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Poetry Corner

Started by Nakari, January 26, 2023, 01:11:29 PM

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Nakari

Hello! I want to read more poetry! Please share some poetry you like (either posted here or by a link), and perhaps your thoughts on that poetry, and your thoughts on the poetry that is here.

Let's start with a cheerful classic!

The Orange - Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It's new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.



It's so simple and lovely! Just the contentment of a life, finding things to take joy in, sharing those things out with friends and doing Stuff. And the rhythm is so easy and simple and smooth, just like the life it's portraying. A peaceful, ordinary existence depicted in a little poem with the vibrancy of a juicy orange!

Catherine

One of my favourite poets right now is Jay Hulme, a queer religious poet. I think my favourite of his less religious poems is Just Talk About the Weather

They told me not to swear at the bishop,
I said not to worry,
said I knew small talk when I saw it,
said what a shitty day for a party;
it's pissing it down out there.
Did it fuck up your fancy hat?
Good morning friends and foes

Nakari

Quote from: Catherine on January 26, 2023, 01:16:36 PMOne of my favourite poets right now is Jay Hulme, a queer religious poet. I think my favourite of his less religious poems is Just Talk About the Weather

They told me not to swear at the bishop,
I said not to worry,
said I knew small talk when I saw it,
said what a shitty day for a party;
it's pissing it down out there.
Did it fuck up your fancy hat?


This is fantastic! I've heard of him + seen some of his religious poems, which I didn't really connect to as much, but this is so playfully irreverent I love it :P I shall have to investigate more!

Emily

The Last of the Dorsets by Al Purdy
Quote(Eskimos extinct in the 14th century A.D.)

Animal bones and some mossy tent rings
scrapers and spearheads
    carved ivory swans
all that remains of the Dorset giants
who drove the Vikings back to their long ships
talked to spirits of earth and water                   
—a picture of terrifying old men
so large they broke the backs of bears
so small they lurk behind bone rafters
in the brain of modern hunters
among good thoughts and warm things
and come out at night                                 
to spit on the stars



The big men with clever fingers
who had no dogs and hauled their sleds
over the frozen northern oceans
awkward giants                                       
  killers of seals
they couldn't compete with little men
who came from the west with dogs
Or else in a warm climatic cycle                     
the seals went back to cold waters
and the puzzled Dorsets scratched their heads
with hairy thumbs around 1350 A.D.
—couldn't figure it out
went around saying to each other                     
plaintively
    'What's wrong? What happened?
    Where are the seals gone?'
And died



Twentieth century people                             
apartment dwellers
executives of neon death
warmakers with things that explode
—they have never imagined us in their future
how could we imagine them in the past                 
squatting among the moving glaciers
six hundred years ago
with glowing lamps?
As remote or nearly
as the trilobites and swamps                         
when coal became
or the last great reptile hissed
at a mammal the size of a mouse
that squeaked and fled
Did they ever realize at all                         
what was happening to them?



Some old hunter with one lame leg
a bear had chewed
sitting in a caribou skin tent
—the last Dorset?                                     
Let's say his name was Kudluk
carving 2-inch ivory swans
for a dead grand-daughter
taking them out of his mind
the places in his mind                               
where pictures are
He selects a sharp stone tool
to gouge a parallel pattern of lines
on both sides of the swan
holding it with his left hand                         
bearing down and transmitting
his body's weight
from brain to arm and right hand
and one of his thoughts
turns to ivory                                       



The carving is laid aside
in beginning darkness
at the end of hunger
after a while wind
blows down the tent and snow                         
begins to cover him
After 600 years
the ivory thought
is still warm

Cat

The universe may stop expanding in five billion years
at which point time will cease
to exist and I can finally stop
complaining. there's a fragile
world reflected in the glassy
pearl of your spit left
on my belly and i'm telling
you, i've never been so
old. the day sucks with leech-
teeth. even given the shreds
of your dead rind caked under
my fingernails there's the black
chasm of want expanding
in my chest the way a bead
of ink breaks, making me difficult
to touch without an exit plan.
imagine, please, a better
continuum. you say earlier
doesn't feel real
and you're right,
not because there was anything
exceptional about the heath
in early afternoon, not because
our chins sticky with cider
was a notable pop in this
quivering glitch of a life,
but because it was too ordinary
to even dare remember,
because we'll someday ache
for any regular Sunday in June
where the sun was a sure
thing and breath tasted like warm
grass and there was not a single
indication the cosmos would one
day shut like your eyes, tight
with pleasure.




Savannah Brown, Sweetdark. Can be enjoyed in audio.
In ancient times, cats were worshipped as gods. They have not forgotten this. - Terry Pratchett

Nakari

Packed Lunch, by Tanvi Roberts

Still I remember the care he took each morning: rising early, like steam
from the green at the bottom of our street, not with the breaking
of light or out of any need, but with his sleep cut short
by the alarm. In his pyjamas he'd walk, slowly, blinking his eyes
into waking. And I – can you believe it – would be angry, as only
a well-loved child can be, even to hear his alarm, for it disturbed
me. I slept well and longer, woke up, panicked, gunned down the stairs
to find him there, in the kitchen, walled in by stacks of Hovis crusts,
tomatoes bled into a steel katori – for otherwise, the sandwiches would go
soggy. Whirlwind of adolescent importance, I picked them up and slung
them into my bag, barely thinking, I never looked
back. I savoured the luxury of walking away, of ignoring the man
behind bread, which was lunch, which was love, which was cut
into triangles, which was neatly packed.

Catherine

Quote from: Nakari on January 31, 2023, 03:16:50 AMPacked Lunch, by Tanvi Roberts

Still I remember the care he took each morning: rising early, like steam
from the green at the bottom of our street, not with the breaking
of light or out of any need, but with his sleep cut short
by the alarm. In his pyjamas he'd walk, slowly, blinking his eyes
into waking. And I – can you believe it – would be angry, as only
a well-loved child can be, even to hear his alarm, for it disturbed
me. I slept well and longer, woke up, panicked, gunned down the stairs
to find him there, in the kitchen, walled in by stacks of Hovis crusts,
tomatoes bled into a steel katori – for otherwise, the sandwiches would go
soggy. Whirlwind of adolescent importance, I picked them up and slung
them into my bag, barely thinking, I never looked
back. I savoured the luxury of walking away, of ignoring the man
behind bread, which was lunch, which was love, which was cut
into triangles, which was neatly packed.

I really like this one!
Good morning friends and foes

Nakari

#7
Here's a poem that came up in school and I thought was neat, and just now googled and found out the context was very different from what I had initially thought. Try guessing! :D

One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.




When I first read this I was pretty sure it was about dementia, which at the time a relative was suffering with - the perspective of someone who is becoming used to losing their memories and being unable to keep track of the events of their life. It starts off with forgetting names and places, then having trouble remembering keys and this causing panic, then forgetting whole sections of their life story, embodied by 'losing two cities', 'a continent'. Finally, losing the ability to recognize their loved ones, but having lost enough connection to their expression and emotions that 'it's no disaster'.

So uh turns out it's probably a lot more literal than I thought - the author did keep actually losing things that mattered to her, and literally leaving cities and continents. The author was also prooobably gay, spending much of her life in what Wikipedia calls "intimate relationships" with other women, but this was kept secret. At the time of writing this poem, her, uh, companion had just gotten married to a man, and the poem was repeatedly redrafted to make the "even losing you" stanza as vague as possible, which I think is kind of a form of loss and acceptance in itself. It's apparently about personal healing and growth after loss, being like, yup, it sucks, but I'm getting so good at recovering!

I... still prefer the dementia interpretation more tbh, it seems so close to what my relative was going through, even unintentionally. Death of the author and all that. But also I wish my English teachers had been able to say at the time "this may have been influenced by queerness", cause this is like the third thing I've looked back on where it seems like it would be relevant but was ignored :P

Catherine

My wife got me a copy of Queering The Green, a collection of poetry by 21st century queer Irish poets. I'm really excited to read it and hopefully find some new favourites to share here.
Good morning friends and foes