Poetry Not By You (Unless you're published + good)

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Teach: Mar 28, 2008; Pillbug

Eat The Rich posted:

Hi. I'm new to poetry. What is everyone's favorite poetry books(collection??) ?

Very big fan of Staying Alive, compiled by Neil Astley. My copy is dogeared and full of Post-it Notes marking poems that matter to me. It's put me onto a lot of interesting stuff that I wouldn't have otherwise found. The blurb on Amazon is a bit hippy, so see past that.

As for yeats, I've always loved An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, just for the effortless construction and flow. I was happy as a pig to spot a line from it in Madeline Miller's Circe.

quote:

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan�s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2019 08:57

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 20:26

Teach: Mar 28, 2008; Pillbug

The best modern compilation I've found (and I've tried a few) is Staying Alive, edited by Neil Astley. It's genuinely excellent, with 500 poems from the last century and this - is that modern enough for you?

Treat it like all poetry compilations (IMHO) - if a poem doesn't speak to you, vote 1, move on - there will be another one soon that speaks to you.

(Oddly enough, avoid the sequel Being Alive (and I know that the titles are the wrong way around - staying/being) - I found it disappointing. Clearly, all the good poems were used in the first volume.)

# ¿ Dec 26, 2022 10:35

Teach: Mar 28, 2008; Pillbug

I have come to terms with the fact that I will never properly enjoy poetry from earlier than the 20th century.

Here are three from the collection I posted earlier this page - hopefully there'll be something new for readers, something you've not come across before.

(Normally I'd spam the thread with Louis MacNiece and Philip Larkin.)

Look at this - not a rhyme in there.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2023 16:26

Teach: Mar 28, 2008; Pillbug

SimonChris posted:

What do you think?

The first one is quite good, I think, the second one is bad, but neither would cause me to raise an eyebrow if they were compiled in a low-volume collection of modern poetry.

wode posted:

For you a passage I saved - Kay Ryan yelling at Walt "Big! Lots!" Whitman:

I really like that bit of writing, thank you. It helps that it aligns with my thoughts on Whitman!

I'm not averse to rhymes - this is one of my favourite poems, and the structure of this is... *chefskiss* The internal rhymes are effortless.

It's �Sunlight on the Garden�
by Louis Macneice

quote:

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold;
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2023 11:25

Teach: Mar 28, 2008; Pillbug

Lobster Henry posted:

BTW I�ve also always liked this one a lot, the last stanza in particular. I wonder if there�s a word for that form, where the first word rhymes with the end of the previous line? I�m not sure I�ve ever seen it elsewhere.

Please do spam the thread with Macneice and Larkin! Larkin is gloomy and nasty as a person but he kind of rules

Thank you. That MacNiece was a favourite of my late wife. I used the term "Internal rhyme", but I'm sure there's a better one that a perfunctory googling didn't find.

The most famous MacNiece is possibly Meeting Place.

quote:

Time was away and somewhere else,
There were two glasses and two chairs
And two people with the one pulse
(Somebody stopped the moving stairs):
Time was away and somewhere else.

And they were neither up nor down;
The stream�s music did not stop
Flowing through heather, limpid brown,
Although they sat in a coffee shop
And they were neither up nor down.

The bell was silent in the air
Holding its inverted poise�
Between the clang and clang a flower,
A brazen calyx of no noise:
The bell was silent in the air.

The camels crossed the miles of sand
That stretched around the cups and plates;
The desert was their own, they planned
To portion out the stars and dates:
The camels crossed the miles of sand.

Time was away and somewhere else.
The waiter did not come, the clock
Forgot them and the radio waltz
Came out like water from a rock:
Time was away and somewhere else.

Her fingers flicked away the ash
That bloomed again in tropic trees:
Not caring if the markets crash
When they had forests such as these,
Her fingers flicked away the ash.

God or whatever means the Good
Be praised that time can stop like this,
That what the heart has understood
Can verify in the body�s peace
God or whatever means the Good.

Time was away and she was here
And life no longer what it was,
The bell was silent in the air
And all the room one glow because
Time was away and she was here.

But if you have time, look for Snow - it's short and uses language in... just new ways. Wonderful.

I could start a thread about Larkin (I won't - it'll become a mire of "separating the art from the artist" grumblings), and there are some excellent anthologies of his. Get the Faber Collected if you can - I forget the name of the other anthology, but it makes the baffling decision not to group the poems by Larkin's own order in his four published collections, but chronologically by date of writing. Baffling.

He published (like I said) four anthologies during his life -

1. The North Ship. Not juvenalia, quite, but... a poet developing, finding his own voice, throwing off his influences.
2. The Less Deceived. He's getting there. Some good funny stuff (Toads) and At Grass, which I love. So good.
3. The Whitsun Weddings. Here we loving go, one of those albums that feel like a greatest hits. The title poem is... perfect. An Arundel Tomb is perfect, too - "...what will survive of us is love." (And I know I've selectively quoted that. Don't @ me.) It's a short collection. Buy it.
4. High Windows. Annus Mirrablilis, This Be The Verse. The Explosion.

No wait, here's The Explosion -

quote:

On the day of the explosion
Shadows pointed towards the pithead.
In the sun the slagheap slept.

Down the lane came men in pitboots
Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke,
Shouldering off the freshened silence.

One chased after rabbits; lost them;
Came back with a nest of lark's eggs;
Showed them; lodged them in the grasses.

So they passed in beards and moleskins
Fathers brothers nicknames laughter
Through the tall gates standing open.

At noon there came a tremor; cows
Stopped chewing for a second; sun
Scarfed as in a heat-haze dimmed.

The dead go on before us, they
Are sitting in God's house in comfort,
We shall see them face to face--

plain as lettering in the chapels
It was said and for a second
Wives saw men of the explosion

Larger than in life they managed--
Gold as on a coin or walking
Somehow from the sun towards them

One showing the eggs unbroken.

And there's one acknowledged great that was written after High Windows - Aubade. You're welcome. It's possibly his best single poem.

I'm a Larkin nerd - AMA.

OK, more soon so that I don't spam the thread to death.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2023 21:06

Teach: Mar 28, 2008; Pillbug

Of course, in the same way that baby food counts as food.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2023 23:41

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 20:26

Teach: Mar 28, 2008; Pillbug

Well, you're at .500 there. In the same way that Cobain>Corgan, Owen>Sassoon - he (Owen) had the courage of his convictions and had the decency to actually die in the war. (A week before the end, too - lol owned.)

WW1 always feels like a phase that Sassoon was going through, whereas Owen meant it, and I think his poetry is clearer, and better.

What do we (as a thread) think about outdated terms that are now considered slurs? I recently discovered that the author of one of my favourite poems (This is What I Wanted to Sign Off With) also wrote He Sits Down on the Floor of a School for the *********

Sorry. The poet, Alden Nowlan, died in 1983, so you can get mad at him if you like. The poem is... very good.

https://deklynmorris.tripod.com/id55.html

# ¿ Mar 11, 2023 23:49

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