemen saw her running wild
And screaming above the noise
In beseeching supplication,
Please help me find my boys!

They're four years old and wear blue shirts;
Their jeans are blue to match.
One cop spoke up, They're in my car,
And they don't have a scratch.

They said their daddy put them there
And gave them each a cone,
Then told them both to wait for Mom
To come and take them home.

I've searched the area high and low,
But I can't find their dad.
He must have fled the scene,
I guess, and that is very bad.

The mother hugged the twins and said,
While wiping at a tear,
He could not flee the scene, you see,
For he's been dead a year.

The cop just looked confused and asked,
Now, how can that be true?
The boys said, Mommy, Daddy came
And left a kiss for you.

He told us not to worry
And that you would be all right,
And then he put us in this car with
The pretty, flashing light.

We wanted him to stay with us,
Because we miss him so,
But Mommy, he just hugged us tight
And said he had to go.

He said someday we'd understand
And told us not to fuss,
And he said to tell you, Mommy,
He's watching over us.

The mother knew without a doubt
That what they spoke was true,
For she recalled their dad's last words,
I will watch over you.

The firemen's notes could not explain
The twisted, mangled car,
And how the three of them escaped
Without a single scar.

But on the cop's report was scribed,
In print so very fine,
An angel walked the beat tonight on
Highway 109.

[Bunnylump]

Aw Fraggle. That brought a tear.

[kathlyn]

Aw Fraggle. That brought a tear.

didn't it just.

[Redfraggle]

See Im not a clown all the time (just most of the time)

[Bunnylump]

And we love you for it. But we know you have a soft squidgy side too. Which we love equally.

[Bunnylump]

I've been reading through all the poetry my Mum copied out to practise her calligraphy. And a few of them were lovely. I especially liked

The small green garden God
is sleeping yet,
forgotten his pan pipes.
With gold and black painted zebra stripes
the honey bees still set
their course beween golden rod,
canterbury bell and mignonette.
The garden drowses, flower by flower,
The gnomon tells strange truth about the hour
of summer afternoon
that passes all too soon.
Yet broken is the spell this green place held for me,
Since one in Normandy,
who once this green grass trod,
Now sleeps like the garden God,
whom he remembers well.

I also liked this (and needless to say it brought a tear):

The wonder of the world,
the beauty and the power,
the shapes of things,
lights and shades;
these I saw.
Look ye also while life lasts.

And here's a seasonal one which I like (by Seamus Heaney)

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.