Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
JUST FOR FUN
>
Read Me a Poem Sing Me a Song
Antonella wrote: "Johanna wrote: "Yeah, the down to earth language really works for this poem, the effect is powerful. It leaves me with a very gloomy feeling. Is that how it's suppose to feel? Not much hope there, ..."
hi, hunny bunny!
I eat fried potatoes sometimes and always think of this poem.
hi, hunny bunny!
I eat fried potatoes sometimes and always think of this poem.
Mod
by one of my favorite novelists.
Easter Morning
by Jim Harrison
On Easter morning all over America
the peasants ..."
Yeah, I see what you mean. :-) Thank you for posting the poem, Sarah. You really made me want to read more of his writing, too. I found out that his work has often been compared to William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. :-)
Mod
First one is by Robert Frost and the second one is by a Scottish poet, Douglas Dunn. I fell in love with "A Patch of Old Snow" because of the melancholy feel it leaves me with. And the "Modern Love" reminds me of the simple things that can make us happy if we let them. Also that poem has a great atmosphere, I think.
A PATCH OF OLD SNOW by Robert Frost
There's a patch of old snow in a corner
That I should have guessed
Was a blow-away paper the rain
Had brought to rest.
It is speckled with grime as if
Small print overspread it,
The news of a day I've forgotten --
If I ever read it.
MODERN LOVE by Douglas Dunn
It is summer, and we are in a house
That is not ours, sitting at a table
Enjoying minutes of a rented silence,
The upstairs people gone. The pigeons lull
To sleep the under-tens and invalids,
The tree shakes out its shadows to the grass,
The roses rove through the wilds of my neglect.
Our lives flap, and we have no hope of better
Happiness than this, not much to show for love
Than how we are, or how this evening is,
Unpeopled, silent, and where we are alive
In a domestic love, seemingly alone,
All other lives worn down to trees and sunlight,
Looking forward to a visit from the cat.
Have a nice week, everyone. :-)
I found a flash frozen toad in our garden once. It was also sitting there stoically. I placed him under some plants as a garden ornament.
Mod
We buried ours in the garden along with various birds, pond fish, cats, and our old dogs' ashes, but he might have been a lovely ornament as well. : )
I am bored at work, too little to do and the little there is, I don't bother doing since I can always do it tomorrow.So I decided to share with you one other of my favourite poems, from female poet Halldis Moren Vesaas. It is about the fact that even when you love someone, there is always a part of you that is secret and where you are alone. I love it for its beauty and silent wisdom. And again, my translation doesn't bring you the lovely words and rythm, but maybe the wisdom :)
Ord over grind
Du går fram til mi inste grind,
og eg går òg fram til di.
Innanfor den er kvar av oss einsam,
og det skal vi alltid bli.
Aldri trenge seg lenger fram,
var lova som gjalt oss to.
Anten vi møttest tidt eller sjeldan
var møtet tillit og ro.
Står du der ikkje ein dag eg kjem
fell det meg lett å snu
når eg har stått litt og sett mot huset
og tenkt på at der bur du.
Så lenge eg veit du vil koma i blant
som no over knastrande grus
og smile glad når du ser meg stå her,
skal eg ha ein heim i mitt hus.
Words across the gate
You go forward to my innermost gate
And I go forward to yours
Inside it we are both lonesome
And thus we shall always stay
Never push further forward
Was the law between us two
Whether we met often or rarely
The meeting was trust and calm
If you don’t stand there when I come
It is easy for me to turn away
When I have stood for a while and looked at the house
And thinking that there you live
As long as I know you will come now and then
Like now, over crunchy gravel
And smile happily when you see me standing here,
Shall I have a home in my house
Mod
Lovely.
Anne wrote: "So I decided to share with you one other of my favourite poems, from Halldis Moren Vesaas. It is about the fact that even when you love someone, there is always a part of you that is secret and where you are alone. I love it for its beauty and silent wisdom...."Either I'm going to have to learn Norwegian Anne or you will need to keep going with these translations for which I am most grateful. Someone has set this poem to music which makes it even lovelier.
I’ve recently discovered a poet called Peter Bland, a New Zealand poet who was originally from Yorkshire but immigrated in 1954. he writes wonderfully warm poems about people and places, exile and home. The poem I’ve chosen to share with you is written in tribute to another poet Alan Ross. I’m resisting the temptation to explain the poem and tell you why Alan Ross is important to me as the poem should speak for itself. Sun-Lover
i.m. Alan Ross 1922-2001
Give me light: away! Claudius
(Hamlet, Act III, Scene II)
Sun-lover, you left us in mid-Winter
with MAFF slaughtermen in medieval hoods
moving through mists and corpse-stacked fields:
a scene from the plague-wall in your Sussex church
where devils fork hoofed sinners into flames.
One solitary calf’s left bleating on TV;
skylarks are choking in the Cumbrian fells;
your favourite chalk stream’s laced with blood.
Of late I’d felt you hanging on; a black
dog gnawing at your skull. News
of no survivors in that Russian submarine
woke you to panic, remembering when
- a midshipman at barely eighteen –
they’d locked you in a turret with the dead
to hose hot ammo, shipmates blown to shreds,
a severed hand still clinging to your sleeve.
Today, your bearded collie’s restless…
She flows towards her favourite hill.
Such grace and cool exuberance
moved you to tears. I see you following her
or cheering as Compton hooks Miller for six
or blinking in sparse sunlight on a cold Spring day
outside Luigi’s, quoting Keats,
explaining how, among all other qualities
a poem should be beautiful, should have a shine on it.
Caroline wrote: "Anne wrote: "So I decided to share with you one other of my favourite poems, from Halldis Moren Vesaas. It is about the fact that even when you love someone, there is always a part of you that is s..."Thank you, Caroline, I wasn't aware of that.
Caroline wrote: "I’ve recently discovered a poet called Peter Bland, a New Zealand poet who was originally from Yorkshire but immigrated in 1954. he writes wonderfully warm poems about people and places, exile and ..."Oh yes, I see why you loved him :) And thank you for the lovely poem, it is both joyful and sad at the same time.
Josh wrote: "Anne wrote: "This morning was such a beautiful morning, the sun shining, the air crisp and cool, my bare toes were cold. I was bicycling to work, and felt content. Everything was in working order, ..."Thank you.
Caroline wrote: "Anne wrote: "So I decided to share with you one other of my favourite poems, from Halldis Moren Vesaas. It is about the fact that even when you love someone, there is always a part of you that is s..."You'll have to come to Oslo then, and I shall give you a crash course :)
Anne wrote: You'll have to come to Oslo then, and I shall give you a crash course :)..."Ja. Takk Anne.
I shall start saving... and meanwhile http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/...
Caroline wrote: "Anne wrote: You'll have to come to Oslo then, and I shall give you a crash course :)..."Ja. Takk Anne.
I shall start saving... and meanwhile http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/......"
Good start, Caroline :)
And: velkommen!
Mod
I'm having a bloody marvelous time with Fadeout. Such a very , well, visual experience.
And a treasure trove of references: something is mentioned that leads to something quite outside the novel, but worthy of a revisit. The example I just surfaced from was at the end of Chapter 10: "The weight of the world is love...." (http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Al... will get you the full source); and it's a brilliant thing to see it pop up as it does.
SONG by Allen Ginsberg
The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction
the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.
Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human--
looks out of the heart
burning with purity--
for the burden of life
is love,
but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.
No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love--
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
--cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:
the weight is too heavy
--must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.
The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye--
yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.
San Jose, 1954
And here is a link to biography of Allen Ginsberg.
Johanna wrote: "Here is a poem John posted on our August 2013 BOM discussion topic on Fadeout by Joseph Hansen. The poem is so touching, so beautiful, that I wanted to "save" it here on this topic, too. And here i..."I'd read this years ago (in a Ginsberg phase) - but reading it a few times today I don't think I was mature enough to understand it the first time round. I got the words, not quite the punch they pack. I liked it years ago; now I'm agog. However did the young Mr Ginsberg know how all that feels? I didn't have a clue, myself at the age he wrote that.
I heard this morning that Seamus Heaney had died and am finding it hard to believe he has gone. It fills me with sadness. All afternoon I've been hearing his voice like an echo, like the sound of a stream in the background which is there if you pause to listen. One of his most famous poems is Digging but one of my favourites is From the Frontier of WritingFrom the Frontier of Writing
The tightness and the nilness round that space
when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect
its make and number and, as one bends his face
towards your window, you catch sight of more
on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent
down cradled guns that hold you under cover
and everything is pure interrogation
until a rifle motions and you move
with guarded unconcerned acceleration-
a little emptier, a little spent
as always by that quiver in the self,
subjugated, yes, and obedient.
So you drive on to the frontier of writing
where it happens again. The guns on tripods;
the sergeant with his on-off mike repeating
data about you, waiting for the squawk
of clearance; the marksman training down
out of the sun upon you like a hawk.
And suddenly you're through, arraigned yet freed,
as if you'd passed from behind a waterfall
on the black current of a tarmac road
past armour-plated vehicles, out between
the posted soldiers flowing and receding
like tree shadows into the polished windscreen.
I'm so sad to hear this! Thank you for the poems.
Mod
Mod
Yes, that was sad news this weekend.
Thank you for sharing the poem, Caroline.
Considering that I'm often very political, I wanted to remember here the dead of the 11th September 1973 and of the following 17 years of terror in Chile. This poem was written by Julio Numhauser, a Chilean singer who went into exile in Sweden (does the name ''Quilapayun'' ring a bell for anybody here?), and became a famous and symbolic song especially sung by Mercedes Sosa, who also had to flee her native country, Argentina, because of a terrible dictatorship.
Todo cambia
Cambia lo superficial
Cambia también lo profundo
Cambia el modo de pensar
Cambia todo en este mundo
Cambia el clima con los años
Cambia el pastor su rebaño
Y así como todo cambia
Que yo cambie no es extraño
Cambia el más fino brillante
De mano en mano, su brillo
Cambia el nido el pajarillo
Cambia el sentir un amante
Cambia el rumbo el caminante
Aunque esto le cause daño
Y así como todo cambia
Que yo cambie no extraño
Cambia, todo cambia (x4)
Cambia el sol en su carrera
Cuando la noche subsiste
Cambia la planta y se viste
De verde en la primavera
Cambia el pelaje la fiera
Cambia el cabello el anciano
Y así como todo cambia
Que yo cambie no es extraño
Pero no cambia mi amor
Por más lejos que me encuentre
Ni el recuerdo ni el dolor
De mi pueblo y de mi gente
Lo que cambió ayer
Tendrá que cambiar mañana
Así como cambio yo
En esta tierra lejana
Cambia, todo cambia (x4)
Pero no cambia mi amor
Por más lejos que me encuentre
Ni el recuerdo ni el dolor
De mi pueblo y de mi gente
Lo que cambió ayer
Tendrá que cambiar mañana
Así como cambio yo
En esta tierra lejana
Cambia, todo cambia...
Everything Changes
The meaningless changes
The profound also changes
Ways of thinking change
Everything in the world changes
Over time the weather changes
The shepherd's herd changes
And just as everything else changes
That I change is not strange
The finest diamond's shine changes
As its brilliance wears off
The little birdie's nest changes
The lover's feelings change
The traveler's path changes
Even though painful
And just as everything else changes
That I change is not strange
Change, everything changes (x4)
The sun's path changes
to sustain the night
The plants change
to wear the green of spring
The fur of the wild beasts change
The hair of the wise ones change
And just as everything else changes
That I change is not strange
But my love doesn't change
No matter how far away I am
Nor the memory nor the pain
of my place and of my people
That which changed yesterday
Will have to change tomorrow
Just as I change
In this faraway land
Change, everything changes (x4)
But my love doesn't change
No matter how far away I am
Nor the memory nor the pain
of my place and of my people
That which changed yesterday
Will have to change tomorrow
Just as I change
In this faraway land
Change, everything changes
Translation found here: http://lyricstranslate.com
Thank you for this, Antonella. Very sad and beautiful, so full of longing.
Mod
Even though painful
And just as everything else changes
That I change is not strange
This speaks to me.
Antonella wrote: "Considering that I'm often very political, I wanted to remember here the dead of the 11th September 1973 and of the following 17 years of terror in Chile. This poem was written by Julio Numhauser..."
It's good to be reminded of other September 11th events that we should remember and I like you being political Antonella.
My favourite stanza was this one.
But my love doesn't change
No matter how far away I am
Nor the memory nor the pain
of my place and of my people...
Mod
That which changed yesterday
Will have to change tomorrow
Johanna wrote: "I also love these two lines:That which changed yesterday
Will have to change tomorrow"
This lines were a beacon of hope for all those Latin American people who lived for years in exile because they had to choose between leaving their country and losing their life...
Josh wrote: "Favorite poems for autumn?"You go first.
Mod
CoronaAus der Hand frißt der Herbst mir sein Blatt: wir sind Freunde.
Wir schälen die Zeit aus den Nüssen und lehren sie gehn:
die Zeit kehrt zurück in die Schale.
Im Spiegel ist Sonntag,
im Traum wird geschlafen,
der Mund redet wahr.
Mein Aug steigt hinab zum Geschlecht der Geliebten:
wir sehen uns an,
wir sagen uns Dunkles,
wir lieben einander wie Mohn und Gedächtnis,
wir schlafen wie Wein in den Muscheln,
wie das Meer im Blutstrahl des Mondes.
Wir stehen umschlungen im Fenster, sie sehen uns zu von der Straße:
es ist Zeit, daß man weiß!
Es ist Zeit, daß der Stein sich zu blühen bequemt,
daß der Unrast ein Herz schlägt.
Es ist Zeit, daß es Zeit wird.
Es ist Zeit.
Paul Celan (b. 23 November 1920)
Corona
~by Paul Celan
Autumn nibbles its leaf right from my hand: we're friends.
We shell time from the nuts and teach it to walk:
time turns back into its shell.
In the mirror is Sunday,
in dream goes sleeping,
the mouth speaks true.
My eyes goes down to my lover's loins:
we gaze at each other,
we say dark things,
we love one another like poppy and memory,
we slumber like wine in the seashells,
like the sea in the moon's blood-beam.
We stand at the window embracing, they watch from the street:
It's time people knew!
It's time the stone consented to bloom,
a heart beat for unrest.
It's time it came time.
It is time.
("Corona," tr. John Felstiner)
I used to know the first line as a child and loved it for the image it draws. When I looked the poem up several years later I was in for a surprise! :-D
Mod
Aus der Hand frißt der Herbst mir sein Blatt: wir sind Freunde.
Wir schälen die Zeit aus den Nüssen und lehren sie gehn:
die Zeit kehrt zurück in die Schale.
Im Spiegel ist Sonntag,
im Tr..."
AUTUMN IS A SQUIRREL!!!! ;-)
Mod
It's time people knew!
It's time the stone consented to bloom,
a heart beat for unrest.
It's time it came time.
..."
Very nice.
Mod
On an ill wind
That carries me
Here and there,
As if a
Dead leaf.
..."
Ominous. I like this.
"Calathea wrote: "CoronaAus der Hand frißt der Herbst mir sein Blatt: wir sind Freunde.
Wir schälen die Zeit aus den Nüssen und lehren sie gehn:
die Zeit kehrt zurück in die Schale.
Josh wrote: AUTUMN IS A SQUIRREL!!!! ;-).."
Wonderful Calathea - one of my favourite Celan poems and here he is reading it.
All I have to offer in return is more Seamus Heaney - Here's Blackberry Picking
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
for a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
sent us out with milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots
where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
we trekked and picked until the cans were full,
until the tinkling bottom had been covered
with green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
with thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
that all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.
Josh wrote: "AUTUMN IS A SQUIRREL!!!! ;-) "*lol* Don't get me started on squirrels. I'm still trying to get over my last encounter this week. I swear the little beast laughed at me! ;-)
Mod
Aus der Hand frißt der Herbst mir sein Blatt: wir sind Freunde.
Wir schälen die Zeit aus den Nüssen und lehren sie gehn:
die Zeit kehrt zurück in die Schale.
Im Spiegel ist Sonntag,
im Tr..."
That's so lovely, Calathea.
Mod
Aus der Hand frißt der Herbst mir sein Blatt: wir sind Freunde.
Wir schälen die Zeit aus den Nüssen und lehren sie gehn:
die Zeit kehrt zurück in die Schale.
Im Spiegel ist Sonntag,
im Tr..."
"AUTUMN IS A SQUIRREL!!!! ;-)"
LOL. How poetic! Although I think "everyday is a squirrel" here in Q&A with Josh Lanyon...
Mod
By Paul Verlaine
Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne
Blessent mon cœur
D'une langueur
Monotone.
Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
Sonne l'heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours an..."
Wow. Beautiful. Thank you.
Mod
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
for a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
among others, red, green, hard as a knot..."
Very powerful. Thank you for this, Caroline.
Mod
I've been reading W. H. Auden's Selected Poems (edited by Edward Mendelson) quite a bit lately. Here is one of Auden's Twelve Songs, Autumn Song (VI song). It's more about life and death than strictly about autumn and it's not a very happy one, but I like the way it flows — like those streams from the mountains will flow long after we'll all be gone... and the ones who remember us will be gone, too.
I've seen two versions of it, but I like this one much better than the other.
AUTUMN SONG by W. H. Auden (March 1936)
Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse's flowers will not last;
Nurses to the graves are gone,
And the prams go rolling on.
Whispering neighbours, left and right,
Pluck us from the real delight;
And the active hands must freeze
Lonely on the separate knees.
Dead in hundreds at the back
Follow wooden in our track,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.
Starving through the leafless wood
Trolls run scolding for their food;
And the nightingale is dumb,
And the angel will not come.
Cold, impossible, ahead
Lifts the mountain's lovely head
Whose white waterfall could bless
Travellers in their last distress.
You can listen to it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwNpsU...
Mod
IN THE LIBRARY by Dorothea Grossman (2008)
The library always smells like this:
an ancient stew of vinegar and wood.
It’s autumn again,
and I can do anything.
This is nice. :-)I love the smell of libraries. They all smell the same and like one puzzle piece of home. (Okay, I don't get the reference to vinegar but still...^^)
Mod
I love the smell of libraries. They all smell the same and like one puzzle piece of home. (Okay, I don't get the reference to vinegar but still...^^)"
:-) I think I read somewhere that cheap paper might have the odor of vinegar when it ages/breaks down. I'm not sure if that's true, though? ETA: I haven't ever noticed it very clearly.
Mod
That sounds logical. :-)
I have come to a still, but not a deep center,A point outside the glittering current;
My eyes stare at the bottom of a river,
At the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains,
My mind moves in more than one place,
In a country half-land, half-water.
I am renewed by death, thought of my death,
The dry scent of a dying garden in September,
The wind fanning the ash of a low fire.
What I love is near at hand,
Always, in earth and air.
-- Theodore Roethke, "The Far Field"
Thank you, K.Z.! I also love the fact that people put here lovely poems from authors I've never heard.
Mod
Aus der Hand frißt der Herbst mir sein Blatt: wir sind Freunde.
Wir schälen die Zeit aus den Nüssen und lehren sie gehn:
die Zeit kehrt zurück in die Schale.
Josh wrote: ..."
Lovely to have something by Heaney.
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)
Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life (other topics)
The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Zbigniew Herbert (other topics)Vanni Bianconi (other topics)
Pablo Neruda (other topics)
Michael Rosen (other topics)
Michael Rosen (other topics)
More...
I don't find it gloomy either. Maybe slightly ''didactic'', even though it preaches things I believe (for ex. ''Their sons join
the army to get work being shot at.'').
*waves at Sarah*