Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
JUST FOR FUN
>
Read Me a Poem Sing Me a Song
Mod
The poet is Henrika Ringbom (b. 1962). She is a Finland-Swedish poet, who also writes prose and essays. It's translated by David McDuff.
The sky cloudy, grey, it’s warm,
almost stifling. We walk
along the gravel road, the country road
The pines, their shoots
The warm dampness in the greenhouse. We drink
coffee, black coffee, buy scevola,
two garlic plants, a tomato plant, celery
Back along the road
The sky’s globe, clouds in layers. I long to be
nowhere else but here
A poem for Johanna. :-DGoethe was a young man when he wrote this poem and very much in love. I like it very much because you can feel his passion in every line, the happiness upon seeing his beloved Friederike and his sorrow when leaving.
Willkommen und Abschied
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Es schlug mein Herz; geschwind zu Pferde!
Es war gethan fast eh’ gedacht;
Der Abend wiegte schon die Erde
Und an den Bergen hing die Nacht:
Schon stand im Nebelkleid die Eiche
Ein aufgethürmter Riese da,
Wo Finsterniß aus dem Gesträuche
Mit hundert schwarzen Augen sah.
Der Mond von einem Wolkenhügel
Sah kläglich aus dem Duft hervor,
Die Winde schwangen leise Flügel,
Umsaus’ten schauerlich mein Ohr;
Die Nacht schuf tausend Ungeheuer;
Doch frisch und fröhlich war mein Muth:
In meinen Adern welches Feuer!
In meinem Herzen welche Gluth!
Dich sah ich, und die milde Freude
Floß von dem süßen Blick auf mich;
Ganz war mein Herz an deiner Seite
Und jeder Athemzug für dich.
Ein rosenfarbnes Frühlingswetter
Umgab das liebliche Gesicht,
Und Zärtlichkeit für mich – Ihr Götter!
Ich hofft’ es, ich verdient’ es nicht!
Doch ach schon mit der Morgensonne
Verengt der Abschied mir das Herz:
In deinen Küssen, welche Wonne!
In deinem Auge, welcher Schmerz!
Ich ging, du standst und sahst zur Erden,
Und sahst mir nach mit nassem Blick:
Und doch, welch Glück geliebt zu werden!
Und lieben, Götter, welch ein Glück!
---------------------
Welcome and Farewell
My heart beat fast, a horse! away!
Quicker than thought I am astride,
Earth now lulled by end of day,
Night hovering on the mountainside.
A robe of mist around him flung,
The oak a towering giant stood,
A hundred eyes of jet had sprung
From darkness in the bushy wood.
Atop a hill of cloud the moon
Shed piteous glimmers through the mist,
Softly the wind took flight, and soon
With horrible wings around me hissed.
Night made a thousand ghouls respire,
Of what I felt, a thousandth part
My mind, what a consuming fire!
What a glow was in my heart!
You I saw, your look replied,
Your sweet felicity, my own,
My heart was with you, at your side,
I breathed for you, for you alone.
A blush was there, as if your face
A rosy hue of Spring had caught,
For me-ye gods!-this tenderness!
I hoped, and I deserved it not.
Yet soon the morning sun was there,
My heart, ah, shrank as leave I took:
How rapturous your kisses were,
What anguish then was in your look!
I left, you stood with downcast eyes,
In tears you saw me riding off:
Yet, to be loved, what happiness!
What happiness, ye gods, to love!
(translated into English by Christopher Middleton)
Mod
Johanna wrote: "Thank you, Calathea! And thank you for posting it also in German — it sounds great in German. :-)"It does, right? I like the rhythm. It's a bit like the hoofbeat of his galopping horse. :-)
Mod
It does, right? I like the rhythm. It's a bit like the hoofbeat of his galopping ..."
Yes! :-)
Mod
That is indeed lovely.
Mod
The poet is Henrika Ringbom (b. 1962). She is a Finl..."
Wonderful. Sensual.
I can't believe I didn't see this thread before tonight. Just last week I got in a very involved discussion with a co-worker about poetry ... and I just HAD to read him some Shakespeare. (English degree, sorryI'mnotsorry). I also read him one of my all-time favorite poems, one he had never heard.somehwere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands
e.e.cummings
Mod
I agree, this is a lovely poem, Heather Lynn.
Mod
Nice, Heather. When cummings got it right, he REALLY got it right.
Johanna wrote: "Beautiful. What a lovely way to start a new week by reading a poem like this. Thank you for posting it, Heather Lynn."I love it when the good old English degree kicks in!
Heather Lynn wrote: "Johanna wrote: "Beautiful. What a lovely way to start a new week by reading a poem like this. Thank you for posting it, Heather Lynn."I love it when the good old English degree kicks in!"
They are good for that, aren't they? :)
Josh wrote: "When cummings got it right, he REALLY got it right."Ain't that the truth? I began hoarding his collections when I was on my senior class trip* (and therefore got to visit NYC bookstores), and I love his poetry to this day.
*Um, yeah, those are some old books. ;-)
cummings was one of my favorites, along with (and this surprised me) John Donne. I love hauling my old textbooks out and re-reading. The imagery ... I love the brain pictures!
I've just found this poem by Michael Symmons Roberts in ''The New Statesman''. It's nice, I think the interpretation what ''the word'' can be is quite open.Open Thou Our Lips
Because there is a word we must not say,
of course we hear it everywhere.
The dog left in a cold yard sings it.
Unanswered phones in locked houses
are desperate to utter it, newsreaders
with currency updates breathe it
between yen and dollar. Like many so
afflicted I pace the bare boards
of my room and listen to the voice
inside my skull intone it as a litany.
A bit of me is tempted to come out with it,
since none would hear and it would be
a weight off my tongue, but when I open
my window the world rushes in:
moon-lust, elm-smoke, sirens, everything.
Michael Symmons Roberts recently won the Forward Prize for Poetry for his collection “Drysalter” (Jonathan Cape, £12), from which this poem is taken
http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/o...
Thanks Antonella. So true. I tell myself No ..., and it is E-very-where!!
This captures that elusive push/pull, so well. Thanks. <3
I don't know if this was posted before and I don't entirely agree with the sentiment, but with some of it at least. XDThis Be The Verse - Philip Larkin
They fuck 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 fucked 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.
Mod
This Be The Verse - Philip Larkin
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They ..."
Oh. Well, there's probably some truth to it, but what a sad thought.
Lady*M wrote: "I don't know if this was posted before and I don't entirely agree with the sentiment, but with some of it at least. XDThis Be The Verse - Philip Larkin
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They ..."
Definitely a sad thought. There is some truth of course, I remember having a fight with my mother when I was young and said something like, I won't make the same mistakes you did, and she said, I am sure you won't, but you will make some new ones. We all do of course. Hopefully we also do some things right too :)
I stumbled upon this little poem and thought of this space, just waiting here. 8)Like You (Roque Dalton, translated by Jack Hirschman)
Like you I love love, life, the sweet smell of things, the sky- blue landscape of January days.
And my blood boils up and I laugh through eyes that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
And that my veins don’t end in me but in the unanimous blood of those who
struggle for life, love, little things, landscape and bread, the poetry of everyone.
Dear Reggie, thank you so much for quoting Roque Dalton, one of the heroes of my revolutionary (young) years! Our minds are a mine and sometimes we need some help to dig ;-).
Here the original version:
Como tú
Yo, como tú,
amo el amor, la vida, el dulce encanto
de las cosas, el paisaje
celeste de los días de enero.
También mi sangre bulle
y río por los ojos
que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas.
Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan, de todos.
Y que mis venas no terminan en mí
sino en la sangre unánime
de los que luchan por la vida,
el amor,
las cosas,
el paisaje y el pan,
la poesía de todos.
And here some infos about Roque Dalton: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roque_Da...
Or a bit more poetic view of his his life and tragic death: http://www.umc.sunysb.edu/surgery/dal...
Antonella wrote: "Dear Reggie, thank you so much for quoting Roque Dalton, one of the heroes of my revolutionary (young) years! Our minds are a mine and sometimes we need some help to dig ;-).
Here the original ..."
Oh, even better in the original!! Lovely.
Thanks for the extra info too.
Hugs to you, Antonella. <3
Mod
Lady*M wrote: "I don't know if this was posted before and I don't entirely agree with the sentiment, but with some of it at least. XDThis Be The Verse - Philip Larkin
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They ..."
Whoa, imagine the mood Larkin was in when he wrote that. I'm glad I wasn't living with him. ;-)
Seriously, though, you know what this reminds me of? That brain-dead piece of offal who, along with his son, destroyed an ancient rock formation in Utah. (For our overseas friends, here's the story: http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/22/us/utah...) I can't tell you how much this angers and sickens me. The man should be sent to prison.
http://www.edickinson.orgEmily Dickinson Archive makes high-resolution images of Dickinson’s surviving manuscripts available in open access, and provides readers with a website through which they can view images of manuscripts held in multiple libraries and archives.
To mark the centenary of the first world war, the UK's poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy invited poets to respond to the poetry, letters and diary entries from the trenches and the home front. These have now been published on the Guardian's website. Good to see Hedd Wyn is included although I agree with the commentators about how dreadful the translation of his poem is. You do need to read the comments to find a link to a better version.Carol Ann's response to Wilfred Owen is one of the best poems by her as laureate that I've read - a continuing poetic bereavement indeed.
K.Z. wrote: "Whoa, imagine the mood Larkin was in when he wrote that. I'm glad I wasn't living with him. ;-)"Must have been some crushing dissapointment. ^^
OMG, that story... You have to wonder about some people and them spreading their genes around.
I'm re-reading Irregulars so:
Diatribe Against the Dead by Angel Gonzalez
The dead are slefish:
they make us cry and don't care,
they stay quiet in the most inconvenient places,
they refuse to walk, we have to carry them
on our backs to the tomb
as if they were children. What a burden!
Usually rigid, their faces
accuse us of something, or warn us;
they are the bad conscience, the bad example,
they are the world things in our lives always, always.
The bad thing about the dead
is that there is no way you can kill them.
Their constant destructive labor
is for that reason incalculable.
Insensitive, distant, ibstinate, cold,
with their insolence and their silence
they don't realize what they undo.
Here's Ms. Dickinson on the subject. I always liked this one.Time XXVII. Because I could not stop for Death (712)
by Emily Dickinson
Part Four: Time and Eternity
XXVII
BECAUSE I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.
We slowly drove—He knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—
We passed the School, where Children strove
At recess—in the ring—
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—
Or rather—He passed Us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—
Since then—'tis centuries— and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity—
CeleryCelery, raw
Develops the jaw,
But celery, stewed,
Is more quietly chewed.
Ogden Nash
All this death and dying. Time to lighten the mood a bit.Come On In, The Senility Is Fine
People live forever in Jacksonville and St. Petersburg and Tampa,
But you don't have to live forever to become a grampa.
The entrance requirements for grampahood are comparatively mild,
You only have to live until your child has a child.
From that point on you start looking both ways over your shoulder,
Because sometimes you feel thirty years younger and sometimes
thirty years older.
Now you begin to realize who it was that reached the height of
imbecility,
It was whoever said that grandparents have all the fun and none of
the responsibility.
This is the most enticing spiderwebs of a tarradiddle ever spun,
Because everybody would love to have a baby around who was no
responsibility and lots of fun,
But I can think of no one but a mooncalf or a gaby
Who would trust their own child to raise a baby.
So you have to personally superintend your grandchild from diapers
to pants and from bottle to spoon,
Because you know that your own child hasn't sense enough to come
in out of a typhoon.
You don't have to live forever to become a grampa, but if you do
want to live forever,
Don't try to be clever;
If you wish to reach the end of the trail with an uncut throat,
Don't go around saying Quote I don't mind being a grampa but I
hate being married to a gramma Unquote.
Ogden Nash
Susinok wrote: "All this death and dying. Time to lighten the mood a bit.Come On In, The Senility Is Fine
People live forever in Jacksonville and St. Petersburg and Tampa,
But you don't have to live forever to ..."
Lovely :)
And the word "taradiddle" - goes straight to my collection of fun words I have learned from this group :)
I liked the death poems too, by the way, they are so lovely.
The celery one, shows that you can write a poem about anything...
Ogden Nash wrote a lot of very short and humorous poems like the Celery one. I thought the grandpa one was funny. Can't trust his fool of a child to raise one of his own, hehe.
Susinok wrote: "Ogden Nash wrote a lot of very short and humorous poems like the Celery one." Or this one. As a teenager I knew it by heart (though in excellent Serbian translation). Plus, it is so, so, sly.
I Will Arise and Go Now
by Ogden Nash
In far Tibet
There live a lama,
He got no poppa,
Got no momma,
He got no wife,
He got no chillun,
Got no use
For penicillun,
He got no soap,
He got no opera,
He don’t know Irium
From copra,
He got no songs,
He got no banter,
He don’t know Hope,
He don’t know Cantor,
He got no teeth,
He got no gums,
Don’t eat no Spam,
Don’t need no Tums.
He love to nick him
When he shave;
He also got
No hair to save.
Got no distinction,
No clear head,
Don’t call for Calvert;
Drink milk instead.
He use no lotions
For allurance,
He got no car
And no insurance,
No Alsop warnings,
No Pearson rumor
For this self-centered
Nonconsumer.
Indeed, the
Ignorant Have-Not
Don’t even know
What he don’t got.
If you will mind
The box-tops, comma,
I think I’ll go
And join that lama.
Susinok wrote: "Here's Ms. Dickinson on the subject. I always liked this one.Time XXVII. Because I could not stop for Death (712)
by Emily Dickinson..."
One of my favourite poems. Thank you.
Mod
:-)
I've been reading poetry from New Zealand recently and particularly enjoyed this poem by Jan Kemp. For some reason it made me think of Josh although I think he has a pool to swim in rather than the sea. If you click on the link you can hear Jan Kemp reading it. Swimming
Nothing reduces you to your skin like the sea – cold
plunge into reality, a tongue already salty and all that power
self-propelling you through our other element –
body loving every pummelling second as your mind slips
on the (no wonder) Madonna-blue beach wrap of the sky.
The straightest line imaginable just over the breakers,
visibly separating the two, doesn’t exist.
You do. Yet, can you hold a handful of salt water
to prove it for just one moment before you go.
Jan Kemp
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryar...
Mod
Found this on my morning websurfing.We Two Boys Together Clinging
by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)
We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.
No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving,
threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on
the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,
Fulfilling our foray.
Nice although not typical of Whitman's style of writing.
Mod
We Two Boys Together Clinging
by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)
We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and ..."
I like it! When you read it the rhythm speeds up, right? Not sure if that's suppose to happen, but it happens to me anyway. Thank you for posting it, Susinok.
Mod
I agree.
Another Norwegian poet for you, Tor Ulven, born 14. nov 1953 and died by his own hand in 1995, one much beloved by younger people. His poems are considered dark and depressive but also beautiful.Linjene i hånden
løper videre
som stier.
Hvor de ender, dit
kommer du ikke.
Men det er tunge steg
på vei langs dem,
i motsatt retning,
gjennom deg
og ut på den andre siden.
Med utsikt over byen
og fjorden.
The lines of the hand
run further
like paths.
Where they end, there
you will not come.
But it is heavy strides
on the road along them,
in the opposite direction,
through you
and out at the other end.
With a view of the city
and the fjord
Mod
Johanna wrote: "This I have to give some time to sink in. I like it a lot. It has a very powerful feel to it, doesn't it. I keep coming back to the words linjene/lines, stier/paths and vei/road."It does need some thought.
Mod
Anyway, thank you Anne, for posting this one. I'll have to find more Tor Ulven to read. :-)
Woke up to a hard frost and 20 degrees this morning. In two days it'll be 50s for the lows and 70s for the highs again...Made me think of this poem.
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost
Susinok wrote: "Woke up to a hard frost and 20 degrees this morning. In two days it'll be 50s for the lows and 70s for the highs again...Made me think of this poem.
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose wo..."
Lovely!
Mod
Anne, I don't "have" Norwegian at all, but I tried to read this one aloud. It sounds quite lovely, although I've given it something of a French intonation. : )
siden, byen, fjorden... I imagine these as implied rhymes? Lovely.
Q&A with Josh Lanyon
Books mentioned in this topic
Mr. Cogito (other topics)Don't Mention the Children (other topics)
Writing Haiku: A Beginner's Guide to Composing Japanese Poetry (other topics)
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The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
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Pablo Neruda (other topics)
Michael Rosen (other topics)
Michael Rosen (other topics)
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And really, one definitely doesn't have to suffer of any kind of deprivation (not poetry, nor any other kind) in this company. :-)