Poetry

[Silent Alarm]

Surely there's one here, a thread just for random poetry you're interested or angry or feel something about. I always like going online and scouring poets I've never heard of or just trying to dig something up from someone you like.

I'm planning on going overseas sometime this year and heeding my dad's advice, I'm really trying to read as much by as many writer's from the places I'll likely go. I couldn't stop thinking of this one, The Cockney Amorist, by John Betjeman. I'm really interested in place and always have been. This is one of my favourite poems ever and the incongruous fact that I'm in hot, summer Perth and not dull, frigid London probably adds something to that...

The Cockney Amorist

Oh when my love, my darling,
You’ve left me here alone,
I’ll walk the streets of London
Which once seemed all our own.
The vast suburban churches
Together we have found:
The ones which smelt of gaslight
The ones in incense drown’d;
I’ll use them now for praying in
And not for looking round.
No more the Hackney Empire
Shall find us in its stalls
When on the limelit crooner
The thankful curtain falls,
And soft electric lamplight
Reveals the gilded walls.

I will not go to Finsbury Park
The putting course to see
Nor cross the crowded High Road
To Williamsons’ to tea,
For these and all the other things
Were part of you and me.
I love you, oh my darling,
And what I can’t make out
Is why since you have left me
I’m somehow still about.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/feb/25/poetry.johnbetjeman1

 

[WALDENPOND]

If traveling, this place sounds nice...
JCC-
the bloody cops are bloody keen
to bloody keep it bloody clean
the bloody chief's a bloody swine
who bloody draws a bloody line
at bloody fun and bloody games
the bloody kids he bloody blames
are nowehere to be bloody found
anywhere in chicken town

the bloody scene is bloody sad
the bloody news is bloody bad
the bloody weed is bloody turf
the bloody speed is bloody surf
the bloody folks are bloody daft
don't make me bloody laugh
it bloody hurts to look around
everywhere in chicken town
the bloody train is bloody late
you bloody wait you bloody wait
you're bloody lost and bloody found
stuck in ******* chicken town

the bloody view is bloody vile
for bloody miles and bloody miles
the bloody babies bloody cry
the bloody flowers bloody die
the bloody food is bloody muck
the bloody drains are bloody ****ed
the colour scheme is bloody brown
everywhere in chicken town

the bloody pubs are bloody dull
the bloody clubs are bloody full
of bloody girls and bloody guys
with bloody murder in their eyes
a bloody bloke is bloody stabbed
waiting for a bloody cab
you bloody stay at bloody home
the bloody neighbors bloody moan
keep the bloody racket down
this is bloody chicken town

the bloody pies are bloody old
the bloody chips are bloody cold
the bloody beer is bloody flat
the bloody flats have bloody rats
the bloody clocks are bloody wrong
the bloody days are bloody long
it bloody gets you bloody down
evidently chicken town
the bloody train is bloody late
you bloody wait you bloody wait
you're bloody lost and bloody found
stuck in ******* chicken town.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seriously though.

My favourite right now is Walt Whitman - Pioneers! O Pioneers!

Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein'd,
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

See my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

On and on the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill'd,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd.
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Life's involv'd and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Lo, the darting bowling orb!
Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you daughters of the West!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your work,)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Not for delectations sweet,
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,
Swift! to the head of the army!--swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

 

[jim boy]

I'm not sure poetry has much of a place in Australian culture. We're too impatient and the classics carry an elitist baggage that often imbues with a sense of mistrust. But it lives on, this was quite entertaining http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b050bh69

 

[WALDENPOND]

I'm not sure poetry has much of a place in Australian culture. We're too impatient and the classics carry an elitist baggage that often imbues with a sense of mistrust. But it lives on, this was quite entertaining http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b050bh69

More impatient than the rest of the western world?

Also a poem can be short yet still meaningful.

 

[jim boy]

More impatient than the rest of the western world?

Also a poem can be short yet still meaningful.

In terms of appreciation of cultural artefacts, I think we are. And I'm not really referring to the length of the piece, more the wanting to start dissecting it line by line, rather than be stanza. Moreover we usually have to prod ourselves to dig into the poetry's core rather than the more convenient gratification that competing forms take.

 

[WALDENPOND]

In terms of appreciation of cultural artefacts, I think we are. And I'm not really referring to the length of the piece, more the wanting to start dissecting it line by line, rather than be stanza. Moreover we usually have to prod ourselves to dig into the poetry's core rather than the more convenient gratification that competing forms take.

I don't like the term 'we' as it assumes the country as a whole are uncultured but I know what you mean to an extent. But I actually see it as the opposite. Look at the ten dollar note with Banjo Patterson on it, or another equally admired bush poet like Henry Lawson who has been respected through generations. Through to today you hear visitors coming here to events like the Sydney or Melbourne Writers Festival and saying not how we are producing epic 1000 page novels or even seem to care about them as much as other countries but from the outback raw land to inner urban areas our poetry is always strong, vivid, discriptive, and unique.

 

[jim boy]

but from the outback raw land to inner urban areas our poetry is always strong, vivid, discriptive, and unique.

And niche, to me it seems a very small conclave takes any interest, that's not to say what is being produced is inferior. You mention Lawson and Patterson, I reckon 98% of Australians would not be able to name a single poem of Henry Lawson. The third best known Australian 'poet' is probably Ern Malley.

My own experience of living in Europe was an eye-opener as to how well respected and liked cultural tropes such as poetry are in those countries compared to here. Some of those poets were treated as the rock stars of their day, even now someone like John Cooper Clarke has a populist cache that australian poets can only envy.

 

[WALDENPOND]

And niche, to me it seems a very small conclave takes any interest, that's not to say what is being produced is inferior. You mention Lawson and Patterson, I reckon 98% of Australians would not be able to name a single poem of Henry Lawson. The third best known Australian 'poet' is probably Ern Malley.

My own experience of living in Europe was an eye-opener as to how well respected and liked cultural tropes such as poetry are in those countries compared to here. Some of those poets were treated as the rock stars of their day, even now someone like John Cooper Clarke has a populist cache that australian poets can only envy.

I agree about treating them like celebrities, or lack of, here. And therefore out of sight out of mind to the average suburban more interested in a reality tv show. But I still think it has a strong place.