Hard to do better than Tim Key <a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNThOQIzWSM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNThOQIzWSM</a> <a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEFIcZyWceI" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEFIcZyWceI</a> <a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5cIyFW3ng4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5cIyFW3ng4</a> This one about bankers is my favourite: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7EJnQ_5ex8&feature=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7EJnQ_5 ... re=related</a> Utterly hilarious, clever and often relevant. Very interesting readings, always make me laugh too.
Happy to see so many Bukowski fans, and not to seem redundant but I have to add another, one that's stuck with me. Friends Within the Darkness I can remember starving in a small room in a strange city shades pulled down, listening to classical music I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife inside because there was no alternative except to hide as long as possible-- not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance: trying to connect. the old composers -- Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms were the only ones who spoke to me and they were dead. finally, starved and beaten, I had to go into the streets to be interviewed for low-paying and monotonous jobs by strange men behind desks men without eyes men without faces who would take away my hours break them piss on them. now I work for the editors the readers the critics but still hang around and drink with Mozart, Bach, Brahms and the Bee some buddies some men sometimes all we need to be able to continue alone are the dead rattling the walls that close us in.
"God’s Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins Spoiler The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. At a conference I attended, James Orbinski was asked how he kept his faith in humanity after seeing what a humanitarian medical worker typically sees when working in the middle of various genocides in Africa. He responded by referencing this poem. In Ethiopia a man came to a clinic he was working in after carrying his son, on his back, for over 100 miles across a desert. Shortly after arriving, his son died. The man simply thanked Orbinski for being there to take care of his son, and presumably, went home. This, he explained, is "the dearest freshness of deep down things", the stuff that kept him from giving up on his humanitarian work. Orbinski's interpretation and explanation of the poem is far more profound than the poem itself. Also, from the final act of Macbeth...
Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air. It took dominion every where. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee. This was the first poem that ever made me think, "Wow, poetry is actually kind of neat." And another by Wallace Stevens. Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock The houses are haunted By white night-gowns. None are green, Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange, With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk and asleep in his boots, Catches tigers In red weather.
Stephen Crane " A man said to the Universe" A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." James Fenton God, A Poem A nasty surprise in a sandwich, A drawing-pin caught in your sock, The limpest of shakes from a hand which You'd thought would be firm as a rock, A serious mistake in a nightie, A grave disappointment all round Is all that you'll get from th'Almighty, Is all that you'll get underground. Oh he said: 'If you lay off the crumpet I'll see you alright in the end. Just hang on until the last trumpet. Have faith in me, chum-I'm your friend.' But if you remind him, he'll tell you: 'I'm sorry, I must have been pissed- Though your name rings a sort of a bell. You Should have guessed that I do not exist. 'I didn't exist at Creation, I didn't exist at the Flood, And I won't be around for Salvation To sort out the sheep from the cud- 'Or whatever the phrase is. The fact is In soteriological terms I'm a crude existential malpractice And you are a diet of worms. 'You're a nasty surprise in a sandwich. You're a drawing-pin caught in my sock. You're the limpest of shakes from a hand which I'd have thought would be firm as a rock, 'You're a serious mistake in a nightie, You're a grave disappointment all round- That's all you are, ' says th'Almighty, 'And that's all that you'll be underground.' I had to write a paper on these two for my English class. I really like them.
The english translation of this Jacques Prévert poem is very good, but it's better when you understand that the 'Barrel organ' in french is "L'orgue Du Barbarie" which can also translate to "Organ of cruelty". Here's a video of one if you don't know what a barrel organ is: Spoiler And here's the poem: Me, I play the piano said one me, I play the violin said another me the harp, me the banjo me the cello me the bagpipes, me the flute and me, a rattle. And they talked talked talked about what they played. No music was heard everyone talked talked talked and no one played but in a corner one man remained silent: "And you, Sir, who remain silent and say nothing, what instrument do you play?" the musicians asked him. "Me, I play the barrel organ and I also play the knife," said the man who until now had said absolutely nothing and then he advanced knife in hand and killed all the musicians and played the barrel organ and his music was so true and so lively and so pretty that the daughter of the house’s owner came out from under the piano where she lay bored to sleep and said: "Me, I played hoop ball, chase I played hopscotch I played with a pail I played with a shovel I played house I played tag I played with my dolls I played with a parasol I played with my little brother with my little sister I played cops and robbers but that’s over over over I want to play assassin I want to play the barrel organ." And the man took the little girl by the hand and they went into towns into houses, into gardens and killed as many people as possible after which they married and had many children. But the oldest learned piano the second, violin the third, harp the fourth, the rattle the fifth, cello and they all took to talking talking talking talking talking so that no more music was heard and all was set to begin again!
Howl by Allen Ginsberg http://www.wussu.com/poems/agh.htm Beowulf http://www.beowulfepic.com/ The website has links to the different parts of the poem.
I adore this poem. It is by Rudyard Kipling. I first came across it while I was in the fifth grade, and I have been hooked ever since. It really doesn't need an interpretation, because it pretty much explains itself. 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 breath 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!
Robert Sullivan is a Maori New Zealander, and the instructor? of my writing workshop. I've read a lot of his stuff and while I don't think he is by any means great or anything, some of his shit is most definitely original and interesting. Here is "Ahi Ka—The House of Nga Puhi" notes: Nga Puhi is his tribe on New Zealand. "Ahi Ka" means person’s right to land, so long as they maintain their presence, or home fire. The "ha" at the end is, as I understand it, like the breath of life or something like that. Spoiler We light the poem and breathe out the growing flames. Ahi ka. This is our home—our fire. Hot tongues out —pukana—turn words to steam. This fish heart is a great lake on a skillet. Ahi ka! Ahi ka! [...] carried by the tribe’s forever-story firing every lullaby. Shadows shrink in our hands’ quiver as we speak—ahi ka sing fire scoop embers in the childhood sun stare into molten shapes and see people—building, sailing, farming— see them in the flames of our land see them in this forever light no tears only fire for ahi ka no weeping only hangi pits no regrets just forgiveness and a place for the fire—it’s our song to sing—ahi ka—got to keep singing the shadows away—ha!