Young Writers Society

sabradan wrote:

backgroundbob wrote:

while it may seem egotistical and pretentious

It doesn't. It's worth liking, and taking pride in.

Really? Did you read it? Did you like it?

He probably has, but even if he hasn't I can agree that it's a pretty amazing poem!! I like the title too!



~KayJuran~

KayJuran wrote:

sabradan wrote:

backgroundbob wrote:

while it may seem egotistical and pretentious

It doesn't. It's worth liking, and taking pride in.

Really? Did you read it? Did you like it?

He probably has, but even if he hasn't I can agree that it's a pretty amazing poem!! I like the title too!



~KayJuran~

Yes: it needed more punctuation, but I somehow forgot to tell you.

Apart from that, it was extremely powerful.

my favorite poem is macavity i know it's pretty old now but it's still good.

Impossible To Tell - Robert Pinsky. Quite long.

Slow dulcimer, gavotte and bow, in autumn,
Bashõ and his friends go out to view the moon;
In summer, gasoline rainbow in the gutter,


The secret courtesy that courses like ichor
Through the old form of the rude, full-scale joke,
Impossible to tell in writing. "Bashõ"


He named himself, "Banana Tree": banana
After the plant some grateful students gave him,
Maybe in appreciation of his guidance


Threading a long night through the rules and channels
Of their collaborative linking-poem
Scored in their teacher's heart: live, rigid, fluid


Like passages etched in a microscopic cicuit.
Elliot had in his memory so many jokes
They seemed to breed like microbes in a culture


Inside his brain, one so much making another
It was impossible to tell them all:
In the court-culture of jokes, a top banana.


Imagine a court of one: the queen a young mother,
Unhappy, alone all day with her firstborn child
And her new baby in a squalid apartment


Of too few rooms, a different race from her neighbors.
She tells the child she's going to kill herself.
She broods, she rages. Hoping to distract her,


The child cuts capers, he sings, he does imitations
Of different people in the building, he jokes,
He feels if he keeps her alive until the father


Gets home from work, they'll be okay till morning.
It's laughter versus the bedroom and the pills.
What is he in his efforts but a courtier?


Impossible to tell his whole delusion.
In the first months when I had moved back East
From California and had to leave a message


On Bob's machine, I used to make a habit
Of telling the tape a joke; and part-way through,
I would pretend that I forgot the punchline,


Or make believe that I was interrupted--
As though he'd be so eager to hear the end
He'd have to call me back. The joke was Elliot's,


More often than not. The doctors made the blunder
That killed him some time later that same year.
One day when I got home I found a message


On my machine from Bob. He had a story
About two rabbis, one of them tall, one short,
One day while walking along the street together


They see the corpse of a Chinese man before them,
And Bob said, sorry, he forgot the rest.
Of course he thought that his joke was a dummy,


Impossible to tell--a dead-end challenge.
But here it is, as Elliot told it to me:
The dead man's widow came to the rabbis weeping,


Begging them, if they could, to resurrect him.
Shocked, the tall rabbi said absolutely not.
But the short rabbi told her to bring the body


Into the study house, and ordered the shutters
Closed so the room was night-dark. Then he prayed
Over the body, chanting a secret blessing


Out of Kabala. "Arise and breathe," he shouted;
But nothing happened. The body lay still. So then
The little rabbi called for hundreds of candles


And danced around the body, chanting and praying
In Hebrew, then Yiddish, then Aramaic. He prayed
In Turkish and Egyptian and Old Galician


For nearly three hours, leaping about the coffin
In the candlelight so that his tiny black shoes
Seemed not to touch the floor. With one last prayer


Sobbed in the Spanish of before the Inquisition
He stopped, exhausted, and looked in the dead man's face.
Panting, he raised both arms in a mystic gesture


And said, "Arise and breathe!" And still the body
Lay as before. Impossible to tell
In words how Elliot's eyebrows flailed and snorted


Like shaggy mammoths as--the Chinese widow
Granting permission--the little rabbi sang
The blessing for performing a circumcision


And removed the dead man's foreskin, chanting blessings
In Finnish and Swahili, and bathed the corpse
From head to foot, and with a final prayer


In Babylonian, gasping with exhaustion,
He seized the dead man's head and kissed the lips
And dropped it again and leaping back commanded,


"Arise and breathe!" The corpse lay still as ever.
At this, as when Bashõ's disciples wind
Along the curving spine that links the renga


Across the different voices, each one adding
A transformation according to the rules
Of stasis and repetition, all in order


And yet impossible to tell beforehand,
Elliot changes for the punchline: the wee
Rabbi, still panting, like a startled boxer,


Looks at the dead one, then up at all those watching,
A kind of Mel Brooks gesture: "Hoo boy!" he says,
"Now that's what I call really dead." O mortal


Powers and princes of earth, and you immortal
Lords of the underground and afterlife,
Jehovah, Raa, Bol-Morah, Hecate, Pluto,


What has a brilliant, living soul to do with
Your harps and fires and boats, your bric-a-brac
And troughs of smoking blood? Provincial stinkers,


Our languages don't touch you, you're like that mother
Whose small child entertained her to beg her life.
Possibly he grew up to be the tall rabbi,


The one who washed his hands of all those capers
Right at the outset. Or maybe he became
The author of these lines, a one-man renga


The one for whom it seems to be impossible
To tell a story straight. It was a routine
Procedure. When it was finished the physicians


Told Sandra and the kids it had succeeded,
But Elliot wouldn't wake up for maybe an hour,
They should go eat. The two of them loved to bicker


In a way that on his side went back to Yiddish,
On Sandra's to some Sicilian dialect.
He used to scold her endlessly for smoking.


When she got back from dinner with their children
The doctors had to tell them about the mistake.
Oh swirling petals, falling leaves! The movement


Of linking renga coursing from moment to moment
Is meaning, Bob says in his Haiku book.
Oh swirling petals, all living things are contingent,


Falling leaves, and transient, and they suffer.
But the Universal is the goal of jokes,
Especially certain ethnic jokes, which taper


Down through the swirling funnel of tongues and gestures
Toward their preposterous Ithaca. There's one
A journalist told me. He heard it while a hero


Of the South African freedom movement was speaking
To elderly Jews. The speaker's own right arm
Had been blown off by right-wing letter-bombers.


He told his listeners they had to cast their ballots
For the ANC--a group the old Jews feared
As "in with the Arabs." But they started weeping


As the old one-armed fighter told them their country
Needed them to vote for what was right, their vote
Could make a country their children could return to


From London and Chicago. The moved old people
Applauded wildly, and the speaker's friend
Whispered to the journalist, "It's the Belgian Army


Joke come to life." I wish I could tell it
To Elliot. In the Belgian Army, the feud
Between the Flemings and Walloons grew vicious,


So out of hand the army could barely function.
Finally one commander assembled his men
In one great room, to deal with things directly.


They stood before him at attention. "All Flemings,"
He ordered, "to the left wall." Half the men
Clustered to the left. "Now all Walloons," he ordered,


"Move to the right." An equal number crowded
Against the right wall. Only one man remained
At attention in the middle: "What are you, soldier?"


Saluting, the man said, "Sir, I am a Belgian."
"Why, that's astonishing, Corporal--what's your name?"
Saluting again, "Rabinowitz," he answered:


A joke that seems at first to be a story
About the Jews. But as the renga describes
Religious meaning by moving in drifting petals


And brittle leaves that touch and die and suffer
The changing winds that riffle the gutter swirl,
So in the joke, just under the raucous music


Of Fleming, Jew, Walloon, a courtly allegiance
Moves to the dulcimer, gavotte and bow,
Over the banana tree the moon in autumn--


Allegiance to a state impossible to tell

Wow, that's...long.

Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti and Keroac are hands down my favorite poets, TS Eliot being a close second. Hollow Men gives me chills every time I read it. I adore beat and dada poetry, I find it very moving on many levels. The anti-aesthetic movements are my favorites.

my favourite poet would definately have to be Michael Ondaatje, and my favourite poem of his is The Cinnamon Peeler. I don't really have it with me now, so I can't tell you how it goes, but if you ever get a chance to read it, it's really good.

Poe's Raven is my favourite.

Edna St. Vincent Millay is my favorite poet ever, and my favorite poem of all time is "Dirge Without Music" by her.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in
the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter,
the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses.
Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know.
But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes
than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

i like Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" and "The Lady of Shallot" and i like Sara Teasdale, and Alfred Noye's The Highwayman, and Robert Service, i think he wrote the Cremation of Sam McGee, which is amazing and another favorite is The Dead Faith by Tammy Jacoby

She made a little shadow-hidden grave,
The day Faith died;
Therein she laid it, heard the clod’s sick fall,
And smiled aside –“If less I ask, ” tear-blind, she mocked, “I may
Be less denied.”

She set a rose to blossom in her hair,
The day Faith died –
“Now glad, ” she said, “and free at last, I go,
And life is wide.”
But through long nights she stared into the dark,
And knew she lied. Tammy Jacoby

Currently, this is my favorite poem, by Ella Young:

A Song that Aibric made for Fionavar

Gold leaves and leaves of silver
On every tree
White lilies in the lake-water--
And love is gone from me

She was the sweet wind blowing
In April from the south
Redder than quicken berries
The redness of her mouth

She was the wild swan flying
Far-off when winds are chill
She was the cloud at sunrise
On the dark crest of the hill

I rather like the poem "The runnable stag"
I like the rythum in it and the way that it flows and you feel as though you are there with the stag.

I have to admit, that I also like the poem "The Mafia Cats" By Roger Mcgough, I don't know why, there is just something rther likable about it!

Tigi x

Found it!

WHEN the pods went pop on the broom, green broom,
And apples began to be golden-skinn'd,
We harbour'd a stag in the Priory coomb,
And we feather'd his trail up-wind, up-wind,
We feather'd his trail up-wind-
A stag of warrant, a stag, a stag,
A runnable stag, a kingly crop,
Brow, bay and tray and three on top,
A stag, a runnable stag.

Then the huntsman's horn rang yap, yap yap,
And 'Forwards' we heard the harbourer shout;
But 'twas only a brocket that broke a gap
In the beechen underwood, driven out,
From the underwood antler'd out
By warrant and might of the stag, the stag,
The runnable stag, whose lordly mind
Was bent on sleep though beam'd and tined
He stood, a runnable stag

So we tufted the covert till afternoon
With Tinkerman's Pup and Bell- of-the-North;
And hunters were sulky and hounds out of tune
Before we tufted the right stag forth,
Before we tufted him forth,
The stag of warrant, the wily stag,
The runnable stag with his kingly crop,
Brow, bay and tray and three on top,
The royal and runnable stag.

It was Bell-of-the-North and Tinkerman's Pup
That stuck to the scent till the copse was drawn.
'Tally ho! tally ho!' and the hunt was up,
The tufters whipp'd and the pack laid on,
The resolute pack laid on,
And the stag of warrant away at last,
The runnable stag, the same, the same,
His hoofs on fire, his horns like flame,
A stag, a runnable stag.

'Let your gelding be: if you check or chide
He stumbles at once and you're out of the hunt
For three hundred gentlemen, able to ride,
On hunters accustom'd to bear the brunt,
Accustom'd to bear the brunt,
Are after the runnable stag, the stag,
The runnable stag with his kingly crop,
Brow, bay and tray and three on top,
The right, the runnable stag.

By perilous paths in coomb and dell,
The heather, the rocks, and the river-bed,
The pace grew hot, for the scent lay well,
And a runnable stag goes right ahead,
The quarry went right ahead--
Ahead, ahead, and fast and far;
His antler'd crest, his cloven hoof,
Brow, bay and tray and three aloof,
The stag, the runnable stag.

For a matter of twenty miles and more,
By the densest hedge and the highest wall,
Through herds of bullocks lie baffled the lore
Of harbourer, huntsman, hounds and all,
Of harbourer, hounds and all
The stag of warrant, the wily stag,
For twenty miles, and five and five,
He ran, and he never was caught alive,
This stag, this runnable stag.

When he turn'd at bay in the leafy gloom,
In the emerald gloom where the brook ran deep
He heard in the distance the rollers boom,
And he saw In a vision of peaceful sleep
In a wonderful vision of sleep,
A stag of warrant, a stag, a stag,
A runnable stag in a jewell'd bed,
Under the sheltering ocean dead,
A stag, a runnable stag.

So a fateful hope lit up his eye,
And he open'd his nostrils wide again,
And he toss'd his branching antlers high
As he headed the hunt down the Charlock glen,
As he raced down the echoing glen
For five miles more, the stag, the stag,
For twenty miles, and five and five,
Not to be caught now, dead or alive,
The stag, the runnable stag.

Three hundred gentleman, able to ride,
Three hundred horses as gallant and free,
Beheld him escape on the evening tide,
Far out till he sank in the Severn Sea,
Till he sank in the depths of the sea
The stag, the buoyant stag, the stag
That slept at last in a jewell'd bed
Under the sheltering ocean spread,
The stag, the runnable stag.

This is a poem by a friend from another forum, a guy called Jon Jones - definitely on of the more talented people I've ever not met. This poem is hanging on my wall, because it's just that good - it always hits me every time I read it.


the extemporaneous prophet

the extemporaneous prophet--
"the wages of sin is death"
--doesn't feel the need
to have her subject and her verb
agree.

Dylan Thomas, Emily Dickinson.

Only one favorite poet? *flails*

Er... yeah. I like Spanish poetry. Silly, huh? In fact, the only reason why I leaned how to LOVE poetry was through Neruda. Yes... soy tonta.

Bella

Bella,
como en la piedra fresca
del manantial, el agua
abre un ancho relámpago de espuma,
así es la sonrisa en tu rostro,
bella.

Bella,
de finas manos y delgados pies
como un caballito de plata,
andando, flor del mundo,
así te veo,
bella.

Bella,
con un nido de cobre enmarañado
en tu cabeza, un nido
color de miel sombría
donde mi corazón arde y reposa,
bella.

Bella,
no te caben los ojos en la cara,
no te caben los ojos en la tierra.
Hay países, hay ríos
en tus ojos,
mi patria está en tus ojos,
yo camino por ellos,
ellos dan luz al mundo
por donde yo camino,
bella.

Bella,
tus senos son como dos panes hechos
de tierra cereal y luna de oro,
bella.

Bella,
tu cintura
la hizo mi brazo como un río cuando
pasó mil años por tu dulce cuerpo,
bella.

Bella,
no hay nada como tus caderas,
tal vez la tierra tiene
en algún sitio oculto
la curva y el aroma de tu cuerpo,
tal vez en algún sitio,
bella.

Bella, mi bella,
tu voz, tu piel, tus uñas,
bella, mi bella,
tu ser, tu luz, tu sombra,
bella,
todo eso es mío, bella,
todo eso es mío, mía,
cuando andas o reposas,
cuando cantas o duermes,
cuando sufres o sueñas,
siempre,
cuando estás cerca o lejos,
siempre,
eres mía, mi bella,
siempre.

Por Pablo Neruda