Poetry. It's doesn't have to be bad

[sore bottom mum]

Really really embarrassing.

really really really !

[blue jammer]

You've posted 2 or 3 times since this "I'm leaving, boo hoo me" post.

Sort it out, stay and stop posting shit, or bugger off properly if that's what you want.

[Rats]

Well if those are the reasons you post then I don't think you should bother but trust me, most of the people here are just passing the time.

[sore bottom mum]

...yes, please, I beg, keep these discussion forums sensible.....and stop posting if you say you're going to leave and don't.



It really winds me up

[sore bottom mum]

You've posted 2 or 3 times since this "I'm leaving, boo hoo me" post.

well spotted.... respect due, really

[blue jammer]

So have you made your mind up then? (ohhh, Bucks Fizz)

?

[Abbie]

I think they should:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae (1872-1918)

[Purple Tentacle]

My favourite poet, John Betjeman.

And I usually don't like poetry.

In Westminster Abbey

Let me take this other glove off
 As the vox humana swells,
And the beauteous fields of Eden
 Bask beneath the Abbey bells.
Here, where England's statesmen lie,
Listen to a lady's cry.

Gracious Lord, oh bomb the Germans.
 Spare their women for Thy Sake,
And if that is not too easy
 We will pardon Thy Mistake.
But, gracious Lord, whate'er shall be,
Don't let anyone bomb me.

Keep our Empire undismembered
 Guide our Forces by Thy Hand,
Gallant blacks from far Jamaica,
 Honduras and Togoland;
Protect them Lord in all their fights,
And, even more, protect the whites.

Think of what our Nation stands for,
 Books from Boots and country lanes,
Free speech, free passes, class distinction,
 Democracy and proper drains.
Lord, put beneath Thy special care
One-eighty-nine Cadogan Square.

Although dear Lord I am a sinner,
 I have done no major crime;
Now I'll come to Evening Service
 Whensoever I have the time.
So, Lord, reserve for me a crown.
And do not let my shares go down.

I will labour for Thy Kingdom,
 Help our lads to win the war,
Send white flowers to the cowards
 Join the Women's Army Corps,
Then wash the Steps around Thy Throne
In the Eternal Safety Zone.

Now I feel a little better,
 What a treat to hear Thy word,
Where the bones of leading statesmen,
 Have so often been interr'd.
And now, dear Lord, I cannot wait
Because I have a luncheon date.

   -- John Betjeman

Death In Leamington
by Sir John Betjeman

She died in the upstairs bedroom
By the light of the ev'ning star
That shone through the plate glass window
From over Leamington Spa

Beside her the lonely crochet
Lay patiently and unstirred,
But the fingers that would have work'd it
Were dead as the spoken word.

And Nurse came in with the tea-things
Breast high 'mid the stands and chairs-
But Nurse was alone with her own little soul,
And the things were alone with theirs.

She bolted the big round window,
She let the blinds unroll,
She set a match to the mantle,
She covered the fire with coal.

And "Tea!" she said in a tiny voice
"Wake up! It's nearly five"
Oh! Chintzy, chintzy cheeriness,
Half dead and half alive.

Do you know that the stucco is peeling?
Do you know that the heart will stop?
From those yellow Italianate arches
Do you hear the plaster drop?

Nurse looked at the silent bedstead,
At the gray, decaying face,
As the calm of a Leamington ev'ning
Drifted into the place.

She moved the table of bottles
Away from the bed to the wall;
And tiptoeing gently over the stairs
Turned down the gas in the hall.

You can stick Andrew Motion up your bollocks.

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

Oh excellent. Despite the self-indulgent pity, this thread could go somewhere. Here's a couple of my favourite poems:

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
   In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
   Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
   And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
     What a beautiful Pussy you are,
         You are,
         You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!'

Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl!
   How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
   But what shall we do for a ring?'
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
   To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
   With a ring at the end of his nose,
         His nose,
         His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose

'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
   Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'
So they took it away, and were married next day
   By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
   Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
   They danced by the light of the moon,
         The moon,
         The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon

Fucking cracking stuff, by Edward Lear.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxsome foe he sought -
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood
The jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimbole in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogroves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
More class poetry, this time from Lewis Carrol

And as for Art, I could spend hours talking about it, but I'll just leave you with some favourites of mine. I love landscapes, and even if they're 'Out' now, I still think they're the most interesting works of art, both from a technical and from a reflective perspective.

The first is a chinese painting, and an unusual take on landscape art. From a distance it looks 2d and primitive, but looking deeper into the painitng uncovers a real subtlety of colour and depth.



The second is a painting by Anne Stahl which i could look at all day and still not come to terms with it. Great use of colour and contrast.



The last is a more traditional attempt at landscape painitng by Albert Bierstadt. I love the realistic colour used, and the whole scope for the painting. So much to discover!



So that's it. That's why poetry and painting shouldn't go. Because they produce just as good and interesting works than most new mediums.

[Borboski]

This ums my all time favourite. I often sit up and read it out along in my best Lee Marvin voice.

The Waste Land

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD


APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding  
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing  
Memory and desire, stirring  
Dull roots with spring rain.  
Winter kept us warm, covering          5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding  
A little life with dried tubers.  
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee  
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,  
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,   10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.  
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.  
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,  
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,  
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,   15
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.  
In the mountains, there you feel free.  
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.  
 
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow  
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,   20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only  
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,  
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,  
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only  
There is shadow under this red rock,   25
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),  
And I will show you something different from either  
Your shadow at morning striding behind you  
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;  
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.   30
               Frisch weht der Wind  
               Der Heimat zu.  
               Mein Irisch Kind,  
               Wo weilest du?  
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;   35
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'  
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,  
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not  
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither  
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,   40
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.  
Od' und leer das Meer.  
 
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,  
Had a bad cold, nevertheless  
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,   45
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,  
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,  
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)  
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,  
The lady of situations.   50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,  
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,  
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,  
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find  
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.   55
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.  
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,  
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:  
One must be so careful these days.  
 
Unreal City,   60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,  
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,  
I had not thought death had undone so many.  
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,  
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.   65
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,  
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours  
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.  
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying 'Stetson!  
'You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!   70
'That corpse you planted last year in your garden,  
'Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?  
'Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?  
'Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,  
'Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!   75
'You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!'  
 
II. A GAME OF CHESS


THE Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,  
Glowed on the marble, where the glass  
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines  
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out   80
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)  
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra  
Reflecting light upon the table as  
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,  
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;   85
In vials of ivory and coloured glass  
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,  
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused  
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air  
That freshened from the window, these ascended   90
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,  
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,  
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.  
Huge sea-wood fed with copper  
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,   95
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.  
Above the antique mantel was displayed  
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene  
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king  
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale  100
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice  
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,  
'Jug Jug' to dirty ears.  
And other withered stumps of time  
Were told upon the walls; staring forms  105
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.  
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.  
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair  
Spread out in fiery points  
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.  110
 
'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.  
'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.  
'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?  
'I never know what you are thinking. Think.'  
 
I think we are in rats' alley  115
Where the dead men lost their bones.  
 
'What is that noise?'  
                     The wind under the door.  
'What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?'  
                     Nothing again nothing.  120
                                             'Do  
'You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember  
'Nothing?'  
 I remember  
Those are pearls that were his eyes.  125
'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'  
                                                        But  
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—  
It's so elegant  
So intelligent  130
'What shall I do now? What shall I do?'  
'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street  
'With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?  
'What shall we ever do?'  
                         The hot water at ten.  135
And if it rains, a closed car at four.  
And we shall play a game of chess,  
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.  
 
When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said—  
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,  140
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME  
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.  
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you  
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.  
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,  145
He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.  
And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,  
He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time,  
And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.  
Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said.  150
Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.  
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME  
If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said.  
Others can pick and choose if you can't.  
But if Albert makes off, it won't be for lack of telling.  155
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.  
(And her only thirty-one.)  
I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,  
It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.  
(She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.)  160
The chemist said it would be alright, but I've never been the same.  
You are a proper fool, I said.  
Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,  
What you get married for if you don't want children?  
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME  165
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,  
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—  
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME  
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME  
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.  170
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.  
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.  
 
III. THE FIRE SERMON


THE river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf  
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind  
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.  175
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.  
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,  
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends  
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.  
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;  180
Departed, have left no addresses.  
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept...  
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,  
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.  
But at my back in a cold blast I hear  185
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.  
 
A rat crept softly through the vegetation  
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank  
While I was fishing in the dull canal  
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse  190
Musing upon the king my brother's wreck  
And on the king my father's death before him.  
White bodies naked on the low damp ground  
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,  
Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year.  195
But at my back from time to time I hear  
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring  
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.  
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter  
And on her daughter  200
They wash their feet in soda water  
Et, O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!  
 
Twit twit twit  
Jug jug jug jug jug jug  
So rudely forc'd.  205
Tereu  
 
Unreal City  
Under the brown fog of a winter noon  
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant  
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants  210
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,  
Asked me in demotic French  
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel  
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.  
 
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back  215
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits  
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,  
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,  
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see  
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives  220
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,  
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights  
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.  
Out of the window perilously spread  
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,  225
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)  
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.  
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs  
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—  
I too awaited the expected guest.  230
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,  
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,  
One of the low on whom assurance sits  
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.  
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,  235
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,  
Endeavours to engage her in caresses  
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.  
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;  
Exploring hands encounter no defence;  240
His vanity requires no response,  
And makes a welcome of indifference.  
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all  
Enacted on this same divan or bed;  
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall  245
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)  
Bestows on final patronising kiss,  
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit...  
 
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,  
Hardly aware of her departed lover;  250
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:  
'Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.'  
When lovely woman stoops to folly and  
Paces about her room again, alone,  
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,  255
And puts a record on the gramophone.  
 
'This music crept by me upon the waters'  
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.  
O City city, I can sometimes hear  
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,  260
The pleasant whining of a mandoline  
And a clatter and a chatter from within  
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls  
Of Magnus Martyr hold  
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.  265
 
     The river sweats  
     Oil and tar  
     The barges drift  
     With the turning tide  
     Red sails  270
     Wide  
     To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.  
     The barges wash  
     Drifting logs  
     Down Greenwich reach  275
     Past the Isle of Dogs.  
           Weialala leia  
           Wallala leialala  
 
     Elizabeth and Leicester  
     Beating oars  280
     The stern was formed  
     A gilded shell  
     Red and gold  
     The brisk swell  
     Rippled both shores  285
     Southwest wind  
     Carried down stream  
     The peal of bells  
     White towers  
           Weialala leia  290
           Wallala leialala  
 
'Trams and dusty trees.  
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew  
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees  
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.'  295
'My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart  
Under my feet. After the event  
He wept. He promised "a new start".  
I made no comment. What should I resent?'  
'On Margate Sands.  300
I can connect  
Nothing with nothing.  
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.  
My people humble people who expect  
Nothing.'  305
     la la  
 
To Carthage then I came  
 
Burning burning burning burning  
O Lord Thou pluckest me out  
O Lord Thou pluckest  310
 
burning  
 
IV. DEATH BY WATER


PHLEBAS the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,  
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell  
And the profit and loss.  
                         A current under sea  315
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell  
He passed the stages of his age and youth  
Entering the whirlpool.  
                         Gentile or Jew  
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,  320
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.  
 
V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID


AFTER the torchlight red on sweaty faces  
After the frosty silence in the gardens  
After the agony in stony places  
The shouting and the crying  325
Prison and place and reverberation  
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains  
He who was living is now dead  
We who were living are now dying  
With a little patience  330
 
Here is no water but only rock  
Rock and no water and the sandy road  
The road winding above among the mountains  
Which are mountains of rock without water  
If there were water we should stop and drink  335
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think  
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand  
If there were only water amongst the rock  
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit  
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit  340
There is not even silence in the mountains  
But dry sterile thunder without rain  
There is not even solitude in the mountains  
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl  
From doors of mudcracked houses
                                If there were water  345
 And no rock  
 If there were rock  
 And also water  
 And water  
 A spring  350
 A pool among the rock  
 If there were the sound of water only  
 Not the cicada  
 And dry grass singing  
 But sound of water over a rock  355
 Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees  
 Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop  
 But there is no water  
 
Who is the third who walks always beside you?  
When I count, there are only you and I together  360
But when I look ahead up the white road  
There is always another one walking beside you  
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded  
I do not know whether a man or a woman  
—But who is that on the other side of you?  365
 
What is that sound high in the air  
Murmur of maternal lamentation  
Who are those hooded hordes swarming  
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth  
Ringed by the flat horizon only  370
What is the city over the mountains  
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air  
Falling towers  
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria  
Vienna London  375
Unreal  
 
A woman drew her long black hair out tight  
And fiddled whisper music on those strings  
And bats with baby faces in the violet light  
Whistled, and beat their wings  380
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall  
And upside down in air were towers  
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours  
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.  
 
In this decayed hole among the mountains  385
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing  
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel  
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.  
It has no windows, and the door swings,  
Dry bones can harm no one.  390
Only a cock stood on the rooftree  
Co co rico co co rico  
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust  
Bringing rain  
 
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves  395
Waited for rain, while the black clouds  
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.  
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.  
Then spoke the thunder  
D A  400
Datta: what have we given?  
My friend, blood shaking my heart  
The awful daring of a moment's surrender  
Which an age of prudence can never retract  
By this, and this only, we have existed  405
Which is not to be found in our obituaries  
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider  
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor  
In our empty rooms  
D A  410
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key  
Turn in the door once and turn once only  
We think of the key, each in his prison  
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison  
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours  415
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus  
D A  
Damyata: The boat responded  
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar  
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded  420
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient  
To controlling hands  
 
                     I sat upon the shore  
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me  
Shall I at least set my lands in order?  425
 
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down  
 
Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina  
Quando fiam ceu chelidon—O swallow swallow  
Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie  
These fragments I have shored against my ruins  430
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.  
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.  
 
           Shantih shantih shantih


WHAT A CORKER EH?

[Uncle_Z]

landscape

Tee hee heee.... Wang.

My fave painter at the moment (for about 18 months actually) is Radu Serban Clicky

The Romanian collection seems to be unavailable at the moment, but therein there were loads of house interiors featuring chairs etc.  The vibrant simplicity of it appeals.  Some good stuff in Manhattan and Paris too, but I think they are a little bit busy for my taste (sounds a bit noncy, but I reckon it's because he has SOMETHING to paint rather than just painting what is there).

Poetry?  Feh thats for puffy men with frilly shirt cuffs isn't it?  

Enjoyed Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf and a version of the Saga of The Volsungs (cannot remember who by... will check if anyone interested).  Agree with Daves about performance poetry[Edit: Meh, that must have been in a different thread.  Editedit:  this one in fact.  Saw some great "slam" exponents when I lived in Bristol.  Not a lot of it in the Midlands as far as I know.  There is a guy who hijacks / guests at gigs in Stoke, calling himself "The Trent Vale Poet" if memory serves.  One that stood out was about how everyone in Crewe looks like Ernest Borgnine.  Great fun.

[DonkeyRods]

One of the internet radio stations I use to slow down the company website for our ungrateful whining git-shaped customers has a track where a man with the best story-telling voice ever reads out this Paul Bowles poem, with lovely Eno-like ambientness in the background:

When striped snakes shall creep upon us
And the nervous screams of birds
Make silent all the fountains and the orchards and when these
Have caught upon the wing each wing
That flutters from the sky
Then shall I and then shall I
Rip out the smiles from garden walks
Transform the minnows into hawks
Tarantulas and bees
Then shall I and then shall I
Unmake each whining thing.

I'm an idiot when it comes to poetry, could someone please explain what this poem is all about? Ill post it up if it comes on any time soon.

[Qatar-wol]

430-odd lines of twaddle

Fuck me, hurray, it's hard enough reading it from a book, nevermind off a screen when we should be working.  And you couldn't even be bothered to remove the line numbers as you cut and pasted.

The Wasteland is elitist and deliberately obscure.  It was high-brow when it was published (anyone who introduces a poem in Greek (for fucksacks) is just showing off (and causing lots of ponces to stroke their chins and say, "Aah!")).  It has meanings and references that are almost impossible to understand without a huge amount of background knowledge, and drives a wedge between the public and 'art' (for want of a better word).

Art should say something to everybody.  Elliot's 'Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock' is far superior, and accessible.

[Rats]

Alone (Poe)

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

[Munday's Chylde]

My girlfriend has a moustache
- Samuel Coleridge (1898)

My girlfriend has a moustache,
I don't see how this can last,
She's shaved it twice but now it's back there,
Every time I kiss her I've a mouth full of hair,
And I find it tickles when she goes down there,
My girlfriend has a moustache.

[jutl]

430-odd lines of twaddle

--Slagging of The Wasteland for being elitist

There's a place for that kind of thing - rejecting densely allusive art is inverted snobbery.

[Des Nilsen]

Fantastic choice of Poe's there, Rats.

Years.
By Sylvia Plath.

They enter as animals from the outer
Space of holly where spikes
Are not the thoughts I turn on, like a Yogi,
But greenness, darkness so pure
They freeze and are.

O God, I am not like you
In your vacuous black,
Stars stuck all over, bright stupid confetti.
Eternity bores me,
I never wanted it.

What I love is
The piston in motion -
My soul dies before it.
And the hooves of the horses,
Their merciless churn.

And you, great stasis -
What is so great in that!
Is it a tiger this year, this roar at the door?
It is a Christus,
The awful

God-bit in him
Dying to fly and be done with it?
The blood berries are themselves, they are very still.

The hooves will not have it,
In blue distance the pistons hiss.

-

[Martian Martian]

A chilly poem. Written after the death of his wife.

'In Tenebris'

Wintertime nighs;
But my bereavement-pain
It cannot bring again:
Twice no one dies.

Flower-petals flee;
But since it once hath been,
No more that severing scene
Can harrow me.

Birds faint in dread:
I shall not lose old strength
In the lone frost's black length:
Strength long since fled!

Leaves freeze to dun;
But friends cannot turn cold
This season as of old
For him with none.

Tempests may scath;
But love cannot make smart
Again this year his heart
Who no heart hath.

Black is night's cope;
But death will not appal
One, who past doubtings all,
Waits in unhope.

[ziggy starbucks]

I prefer some of plath's more obscure work

brew
Ted, I made you a brew
Two sugars just for you
But you went and left me
For a fish
You killed me!

arse
Ted Hughes, Jimmy to his friend
Drove me completely round the bend
The darkness is all around me
So I'll turn off the radio
wooooooo

[sore bottom mum]

And as for Art, I could spend hours talking about it....

The first is a chinese painting, and an unusual take on landscape art. From a distance it looks 2d and primitive, but looking deeper into the painitng uncovers a real subtlety of colour and depth.

The second is a painting by Anne Stahl which i could look at all day and still not come to terms with it. Great use of colour and contrast.

The last is a more traditional attempt at landscape painitng by Albert Bierstadt. I love the realistic colour used, and the whole scope for the painting. So much to discover!

do you talk like that normally, or just when looking at paintings?

and yes, I'm back again. My favorite painting:

[/quote]

[Gazeuse]

Bloody hell, I hate Sylvie Plath's poetry. Bloody dismal old rot.

I am a complete philistine with potes though.

[Mecha Jesus - Mk II]

I don't have much to offer this thread considering I don't particularly enjoy poetry. (Although I have to say that that 'Westminster Abbey' poem that Purple Tentacle posted was tres great).  But I will say this; is it me, or does that guy holding the guitar look like Mike Myers?

Other than that, I have to agree with Vermschneid Mehearties on this picture:

...which is bloody lovely. Especially that nice shiny waterfall in the centre.

That's all really.

[sore bottom mum]

Other than that, I have to agree with Vermschneid Mehearties on this picture:

...which is bloody lovely. Especially that nice shiny waterfall in the centre.

That's all really.

You people have no taste!

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

do you talk like that normally, or just when looking at paintings?

Mainly when looking at paintings. Look, you started the thread about painting and poetry, so if you suddenely get scared when someone decides to go into a little more detail other than "Haha that guys looks weird!1", then fuck off, because you've brought it upon yourself.

I particularly like paintings which are very accurate. Got to admire the skill.

[Bogey]

It amazes me how popular art galleries are. Particularly the Tate Modern.
Fantastic building, the big things in the turbine hall are always ace, but how many, out of the millions who flood the place every year, do you think can say they truly "understand" what's in there.
I certainly don't.
People don't seem to be able to come to terms with just how esoteric the art world is.
Or am I missing something?

[sore bottom mum]

do you talk like that normally, or just when looking at paintings?

Mainly when looking at paintings. Look, you started the thread about painting and poetry, so if you suddenely get scared when someone decides to go into a little more detail other than "Haha that guys looks weird!1", then fuck off, because you've brought it upon yourself.

I particularly like paintings which are very accurate. Got to admire the skill.

I didn't put the Degas painting up to say "Haha that guy looks weird!"... It's just my favorite painting. If I was intending to do that, I'm sure I would have been more imaginative with my choice of image! Painting is sincerely my favorite thing..... it was just your "going into a little more detail" that amused me by it's lack of meaning. Sorry, I know you were trying (is that patronizing enough) and I did really like the first Japonesey landscape...

.....and in reply to the Tate Modern post, I think it's biggest problem is the lack of good information about the work and it's context. It's curated in a really simplistic way e.g. Richard Long next to Monet because they both do work out side....really really stupid, it makes the work look like that's all it's about, and people become  cynical. I like  the building also.

[Borboski]

430-odd lines of twaddle

Fuck me, hurray, it's hard enough reading it from a book, nevermind off a screen when we should be working.  And you couldn't even be bothered to remove the line numbers as you cut and pasted.

The Wasteland is elitist and deliberately obscure.  It was high-brow when it was published (anyone who introduces a poem in Greek (for fucksacks) is just showing off (and causing lots of ponces to stroke their chins and say, "Aah!")).  It has meanings and references that are almost impossible to understand without a huge amount of background knowledge, and drives a wedge between the public and 'art' (for want of a better word).

Art should say something to everybody.  Elliot's 'Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock' is far superior, and accessible.

ACK!!! ACK!!! COUGH!!! SPLUTTER!

That sir is heresy.

High-brow when it was published??!?!!?!? I should jolly well think so too. When, if ever, Simon Armitage and Benjamin Zephaniah are held up in 60 years as being utterly revelatory, as prophets and ciphers of the post-modern ages, of just, fantastically, being bloody miserable and complex in a way that is structured and understandable, I'll get down to Morrisons, buy a plate of Alphabites, and  eat my bloody words!

It doesn't drive a wedge at all - I first studied it at GCSE, and it's actually immensely simple. All the criticisms you make just aren't fair. This is a world away from the worst decadence of current modern art. You may as say The Illiad is obtuse, or Paradise Lost.

Alfred Prufock is of course great - but then you could just say it riffs on the same themes, anomie and ennui, on a much more simple basis. (It's good for doing that...)

I don't think there's anything wrong with being elitist and obscure. I personally much prefer art that asks questions of me, and presupposes that I can learn something from it rather than from myself. And you can't say it's that obscure when he published the notes with the poem. How many writers have the good grace to do that?

[fum]

I think they should:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae (1872-1918)

Good poem had to study this for ou.

[Abbie]

I think they should:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae (1872-1918)

Good poem had to study this for ou.

Oooh me too - A103, you?

[12 years, 11 months old]

I consider myself really lucky as for my A-levels last year I got to study the whole history of English poetry from Chaucer to Yeats, rather than doing Sylvia Plath or something. Obviously it was mostly a greatest hits collection of English lit's most famous stuff, but it encouraged me to seek out slightly lesser known things as well, and now I'm glad that I have quite a decent knowledge of the tradition, so don't find poetry as forbidding or inaccessible as I once did.

As for modern stuff, the last thing I read was Derrek Hines' version of Gilgamesh, which I really enjoyed, its brief as well, and any book that contains the line 'cock like a jack-hammer' has to be worth a look. It manages to border on the profound in some places too, I remember a line something like: ''when silence speaks/meaning is everywhere'. Ok so it's not Donne or anything, but it's still good.

This year we've been doing Seamus Heaney, who's vaguely modern and I've been absolutely loving it. I know some people can't stand his endless poems about mud, bogs, peat and so on, but for some reason I really like that stuff. And even if his themes don't appeal, its impossible to say he's not a great writer:

"All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks." (Death of a Naturalist)

I've been meaning to read some Larkin as well ever since a thread on here a few months back, which showed there was a bit more to him than 'They fuck you up...' and 'sex was invented in '63', which is probably (wrongly) the stuff he's best known for. But I want to read the Prelude as well - I guess there's just too much to read and not enough time.

I suppose that's the problem for painters too, there's so much in the canon that it would be quite possible to spend a perfectly rewarding life simply in going through the galleries of the world looking at the art of the past. Why bother making anything new? I was really interested by Matthew Collings' argument in his recent series that the great tradition of western painting which began in the renaissance has pretty much come to a close, just as the age of, say, cathedral building did before that. We live in a different type of society than that which produced the great painters of the past, and so we can never recreate that, we should enjoy just enjoy what they left us and move on. That seems pretty plausible to me.

To some extent I think maybe photography has taken over from painting as the most interesting visual art form, I'd certainly rather go to an exhibition of Gursky or something than a modern painting show.