Poetry

[Padraig]

Mrs C's been reading up on archaeology for her course and came across this poem by Auden which I fair enjoyed.

Archaeology

The archaeologist's spade
delves into dwellings
vacancied long ago,

unearthing evidence
of life-ways no one
would dream of leading now,

concerning which he has not much
to say that he can prove:
the lucky man!
...

W. H. Auden

Another point of view where the poet observes the results of a dig and considers the relevance to his times.


Punishment

I can feel the tug
of the halter at the nape
of her neck, the wind
on her naked front.

It blows her nipples
to amber beads,
it shakes the frail rigging
of her ribs.

I can see her drowned
body in the bog,
the weighing stone
the floating rods and boughs.

Under which at first
she was a barked sapling
that is dug up
oak-bone, brain-firkin;

her shaved head
like a stubble of black corn,
her blindfold a soiled bandage,
her noose a ring

to store
the memories of love.
Little adulteress,
before they punished you

you were flaxen-haired,
undernourished, and your
tar-black face was beautiful.
My poor scapegoat,

I almost love you
but would have cast, I know,
the stones of silence.
I am the artful voyeur

of your brain's exposed
and darkened combs,
your muscles' webbing
and all your numbered bones;

I who have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings,

who would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understanding the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge.

Seamus Heaney North 1975

[Tevot]

Many thanks Padraig for sharing "Punishment". I've never read it before or "North" for that matter although I have read about it if you know what I mean...and indeed my mother's family came from there ... Unionists.

The killer stanza.. at the end imho... culminating with "exact and tribal, intimate revenge..."

Can we ever learn ?

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[Padraig]

Many thanks Padraig for sharing "Punishment". I've never read it before or "North" for that matter although I have read about it if you know what I mean...and indeed my mother's family came from there ... Unionists.

The killer stanza.. at the end imho... culminating with "exact and tribal, intimate revenge..."

Can we ever learn ?

Best Wishes,

Tevot

I'm not sure what you are saying we can learn, Tevot, from your quote...
but does it make a difference if you include the words 'understanding the' before it?

See the Heaney thread for other news.

[johncorrigan]

Thanks for 'the Bittern', Padraig and the songs elsewhere. I'm still dipping away in the world of Mary Oliver. Here's a tale about a Turtle.

Turtle

Now I see it--
it nudges with its bulldog head
the slippery stems of the lilies, making them tremble;
and now it noses along in the wake of the little brown teal

who is leading her soft children
from one side of the pond to the other; she keeps
close to the edge
and they follow closely, the good children--

the tender children,
the sweet children, dangling their pretty feet
into the darkness.
And now will come--I can count on it--the murky splash,

the certain victory
of that pink and gassy mouth, and the frantic
circling of the hen while the rest of the chicks
flare away over the water and into the reeds, and my heart

will be most mournful
on their account. But, listen,
what's important?
Nothing's important

except that the great and cruel mystery of the world,
of which this is a part,
not to be denied. Once,
I happened to see, on a city street, in summer,

a dusty, fouled turtle plodded along--
a snapper--
broken out I suppose from some backyard cage--
and I knew what I had to do--

I looked it right in the eyes, and I caught it--
I put it, like a small mountain range,
into a knapsack, and I took it out
of the city, and I let it

down into the dark pond, into
the cool water,
and the light of the lilies,
to live.

Mary Oliver (from House of Light)

[Padraig]

Aww!

But of course the poem puts some questions to you, doesn't it? I once saw a pike take a duckling in the same way as that turtle. At that time, I was 8 or 9, I hated the pike and imagined what horrors I would do to it if I caught it. I didn't succeed in catching a pike until years and years later. What did I do? I put it back.
I don't think I would have journeyed back to that memory, John, had it not been for Mary Oliver's lyrically searching poem.

[johncorrigan]

Aww!

But of course the poem puts some questions to you, doesn't it? I once saw a pike take a duckling in the same way as that turtle. At that time, I was 8 or 9, I hated the pike and imagined what horrors I would do to it if I caught it. I didn't succeed in catching a pike until years and years later. What did I do? I put it back.
I don't think I would have journeyed back to that memory, John, had it not been for Mary Oliver's lyrically searching poem.

Know what you mean, Padraig. Last year I was taking some young folk around as part of a photography project to a couple of local beauty spots. As we approached a pond we saw lots of mallards. 'Awwws' rang out from all, even more when I pointed out a moorhen with its tiny moorhenlings zipping across the ponds. Cue even bigger 'Awwwwws!' Suddenly a gull swooped down, took the hindmost, tossed it up in the air and down it went in a oner! Cue 'AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHs' from my young company. Never got a photo of it mind you, any of them. Sad it was and yet I was quite in 'Awe' of the gull's style...it's nature, I suppose...a gull eat chick world sometimes.
I like Mary Oliver's take on the natural world very much. Here's a poem called the Pinewoods
The Pine Woods

Just before dawn
three deer
came walking
down the hill

as if the moment were nothing different
from eternity--
as lightly as that
they nibbled

the leaves,
they drank
from the pond,
their pretty mouths

sucking the loose silver,
their heavy eyes
shining.
Listen,

I did not really see them.
I came later and saw their tracks
on empty sand.
But I don't believe

only to the edge
of what my eyes actually see
in the kindness of the morning,
do you?

And my life,
which is my body surely,
is also something more--
isn't yours?

I suppose the deer waited
to see the sun lift itself up,
filling the hills with light and shadows--
they were leaping

back into the rough, uncharted pinewoods
where I have lived so much of my life,
where everything is so quick and uncertain,
so glancing, so improbable, so real.

Mary Oliver

[DracoM]

If I hear Ian Macmillan again on R3, am I allowed to scream?

[johncorrigan]

If I hear Ian Macmillan again on R3, am I allowed to scream?

Is he swallowing a duckling, DracoM?

[Padraig]

Is he swallowing a duckling, DracoM?

Duck, John! Sniper at work.

[johncorrigan]

My Daughter and Apple Pie


She serves me a piece of it a few minutes
out of the oven. A little steam rises
from the slits on top. Sugar and spice -
cinnamon - burned into the crust.
But she's wearing these dark glasses
in the kitchen at ten o'clock
in the morning - everything nice -
as she watches me break off
a piece, bring it to my mouth,
and blow on it. My daughter's kitchen,
in winter. I fork the pie in
and tell myself to stay out of it.
She says she loves him. No way
could it be worse.

Raymond Carver

[Padraig]

My Daughter and Apple Pie


She serves me a piece of it a few minutes
out of the oven. A little steam rises
from the slits on top. Sugar and spice -
cinnamon - burned into the crust.
But she's wearing these dark glasses
in the kitchen at ten o'clock
in the morning - everything nice -
as she watches me break off
a piece, bring it to my mouth,
and blow on it. My daughter's kitchen,
in winter. I fork the pie in
and tell myself to stay out of it.
She says she loves him. No way
could it be worse.

Raymond Carver

That apple pie sure hits the spot.

[johncorrigan]

That apple pie sure hits the spot.

Hot yet chilling, Padraig.

[johncorrigan]

Daljit Nagra is apparently Radio4 and Radio 4 extra's poet in residence. He has a programme on a Sunday afternoon which I've caught for the last two weeks where he introduces programmes from the archives. Today had David Walliams and Andrew Motion discussing Phillip Larkin. Last week was a programme about Paul Celan's 'Mapesbury Road'. Found them very interesting indeed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07d3htz

[vinteuil]

Daljit Nagra is apparently Radio4 and Radio 4 extra's poet in residence. He has a programme on a Sunday afternoon which I've caught for the last two weeks where he introduces programmes from the archives....

... well, at least they've got some one other than the intolerable I*n M*M****n > >

[Daniel]

Daljit Nagra is apparently Radio4 and Radio 4 extra's poet in residence. He has a programme on a Sunday afternoon which I've caught for the last two weeks where he introduces programmes from the archives. Today had David Walliams and Andrew Motion discussing Phillip Larkin. Last week was a programme about Paul Celan's 'Mapesbury Road'. Found them very interesting indeed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07d3htz

Thank you for mentioning these, they both sound very interesting! Larkin certainly came out with some ugly utterances in his life, but I find his poetry uniquely affecting.