Poetry thread

[Ebberman]

Mandalay By George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) 1890

When I was young and had no sense
In far-off Mandalay
I lost my heart to a Burmese girl
As lovely as the day.

Her skin was gold, her hair was jet,
Her teeth were ivory;
I said, "for twenty silver pieces,
Maiden, sleep with me".

She looked at me, so pure, so sad,
The loveliest thing alive,
And in her lisping, virgin voice,
Stood out for twenty-five.

 

[desrgrl]

If you go to Amazon and search "Poetry" then you'll find drivel. Prose with carriage returns anywhere. Use the Look Inside feature.
Most of it is not even good prose.
Go to Allpoetry site and find stuff which is put forward as poetry, but is not. Go to Lineofpoetry and find the same thing.
Art has been debased.

You must have a voracious appetite to read all these books from Amazon, to actually know what is in them, and if it is any good. If you don't like modern poetry, even if it is metered and rhymed, and if you don't like free verse or blank verse, so be it.
But to say that only some undefined 'old' poetry, that can only be in meter and rhymed, is unskilled, is your opinion. The peers of poets that also write poetry, those that read poetry, scholars that write about poetry, numerous awards, bursaries, and achievements are the 'proof in the pudding' so to speak. I'm not going to win you over I'm sure, but its a shame that you can't open up to poets like Williams Carlos Williams, or Hart Crane, e.e. Cummings, or even risk something newer like Maya Angelou, Rupi Kaur... anyway, even if 'modern' or 'new' is the sticking point, not every poet in the past was metered and rhymed all the time. Not bashing old btw, big fan of Shakespeare among others.

 

[Ebberman]

desrgrl, I'm not as bad as you think.
If you don't like modern poetry, even if it is metered and rhymed, I don't know how you came to that conclusion.
Just as there is good and bad classical music, so it is with poetry a century or two old. It's simply that without any semblance of form, it's difficult to see how it is poetry, and modern poetry is often the literary equivalent of Tracey Emmen's unmade bed in modern art.

 

[The Knize]

The debate over "what is poetry?" is a longstanding one. Reminds me of David Foster Wallace's essay on "prose poems," which I cannot seem to find an easily readable copy of on-line, but it appears in "The Best of the Prose Poem: An International Journal," ed. Peter Johnson. Rain Taxi Vol. 6, No. 1; Spring 2001; pp. 22-24. As I recall, it is fair to say that DFW thought prose poem was something of an oxymoron, but he had some rather literate and clever things to say about them.

 

[DEgeezer]

One of my favorite poets, Robert Frost once said: "Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down."
IMHO most modern poetry is nothing more than chopped up prose.

Not that there isn't, or hasn't been some good free verse written. Carl Sandburg's Fog, and Chicago comes to mind.

 

[desrgrl]

To me, the form a poem takes, is not what makes it 'good' or 'bad', skilled or unskilled.

I enjoy poems in light of the full range of their definition:
"A verbal composition designed to convey experiences, ideas, or emotions in a vivid and imaginative way, characterized by the use of language chosen for its sound and suggestive power and by the use of literary techniques such as meter, metaphor, and rhyme."

"such as" not "limited to"

And, it is not the techniques that are the sole conveyors of experience, ideas, emotions.

So, for me, my enjoyment of poetry comes from a vary broad range. That's not saying people can't have particular kinds of poetry that they enjoy the most, or that there are some forms of poetry they aren't comfortable with or don't understand. And, obviously, one poets work is not of the same caliber throughout their life.

When one type of poetry is presumed to be superior, or that other types are considered unskilled based solely on what form it takes, is a position I just don't understand.

 

[The Knize]

I am not surprised that Frost would express a strong opinion on this. I love Frost, but I am sure he believed that whatever he did was the best, and maybe even the only way to do it!

 

[Eric_75]

 

[Ankerwycke]

Mandalay By George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) 1890

When I was young and had no sense
In far-off Mandalay
I lost my heart to a Burmese girl
As lovely as the day.

Her skin was gold, her hair was jet,
Her teeth were ivory;
I said, "for twenty silver pieces,
Maiden, sleep with me".

She looked at me, so pure, so sad,
The loveliest thing alive,
And in her lisping, virgin voice,
Stood out for twenty-five.

The title of this poem by Orwell is ‘Romance.’
Rudyard Kipling wrote ‘Mandalay.’

 

[Ankerwycke]

We and They by Rudyard Kipling.

Father, Mother, and Me
Sister and Auntie say
All the people like us are We,
And everyone else is They.
And They live over the sea,
While We live over the way,
But - would you believe it? - They look upon We
As only a sort of They!

We eat pork and beef
With cow-horn handled knives
They who gobble Their rice off a leaf,
Are horrified out of Their lives;
And They who live up a tree,
And feast on grubs and clay
(Isn’t it scandalous?) look upon We
As a simply disgusting They!

We shoot birds with a gun
They stick lions with spears.
Their full dress is un-.
We dress up to Our ears.
They like Their friends for tea
We like our friends to stay.
And, after all that, They look upon We
As an utterly ignorant They!

We eat kitcheny food.
We have doors that latch.
They drink milk or blood,
Under an open thatch.
We have doctors to fee.
They have Wizards to pay
And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We
As a quite impossible They.

All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people like Us, are We
And everyone else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They!

 

[MoreArtful]

MEMORY by W.B. Yeats

One had a lovely face
And two and three had charm'
But charm and face were both in vain
Because the mountain grass
Cannot but keep the form
Where the mountain hare hath lain.

 

[Eric_75]

 

[Ankerwycke]

Punch and Judy. Anonymous from around 1850, maybe earlier.

There’s the Old Joker, Punch,
Just over the way,
Enacting a curious
Sort of Play;
By practicing jokes
Upon heads that are thick
For Punch (you must Know),
Cracks his jokes with a stick.

You will shortly see Judy
His wife, I suppose
Who has like her husband,
A hump and long nose;
With a tongue that is longer,
And temper to match,
Which often brings poor
Mr. Punch to the scratch.

When the baby is cross
He bangs it about,
Or goes to the window and pitches it out;
Then cries ‘Roo te too,’
Till the constables staff
Comes whack on his head,
And spoils all his laugh.

The gallows and noose
Are bought out for Punch,
But instead of his neck,
He puts in his hunch;
Jack Ketch shows him how
To put in his head,
When Punch shoves Jack off,
And hangs him instead.

 

[Ankerwycke]

Pucks Song by Rudyard Kipling.

See you the ferny ride that steals
Into the oak-woods far?
O that was whence they hewed the Keels
That rolled to Trafalgar.

And mark you where the Ivy clings
To Bayham’s mouldering walls?
O there we cast the stout railings
That stand around St.Pauls.

See you the dimpled track that runs
All hollow through the wheat?
O that was where they hauled the guns
That smote King Philips fleet.

(Out of the Weald, the secret Weald,
Men sent in ancient years,
The horse-shoes red at Flodden Field,
The arrows at Poitiers!)

See you our little mill that clacks,
So busy by the brook?
She has ground her corn and paid her tax
Ever since Domesday Book.

See you our stilly woods of oak,
And the dread ditch beside?
O that was where the Saxons broke
On the day that Harold died.

See you the windy levels spread
About the gates of Rye?
O that was where the Northmen fled
When Alfred’s ships came by.

See you our pastures wide and lone
Where the red oxen browse?
O there was a City thronged and known,
Ere London boasted a house.

And see you, after rain, the trace
Of mound and ditch and wall?
O that was the Legions camping-place
When Caesar sailed from Gaul.

And see you marks that show and fade,
Like shadows on the Downs?
O they are the lines that Flint Men made,
To guard their wondrous towns.

Trackway and Camp and City lost,
Salt Marsh where now is corn -
Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease,
And so was England born.

She is not any common Earth,
Water or wood or air,
But Merlin’s Isle of Gramarye,
Where you and I will fare.

 

[Ankerwycke]

Tommy Atkins by Rudyard Kipling.