Poets' Corner

[John317]

Thanks very much for that, D. Allen. It's the longest rhymed epic in the English language and well worth reading.

[D. Allan]

Quote:

I think I see some influence of c.c. cummings maybe there.

Yes, and just as important, though less obvious, Robinson Jeffers and Walt Whitman were influences at that time. But who could ever hope to rival those three? It is just fun (and some times unavoidable) to let one's own soul speak in poetry or any other medium, - music, painting, horticulture, etc.

[John317]

I Looked At Calvary, a Song

(1) I look'd at Calvary,

And what did I see?

I saw my bless'd Savior

Dying there for me! *

O wonderful Jesus,

This I do know:

Nothing have I done

For you to love me so.*

(2) I look up to heav'n,

And what do I see?

I see my sinless High Priest

Standing up for Me! *

O wonderful Jesus,

This I do know:

Nothing have I done

For you to treat me so.*

(3) I'll look into the sky,

And what will I see?

I'll see my righteous King

Come to rescue me!*

O wonderful Jesus,

This I do know:

Nothing have I done

For you to want me so.*

* Repeat last line of each stanza.

[John317]

Quote:

I think I see some influence of c.c. cummings maybe there.

Yes, and just as important, though less obvious, Robinson Jeffers and Walt Whitman were influences at that time. But who could ever hope to rival those three? It is just fun (and some times unavoidable) to let one's own soul speak in poetry or any other medium, - music, painting, horticulture, etc.

I also like Robison Jeffers and Whitman very much. Jeffers is considered terribly depressing by most poetry-lovers because of his philosophy and the themes of his poems. For that reason, his poetry is not often found in the poetry anthologies. He's thought of as nihilistic, somewhat similar to Nietzsche. That is interesting because both men's fathers were Christian pastors. (Nietzsche was known as "the little pastor" when he was young and was constantly reading the Bible. He ended up hating God and, if his sister is to be believed, deliberately set out to compete against Jesus Christ. He wrote the famous sentence, often misunderstood, "God is dead," as well as the little book, "Antichrist," all of which had an influence on Jeffers.)

[D. Allan]

It has been a long time since I read Jeffers. I opened the 'Selected Poems' today and found this:

To the Stone-cutters

"Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated

Challengers of oblivion

Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,

The square-limbed Roman letters

Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well

Builds his monument mockingly;

For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun

Die blind and blacken to the heart:

Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found

The honey of peace in old poems."

I never found Jeffers to be depressing. He found peace in 'old poems.' I don't know what old poems he had in mind but I found my peace in the old poems of David, his Psalms, esp. #21. So his father was a pastor! that's interesting.

[D. Allan]

"I Looked at Calvary"

Nice. Did you write it? Have you music, too?

[John317]

"I Looked at Calvary"

Nice. Did you write it? Have you music, too?

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. I wrote it at the SDA church during an afternoon break in my colporteuring in Bremerton, Washington. My wife composed the music to it, but it isn't written.

I know Marvin Ponder, a recording artist and pastor at the Loma Linda University Church, and am planning on sharing it with him and seeing if he wants to use it.

In the meantime, if you send me a mailing address by PM, I'll send you a tape of me singing it so at least you will know how the music goes.

[John317]

It has been a long time since I read Jeffers. I opened the 'Selected Poems' today and found this:

To the Stone-cutters

"Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated

Challengers of oblivion

Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,

The square-limbed Roman letters

Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well

Builds his monument mockingly;

For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun

Die blind and blacken to the heart:

Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found

The honey of peace in old poems."

I never found Jeffers to be depressing. He found peace in 'old poems.' I don't know what old poems he had in mind but I found my peace in the old poems of David, his Psalms, esp. #21. So his father was a pastor! that's interesting.

Compare the line, "For man will be blotted out... the brave sun die blind," (typical Jeffers) with two of our other great writers, Hemingway and Faulkner, contemporaries of Jeffers. Hemingway wrote of "the sun also ris[ing]" and of the earth remaining forever, and both Hemingway's and Faulkner's works were illustrations of their confidence that "man shall endure."

I personally don't find them depressing, either, but many found his themes (incest, suicide, infanticide, murder, mayhem, etc.) distasteful, and a number of his views were controversial too, such as his opposition to US entry into WW2. He seems to've been born out of time, because he'd almost certainly have fit in better with the classical Greek poets and tragedians. No doubt one of America's greatest poets, right up there with Whitman, though he's never received his due.

By the way, a publisher recently came out with his complete poems in 3 volumes.

[D. Allan]

My book is of the Selected Poems, 1959. Not even half of the complete. Three vols. sounds expensive!

[John317]

Yes, very. And very big books too. I saw them recently at Barnes and Noble and was tempted to get them, but I decided to buy a truck instead. Seriously, though, each volume was like 12 x 16 inches and cost about $50.00.

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Yes, very. And very big books too. I saw them recently at Barnes and Noble and was tempted to get them, but I decided to buy a truck instead. Seriously, though, each volume was like 12 x 16 inches and cost about $50.00.

They have comfortable chairs in Barnes and Noble. :)

[D. Allan]

George Bowering is Canada's first poet laureate and the author of over 80 books. A native of British Columbia, he has worked as a professor, editor and writer. Bowering is a member of the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honor. - Reuters/Corbis

His Web-Page - http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/bowering/index.htm

[D. Allan]

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his poem "Nature," compares the old to a child who must "leave his broken playthings on the floor" and go to bed:

So Nature deals with us, and takes away

Our playthings one by one, and by the hand

Leads us to rest so gently, that we go

Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,

Being too full of sleep to understand

How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

[D. Allan]

An 80-Year-Old Poet for the MTV Generation

"It is John Ashbery, the prolific 80-year-old poet and frequent award winner known for his dense, postmodern style and playful language. One of the most celebrated living poets, Mr. Ashbery has won MacArthur Foundation and Guggenheim fellowships and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.”

more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/books/27laur.html?_r=1&8bu&emc=bu&oref=slogin

[D. Allan]

My Philosophy of Life, by John Ashbery: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15460

[cricket]

Bumping Poets Corner!

[D. Allan]

Nice move cricket!

I

Just a line or few

not looking for perfection -

something to do

a jackson polloc abstraction

maybe

II

an event of intro - spection

a roarrrrsach

for de - tection

a splotch

of rhymes

III

automatic writing poetic

resounding chimes

noetic

maybe at times

revealing

IV

whats in the soul

sounding

making whole -

untangling -

what-knot

V

who knows? there's hope!

haven't got

nuthin yet nope -

now -

the line is tugging tight

VI

Wow

reel it in

feel the swerve

and thrash left n' right

ooups.

VII

lost it.

- dAb

[D. Allan]

New Poet Laureate: Kay Ryan

"On July 17, Kay Ryan was appointed the 16th Poet Laureate of the United States. About her work, J. D. McClatchy has said: "She is an anomaly in today's literary culture: as intense and elliptical as Dickinson, as buoyant and rueful as Frost." A chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Ryan will be featured in the upcoming Poets Forum in November." -Poets.org.

Death by Fruit

Kay Ryan

Only the crudest

of the vanitas set

ever thought you had to get

a skull into the picture

whether you needed

its tallowy color

near the grapes or not.

Others, stopping to consider

shapes and textures,

often discovered that

eggs or aubergines

went better, or leeks,

or a plate of string beans.

A skull is so dominant.

It takes so much

bunched up drapery,

such a ponderous

display of ornate cutlery,

just to make it less prominent.

The greatest masters

preferred the subtlest vanitas,

modestly trusting to fruit baskets

to whisper ashes to ashes,

relying on the poignant exactness

of oranges to release

like a citrus mist

the always fresh fact

of how hard we resist

how briefly we’re pleased.

-Partisan Review, PR 3/2000, Volume LXVII Number 3

[abelisle]

Everyone is a poet. They might not know it...

Words are the all seeds you need. Plant one, for a poem, and grow it for a time... give it water and let it feed...no need to worry 'bout rhyme... and when it is it tall and it is flowering... here is a corner to show it... where it can speak or shout or sing.

Come on guys, do your thing.

Well, I hope that improvisation served to break the ice.

Chris has agree to help us out with this tread and I am looking forward to much fun.

So... poetry needed

No sagas, no epics, however. Sonnets, limericks, haiku, free verse, prose poems, epitaphs... are hereby solicited.

And no poem is too short, friends. For instance:

Lines Upon Milk Spilled On the Floor

He wept.

She swept.

Nor is any poem too silly, I hasten to add (ever try sweeping milk?).

YEAH Let's get this up and running again. How about more poetry from the members?

Here's a poem I wrote for a friend whose family is her worst enemy.

He cares

She suffers silently sequestered in her mind

Those who should care - don't

From her very beginnings, she knew

Knew things others didn't

But He cares

She loves, she cares, she's concerned

When others look the other way

She pierces the ether of unwanted consciousness

Eyes of compassion seeking happiness

But He cares

Her mind excels, an ebullience of thought

Clarity resounds in her words

Cerebral joy exudes in her presence

Oh, what joy ideas share with each other

But he cares

Sometimes sadness shrouds her

Tears flow inward, washing her joy away

But she stands tall agaainst the tide

Things sometimes don't look providential

He cares.

Alex

[phkrause]

I didn't know that you had that in you buddy. Very good.

pk

[abelisle]

I posted this one earlier today, not knowing that this thread already existed. I started a new thread in Town Hall called Poetry Corner but I now see that it's not needed.

I wrote this poem for my father who is presently in a nursing home, half paralyzed from a stroke. And I was thinking this morning as I was running in the snow that there should be a corner in this forum for purely aesthetic pleasure and creativity?

Running with my Father

My father lies semi-conscious in his hospital bed

But we ran together this morning in the early morning mist

This time I held his hand in mine as he did when I was a child

"Run faster, Dad. I can beat you!" and he let me - what did I know?

Along the river's edge I thought of all those stories he told me

His Bible in his hand, those archetypal stories reaching deep into my little heart

Were they real? how come the Bible sounded different when he read it to me?

Teaching me to pray, I knew I had more than one Father

A comfort in the time of trouble

Across the grassy green parkland I looked at him and saw his smile

The laugh I'll never forget, the smile that encompassed his whole body

His joy for life - we ran together him and I - his footsteps were large

No getting lost with him. We raced together once, that 5K in the woods

He was my age then and never winced as the hills kept coming and coming

"You did great Pops! How do you feel?" His smile was the answer.

I ran a little faster as I neared the end of my run with him

I wanted to gather all my memories as my heartbeat stirred ever faster

What little time I had left was going to be my memories of him

We finished together in the mist this morning. I had more than mist in my eyes.

I stopped my watch, walked in the doorl and cried. He cried too but we did it together

My father and I.

Alex (I hope it's okay sharing this with all of you?)

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

deja vu

[abelisle]

Haikus = for those of you who aren't sure, forgot or never learned, these are short 3 line poems based on syllable count. 1st line = 5 syllable, 2nd line = 7 syllables and 3rd line = 5 syllables. They usually don't rhyme but if you're creative, who knows?

Early Morning Haiku

Come, follow me now

Order my steps in your Word

I belong to you.

Alex

[Guest]

I used to be a poet.

[oldsailor29]

Haikus = for those of you who aren't sure, forgot or never learned, these are short 3 line poems based on syllable count. 1st line = 5 syllable, 2nd line = 7 syllables and 3rd line = 5 syllables. They usually don't rhyme but if you're creative, who knows?

Early Morning Haiku

Come, follow me now

Order my steps in your Word

I belong to you.

Alex

here are more:

Nothing to ponder

Nothing to do. Guess I might

As well write a few.

Hopeful hearts await

When Haj Ali hesitates

To write a haiku.

Hyaenas hustle

To Haiti and Hawaii,

Out of haiku hell.

Hazard of the hall

Hoax of honey in the wall

Near the hedges high

Howling hounds of hell

Heaving helping hand grenades

At the horse brigades

Hyperbolic halves

Of the hobby horses shoes

Urge the house to lose.

The raggle taggle

Hermits haggle over hash,

Hot hors d'oeuvres, and cash.

He knows a haiku

Often bravely stands alone.

May we ask, will you?