Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
JUST FOR FUN
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Read Me a Poem Sing Me a Song
Johanna wrote: "Thank you for posting this, Antonella. For some reason I really like the line: "But here comes Friday with a script I haven’t seen.""I like that bit too. :)
Josh wrote: "I REALLY like this."Me too, and the poem is very aptly embedded in The Sandman when Dream accompanies his sister Death ''at work'', and she is very sweet and thoughtful.
I keep stumbling on interesting poems. Britain's most popular post-war poem, according to a poll conducted by the BBC in 1996, read by the author: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cACbz...Warning by Jenny Joseph
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
About the poet: www.poetryarchive.org/poet/jenny-joseph
Mod
Keep them coming, dearest. :-)
Mod
Warn..."
We have these red-hat lady gatherings here in the U.S. I think it is wonderful.
Mod
Warn..."
Aaah, this is wonderful, Antonella! I love it! Such fun, vivid images and so true — every word. :-)
Yes, I think we ought to practicing a little now. ;-)
And sorry for not responding earlier — I found the poem about death, the one quoted in The Absolute Sandman, very thought-provoking. Thank you for that one, too.
Mod
Bend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, summer stars,
So near, strumming, strumming,
So lazy and hum-strumming.
Carl Sandburg
Mod
Bend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, s..."
Lovely. I rarely see summer stars because of our white nights, so the image of summer and stars together takes me immediately to somewhere warm and south. Someplace where even when it's dark it can be sweetly warm — and the stars twinkle brightly overhead. Someplace where I feel absolutely carefree and content. Someplace where I literally feel like I could reach the stars.
Thank you for the happy moment, Josh. :-)
Mod
I'm particularly struck by the Egyptian verses, imagining these thoughts made by someone 3000 years ago, wondering what has been lost (or gained) in translation, how our sensibilities have changed and how they are similar.
Poems about stars always lead me to thoughts of mortality, even "happy" ones about summer skies. I go back to star-watching as a child on the roof of our home with my father (who would carry folding chairs up his old wooden ladder), as he pointed out the constellations and their stories.
Wow, what treasures I find here! Thank you.
Josh wrote: "Summer StarsBend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, s..."
This reminds me of my dad's birthday. It's mid-August and usually there will be a small party and in the night we will step out on the terrace and look up. There are so many stars on soft black velvet. You can see the milkyway. And more often then not there are shooting stars. :-)
Mod
Bend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So ne..."
Lovely.
Mod
I'm particularly struck by the Egyptian verses, imagining these thoughts made by someone 3000 years ago, wondering what has been lost (or gaine..."
Yes! I think the very age of that poem is part of the power.
'What If You Slept?'What if you slept?
And what if,
In your sleep
You dreamed?
And what if,
In your dream,
You went to heaven
And there plucked
A strange and
Beautiful flower?
And what if,
When you awoke,
You had that flower in your hand?
Ah, what then?
- Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samue...
Free on Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29090
I suppose he's most famous for 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_R...
Mtsnow13 wrote: "'What If You Slept?'What if you slept?
And what if,
In your sleep
You dreamed?
And what if,
In your dream,
You went to heaven
And there plucked
A strange and
Beautiful flower?
And what if,
When ..."
Oh, how lovely. What then, really?
Mod
What if you slept?
And what if,
In your sleep
You dreamed?
And what if,
In your dream,
You went to heaven
And there plucked
A strange and
Beautiful flower?
And what if,
When ..."
Oh, I love this! I definitely have to check out the book. Thank you so much for posting this, Mtsnow.
Antonella wrote: "I keep stumbling on interesting poems. Britain's most popular post-war poem, according to a poll conducted by the BBC in 1996, read by the author: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cACbz...Warn..."
Thanks, Antonella! I love this one. I read this many years ago and it's good to read it again. It makes me smile. :)
Josh wrote: "Summer StarsBend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, s..."
Lovely. :)
Mtsnow13 wrote: "'What If You Slept?'What if you slept?
And what if,
In your sleep
You dreamed?
And what if,
In your dream,
You went to heaven
And there plucked
A strange and
Beautiful flower?
And what if,
When ..."
I like this. Thanks, Mtsnow. I haven't read much Coleridge, but I really love The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It's one of my favourites. It's really vivid and exciting. It's got zombie sailors in it! Or that's how I see it anyway. ;) Check it out, guys. It's an awesome long poem and it's quite creepy. I read it again a few months ago and I was thinking about posting a few stanzas here, but I wasn't sure it would work well out of context.
Probably out of season for most of us, but I'm reading The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 2, and one part of it is called ''Season of Mists''.To Autumn
by John Keats (1819)
Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
============================
In a letter to his friend J. H. Reynolds, Keats wrote of his inspiration for the poem:
How beautiful the season is now—How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather—Dian skies—I never liked stubble-fields so much as now—Aye better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow, a stubble-field looks warm—in the same way that some pictures look warm. This struck me so much in my Sunday’s walk that I composed upon it.
http://genius.com/John-keats-to-autum...
If you want to have an idea of the rivers of ink spent analysing this ode, see for ex. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Autumn
My favorite poem - 'Will There Really Be a Morning' by Emily Dickinson. Will there really be a "Morning"?
Is there such a thing as "Day"?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
Has it feet like Water lilies?
Has it feathers like a Bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?
Oh some Scholar! Oh some Sailor!
Oh some Wise Man from the skies!
Please to tell a little Pilgrim
Where the place called "Morning" lies!
Mod
raining early and often
puddles everywhere
and the ripples are ongoing
so much greater than considered or imagined
when his decision was made.
Hearts and heads ache
grief is best suspended
held away from the whats and whys and ifs
all pointless now.
The point is
we cannot know.
We who are still here
gather and talk of mundane things
or who to call next and when
and our memories of each last time
are already vague.
The if onlys become treacherous.
Sleep is postponed,
delaying dreams of
a thin boy with a big smile
who has moved on and out of our summer rain.
July 14, 2015
Mod
And somehow the poems Antonella and Steve posted earlier today bend over and offer their most comforting words: touch of the light wind of autumn skies and the hopeful seeking of "Morning".
Thanks, everybody. I so enjoy this topic.
Karen, that is an astonishingly evocative poem. ❤️
Mod
I agree. Poetry is a comfort, even when bittersweet, as the Dickinson poem feels to me.
Antonella, in my long ago undergrad days I took a Keats and Shelley class (and another that focused on Blake, Coleridge, etc.) and we did exactly the kind of thing you mention, adding to the rivers of ink. I happened to love analyzing cadence/meter, and delving into obscure (to our time) references.
Karen wrote: "Monsoon seasonraining early and often
puddles everywhere
and the ripples are ongoing
so much greater than considered or imagined
when his decision was made.
Hearts and heads ache
grief is best sus..."
This has brought tears.
Karen wrote: "Monsoon seasonraining early and often
puddles everywhere
and the ripples are ongoing
so much greater than considered or imagined
when his decision was made.
Hearts and heads ache
grief is best sus..."
Karen, this is beautiful an evocative. Thanks for sharing and I'm sorry for your loss. If I was eloquent and could express
myself better. Please, take care of yourself.
High Flight by John Gillespie MageeOh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor ever eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Friedrich HölderlinHälfte des Lebens (1803)
Mit gelben Birnen hänget
Und voll mit wilden Rosen
Das Land in den See,
Ihr holden Schwäne,
Und trunken von Küssen
Tunkt ihr das Haupt
Ins heilignüchterne Wasser.
Weh mir, wo nehm’ ich, wenn
Es Winter ist, die Blumen, und wo
Den Sonnenschein,
Und Schatten der Erde?
Die Mauern stehn
Sprachlos und kalt, im Winde
Klirren die Fahnen.
Half of Life
With its yellow pears
And wild roses everywhere
The shore hangs into the lake,
O gracious swans,
And drunk with kisses
You dip your heads
In the sobering holy water.
Ah, where will I find
Flowers, come winter,
And where the sunshine
And shade of the earth ?
Walls stand cold
And speechless, in the wind
The wheathervanes creak.
===================
Just found in Reunion: A Novella, but I took another English version because I didn't agree with the author's translation. The end of the poem is totally desolate and should sound like this also in the translation.
Steve wrote: "High Flight by John Gillespie MageeOh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;"
This is beautiful, thank you, dear Steve!
Mod
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split cl..."
Beautiful, and comforting.
Mod
Hälfte des Lebens (1803)
Mit gelben Birnen hänget
Und voll mit wilden Rosen
Das Land in den See,
Ihr holden Schwäne,
Und trunken von Küssen
Tunkt ihr das Haupt
Ins heilignüchte..."
What is it about poetry that somehow reassures us and makes us smile at our mortality?
Two beautiful poems. Thank you, Steve and Antonella.
Mod
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split cl..."
This is wonderful.
I love Erich Fried, but I had never seen this poem. NB: It's not my fault if I stumble on depressing poems. I swear I'm all right ;-)Ohne dich
Nicht nichts
ohne dich
aber nicht dasselbe
Nicht nichts
ohne dich
aber vielleicht weniger
Nicht nichts
aber weniger
und weniger
Vielleicht nicht nichts
ohne dich
aber nicht mehr viel
Without you
Not nothing
without you
but not the same
Not nothing
without you
but perhaps less
Not nothing
but less
and less
Perhaps not nothing
without you
but not much anymore
((Translation by M. Kaldenbach. Last line in the translation by Mark Sullivan: ''but not much more''))
Antonella wrote: "I love Erich Fried, but I had never seen this poem. NB: It's not my fault if I stumble on depressing poems. I swear I'm all right ;-)Ohne dich
Nicht nichts
ohne dich
aber nicht dasselbe
Nicht n..."
OMG! This expresses my feelings exactly. Not cheery, but damn it, everyone grieves in their own way. Thanks for sharing.
Mod
Ohne dich
Nicht nichts
ohne dich
aber nicht dasselbe
Nicht n..."
Very touching, Antonella. I've never hear about this either, so thank you for posting it, dear.
And I'm glad to hear that it's the depressing poems finding you — not the other way around... :-)
Johanna wrote: "And I'm glad to hear that it's the depressing poems finding you — not the other way around... :-)"Thank you, I'm glad as well.
Mod
raining early and often
puddles everywhere
and the ripples are ongoing
so much greater than considered or imagined
when his decision was made.
Hearts and heads ache
grief is best sus..."
Heartbreaking.
Mod
Ohne dich
Nicht nichts
ohne dich
aber nicht dasselbe
Nicht n..."
Oh my gosh.
You guys...you are ripping me up.
Antonella wrote: "I love Erich Fried, but I had never seen this poem. NB: It's not my fault if I stumble on depressing poems. I swear I'm all right ;-)Ohne dich
Nicht nichts
ohne dich
aber nicht dasselbe
Nicht n..."
I like this, in both versions actually. It's very sparse and to the point, exactly enough words.
I'm not doing it deliberately, but... here another poem ;-)DREAMS by Mark Strand
Trying to recall the plot
And characters we dreamed,
What life was like
Before the morning came,
We are seldom satisfied,
And even then
There is no way of knowing
If what we know is true.
Something nameless
Hums us into sleep,
Withdraws, and leaves us in
A place that seems
Always vaguely familiar.
Perhaps it is because
We take the props
And fixtures of our days
With us into the dark,
Assuring ourselves
We are still alive. And yet
Nothing here is certain;
Landscapes merge
With one another, houses
Are never where they should be,
Doors and windows
Sometimes open out
To other doors and windows,
Even the person
Who seems most like ourselves
Cannot be counted on,
For there have been
Too many times when he,
Like everything else, has done
The unexpected.
And as the night wears on,
The dim allegory of ourselves
Unfolds, and we
Feel dreamed by someone else,
A sleeping counterpart,
Who gathers in
The darkness of his person
Shades of the real world.
Nothing is clear;
We are not ever sure
If the life we live there
Belongs to us.
Each night it is the same;
Just when we’re on the verge
Of catching on,
A sense of our remoteness
Closes in, and the world
So lately seen
Gradually fades from sight.
We wake to find the sleeper
Is ourselves
And the dreamt-of is someone who did
Something we can’t quite put
Our finger on,
But which involved a life
We are always, we feel,
About to discover.
Karen wrote: "Monsoon seasonraining early and often
puddles everywhere
and the ripples are ongoing
so much greater than considered or imagined
when his decision was made."
Ah those treacherous 'if onlys'. A thought provoking poem Karen and perhaps writing it helped you.
Really enjoyed the poems by Hölderlin and Erich Fried and I could even manage some of the German. Have any of you come across the poems of Jan Wagner? I've just been sent a bilingual edition of his poems to review.
Really enjoyed the poems by Hölderlin and Erich Fried and I could even manage some of the German. Have any of you come across the poems of Jan Wagner? I've just been sent a bilingual edition of his poems to review.
Auden wrote this in 1939 but if you were to read the tabloid press in England at the moment I don't think we have moved on at all. Refugee Blues by W H Auden
Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.
Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.
In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew;
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.
The consul banged the table and said:
'If you've got no passport, you're officially dead';
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.
Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go today, my dear, but where shall we go today?
Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said:
'If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread';
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.
Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying: 'They must die';
We were in his mind, my dear, we were in his mind.
Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.
Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.
Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.
Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors;
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.
Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.
Caroline wrote: "Auden wrote this in 1939 but if you were to read the tabloid press in England at the moment I don't think we have moved on at all. Refugee Blues by W H Auden"
Thank you, I didn't know this poem.
Sometimes I think about those dark years and I can understand how some brilliant minds like Walter Benjamin were brought to suicide.
Mod
Refugee Blues by W H Auden
Say this city has ten million souls,..."
Thank you for posting this, Caroline. W. H. Auden is a poet whose words and works I regularly go back to. I feel like every time I read a new-to-me poem from him, I'm in for a surprise. You never know what's coming. Or at least that's the way I feel about him.
Q&A with Josh Lanyon
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Michael Rosen (other topics)
Michael Rosen (other topics)
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like the recovery of a sick man,
like going forth into a garden after sickness.
Death is before me today:
like the odor of myrrh,
like sitting under a sail in ..."
I REALLY like this.