Poetry

[DracoM]

Change of topic - sorry.
BUT
Ian MacMiIllan - 'professional Yorkshireman' - any chance we could get someone - like anyone else - to intro 'Poetry Now'?
Now, I'm a northrener -...............but that voice.....ahem....
And NOT, please NOT Simon Armitage or Roger McGough?

Maybe Joseph Polley? Or.................??

[vinteuil]

.

... so good to hear a northerner objecting to the BBC's "professional Yorkshireman".

It's just lazy of the beeb - they identify one person, who ticks the right 'token' box, and then they keep that person on (for ever) and never look for anyone else.

I find I cannot listen to his self-satisfied cheeriness at all - it's immediate off-button time


.

[Bella Kemp]

Do seek out Daljit Nagra who presents Poetry Extra on Radio 4 Extra. He is immensely amiable and the programmes give much pleasure.

[DracoM]

Thx for tip.

[Dermot]

Milton, Paradise Lost, 1674 version. From Book IV, Satan speaks

[...]

''Me miserable! which way shall I flie
Infinite wrauth, and infinite despaire?
Which way I flie is Hell; my self am Hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threatning to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav'n.
O then at last relent: is there no place
Left for Repentance, none for Pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduc'd
With other promises and other vaunts
Then to submit, boasting I could subdue
Th' Omnipotent. Ay me, they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vaine,
Under what torments inwardly I groane;
While they adore me on the Throne of Hell,
With Diadem and Scepter high advanc'd
The lower still I fall, onely Supream
In miserie; such joy Ambition findes.
But say I could repent and could obtaine
By Act of Grace my former state; how soon
Would higth recal high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feign'd submission swore: ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.
For never can true reconcilement grow
Where wounds of deadly hate have peirc'd so deep:
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse
And heavier fall: so should I purchase deare
Short intermission bought with double smart.
This knows my punisher; therefore as farr
From granting hee, as I from begging peace:
All hope excluded thus, behold in stead
Of us out-cast, exil'd, his new delight,
Mankind created, and for him this World.
So farwel Hope, and with Hope farwel Fear,
Farwel Remorse: all Good to me is lost;
Evil be thou my Good; by thee at least
Divided Empire with Heav'ns King I hold
By thee, and more then half perhaps will reigne;
As Man ere long, and this new World shall know.''

[...]

[DracoM]

[johncorrigan]

Ode to My Socks by Pablo Neruda

Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder’s hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
I slipped my feet
into them
as though into
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and goatskin.
Violent socks,
my feet were
two fish made
of wool,
two long sharks
sea-blue, shot
through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons:
my feet
were honored
in this way
by
these
heavenly
socks.
They were
so handsome
for the first time
my feet seemed to me
unacceptable
like two decrepit
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that woven
fire,
of those glowing
socks.

Nevertheless
I resisted
the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere
as schoolboys
keep
fireflies,
as learned men
collect
sacred texts,
I resisted
the mad impulse
to put them
into a golden
cage
and each day give them
birdseed
and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers
in the jungle who hand
over the very rare
green deer
to the spit
and eat it
with remorse,
I stretched out
my feet
and pulled on
the magnificent
socks
and then my shoes.

The moral
of my ode is this:
beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool
in winter.

Pablo Neruda

[silvestrione]

Ode to My Socks by Pablo Neruda

Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder’s hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
I slipped my feet
into them
as though into
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and goatskin.
Violent socks,
my feet were
two fish made
of wool,
two long sharks
sea-blue, shot
through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons:
my feet
were honored
in this way
by
these
heavenly
socks.
They were
so handsome
for the first time
my feet seemed to me
unacceptable
like two decrepit
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that woven
fire,
of those glowing
socks.

Nevertheless
I resisted
the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere
as schoolboys
keep
fireflies,
as learned men
collect
sacred texts,
I resisted
the mad impulse
to put them
into a golden
cage
and each day give them
birdseed
and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers
in the jungle who hand
over the very rare
green deer
to the spit
and eat it
with remorse,
I stretched out
my feet
and pulled on
the magnificent
socks
and then my shoes.

The moral
of my ode is this:
beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool
in winter.

Pablo Neruda

That is delightful. I love Robin Robertson's version of one of his odes, which he calls 'After Neruda', Ode to Conger Eel Broth. Can be found in his book Swithering.

[teamsaint]

A lyric, rather than a poem . Seems highly relevant. And some rather lovely thoughts.

I cannot go back to your frownland
My spirit is made up of the ocean
And the sky and the sun and the moon
And all my eye can see
I cannot go back to your land of gloom
Where black jagged shadows
Remind me of the coming of your doom
I want my own land
Take my hand and come with me
It's not too late for you, it is not too late for me
To find my homeland
Where a man can stand by another man
Without an ego flying
With no man lying
And no one dying by an earthly hand
Let the devils burn and the beggar learn
And the little girls that live in those old worlds
Take my kind hand
My smile is stuck
I cannot go back to your frownland
I cannot go back to your frownland

[vinteuil]

,

Voltaire At Ferney


Almost happy now, he looked at his estate.
An exile making watches glanced up as he passed,
And went on working; where a hospital was rising fast
A joiner touched his cap; an agent came to tell
Some of the trees he'd planted were progressing well.
The white alps glittered. It was summer. He was very great.

Far off in Paris, where his enemies
Whispered that he was wicked, in an upright chair
A blind old woman longed for death and letters. He would write
“Nothing is better than life.” But was it? Yes, the fight
Against the false and the unfair
Was always worth it. So was gardening. Civilise.

Cajoling, scolding, screaming, cleverest of them all,
He'd had the other children in a holy war
Against the infamous grown-ups, and, like a child, been sly
And humble, when there was occasion for
The two-faced answer or the plain protective lie,
But, patient like a peasant, waited for their fall.

And never doubted, like D'Alembert, he would win:
Only Pascal was a great enemy, the rest
Were rats already poisoned; there was much, though, to be done,
And only himself to count upon.
Dear Diderot was dull but did his best;
Rousseau, he'd always known, would blubber and give in.

So, like a sentinel, he could not sleep. The night was full of wrong,
Earthquakes and executions. Soon he would be dead,
And still all over Europe stood the horrible nurses
Itching to boil their children. Only his verses
Perhaps could stop them: He must go on working: Overhead
The uncomplaining stars composed their lucid song.

WH Auden [1907-1973]


.

[johncorrigan]

My daughter, her husband and I took a walk in the woods on Saturday and the light was so beautiful. On return I found this poem in the Guardian.

An Evening Walk When Spring is Already Old

On the third of June
I re-enter the woods

The trees’ souls
have bloomed into canopies

There is volume
not just skeletons

Breeze passes into the placenta
of this womb

There is hiding place
in the trees

and the birds sing differently
the leaves

have become a sea
in my body

Jason Allen-Paisant

[Serial_Apologist]

Survival

'O tell us, mister logger',
the forest creatures said,
'where will you find some wildlife
when all of us are dead?'

'I'll look at films and photographs,
in books and in museums,
that's where I'll find some wildlife
when all of you are dead'.

(from The Poems of Martin Probert, Martin Probert Publ. 2020)

[johncorrigan]

Survival

'O tell us, mister logger',
the forest creatures said,
'where will you find some wildlife
when all of us are dead?'

'I'll look at films and photographs,
in books and in museums,
that's where I'll find some wildlife
when all of you are dead'.

(from The Poems of Martin Probert, Martin Probert Publ. 2020)

They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum, and charged the people a dollar and a half just to see them. JM

[vinteuil]

.

Magna Est Veritas

Here, in this little Bay,
Full of tumultuous life and great repose,
Where, twice a day,
The purposeless, gay ocean comes and goes,
Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town,
I sit me down.

For want of me the world's course will not fail:
When all its work is done, the lie shall rot;
The truth is great, and shall prevail,
When none cares whether it prevail or not.

Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore [1823 – 1896]


.

[vinteuil]

.

Padraig - to delete a post :

. press the 'edit post' button under your text
. then press 'delete' in the first red bar underneath the text
. then press the delete button where it says 'delete message'
. finally press 'delete post' in the bottom red bar

I think that's it - give it a try!

.