It's (not) National Poetry Month (anymore but people still want poems)

Quoth

Go read a poem, you dummy.

Eyes Fastened With Pins
by Charles Simic

How much death works,
No one knows what a long
Day he puts in. The little
Wife always alone
Ironing death's laundry.
The beautiful daughters
Setting death's supper table.
The neighbors playing
Pinochle in the backyard
Or just sitting on the steps
Drinking beer. Death,
Meanwhile, in a strange
Part of town looking for
Someone with a bad cough,
But the address somehow wrong,
Even death can't figure it out
Among all the locked doors...
And the rain beginning to fall.
Long windy night ahead.
Death with not even a newspaper
To cover his head, not even
A dime to call the one pining away,
Undressing slowly, sleepily,
And stretching naked
On death's side of the bed.

Edit: you can also write a poem every day like some crazy people are doing.

godmode

Everyone hates on Robert Frost, but he's my favorite

LTM

Can we write poetry instead?
Or is reading the only thing that is good for your head?

Quoth

Design
by Robert Frost

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

Butler For Life #1

Complete Destruction
by William Carlos Williams

It was an icy day.
We buried the cat,
then took her box
and set fire to it
in the back yard.
Those fleas that escaped
earth and fire
died by the cold

WCW not only has the best name ever, but some of the best poems ever.

Quoth

LTM wrote: »

Can we write poetry instead?
Or is reading the only thing that is good for your head?

you can write it too

i am doing that

edit: but read some or else you are an idiot

PiptheFair

do I dare to eat a fart

Grey Ghost

Edgar Allan Poe wrote:

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Lord Byron wrote:

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Zoel

I don't write poetry anymore. I was writing poems that were basically designed to troll people but also make pretty valid points.

There was a Hitler one I posted on here a while ago that argued that yeah, Hitler sucked, but he was also pretty straight forward in why he was evil so he is pretty easy to remember as opposed to all the evil people that are more complicated, like Kim Jong Ill and his daddy issues.

I've since moved on to Vignettes, which I guess some people would call "prose poetry" but to do so might be "illiterate."

The Geek

I don't "get" most poetry.

My brain just doesn't work that way.

Quoth

why would prose poetry be illiterate

Brainleech

Birdy birdy in the snow broke your wing it hurts I know. First I give you crumbs and bread. then I bash in your f#ing head

Zoel

I don't think there is a venn diagram that puts prose and poetry in the same category

then again there are boxer briefs so what do I know

Quoth

The Prose Poem
by Campbell McGrath

On the map it is precise and rectilinear as a chessboard, though driving past you would hardly notice it, this boundary line or ragged margin, a shallow swale that cups a simple trickle of water, less rill than rivulet, more gully than dell, a tangled ditch grown up throughout with a fearsome assortment of wildflowers and bracken. There is no fence, though here and there a weathered post asserts a former claim, strands of fallen wire taken by the dust. To the left a cornfield carries into the distance, dips and rises to the blue sky, a rolling plain of green and healthy plants aligned in close order, row upon row upon row. To the right, a field of wheat, a field of hay, young grasses breaking the soil, filling their allotted land with the rich, slow-waving spectacle of their grain. As for the farmers, they are, for the most part, indistinguishable: here the tractor is red, there yellow; here a pair of dirty hands, there a pair of dirty hands. They are cultivators of the soil. They grow crops by pattern, by acre, by foresight, by habit. What corn is to one, wheat is to the other, and though to some eyes the similarities outweigh the differences it would be as unthinkable for the second to commence planting corn as for the first to switch over to wheat. What happens in the gully between them is no concern of theirs, they say, so long as the plough stays out, the weeds stay in the ditch where they belong, though anyone would notice the wind-sewn cornstalks poking up their shaggy ears like young lovers run off into the bushes, and the kinship of these wild grasses with those the farmer cultivates is too obvious to mention, sage and dun-colored stalks hanging their noble heads, hoarding exotic burrs and seeds, and yet it is neither corn nor wheat that truly flourishes there, nor some jackalopian hybrid of the two. What grows in that place is possessed of a beauty all its own, ramshackle and unexpected, even in winter, when the wind hangs icicles from the skeletons of briars and small tracks cross the snow in search of forgotten grain; in the spring the little trickle of water swells to welcome frogs and minnows, a muskrat, a family of turtles, nesting doves in the verdant grass; in summer it is a thoroughfare for raccoons and opossums, field mice, swallows and black birds, migrating egrets, a passing fox; in autumn the geese avoid its abundance, seeking out windrows of toppled stalks, fatter grain more quickly discerned, more easily digested. Of those that travel the local road, few pay that fertile hollow any mind, even those with an eye for what blossoms, vetch and timothy, early forsythia, the fatted calf in the fallow field, the rabbit running for cover, the hawk's descent from the lightning-struck tree. You've passed this way yourself many times, and can tell me, if you would, do the formal fields end where the valley begins, or does everything that surrounds us emerge from its embrace?

LTM

Fable
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel;
And the former called the latter ‘Little Prig.’
Bun replied,
‘You are doubtless very big;
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together,
To make up a year
And a sphere.
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.
I'll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track;
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut.’

lostwords

So goth, I shit bats

Alternatively: where is kovak with the broetry?

Zoel

oh wait if i say i'm writing poetry I can shamelessly plug my LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME signature

Quoth

Brainleech wrote: »

Birdy birdy in the snow broke your wing it hurts I know. First I give you crumbs and bread. then I bash in your f#ing head

my goodness you're so clever, how can anyone else ever hope to equal the magnitude of your genius

get out of my thread you silly goose

LTM

Zoel wrote: »

I don't think there is a venn diagram that puts prose and poetry in the same category

then again there are boxer briefs so what do I know

Man, fuck the haters, do your own thing.

MagnumCT

The Geek wrote: »

I don't "get" most poetry.

My brain just doesn't work that way.

I'm with you.

Brainleech

Quoth wrote: »

Brainleech wrote: »

Birdy birdy in the snow broke your wing it hurts I know. First I give you crumbs and bread. then I bash in your f#ing head

my goodness you're so clever, how can anyone else ever hope to equal the magnitude of your genius

get out of my thread you silly goose

I have a wow one about my warlock

In a duel and taking a lickin'...
The warlock exclaimed, "I'm no chicken...."
"I'm facing defeat,..."
"But the next time we meet,..."
"You're in for a nasty butt kickin'."

Zoel

Quoth wrote: »

Brainleech wrote: »

Birdy birdy in the snow broke your wing it hurts I know. First I give you crumbs and bread. then I bash in your f#ing head

my goodness you're so clever, how can anyone else ever hope to equal the magnitude of your genius

get out of my thread you silly goose

hey now, what if that poster is alfred hitchcock

dude has issues with birds

Zoel

quoth i demand you read my signature and validate me at once to compensate for my insecurity

Edcrab

All I know of poetry
Are the fools who write streams of text
And throw in the odd purple word
Linebreaks do not a poem make
But it's not as if they care

Quoth

Zoel wrote: »

Quoth wrote: »

Brainleech wrote: »

Birdy birdy in the snow broke your wing it hurts I know. First I give you crumbs and bread. then I bash in your f#ing head

my goodness you're so clever, how can anyone else ever hope to equal the magnitude of your genius

get out of my thread you silly goose

hey now, what if that poster is alfred hitchcock

dude has issues with birds

dude has bigger issues

like being dead

Grey Ghost

The Geek wrote: »

I don't "get" most poetry.

My brain just doesn't work that way.

But you wrote one of the greatest poems of all time!

The Geek

The Geek wrote: »

I don't "get" most poetry.

My brain just doesn't work that way.

Butler For Life #1 wrote: »

Complete Destruction
by William Carlos Williams

It was an icy day.
We buried the cat,
then took her box
and set fire to it
in the back yard.
Those fleas that escaped
earth and fire
died by the cold

WCW not only has the best name ever, but some of the best poems ever.

Yeah, it's stuff like this that I read and am all just, "Yup, those sure are some words." Now, this is not a criticism of the poem at all. For all I know, this could be a really good poem.

But if someone did tell me that this is a good poem, I could not even begin to tell you why. I just don't get it. I've never been able to. I don't know what makes poetry good or bad.

Grey Ghost

A good poem is whatever you think it is

If you like the rhythm of it, or it uses words you think are pretty

You don't have to get more complicated than that, if you don't want to

Quoth

Zoel wrote: »

quoth i demand you read my signature and validate me at once to compensate for my insecurity

i think you are actually really good at titling things, which is hard

and the actual writing is fine

but i think you need more imagery and less sort of... straight opinion type stuff

my opinion and two dollars buys you coffee

Zoel

Edcrab wrote: »

All I know of poetry
Are the fools who write streams of text
And throw in the odd purple word
Linebreaks do not a poem make
But it's not as if they care

Rae Armantrout wrote:

Streamline to instantaneous
voucher in/voucher out
system.

The plot winnows.

The Sphinx
wants me to guess.

Does a road
run its whole length
at once?

Does a creature
curve to meet
itself?

Whirlette!

Streamline to instantaneous
voucher in / voucher out
system.

The plot is self-referential

The bitch
wants me to guess.

Does a cell phone
call to answer
voicemail

Does a good poet
get in my head?
Vise versa?

Snaketails.

Quoth

Edcrab wrote: »

All I know of poetry
Are the fools who write streams of text
And throw in the odd purple word
Linebreaks do not a poem make
But it's not as if they care

then read some real poems, crab man

jeez do i have to do everything for you

PiptheFair

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats 5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go 35
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— 40
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare 45
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all— 55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 60
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress 65
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while, 90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— 95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while, 100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . . 110
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use, 115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old … 120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me. 125

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Quoth

Grey Ghost wrote: »

A good poem is whatever you think it is

If you like the rhythm of it, or it uses words you think are pretty

You don't have to get more complicated than that, if you don't want to

yeah, you definitely CAN get much much more complicated, but it really comes down to "this is a good idea/image told in interesting words with some kind of pacing/rhythm"

Zoel

I can't believe I spent 4 years trying to understand that allegedly accessible poem

Quoth

Be Drunk
by Charles Baudelaire
translated by Louis Simpson

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

mensch-o-matic

Yay yay poetry thread yay!

"Ovid in the Third Reich"
Geoffrey Hill

non peccat, quaecumque potest peccasse negare,
solaque famosam culpa professa facit.
—(Amores, III, xiv)

I love my work and my children. God
Is distant, difficult. Things happen.
Too near the ancient troughs of blood
Innocence is no earthly weapon.

I have learned one thing: not to look down
So much on the damned. They, in their sphere,
Harmonize strangely with the divine
Love. I, in mine, celebrate the love-choir.

PiptheFair

god damnit

fuck the libertines

Zoel

I guess I could use more imagery, but I have something against it. Whenever I use imagery I feel like I'm doing some horrible livejournal thing that will almost certainly alienate anyone in my age group, who I guess would be the intended audience, so i tend to use it very sparingly.

LTM

Quoth wrote: »

Be Drunk
by Charles Baudelaire
translated by Louis Simpson

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

Good find.

Quoth

Zoel wrote: »

I guess I could use more imagery, but I have something against it. Whenever I use imagery I feel like I'm doing some horrible livejournal thing that will almost certainly alienate anyone in my age group, who I guess would be the intended audience, so i tend to use it very sparingly.

well, alternately you are alienating poets, who tend to rely on/seek out strong imagery

it's your call and that's cool, gotta know your audience, but even david sedaris uses imagery to get his points across

i don't necessarily mean symbolic imagery specifically, but like... concrete details can say a lot more than a kind of vague abstract statement, if that makes sense

godmode

Zoel wrote: »

I guess I could use more imagery, but I have something against it. Whenever I use imagery I feel like I'm doing some horrible livejournal thing that will almost certainly alienate anyone in my age group, who I guess would be the intended audience, so i tend to use it very sparingly.

Don't write for the audience, Zoel. Write for yourself.