# Reading > Poems, Poets, and Poetry >  the most recent poem you have read

## cacian

why not post or share you most recent poem you have so far.
it would be good to read it too :Smile:

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## cacian

here is one I read recently entitled


*
Elegance* by Linda Gregg

All that is uncared for. 
Left alone in the stillness 
in that pure silence married 
to the stillness of nature. 
A door off its hinges, 
shade and shadows in an empty room. 
Leaks for light. Raw where 
the tin roof rusted through. 
The rustle of weeds in their 
different kinds of air in the mornings, 
year after year. 
A pecan tree, and the house 
made out of mud bricks. Accurate 
and unexpected beauty, rattling 
and singing. If not to the sun,
then to nothing and to no one.

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## Whosis

Oh, man. (walks to room for book like every other post) The most recent poem I've read is recent, "Home Burial" by Robert Frost. I'm going through his book of complete poems. It's a big long. Part of it reads:

You couldn't care! The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.

I'm also reading E. E. Cummings, and I have Emily Dickinson on the backburner. I would like to read some recent Shakespearean sonnets by a single author to spruce me up on the medium. I have read Shakespeare's sonnets.

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## qimissung

That's a really beautiful poem, cacian. And Robert Frost is always good, Whosis, maybe particularly when he is discoursing on death, which is not how we generally think of him.

Here is one I came across in the book _Bird by Bird_ by Anne Lamott that I just read. It's a poem by Sharon Olds. I just had such a strong reaction to it. I knew-I knew _exactly_ how she felt. 
*
I Go Back to May 1937*

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the 
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,
the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips aglow in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married, 
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are 
innocent, they would never hurt anybody. 
I want to go up to them and say Stop, 
dont do itshes the wrong woman, 
hes the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do, 
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty face turning to me, 
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome face turning to me, 
his pitiful beautiful untouched body, 
but I dont do it. I want to live. I 
take them up like the male and female 
paper dolls and bang them together 
at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to 
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

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## Lokasenna

> That's a really beautiful poem, cacian. And Robert Frost is always good, Whosis, maybe particularly when he is discoursing on death, which is not how we generally think of him.
> 
> Here is one I came across in the book _Bird by Bird_ by Anne Lamott that I just read. It's a poem by Sharon Olds. I just had such a strong reaction to it. I knew-I knew _exactly_ how she felt. 
> *
> I Go Back to May 1937*
> 
> I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
> I see my father strolling out
> under the ochre sandstone arch, the 
> ...


Crikey, that's strong stuff. What a powerful poem.

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## qimissung

I know, right!?

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## YesNo

I enjoyed reading Sharon Old's _Stags Leap_. 

At the moment I'm reading the current issue of _Rattle_: www.rattle.com 

The back issues are available and to pick out one as an example, I liked "Rome" by Toi Derricote: http://www.rattle.com/poetry/rome-by-toi-derricotte/

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## osho

> here is one I read recently entitled
> 
> 
> *
> Elegance* by Linda Gregg
> 
> All that is uncared for. 
> Left alone in the stillness 
> in that pure silence married 
> ...


Elegance is really elegant and I like this poem so much that I am internalizing every line of it. Your choice is really superb and I am looking up for the life of this poet. Thank you for sharing this beautiful poem.

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## cacian

> I enjoyed reading Sharon Old's _Stags Leap_. 
> 
> At the moment I'm reading the current issue of _Rattle_: www.rattle.com 
> 
> The back issues are available and to pick out one as an example, I liked "Rome" by Toi Derricote: http://www.rattle.com/poetry/rome-by-toi-derricotte/


amasing piece by the 11 year old so lurid and yet simple. raw talent indeed  :Smile:

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## cacian

> Elegance is really elegant and I like this poem so much that I am internalizing every line of it. Your choice is really superb and I am looking up for the life of this poet. Thank you for sharing this beautiful poem.


hey osho so glad you liked this one  :Smile:

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## MorpheusSandman

Right now I'm reading the latest issue of American Poetry Review, which, sadly, isn't digitized so I can't post anything; which is no great loss since I haven't read anything of real high quality in the latest issue yet.

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## JanVanHogspeuw

_Liberty_ by Edward Thomas

The last light has gone out of the world, except 
This moonlight lying on the grass like frost 
Beyond the brink of the tall elm's shadow. 
It is as if everything else had slept 
Many an age, unforgotten and lost - 
The men that were, the things done, long ago, 
All I have thought; and but the moon and I 
Live yet and here stand idle over a grave 
Where all is buried. Both have liberty 
To dream what we could do if we were free 
To do some thing we had desired long, 
The moon and I. There's none less free than who 
Does nothing and has nothing else to do, 
Being free only for what is not to his mind, 
And nothing is to his mind. If every hour 
Like this one passing that I have spent among 
The wiser others when I have forgot 
To wonder whether I was free or not, 
Were piled before me, and not lost behind, 
And I could take and carry them away 
I should be rich; or if I had the power 
To wipe out every one and not again 
Regret, I should be rich to be so poor. 
And yet I still am half in love with pain, 
With what is imperfect, with both tears and mirth, 
With things that have an end, with life and earth, 
And this moon that leaves me dark within the door.

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## Poetaster

Most recent poem I've read is in Latin. By Catullus. Poem 1, to be precise. I'll not post the text.

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## cacian

> Most recent poem I've read is in Latin. By Catullus. Poem 1, to be precise. I'll not post the text.


why not?

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## Poetaster

> why not?


I didn't think anyone would be interested, but it's thus:

I. 

Cui dono lepidum novum libellum
arida modo pumice expolitum?
Corneli, tibi: namque tu solebas
meas esse aliquid putare nugas.
Iam tum, cum ausus es unus Italorum
omne aevum tribus explicare cartis . . .
Doctis, Iuppiter, et laboriosis!
Quare habe tibi quidquid hoc libelli—
qualecumque, quod, o patrona virgo,
plus uno maneat perenne saeclo!

I love the rhythm in this poem.

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## cacian

great  :Smile: 
are you able to transfer it to English do you think?
or maybe just give an idea of what it is saying.

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## Poetaster

I have translated it, I don't want to post my translation in case I want to try and publish it at some point and I'm not sure about the legalities. Basically it's a poem dedicated Catullus's friend Cornallus, a man who wrote a history of the world in three scrolls of papyrus (which in some translations is phrased as a light hearted joke). 

The first two lines 'Cui dono lepidum novum libellum / arida modo pumice expolitum?' are essentially 'To whom do I dedicate this new book, all flattened out with pumice to a finished product?' and then it goes on to 'Corneli, tibi: namque tu solebas / meas esse aliquid putare nugas'. This is essentially 'To you, Cornelius, because you always liked my awful poems' - the word 'nugas' at the end of line four means essentially rubbish or waste. Catullus then goes on to flatter his friend, pointing out his history of the world was 'Doctis, Iuppiter, et laboriosis!' or 'Academic/Scollarly, by Jupiter, and laborious/was hard work', and saying Cornelius was the first Italian to do it, as Greek poets had wrote a history of the world even before Rome became a credible force. Having praised his friend Cornelius and justified his own poem, Catullus goes on to the self-depreciating note again:

'Quare habe tibi quidquid hoc libelli—
qualecumque, quod, o patrona virgo,
plus uno maneat perenne saeclo!

Essentially 'So whatever this book is, and whatever poems are found within it, may they survive protected by the Virgin and last into the next age' also hinting that their author considers the poems unworthy. I'm paraphrasing, and there is no substitute for reading it in the Latin. The rhythm of the Latin is wonderful.

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## cacian

Oh this a little not clear yet for me.
the author of the poem is self depreciating and yet dedicating to a friend?
in other words he writes a poem but then think it is unworthy?

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## Poetaster

> Oh this a little not clear yet for me.
> the author of the poem is self depreciating and yet dedicating to a friend?
> in other words he writes a poem but then think it is unworthy?


Catullus loved paradoxes. This going between self-depreciation and praising a friend is the source of most of the poem's humour.

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## cacian

> Catullus loved paradoxes. This going between self-depreciation and praising a friend is the source of most of the poem's humour.


I gather it is about the history of the world. is he saying his predictions are false?

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## Poetaster

> I gather it is about the history of the world. is he saying his predictions are false?


I don't know. I think that might be the point, however.

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## cacian

> I don't know. I think that might be the point, however.


interesting. how come you are so well read with Latin?

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## cacian

my next recent poem I have read is by Thomas Hood 

*silence*

_here is a silence where hath been no sound, 
here is a silence where no sound may be, 
in the cold grave—under the deep deep sea, 
or in wide desert where no life is found, 
which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound; 
no voice is hush’d—no life treads silently, 
but clouds and cloudy shadows wander free. 
that never spoke, over the idle ground: 
but in green ruins, in the desolate walls 
of antique palaces, where Man hath been, 
though the dun fox, or wild hyæna, calls, 
and owls, that flit continually between, 
shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan,— 
there the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone._

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## YesNo

I like the "self-conscious" part of the last line of Thomas Hood's poem.

Regarding poetaster's translation of Catallus, the difficult part of poetry translation is to get the sound translated in some way. I suspect, but don't really know, that the sound of a Japanese haiku, for example, feels different in Japanese than one written in English. This is one of the reasons I don't see much point in writing a haiku in English. Might as well stick to common meter. What I would like to hear in the original is how it sounds and understand why that sound is attractive to the listener of the native language. The translation just helps me understand what was being said. 

Do you read other poetry journals besides _American Poetry Review_, MorpheusSandman? I picked up _Rattle_ at a bookstore for the first time last weekend looking for something different to read. I also picked up a copy of _passager_.

Being "half in love with pain", in the Edward Thomas poem was unusual.

I signed up for Rattle's past poetry sent out every now and then to my email. I read yesterday Martha Clarkson's "How She Described Her Ex-Husband". Her description was unflattering toward him, as would be expected, and somewhat humorous.

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## Poetaster

> Regarding poetaster's translation of Catallus, the difficult part of poetry translation is to get the sound translated in some way. I suspect, but don't really know, that the sound of a Japanese haiku, for example, feels different in Japanese than one written in English. This is one of the reasons I don't see much point in writing a haiku in English. Might as well stick to common meter. What I would like to hear in the original is how it sounds and understand why that sound is attractive to the listener of the native language. The translation just helps me understand what was being said.


It's the hardest part of translating - especially considering that Catullus 1 is in a Hendecasyllabic meter, which is very hard to keep constant and accurate to a language like Latin in English. To be honest, I don't try to replicate the rhythm and line-length of the original unless I'm positive I can do it well, and that's not often at all.

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## MorpheusSandman

> I suspect, but don't really know, that the sound of a Japanese haiku, for example, feels different in Japanese than one written in English. This is one of the reasons I don't see much point in writing a haiku in English.


Agree on both points. One key difference in the sound of each is that Japanese is a mora-timed language and English is a stress-timed language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrony Japanese is also far more compressed and implicit, which means you can say/suggest a lot with very little. This is why in English I prefer cinquains (or my sesnets) to Haiku, as the additional lines and line-breaks are needed, I think, in English to gain the kind of implicit, elliptical, suggestive density of a Japanese Haiku. 




> Do you read other poetry journals besides _American Poetry Review_, MorpheusSandman?


Yes, quite a few, actually: Poetry, APR, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, Poetry East, and Southern Poetry Review in print; and Field, Crazyhorse, Kenyon Review, and Five Points in digital via LitRagger (except Kenyon Review, which is via Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/The-Kenyon-Rev...dp/B007D43RJW/

I pretty much read them whenever I have to go anywhere where there's a wait; bathroom, doctor's office, etc. Rattle is certainly one of the more accessible journals, as they tend to shy away from avante-garde stuff and accept a lot of narrative poetry. I particularly liked a poem called The Hole by Bill Christophersen from #40: 


> Bill Christophersen
> HOLE
> I
> 
> When the toddler disappeared (the septic tank’s
> countersunk manhole cover not quite centered
> and so become a revolving door), the May
> sun was drying the grass of the bed-and-breakfast’s
> manicured front lawn. A gardener
> ...

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## YesNo

That was a nice poem by Bill Christopherson. _Rattle_ does seem accessible from what I have read so far, MorheusSandman, and I will probably start a subscription. I'll look into the others you mentioned as well.

Sometimes translated poems, poetaster, come with the original and the translation on facing pages. With current technology, it should be possible to provide an audio version of at least the original. That may not be enough to get a sense of the pleasure the original provided, but it should help.

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## Poetaster

> Sometimes translated poems, poetaster, come with the original and the translation on facing pages. With current technology, it should be possible to provide an audio version of at least the original. That may not be enough to get a sense of the pleasure the original provided, but it should help.


That's right. The Guy Lee translations of Catullus and Virgil are how I learned Latin actually, I highly recommend them exactly because they also provide the original Latin text.

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## Vota

I'm not sure if epic poems fall within this thread, but I just read The Aeneid. Honest opinion? I didn't care for it. I felt that besides being a propaganda piece in part, which I honestly don't care about, it copies much from The Iliad and The Odyssey, but doesn't do it as well, nor does it have an equivalently epic feel to it in comparison to Homer's works. I also did not care for the similes used, while in Homer's I thought they were phenomenal. I also felt like The Iliad and The Odyssey spoke to me, and what it spoke was true, whereas I felt Virgil's work lacked a certain level of authenticity in its themes. 

I admit to reading it in a modern translation, that of Robert Fagles, and that though I loved his translations of Homer, feel that I might have been better served reading the Allen Mandelbaum or Robert Fitzgerald translations. I spoke with a professor of mine today and voiced my opinions. He somewhat agreed with my opinions, but felt that what I was really missing was the oratory effect from hearing the poem in its original Latin, having himself read in its original form.

Now I have done some minor research into translations and have done a few comparisons of different works, and definitely can see how different translators can make the same work feel different, but it definitely seems like some works are more prone to this loss of effect from the translation process than others, and that The Aeneid falls into this category.

Personally, I feel The Iliad and The Odyssey are on another level over The Aeneid. I also felt that Paradise Lost, while not as great as Homer's works, imo, was also fantastic and worth reading again in the future. I'm not sure I can see myself reading The Aeneid again. I don't plan to learn Latin just to read it, so I admit that I may be confining myself to an opinion lacking the best possible presentation to base judgement off of.

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## mal4mac

The Oxford Guide to Literature in Translation has a long section on Virgil's Aeneid which damns all modern translations with faint praise, and recommends Dryden. In fact, I've never seen a translation praised so highly in the OGLT! Dryden himself thought he'd captured Virgil's 'magnificence', and Walter Scott agreed with him.

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## YesNo

I started reading Dryden's Aeneid, mal4mac. It's in rhymed iambic pentameter and so far quite entertaining with Juno getting hot and bothered.

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## Poetaster

I'll hold my hand up and say I like the Fagles translation. Fagles as a translator is consistently very good, though his Aeneid does have some problems. For one thing, his Virgil sounds and feels a lot like his Homer. Also, Fagles seems to like these elegant, phrases over Virgil's Latin which was written in this somewhat clunky high style. There is supposed to be a friction to Virgil's poem, and there just isn't in Fagles' translation of it. Still, Fagles is good if you want a reasonably accurate translation of the poem, and I still use it whenever I teach The Aeneid, which isn't often, sadly. 

About it being propaganda - well, that's one interpretation of it. I can't say it's the one I would agree with, as the tone is really the deciding factor in that sense. And since there is still scholarly debate on that very subject still, it's more than reasonable to assume that that is intentional. The Aeneid should not really be compared against Homer, Homer and Virgil were doing different things, and in terms of nearly everything Homer would obviously win out.

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## cacian

> The Oxford Guide to Literature in Translation has a long section on Virgil's Aeneid which damns all modern translations with faint praise, and recommends Dryden. In fact, I've never seen a translation praised so highly in the OGLT! Dryden himself thought he'd captured Virgil's 'magnificence', and Walter Scott agreed with him.


so there are variations of understanding with regards to Aeneid?
how does one feel about a script/piece that has multiple understanding and none has not one common ground with all of them?
the translations in other words are agreed to differ?

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## mal4mac

Although I've read both of Homer's classics (with a struggle!) I've never been able to read a few pages of Virgil without thinking, "some other time, maybe". (I've just done it again!)

"The general reader... in Latin literature... may be as rare as the ivory-billed woodpecker" - David Ross

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## cacian

> Although I've read both of Homer's classics (with a struggle!) I've never been able to read a few pages of Virgil without thinking, "some other time, maybe". (I've just done it again!)
> 
> "The general reader... in Latin literature... may be as rare as the ivory-billed woodpecker" - David Ross


I have read but understood I could not conquer I won?
there is a difference between wanting to reread for clarification and wanting to reread because one could not the first time. :Biggrin:

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## Vota

I guess the over-riding issue I have with The Aeneid, is that everything Virgil did with it, Homer just flat out did it better, imo. I can see the historic relevance of it in setting up an epic history for the Romans, but the poem just feels flat to me. I would not go so far as to call it bad, especially because of the way it fleshes out the sack of Troy and the Trojan horse. I remember when reading The Iliad and The Odyssey I kept wondering why their was not significant mention or elaboration of the Trojan horse, which is so intertwined with the whole story. The Aeneid provides this vital piece and imo, completes The Iliad by showing us the sack of Troy and what happened to the survivors.

I'm not sure if the differing translations so much change the story, as change the feel of the story. I initially said the Robert Fitzgerald or Allen Mandelbaum translations might be better picks for The Aeneid, because they use a longer, more flowery or eloquent style than Robert Fagles, imo. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my Fagles translations of Homer. He prioritized force, speed, and clarity, while using a somewhat colloquial style with moments of great eloquence. It gives his translations of these works a down-to-earth feel while retaining the epic qualities. I feel that this style was similarly used for The Aeneid and it just doesn't quite work the same way. The colloquialisms used for Homer do not translate well to Virgil.

Another thing that really, really stood out to me, were the similes. In The Iliad and The Odyssey they were ALWAYS, for me, highly effective in generating great visualizations, but some reason in The Aeneid they seemed to distract me from the story. I cannot really explain it better than that.

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## Poetaster

That is the thing though. Fagles is best for the Greek poets, and their rapid, direct, and constant style. He misses their long, long lines, but that's not such a huge problem for me. His translation style was just not suited to the more verbally complex and tonally ambiguous Virgil. I do understand what you mean, Vota, Virgil is no match for Homer - but ... who was? That seems an unfair benchmark considering Homer set the stage on which pretty much it not actually all western fiction is played on. 

Virgil was known for his eclogue, bucolic writings about the simple, rustic, Roman farm - and yet wrote this epic poem that even reuses lines from his pastoral poem The Georgics, whereas Homer belongs to the tradition of the oral story teller, and almost certainly had centuries of refinement to back him up, if he existed at all. With Virgil it was essentially an all new poem with an old story behind it, and it was a poem that apparently was never finished too. Comparing Virgil's epic to the Homeric epics is perfectly understandable, I guess, but it is also rather unfair I think.

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## YesNo

Do either of you have comparative examples from each of the translators to illustrate their strengths or weaknesses?

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## Poetaster

Here are two renderings of the same scene. 

The Fagles translation: 




> Then Juno in all her power, filled with pity
> for Dido's agonizing death, her labor long and hard,
> sped Iris down from Olympus to release her spirit
> wrestling now in a deathlock with her limbs.
> Since she was dying a death not fated or deserved,
> no, tormented, before her day, in a blaze of passion--
> Prosperina had yet to pluck a golden lock from her head
> and commit her life to the Styx and the dark world below.
> So Iris, glistening dew, comes skimming down from the sky
> ...


The Fitzgerald translation:




> ... Almighty Juno,
> Filled with pity for this long ordeal
> And difficult passage, now sent Iris down
> Out of Olympus to set free
> The wrestling spirit from the body's hold.
> For since she died, not at her fated span
> Nor as she merited, but before her time
> Enflamed and driven mad, Proserpina
> Had not yet plucked from her the golden hair,
> ...

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## cacian

which of the two do you prefer?

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## Poetaster

> which of the two do you prefer?


Of the two of them? I first read the Fagles, so I'm naturally inclined to go with that, though the merits of the Fitzgerald translation are great indeed. Here is the original:

Tum Iuno omnipotens, longum miserata dolorem
difficilisque obitus, Irim demisit Olympo,
quae luctantem animam nexosque resolveret artus.
Nam quia nec fato, merita nec morte peribat,
sed misera ante diem, subitoque accensa furore,
nondum illi flavum Proserpina vertice crinem
abstulerat, Stygioque caput damnaverat Orco.
Ergo Iris croceis per caelum roscida pennis,
mille trahens varios adverso sole colores,
devolat, et supra caput adstitit: "Hunc ego Diti
sacrum iussa fero, teque isto corpore solvo."
Sic ait, et dextra crinem secat: omnis et una
dilapsus calor, atque in ventos vita recessit.

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## YesNo

Here's how Dryden translates that:




> Then Juno, grieving that she should sustain 
> A death so ling'ring, and so full of pain, 
> Sent Iris down, to free her from the strife 
> Of lab'ring nature, and dissolve her life. 
> For since she died, not doom'd by Heav'n's decree, 
> Or her own crime, but human casualty, 
> And rage of love, that plung'd her in despair, 
> The Sisters had not cut the topmost hair, 
> Which Proserpine and they can only know; 
> ...

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## RobbyA

Reading the last few posts have just reminded me how much I enjoyed reading parts The Aeneid at school. Book 4 was definitely my favourite  :Smile:

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## mal4mac

What about David West? Why not prose? Being, mostly, a novel reader, I find these long narrative poems rather hard going:

"Unlike his immediate predecessors Robert Fitzgerald and CH Sisson, West believed that prose suited his task better than verse, since “I know of nobody at the end of our century who reads long narrative poems in English, and I want the Aeneid to be read.” In order not to interrupt the flow, he avoided using footnotes or a glossary . Scholarly “furniture”, he felt, would only distract the eye and diminish the vitality of the text."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obit...avid-West.html

I just read the first few pages in Amazon "Look Inside" and, for me, West seems a lot more accessible than Fitzgerald. I read Rieu's versions of Homer's epics after finding Fagles hard going. Maybe I should go with prose for Virgil as well.

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## YesNo

If you take the Fitzgerald translation and pretend the line breaks aren't there, couldn't you read it as prose?

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## mal4mac

> If you take the Fitzgerald translation and pretend the line breaks aren't there, couldn't you read it as prose?


I find it a 'long ordeal and difficult passage'. But let's try it:

Almighty Juno, filled with pity for this long ordeal and difficult passage, now sent Iris down out of Olympus to set free the wrestling spirit from the body's hold. For since she died, not at her fated span nor as she merited, but before her time enflamed and driven mad, Proserpina had not yet plucked from her the golden hair, delivering her to Orcus of the Styx. So humid Iris through bright heaven flew on saffron-yellow wings, and in her train a thousand hues shimmered before the sun. At Dido's head she came to rest. "This token Sacred to Dis I bear away as bidden And free you from your body." Saying this, she cut a lock of hair. Along with it her body's warmth fell into dissolution, and out into the winds her life withdrew."

I'm sorry, but this just doesn't work as prose. Also it makes things rather opaque, was that 'long ordeal and passage' a journey by ship? But West's prose version also has problems, take the first line of our passage:

"Almighty Juno took pity on her long anguish and difficult death and sent Iris down to free her struggling spirit and loosen the fastening of her limbs."

'to free her struggling spirit and loosen the fastening of her limbs' is very awkward & opaque. I much prefer Fitzgerald's, 'to set free the wrestling spirit from the body's hold'. And I'm not sure how West can get away with avoiding scholarly apparatus for that passage - surely the average Penguin reader would require definitions of Proserpina, Orca, Styx, Dido, Dis, and explanations of things like 'plucked from her the golden hair.'

All in all, as my Oxford Companion to Classical Literature says, "the poem is immensely complex"!

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## YesNo

All the purple prose (or whatever it's called) makes it hard to read. Here's my translation:

_Out of pity, Juno sent Iris down to make sure Dido was dead._

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## mal4mac

Here's the most recent stanza I've read:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

- from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

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## cacian

> Here's the most recent stanza I've read:
> 
> The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
> Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
> Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
> Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
> 
> - from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


and what is the meaning of this passage?  :Smile:

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## qimissung

I read this poem by Maya Angelou to my class after her death recently.

Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone. 

Maya Angelou

----------


## Lykren

Tell all the truth but tell it slant 
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind 

----------


## Poetaster

To an Athlete Dying Young
By E.A. Housman


The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

----------


## mona amon

I hardly read any poetry but I'm working on it, and recently I read and loved _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_. Here is a random quote, and an audio clip can be found here - http://www.public.asu.edu/~gelderen/AUDIO.htm


Now ridez þis renk þurȝ þe ryalme of Logres,
Sir Gauan, on Godez halue, þaȝ hym no gomen þoȝt.
Oft leudlez alone he lengez on nyȝtez
Þer he fonde noȝt hym byfore þe fare þat he lyked.
Hade he no fere bot his fole bi frythez and dounez,
Ne no gome bot God bi gate wyth to karp,
Til þat he neȝed ful neghe into þe Norþe Walez.
Alle þe iles of Anglesay on lyft half he haldez,
And farez ouer þe fordez by þe forlondez,
Ouer at þe Holy Hede, til he hade eft bonk
In þe wyldrenesse of Wyrale; wonde þer bot lyte [folio 100v] 
Þat auþer God oþer gome wyth goud hert louied.
And ay he frayned, as he ferde, at frekez þat he met,
If þay hade herde any karp of a knyȝt grene,
In any grounde þeraboute, of þe grene chapel;
And al nykked hym wyth nay, þat neuer in her lyue
Þay seȝe neuer no segge þat watz of suche hwez
of grene.
Þe knyȝt tok gates straunge
In mony a bonk vnbene,
His cher ful oft con chaunge
Þat chapel er he myȝt sene.
Mony klyf he ouerclambe in contrayez straunge,
Fer floten fro his frendez fremedly he rydez.
At vche warþe oþer water þer þe wyȝe passed
He fonde a foo hym byfore, bot ferly hit were,
And þat so foule and so felle þat feȝt hym byhode.
So mony meruayl bi mount þer þe mon fyndez,
Hit were to tore for to telle of þe tenþe dole.

----------


## cacian

here is the next one I read:

*To Celia* is a poem published after March 1616 by Ben Jonson. It became the lyrics of a song, Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes, composed sometime after 1770.— Excerpted from To Celia on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

_drink to me only with thine eyes_

Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I'll not look for wine
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine
But might I of Jove's nectar sup
I would not change for thine

I sent thee late a rosy wreath
Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be
But thou thereon didst only breathe
And sent'st it back to me
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear
Not of itself but thee!

----------


## Carmilla

The most recent poem I've read is _The Garden of Proserpine_ by Algernon C. Swinburne.

Here's a bit of it  :Smile:  :

Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems 
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.

----------


## deguonis

*TO THE RIVER AVEN*
By ERNEST DOWSON 25th January, 1898

Is lotus eating lost in an old story,
And is the Golden Age departed when
Gorse lined these hills in a great golden glory,
Where river runs to sea from Pont-Aven?

Fate hath no arrows left in any quiver,
This is the land of all oblivious men:
How many dreams, and dead desires this river
Hath borne to the waste sea from Pont-Aven?

----------


## cacian

*Wilfred Owen*

move him into the sun-
gently its touch awoke him once
at home, whispering of fields unsown
always it awoke him, even in France
until this morning and this snow
if anything might rouse him now
the kind old sun will know

think how it wakes the seeds
woke, once, the clays of a cold star
are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
full-nerved,--still warm,--too hard to stir?
was it for this the clay grew tall?
--o what made fatuous sunbeams toil
to break earth's sleep at all?

----------


## Poetaster

A Graveyard
BY MARIANNE MOORE


Man, looking into the sea—
taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you have it to yourself—
it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing
but you cannot stand in the middle of this:
the sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave.
The firs stand in a procession—each with an emerald turkey-foot at the top—
reserved as their contours, saying nothing;
repression, however, is not the most obvious characteristic of the sea;
the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.
There are others besides you who have worn that look—
whose expression is no longer a protest; the fish no longer investigate them
for their bones have not lasted;
men lower nets, unconscious of the fact that they are desecrating a grave,
and row quickly away—the blades of the oars 
moving together like the feet of water-spiders as if there were no such thing as death.
The wrinkles progress upon themselves in a phalanx—beautiful under networks of foam,
and fade breathlessly while the sea rustles in and out of the seaweed;
the birds swim through the air at top speed, emitting cat-calls as heretofore—
the tortoise-shell scourges about the feet of the cliffs, in motion beneath them
and the ocean, under the pulsation of light-houses and noise of bell-buoys,
advances as usual, looking as if it were not that ocean in which dropped things are bound to sink—
in which if they turn and twist, it is neither with volition nor consciousness.

----------


## Aly Jaffar

Wanting to Die, Anne Sexton.


Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage. 
Then the almost unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention, 
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have so simply declared myself, 
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy, 
have taken on his craft, his magic.

In this way, heavy and thoughtful, 
warmer than oil or water,
I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.

I did not think of my body at needle point.
Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone. 
Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they dont always die,
but dazzled, they cant forget a drug so sweet 
that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue!
that, all by itself, becomes a passion. 
Deaths a sad bone; bruised, youd say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year, 
to so delicately undo an old wound, 
to empty my breath from its bad prison.

Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet, 
raging at the fruit a pumped-up moon, 
leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,

leaving the page of the book carelessly open,
something unsaid, the phone off the hook
and the love whatever it was, an infection.



You can listen to Sexton reading her own poem, just write the title in "Youtube". And of course, we know that Sexton had committed suicide after few years.

----------


## tonywalt

I really like this one. Billy Collins writes with a great deal of humour, but this one really is a vivid description of Goya.

CANDLE HAT (Billy Collins)

In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:
Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,
Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather
from painting The Blinding of Sampson.

But in this one Goya stands well back from the mirror
and is seen posed in the clutter of his studio
addressing a canvas tilted back on a tall easel.

He appears to be smiling out at us as if he knew
we would be amused by the extraordinary hat on his head
which is fitted around the brim with candle holders,
a device that allowed him to work into the night.

You can only wonder what it would be like
to be wearing such a chandelier on your head
as if you were a walking dining room or concert hall.

But once you see this hat there is no need to read
any biography of Goya or to memorize his dates.

To understand Goya you only have to imagine him
lighting the candles one by one, then placing
the hat on his head, ready for a night of work.

Imagine him surprising his wife with his new invention,
the laughing like a birthday cake when she saw the glow.

Imagine him flickering through the rooms of his house
with all the shadows flying across the walls.

Imagine a lost traveler knocking on his door
one dark night in the hill country of Spain.
"Come in, " he would say, "I was just painting myself,"
as he stood in the doorway holding up the wand of a brush,
illuminated in the blaze of his famous candle hat. 

Billy Collins

----------


## free

I have been reading about a constellation and wondered how many poets were interested to write about particular stars. Here is one.

THE STAR SIRIUS by George Meredith

Bright Sirius! that when Orion pales
To dotlings under moonlight still art keen
With cheerful fervour of a warrior's mien
Who holds in his great heart the battle-scales:
Unquenched of flame though swift the flood assails,
Reducing many lustrous to the lean:
Be thou my star, and thou in me be seen
To show what source divine is, and prevails.
Long watches through, at one with godly night,
I mark thee planting joy in constant fire;
And thy quick beams, whose jets of life inspire
Life to the spirit, passion for the light,
Dark Earth since first she lost her lord from sight
Has viewed and felt them sweep her as a lyre.

----------


## NikolaiI

*It is Good*, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

IN Paradise while moonbeams play'd,

Jehovah found, in slumber deep,
Adam fast sunk; He gently laid

Eve near him,--she, too, fell asleep.
There lay they now, on earth's fair shrine,
God's two most beauteous thoughts divine.--
When this He saw, He cried:--'Tis Good!
And scarce could move from where He stood.

No wonder, that our joy's complete
While eye and eye responsive meet,
When this blest thought of rapture moves us--
That we're with Him who truly loves us,
And if He cries:--Good, let it be!
'Tis so for both, it seems to me.
Thou'rt clasp'd within these arms of mine,
Dearest of all God's thoughts divine!

----------


## cacian

*Emily Dickinson*
*My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun--*

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -
In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - identified -
And carried Me away - 
And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -
And now We hunt the Doe -
And every time I speak for Him -
The Mountains straight reply -

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through -

And when at Night - Our good Day done -
I guard My Master's Head -
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's
Deep Pillow - to have shared -

To foe of His - I'm deadly foe -
None stir the second time -
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -
Or an emphatic Thumb -

Though I than He - may longer live
He longer must - than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without--the power to die--

----------


## Margarethe

A poem of Goethe, very good

----------


## free

The Dove



Dove, both love and spirit

Who engendered Jesus Christ,

Like you I love a Mary.

And so with her I marry.


Guillaume Apollinaire

----------


## Sospira

Suicide in the Trenches
By Siegfried Sassoon

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy, 
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, 
And whistled early with the lark. 

In winter trenches, cowed and glum, 
With crumps and lice and lack of rum, 
He put a bullet through his brain. 
No one spoke of him again. 

* * * * *

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye 
Who cheer when soldier lads march by, 
Sneak home and pray you'll never know 
The hell where youth and laughter go.

----------


## YesNo

I found this on opening "The Riverside Anthology of Literature" at a used book sale.

Dorothy Parker

Thought for a Sunshiny Morning

It costs me never a stab nor squirm
To tread by chance upon a worm.
"Aha, my little dear," I say,
"Your clan will pay me back one day."

----------


## Ecurb

Crime Club, by Weldon Kees

No butler, no second maid, no blood upon the stair.
No eccentric aunt, no gardener, no family friend
Smiling among the bric-a-brac and murder.
Only a suburban house with the front door open
And a dog barking at a squirrel, and the cars
Passing. The corpse quite dead. The wife in Florida.

Consider the clues: the potato masher in a vase,
The torn photograph of a Wesleyan basketball team,
Scattered with check stubs in the hall;
The unsent fan letter to Shirley Temple,
The Hoover button on the lapel of the deceased,
The note: "To be killed this way is quite all right with me."

Small wonder that the case remains unsolved,
Or that the sleuth, Le Roux, is now incurably insane,
And sits alone in a white room in a white gown,
Screaming that all the world is mad, that clues
Lead nowhere, or to walls so high their tops cannot be seen;
Screaming all day of war, screaming that nothing can be solved.

----------


## Pierre Menard

Wallace Stevens - To the Roaring Wind


What syllable are you seeking,
Vocalissimus,
In the distances of sleep?
Speak it.

----------


## Lykren

Wallace Stevens is amazing.

----------


## cacian

*''Tam o' Shanter*" is a narrative poem written by the Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1790. First published in 1791, it is one of Burns's longer poems, and employs a mixture of Scots and English.
not all of it is posted here.


When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate,
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

----------


## Pierre Menard

> Wallace Stevens is amazing.



Yeah, a wonderful poet The Library of America collected works edition of Stevens is one of my all-time favourite books.

----------


## Lykren

Why that edition in particular? I have a 2005 Knopf edition, it doesn't have such thin pages as LoA. Are there great notes in your edition? Mine doesn't have any notes.

----------


## mona amon

Ooh, I love Robert Burns!  :Smile:

----------


## Pierre Menard

> Why that edition in particular? I have a 2005 Knopf edition, it doesn't have such thin pages as LoA. Are there great notes in your edition? Mine doesn't have any notes.




A few reasons. One, I love the thin pages, reminds me of The Bible (a purely personal enjoyment). More importantly, it collects all of his poetry as well as his prose (which is very much worth reading, it's wonderful); letters, journal entries, plays, responses to other writers, all of his major non-fiction. There's an abundance of notes too, they're simple, but very helpful (clearing up obscure references, alternative versions of poems, etc). All really scholarly stuff. And finally, I find LoA editions beautiful. Love the hardcover, love the pages, and the presentation is just beautiful. 

It's largely just a personal response. Other editions I'm sure are also very good, I just happen to thoroughly enjoy LoA editions.  :Smile:

----------


## YesNo

This is from Edward Thomas's _Poems_: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/22423/pg22423.html

*TALL NETTLES*

TALL nettles cover up, as they have done
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone:
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.
This corner of the farmyard I like most:
As well as any bloom upon a flower
I like the dust on the nettles, never lost
Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.

----------


## danah

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.
Shakespeare

----------


## danah

What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one’s faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one’s memories.
Somerset Maugham

----------


## danah

I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell;
And by and by my Soul returned to me,
And answered, "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell"–


Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
by Edward FitzGerald

----------


## Lykren

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

----------


## Pierre Menard

One of the great poems ^^^

----------


## Lykren

Definitely. I love the way, among many other things, it leaps from describing a single moment in the first half to encompass worlds of philosophy in the second. I'm never quite sure how specific the intention is behind that second half, but perhaps the slight vagueness of it, the poem's 'white rush' of fluid muscularity among carefully selected details, is itself part of the answer. To me at this moment, it seems as if the poem is dealing with questions of free will, and of the curious and uncertain boundary which demarcates interactions between the universe and the self.

----------


## NikolaiI

The Will, by John Donne. I would post it here but it's a little lengthy. . . Very interesting poem. 

http://www.poetseers.org/the-great-p...ill/index.html

----------


## Lykren

In Praise of Limestone - W. H. Auden (too long to post here).

This difficult poem presents its readers with a unity it reaches by contrasting (and thereby stripping of perceived ideal features) a limestone landscape with various landscapes of clay, gravel, granite, and a forest. Here the peculiarity of the diction, the slight shifts in register to and from formality, and the seemingly flighty nature of the imagery, accompany a typically Auden-esque form of insight that combines obscurity with a summative effect that communicates extraordinarily well; see the last lines:

when I try to imagine a faultless love 
Or the life to come, what I hear is the murmur 
Of underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape.

Certainly a poem worth many re-readings.

----------


## NikolaiI

I'm reading The Cloud, by Percy Shelley, and various ones by Sri Aurobindo.

http://www.internal.org/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley/The_Cloud


Well, this one - A God's Labour, by the latter

http://intyoga.online.fr/labour.htm

----------


## Pierre Menard

> Definitely. I love the way, among many other things, it leaps from describing a single moment in the first half to encompass worlds of philosophy in the second. I'm never quite sure how specific the intention is behind that second half, but perhaps the slight vagueness of it, the poem's 'white rush' of fluid muscularity among carefully selected details, is itself part of the answer. To me at this moment, it seems as if the poem is dealing with questions of free will, and of the curious and uncertain boundary which demarcates interactions between the universe and the self.



Yes, I'm not entirely sure the specific meaning behind the second half but I've come to somewhat of a similar conclusion as well. I think the first half with it's imagery presents the feelings of a physical struggle, which leads into the feelings of an existential/philosophical struggle in the second half, largely based around struggling with notions of free will against fate or a predestined ending (I think using 'Agamemnon' is important here) and struggling too with the idea of a cold indifferent ("indifferent beak") universe. This is what I love about poems like this though, they're endlessly re-readable and offer themselves to different interpretations and feelings. 

I also just really love the imagery too.

----------


## Lykren

Yes, the imagery! Not only that, but the way he simultaneously pairs and opposes the imagery with the thought underneath it gives it a monumental, statuesque flair, making those philosophical undertones seem so well-fitted to the image.

----------


## Pierre Menard

Clear Night - Charles Wright


Clear night, thumb-top of a moon, a back-lit sky.
Moon-fingers lay down their same routine
On the side deck and the threshold, the white keys and the black keys.
Bird hush and bird song. A cassia flower falls.

I want to be bruised by God.
I want to be strung up in a strong light and singled out.
I want to be stretched, like music wrung from a dropped seed. 
I want to be entered and picked clean.

And the wind says “What?” to me.
And the castor beans, with their little earrings of death, say “What?” to me.
And the stars start out on their cold slide through the dark. 
And the gears notch and the engines wheel.


Charles Wright is a fantastic contemporary poet.

----------


## bewitched

> why not post or share you most recent poem you have so far.
> it would be good to read it too


*i'm alone but this word is so familiar
how long is it gonna be
for me to feel so inferior
i really wish that he could see
that my pain is interior
if only he could see....


i'm alone but this word is my friend
i wonder how is it gonna be
when i reach the end
i really wish he'd listen to me
i can no longer defend
if only he could see...


i'm alone but this word is everything i've got
i'm really not gonna be
some one i am not
i really wish he knew me
instead of locking me in a cot
if only he could see.....


but he 'll never see through me..*

----------


## Pompey Bum

Hello bewitched. I missed you somehow, but welcome to the site! Your poem is nice but so sad. Be sure to say hi in the introductions thread (where I will probably welcome you again). Remember, just because "he" is being a jerk to you doesn't mean that the rest of us will. Welcome again!  :Smile:

----------


## NikolaiI

A Good Boy, by Robert Louis Stevenson

I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day,
I never said an ugly word, but smiled and stuck to play.

And now at last the sun is going down behind the wood,
And I am very happy, for I know that I've been good.

My bed is waiting cool and fresh, with linen smooth and fair,
And I must be off to sleepsin-by, and not forget my prayer.

I know that, till to-morrow I shall see the sun arise,
No ugly dream shall fright my mind, no ugly sight my eyes.

But slumber hold me tightly till I waken in the dawn,
And hear the thrushes singing in the lilacs round the lawn.

----------


## NikolaiI

The Voice of the Ancient Bard, by William Blake

Youth of delight! come hither
And see the opening morn,
Image of Truth new-born.
Doubt is fled, and clouds of reason,
Dark disputes and artful teazing.
Folly is an endless maze;
Tangled roots perplex her ways;
How many have fallen there!
They stumble all night over bones of the dead;
And feel--they know not what but care;
And wish to lead others, when they should be led.

----------


## NikolaiI

Flowers, by Robert Louis Stevenson

All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,
And the Lady Hollyhock.

Fairy places, fairy things,
Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
Tiny trees for tiny dames--
These must all be fairy names!

Tiny woods below whose boughs
Shady fairies weave a house;
Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,
Where the braver fairies climb!

Fair are grown-up people's trees,
But the fairest woods are these;
Where, if I were not so tall,
I should live for good and all.


and Ad Olum -
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poet...n/ad_olum.html

----------


## YesNo

I've read Lang Leav's "Love & Misadventure" after her other books appeared on Goodreads. Here is her site if you would like to read some of them: http://langleav.com/tagged/Popular

She is also on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/lang-leav

I thought they were pretty good.

----------


## NikolaiI

9
Allons! whoever you are, come travel with me! 
Traveling with me, you find what never tires. 

The earth never tires; 
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at firstNature is rude and incomprehensible at first; 
Be not discouragedkeep onthere are divine things, well envelopd; 
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell. 

Allons! we must not stop here! 
However sweet these laid-up storeshowever convenient this dwelling, we cannot remain here; 
However shelterd this port, and however calm these waters, we must not anchor here; 
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us, we are permitted to receive it but a little while.


Song of the Open Road, by Whitman
http://www.bartleby.com/142/82.html

----------


## Lykren

721

Behind Me—dips Eternity—
Before Me—Immortality—
Myself—the Term between—
Death but the Drift of Eastern Gray,
Dissolving into Dawn away,
Before the West begin—

'Tis Kingdoms—afterward—they say—
In perfect—pauseless Monarchy—
Whose Prince—is Son of None—
Himself—His Dateless Dynasty—
Himself—Himself diversify—
In Duplicate divine—

'Tis Miracle before Me—then—
'Tis Miracle behind—between—
A Crescent in the Sea—
With Midnight to the North of Her—
And Midnight to the South of Her—
And Maelstrom—in the Sky— 

Emily Dickinson.

This poem leaves me breathless. All the hope and fear that happens when we think 'forever' contained in a strange binary the product of which is: "Maelstrom--in the Sky--"

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## virtuoso

Footprint on Your Heart
Gary Lenhart


Someone will walk into your life,
Leave a footprint on your heart,
Turn it into a mudroom cluttered
With encrusted boots, children’s mittens,
Scratchy scarves—
Where you linger to unwrap 
Or ready yourself for rough exits 
Into howling gales or onto 
Frozen car seats, expulsions
Into the great outdoors where touch
Is muffled, noses glisten,
And breaths stab,
So that when you meet someone
Who is leaving your life
You will be able to wave stiff
Icy mitts and look forward
To an evening in spring
When you can fold winter away
Until your next encounter with
A chill so numbing you strew
The heart’s antechamber
With layers of rural garble.



A brilliant metaphor encapsulating love.

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## cacian

> 721
> 
> Behind Me—dips Eternity—
> Before Me—Immortality—
> Myself—the Term between—
> Death but the Drift of Eastern Gray,
> Dissolving into Dawn away,
> Before the West begin—
> 
> ...


721
is that the title?
Mealstrom is a word i sure dont know.

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## Lykren

Dickinon didn't title her poems, so scholars give them numbers. A maelstrom is a chaotic storm.

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## tailor STATELY

Other than mine own and Jerrybaldys' (and my other favorite poets on litnet): "*The Road Not Taken*" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken by *Robert Frost*.

I created an anagramic version titled "The Road Not Ken: Ta !" for a contest here on litnet a number of months ago, and still tinker with it on occasion. I used "Ken: Ta!" in the title to give a clue that my "poem" was anagramic - with "Taken" rent to include my signature "Ta!" as in "Ta ! _(short for tarradiddle)..._", and "Ken": from google: ken/ken/noun one's range of knowledge or sight. verb know; or "known" (my note).

Just last Sunday a lesson was given at church ( https://www.lds.org/general-conferen...d-see?lang=eng ) and our instructor alluded to Frost's poem and it became bright and shiny again when it came to memory; and I reread it. Frost's poem is emblematic of my continuing conversion in my faith: "And that has made all the difference".

I often revisit Emily Dickinson's delicate poetry; and self-study pretty much all genres.

Ta ! _(short for tarradiddle)_,
tailor STATELY

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## free

I am restless. I am athirst for far-away things.
My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim
distance.
O Great Beyond, O the keen call of thy flute!
I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings to fly, that I am
bound in this spot evermore.

I am eager and wakeful, I am a stranger in a strange land.
Thy breath comes to me whispering an impossible hope.
Thy tongue is known to my heart as its very own.
O Far-to-seek, O the keen call of thy flute!
I forget, I ever forget, that I know not the way, that I have not
the winged horse.

I am listless, I am a wanderer in my heart.
In the sunny haze of the languid hours, what vast vision of thine
takes shape in the blue of the sky!
O Farthest end, O the keen call of thy flute!
I forget, I ever forget, that the gates are shut everywhere in
the house where I dwell alone!

*Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener*

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## Lykren

one dead of night
in the dead still
he looked up
from his book

from that dark
to pore on other dark

till afar
taper faint
the eyes

in the dead still

till afar
his book as by
a hand not his
a hand on his
faintly closed

for good or ill

for good and ill

-- Samuel Beckett

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## NikolaiI

> I am restless. I am athirst for far-away things.
> My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim
> distance.
> O Great Beyond, O the keen call of thy flute!
> I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings to fly, that I am
> bound in this spot evermore.
> 
> I am eager and wakeful, I am a stranger in a strange land.
> Thy breath comes to me whispering an impossible hope.
> ...


I saw this and then forgot where I saw this! 

The first lines remind me of a snippet from Rumi's poetry, 
"My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there."

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## Melanie

*Do not stand at my grave and weep*
_by Mary Elizabeth Frye
_
Do not stand at my grave and weep:
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the mornings hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starshine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry:
I am not there; I did not die.

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## Poetaster

Percy Shelley's Masque of Anarchy - I'll not post it all here.

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## virtuoso

I read this seasonal medley enshrouded with love. Enjoy!


The Four Seasons
By cjkrieger on 03/25/2015

Small speckles of wild grass
Looking like tiny green drops
That had fallen to the earth
Were the very first sign

Waving in the breeze
With their feathery tops rippling
They slowly reached for the sun
Growing much taller than myself

Then the dragonflies
Darting about like lost Messerschmitts
Looking for a place to land
Foretold of the coming

As I looked down the long winding path
I saw off in the distance
A slight figure of a woman
Drawing closer and closer

It was you
(And I had missed you so)
With your smiling face
And your arms wildly waving hello

Must be spring


The unusually humid
Hot summer night
Found my hands sliding
Along your warm, moist body

As I watched you
Uncovered
Lying nakedly on the cool sheets
My eyes followed a single drop
Of beaded sweat
Which had leisurely rolled down
Your gentle curves
And magically disappeared

As you awoke to my touch
Smiling
We both followed
The movements of my fingers
Thoroughly searching
For a single drop of water
Lost within the folds
Of your thighs

Must be summer


There was not a bird in the sky
They had all fallen
Into the top
Of a large red oak tree
On the northeast side of the meadow

Each one singing
Louder than the next
Until all the leaves shattered
And fell

Must be autumn


A single leaf
On a tree
Unyielding
Is all that remains
As a tribute to summer

While on the ground
Changing patterns with the blowing wind
The dry crinkling sound of leaves
Moves to and fro

As the tree quietly sleeps
Waiting
For the chilly mornings to pass
And the warmth of a spring rain
To say hello

I sit at my window
Staring down the road
Counting the passing days
Until I see your smiling face
And your arms wildly waving hello

Must be winter

----------


## YesNo

I read a poem by Steve Henn among my emails from Rattle today and checked out his website. http://www.therealstevehenn.com/theliveexperience.html

I enjoyed his humor.

----------


## YesNo

I remember hearing this as a child in a cartoon, but I forgot it until I saw shadow of iris's blog: http://www.shadowofiris.com/the-arro...-w-longfellow/

*The Arrow and the Song*
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1845

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

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## Diggory Venn

I have just read "A Sunday Morning Tragedy" by Thomas Hardy, which was published in his 1909 collection "Time`s Laughingstocks". Unfortunately it is too long to copy here and I cannot find a link, but it is worth seeking out (No. 155 in the "Complete Poems"). But be prepared - it is typical Hardy, much in the same vein as his last two major novels...

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## tailor STATELY

Sonnet 18 - William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Ta ! _(short for tarradiddle)_,
tailor STATELY

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## Poetaster

Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself'. I'll post just the first few lines, but I like a lot of it very much. 

I

I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

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## qimissung

> I read this seasonal medley enshrouded with love. Enjoy!
> 
> 
> The Four Seasons
> By cjkrieger on 03/25/2015
> 
> Small speckles of wild grass
> Looking like tiny green drops
> That had fallen to the earth
> ...


This is beautiful, virtuoso! Thank you so much for sharing!

----------


## Diggory Venn

Yesterday, the weather being particularly fine in the north of England we journeyed to Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire for a day out. Whilst enjoying the surrounding landscape we visited St Mary and St Cuthbert church, which adjoins the ruined priory. The graveyard there being very nice, commanding spectacular views. Anyhow, I was reminded of a favourite poem (as I always am when visiting churchyards) and when I returned home I read it again;

_A Churchyard_

Hundreds of times has grief been here,
Hundreds of mourners themselves lie here,
For some no grieved hearts followed their bier,
They had outlived all who shed a tear.

Emma Hardy (1911)

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## ~Ji

O Me! O Life! by Walt Whitman

And few others by WW. I pick up 'Leaves of Grass' every month or so and revisit a few favourites. It will be noted (because I know how to spell 'favourites') that I am not American. Nevertheless, the patriotism that pervades so much of Walt Whitman's writing speaks of and to humanity way beyond national borders.

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## tailor STATELY

To The Poet On The Subject Of Flowers (English translation) - Arthur Rimbaud http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-th...ct-of-flowers/

"electric butterflies" !

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## Danik 2016

I presently am reading the Brazilian poet Manoel the Barros. To my glad surprise I discovered that some of his poetry has been traduced.
ombmagazine.org/article/3060/five-poems

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## Diggory Venn

`Christmas 1924`

`Peace upon earth !` was said. We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We`ve got as far as poison-gas.

Thomas Hardy. 1924

----------


## Danik 2016

Too true! Hardy witnessed the beginning of it all.

----------


## sandy14

one more good one by Charles Bukowski in Pleasures of the Damned

----------


## comocaza

There goes mine from my Canadian Literature course:

THE LONELY LAND, by A.J. Smith

Cedar and jagged fir
uplift sharp barbs
against the gray
and cloud-piled sky;
and in the bay
blown spume and windrift
and thin, bitter spray
snap
at the whirling sky;
and the pine trees
lean one way.
*
A wild duck calls
to her mate,
and the ragged
and passionate tones
stagger and fall,
and recover,
and stagger and fall,
on these stones 
are lost
in the lapping of water
on smooth, flat stones.
This is a beauty
of dissonance,
this resonance
of stony strand,
this smoky cry
curled over a black pine
like a broken
and wind-battered branch
when the wind
bends the tops of the pines
and curdles the sky
from the north.
*
This is the beauty
of strength
broken by strength
and still strong.

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## Vota

"Opportunity" by Edward R. Sill (1841-1887).

----------


## Gilliatt Gurgle

_Lazy Afternoon_ by MystyrMystyry

----------


## EileenF

I love Cavafy's "Ithaka"

----------


## marvel

When I have fears that I may cease to be 
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, 
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery, 
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; 
When I behold, upon the nights starred face, 
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, 
And think that I may never live to trace 
Their shadows with the magic hand of chance; 
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, 
That I shall never look upon thee more, 
Never have relish in the faery power 
Of unreflecting lovethen on the shore 
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think 
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
-John Keats

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## Dreamwoven

This is a hymn I learned in primary school in the late 1940s:

"All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful
the lord God made them all."

This part is very interesting, about class:

"The rich man in his castle,
the poor man at his gate,
God made them high and lowly,
and ordered their estate."

----------


## YesNo

I have been reading poems linked to the amusement park prompt at dVerse Poet's Pub: https://dversepoets.com/2017/03/14/a...me-for-a-ride/

You have to click on the Mister Linky icon to get a list of the links.

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## tailor STATELY

> This is a hymn I learned in primary school in the late 1940s:
> 
> "All things bright and beautiful,
> all creatures great and small,
> all things wise and wonderful
> the lord God made them all."
> 
> This part is very interesting, about class:
> 
> ...


We sing a different version in our choir and primary: https://www.lds.org/music/library/ch...tiful?lang=eng

Last poem: The Blue Bowl... https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-blue-bowl/ by Jane Kenyon

----------


## Dreamwoven

Quite different words, Stately, and the text is much more modern. I think the rigid class ideas were dropped in the recent version, though the text of that version was the late 19th century. The religion is specific, too: church of latter day saints.

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## tonywalt

This Be The Verse 

BY PHILIP LARKIN

*This be the Verse*


They Fu ck you up,
your mum and dad. 
They may not mean to, but they do. 
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were Fu cked up
in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats, 
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one anothers throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And dont have any kids yourself.

----------


## YesNo

That is the only poem by Larkin that I remember, Tony, although my parents were pretty good.

This isn't the most recent one I've read, but I actually purchased her latest book, "A Seasoning of Lust". I like the reference to the vampire at the end. It is a haibun. So it might not look like a "poem" if you choose to click on the link and read it: https://ladynyo.wordpress.com/2017/0...al-i-ever-had/

----------


## tonywalt

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

by mary oliver

----------


## YesNo

I generally like poems by Mary Oliver. They seem to be on the other side of reality to what Bukowski is taking about and yet both read like common sense we didn't know was so common until we read them.

----------


## YesNo

I've been reading books by people I either know personally or whose poems I've read in dVerse Poets Pub and places like that. Recently, I've read Michael F. Latza's "Rip Out This Poem" and John D. Groppe's "The Raid of the Grackles and Other Poems". Jane Kohut-Bartel's "A Seasoning of Lust" arrived recently and her 200 word stories, flash-fiction or prose poems about Japan are memorable.

----------


## AuntShecky

If by the "most recent" you mean an established poem, that would be a re-reading of the villanelle, "One Art." I read it on the web after reading a print article about Elizabeth Bishop in a current issue of The New Yorker.

If the "most recent" means one that's just been written, then that would be JerryBaldy's piece on the LitNet, which I just read a couple minutes ago. And the one by Mary Oliver, above.

----------


## cacian

_poetry does not pay
try to make hay
mind this sophomore
and bother me no more
_
Nikola Tesla

----------


## tailor STATELY

_A Dandelion for My Mother_ - Jean Nordhaus... https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poe...-for-my-mother

Ta ! _(short for tarradiddle)_,
tailor STATELY

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## tailor STATELY

_If Feeling Isn't In It_ - John Brehm... https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poe...ing-isnt-in-it

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

----------

