April is National Poetry Month, so I figured we might break away from our normal discussions on alcohol and genitals and expand our minds a bit. I don't read a lot of poetry, but I know what I like and I'm always looking for something new and interesting. FOCUS: Post your favorite poems and, if you feel like it, explain why they're important to you. No criticizing other people's submissions and none of your own stuff, please. I direct aspiring poets to the Thrillseekers forum. They'll read and critique your work til the cows come home. An appropriate beginning to the thread: Are You Drinking? Charles Bukowski washed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook out again I write from the bed as I did last year. will see the doctor, Monday. "yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head- aches and my back hurts." "are you drinking?" he will ask. "are you getting your exercise, your vitamins?" I think that I am just ill with life, the same stale yet fluctuating factors. even at the track I watch the horses run by and it seems meaningless. I leave early after buying tickets on the remaining races. "taking off?" asks the motel clerk. "yes, it's boring," I tell him. "If you think it's boring out there," he tells me, "you oughta be back here." so here I am propped up against my pillows again just an old guy just an old writer with a yellow notebook. something is walking across the floor toward me. oh, it's just my cat this time.
Two spring to mind, they are two that I have had memorized for years and find myself reciting in my head whenever I'm alone and in a reflective mood. "If" - Rudyard Kipling - I first stumbled across this poem living in England, and it immediately sparked something in me. From the creator of the jungle book, and a writer of great soldiering/manhood type stories he captures a certain primal and universal chord with this poem. Both the tempo and the content make me feel like I'm hearing war drums thump over the hills and the enemy is pressing down but there's no backing down. Figuratively anyway. Spoiler If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"; If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And—which is more—you'll be a Man my son! Also, "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allen Poe - again I think it's a lot the tempo as well as the words and meaning of this poem that make it so great to me. Conveyance of such strong emotion, life changing...life shattering. It's the story of this man's entire world. It also contains my favorite few lines in any poetry I've read yet - I'll share them but they are better read in context. And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. Spoiler It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of ANNABEL LEE; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love- I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsman came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me- Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we- Of many far wiser than we- And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride, In the sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea. That's all I got.
The Raven. To save space, I'll just let Chris Walken read it to you. Also, I really like T.S. Elliot's Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, specifically the line, "In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."
John Donne, right now, is the poet I have read most of at this point. I've grown quite fond of Holy Sonnet X, parts of which may be familiar to some: It follows, to me, what guys like Tennyson (Nothing will die) Shakespeare (For in that sleep of death what dreams may come) and Kipling (They will come back, come back again, As long as the red Earth rolls. He never wasted a tree or a leaf. Why should He squander souls) have said. In that, death isn't so much permanent, but merely a transition point into something else. I would not consider myself the most religious, or even much of spiritual person, but it seems a waste that we get on average 70-80 years and then that's that. That all of our accumulated knowledge, wisdom, ingenuity just ceases the moment we die. I much prefer the notion that we carry something more eternal that preserves beyond death.
Adrienne Rich has a whole bunch of awesome poems that I love love love, but 'Living In Sin' is one of my favorites. Spoiler This just speaks volumes to me. I think most girls usually grow up with an idealized idea of what their future relationships will look like (Hello there, Prince Charming with an M.D. and oodles of family money....nice of you to save me from these scary robbers. Let's get married on horseback!) but reality always bites us hard in the ass. Anyone who has ever set up a "love nest" of sorts and expected to live in blissful cohabitation is always in for a rude awakening, and it starts somewhat like it does in this poem. You're in bed, happy, and then you roll over to his crumpled britches on the floor and this small voice inside you starts nagging. Clean it up. And he doesn't really care, because that's how he lives. And then every morning it gets worse and worse, and a little of that shiny newness that comes with the beginning of living with someone....it starts slowly being rubbed away. Small things (the milkman, his dog, THE FUCKING LEAKY FAUCET THAT DRIVES YOU APESHIT) start making this experience less...romantic...and more mundane. And sometimes you can forget for a little bit, but that feeling of letdown always comes back ("...though not so wholly as before...") to some degree. So yeah. I like this poem. It reminds me of how wonderful my own roommate-free apartment is.
My Sophomore year of high school I made first string offensive guard for my team ranked in the preseason top 10. Cue to an hour before our first game and I was about to throw up due to nerves. My dad had placed a lot of emphasis on how important my first varsity game was and how I'd remember it not only the rest of the season, but the rest of my life. I was fumbling through plays in my head, struggling with my iPod to find the perfect song and just get my head into the game and find any sort of focus. The other linemen were more or less the same way when my line coach walked up and called us all together. He said, "Look. I've been there, done that. I've played in the same position in high school, DI college and pro. I know how you all feel. Turn off your music, get your head cleared out and listen to this. I read this before every important game and I'll share it with you all. It's called Invictus by William Henley... Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." I don't know what it was about the poem, but it calmed me down and gave me some mental clarity. I read it before every game from there on and before every wrestling match and now before every rugby match.
I posted this in the boys don't cry thread a while ago. I think anyone who has had a dog that has died can relate to this poem.
Jet by Tony Hoagland Spoiler Sometimes I wish I were still out on the back porch, drinking jet fuel with the boys, getting louder and louder as the empty cans drop out of our paws like booster rockets falling back to Earth and we soar up into the summer stars. Summer. The big sky river rushes overhead, bearing asteroids and mist, blind fish and old space suits with skeletons inside. On Earth, men celebrate their hairiness, and it is good, a way of letting life out of the box, uncapping the bottle to let the effervescence gush through the narrow, usually constricted neck. And now the crickets plug in their appliances in unison, and then the fireflies flash dots and dashes in the grass, like punctuation for the labyrinthine, untrue tales of sex someone is telling in the dark, though no one really hears. We gaze into the night as if remembering the bright unbroken planet we once came from, to which we will never be permitted to return. We are amazed how hurt we are. We would give anything for what we have. This poem captures what I felt, but was never able to express. After reading this poem I felt like all of my own nights on the back porch drinking jet fuel made more sense. "Reading Moby-Dick at 30,00 Feet" is also one of my favorites by Tony Hoagland. If anyone is looking to start reading poetry and doesn't know where to start I suggest just poking around poets.org and poetryfoundation.org.
I have always liked Invictus by William Ernest Henley: OUT of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
So you want to be a writer? By Charles Bukowski Spoiler if it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don't do it. if you're doing it for money or fame, don't do it. if you're doing it because you want women in your bed, don't do it. if you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don't do it. if it's hard work just thinking about doing it, don't do it. if you're trying to write like somebody else, forget about it. if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you, do something else. if you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all, you're not ready. don't be like so many writers, don't be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don't be dull and boring and pretentious, don't be consumed with self- love. the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind. don't add to that. don't do it. unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it. when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was. In my English class this week a group actually did a presentation on Bukowski and this was one of the poems they read and analyzed. It really hit me more than any of the other poems that were presented in class. For whatever reason, lately I've had the urge to start writing more. Not really trying to accomplish anything, but I just wanted to put pen to paper (.. or finger to keyboard) and just throw my thoughts on life out to the world. Then I heard this poem. He goes on and on about how if it's forced, or you run into writer's block, don't do it. There are so many "writers" out there already that the world doesn't need another amateur thinking the world cares what's on his mind. It is a very valid point, and maybe the world is over-saturated with blogs, but I instead took this as a challenge. Ya I sometimes stare at the computer, hunched over trying to find the right words to convey, big deal, wanna fight about it? I can still write if I want to, and if I keep working at it, I'm sure it will be damn good. In the past few days I've started not only thinking of things to write, but actually writing them down. For now, I'm just posting them on Facebook, but once I start writing on a consistent basis, I'm probably going to start a blog, just to kill time.
Oh my God, great fucking thread. I've gotten numerous reps for being a gay-o when I comment anything about poetry or the writing workshop I'm in and all that... But, I write a shit load of poetry (as well as fiction), have had two of them published in very minor literary journals, and basically love the genre. I'll keep this thread going for the rest of April. To start with, a couple famous ones: "Between Walls" by William Carlos Williams Spoiler the back wings of the hospital where nothing will grow lie cinders In which shine the broken pieces of a green bottle Easily my favorite T.S. Eliot poem, "The Hollow Men." : Spoiler Mistah Kurtz -- he dead. (Reference to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad) A penny for the Old Guy (Reference to Guy Fawkes) I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men. II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer -- Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom III This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death's other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone. IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death's twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men. V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
And since we have a couple Bukowski one's on here already, I'll throw up one of my favorites (all be it pretty damn depressing) "Sway With Me" Charles Bukowski: Spoiler sway with me, everything sad -- madmen in stone houses without doors, lepers steaming love and song frogs trying to figure the sky; sway with me, sad things -- fingers split on a forge old age like breakfast shell used books, used people used flowers, used love I need you I need you I need you: it has run away like a horse or a dog, dead or lost or unforgiving.
There's been a lot of Bukowski in this thread already, as others have pointed out, but fuck it. He's my favorite poet. Hell, he's my avatar. Bluebird Spoiler there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you. there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he's in there. there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay down, do you want to mess me up? you want to screw up the works? you want to blow my book sales in Europe? there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody's asleep. I say, I know that you're there, so don't be sad. then I put him back, but he's singing a little in there, I haven't quite let him die and we sleep together like that with our secret pact and it's nice enough to make a man weep, but I don't weep, do you? I'll save what would undoubtedly be a long winded and probably gay sounding explanation, and just say that it resonates with me.
Some poems I have committed to memory: Effin mentioned Prufrock. Here is a partial quote of some of my favourite lines: And for you dog lovers:
OZYMANDIAS by Percy Shelley I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. A poem mocking an arrogant king who lived hundreds of years ago? I'm down. It's one of the most eloquent put downs I've ever heard. The themes, imagery, diction, and rhyme scheme are all top notch, but at the end of the day, he's still just calling the guy a fuckstick.
I love slam poetry because it's entertaining, witty and fresh. It's modern. Here are three of my favorites. The first is about women, The second is about dreams, The third is about teachers.
"Xanadu" by Samuel Coleridge has always been one of my favorites. Like most great art, it was written under the influence of opium. Spoiler In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me That with music loud and long I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed And drunk the milk of Paradise. I haven't read much of Bukowski's poetry, but I'm a big fan of "Beasts Bounding Through Time." I really love the rhythm and pacing and the recurring line about "the impossibility of being human." Spoiler Van Gough writing his brother for paints Hemingway testing his shotgun Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine the impossibility of being human Villon expelled from Paris for being a thief Faulkner drunk in the gutters of his town the impossibility of being human Burroughs killing his wife with a gun Mailer stabbing his the impossibility of being human Maupassant going mad in a rowboat Dostoyevsky lined up against a wall to be shot Crane off the back of a boat into the propeller the impossibility Sylvia with her head in the oven like a baked potato Harry Crosby leaping into that Blck Sun Lorca murdered in the road by Spanish troops the impossibility Artaud sitting on a madhouse bench Chatterton drinking rat poison Shakespeare a plagarist Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness the impossibility the impossibility Nietzsche gone totally mad the impossibility of being human all too human this breathing in and out out and in these punks these cowards these champions these mad dogs of glory
"At a Window" by the great Carl Sandburg Spoiler Give me hunger, O you gods that sit and give The world its orders. Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love, A voice to speak to me in the day end, A hand to touch me in the dark room Breaking the long loneliness. In the dusk of day-shapes Blurring the sunset, One little wandering, western star Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow. Let me go to the window, Watch there the day-shapes of dusk And wait and know the coming Of a little love. If you can't feel that one, you don't have a pulse.
Stanley Kunitz pretty much nailed that ridiculous 'in like' feeling I've got going on with First Love. Spoiler At his incipient sun The ice of twenty winters broke, Crackling, in her eyes. Her mirroring, still mind, That held the world (made double) calm, Went fluid, and it ran. There was a stir of music, Mixed with flowers, in her blood; A swift impulsive balm From obscure roots; Gold bees of clinging light Swarmed in her brow. Her throat is full of songs, She hums, she is sensible of wings Growing on her heart. She is a tree in spring Trembling with the hope of leaves, Of which the leaves are tongues.