The continuous A2K anthology: post a poem that you love

Aubade
There's so much to say about the poems in this thread, that I will have to write a few posts in response to avoid complete incoherence.



Thanks, Jjorge! I agree wholeheartedly about Aubade. I never really liked High Windows; I thought that, after the Whitsun Weddings, Larkin just went downhill... until I heard 'Aubade,' that is. It amazed me to see how Larkin could ressusitate his earlier poetic prowess (as seen in 'An Arundel Tomb,' and 'The Whitsun Weddings' itself.) What merits it the most is how it looks unflinchingly at the one thing that we want to avoid considering; mixing both melancholy and beauty in one of the greatest poems about death, and all that comes with it, in the English language.

A friend of mine, an English teacher, actually studied underneath Larkin; although he never was acquainted with her, she says that he seemed more like a man who couldn't climb from those 'false beginnings,' rather than a misanthrope. I went up to Leeds with her and another friend a year ago, to see a play called 'Pretending to be Me,' which was a one-man show starring the actor Tom Courtney as Larkin; it was magnificent: I only wished that everyone could see it. I wonder whether we will ever have the brilliance that we had in the earlier half of the last century-- Larkin, Plath, Hughes-- again? Anyway, nothing can lessen that poem for me.

I would like to share with you the work of a
Hawaiian poet Juliet Kono. She and her parents were shipped to an internment camp on the mainland during
WWII for Japanese folks.

BLACK OUT BABY

The Japs, my mysterious kin,
have just bombed Pearl Harbor.
Each night thereafter, each home
is allowed one blackened light.
Windows are tarred
and cracks under doors
are stuffed with rags
chastising the light that dares to wander.
The block wardens come
drawn like termites to light.
Violators are startled
by the bang on the door
and if you are a Jap,
you have to careful _
they could send you
to internment camp,
somewhere in Colorado.

One night, a woman labors in the heat
of the black-out light.
Into this darkness a child is born.
It is I. A blackout baby -
nosing in the darkness
with heavy eyes,
a "yellow-belly,"
filled with a llvid cry!

I had the good fortune to live in a predominately
Japanese neighborhood in Old Town (Hilo) and I have never encountered such graciousness and kindness within an ethnic group.

Strange....what happened to my Andre Breton post?

I'll try again.

L'union Libre
Andre Breton

Ma femme à la chevelure de feu de bois
Aux pensées d'éclairs de chaleur
A la taille de sablier
Ma femme à la taille de loutre entre les dents du tigre
Ma femme à la bouche de cocarde et de bouquet d'étoiles de
dernière grandeur
Aux dents d'empreintes de souris blanche sur la terre blanche
A la langue d'ambre et de verre frottés
Ma femme à la langue d'hostie poignardée
A la langue de poupée qui ouvre et ferme les yeux
A la langue de pierre incroyable
Ma femme aux cils de bâtons d'écriture d'enfant
Aux sourcils de bord de nid d'hirondelle
Ma femme aux tempes d'ardoise de toit de serre
Et de buée aux vitres
Ma femme aux épaules de champagne
Et de fontaine à têtes de dauphins sous la glace
Ma femme aux poignets d'allumettes
Ma femme aux doigts de hasard et d'as de coeur
Aux doigts de foin coupé
Ma femme aux aisselles de martre et de fênes
De nuit de la Saint-Jean
De troène et de nid de scalares
Aux bras d'écume de mer et d'écluse
Et de mélange du blé et du moulin
Ma femme aux jambes de fusée
Aux mouvements d'horlogerie et de désespoir
Ma femme aux mollets de moelle de sureau
Ma femme aux pieds d'initiales
Aux pieds de trousseaux de clés aux pieds de calfats qui boivent
Ma femme au cou d'orge imperlé
Ma femme à la gorge de Val d'or
De rendez-vous dans le lit même du torrent
Aux seins de nuit
Ma femme aux seins de taupinière marine
Ma femme aux seins de creuset du rubis
Aux seins de spectre de la rose sous la rosée
Ma femme au ventre de dépliement d'éventail des jours
Au ventre de griffe géante
Ma femme au dos d'oiseau qui fuit vertical
Au dos de vif-argent
Au dos de lumière
A la nuque de pierre roulée et de craie mouillée
Et de chute d'un verre dans lequel on vient de boire
Ma femme aux hanches de nacelle
Aux hanches de lustre et de pennes de flèche
Et de tiges de plumes de paon blanc
De balance insensible
Ma femme aux fesses de grès et d'amiante
Ma femme aux fesses de dos de cygne
Ma femme aux fesses de printemps
Au sexe de glaïeul
Ma femme au sexe de placer et d'ornithorynque
Ma femme au sexe d'algue et de bonbons anciens
Ma femme au sexe de miroir
Ma femme aux yeux pleins de larmes
Aux yeux de panoplie violette et d'aiguille aimantée
Ma femme aux yeux de savane
Ma femme aux yeux d'eau pour boire en prison
Ma femme aux yeux de bois toujours sous la hache
Aux yeux de niveau d'eau de niveau d'air de terre et de feu

and then

INTERNMENT

Juliet Kona

Corralled, they are herded inland
from Santa Rosa.
After the long train ride
on the Santa Fe,
the physical exam,
the delousing with DDT
the branding of her indignation
she falls asleep.

Days later, she awaken
in an unfamiliar barracks -
Crystal City, Texas -
on land once a pasture.
Not wanting to,
not meaning to see beauty
in this stark landscape,
she see, nonetheless
through her tears
on the double row
of barbed wire fencing
which holds them in
like stolid cattle,
dewdrops,
impaled
and golden.

I was disconnected before I could post again.

I've never been gladder of starting a thread; there are such treasures here, many of which I would never have found.

Bluhipo-- I loved that; when a poet can get all they want to say down into four lines like that, it's something good.

Cav-- how each word's meaning in that poem speak out; it seems both level-headed and emotive: but I wonder whether America will be 'America' again?

Jjorge-- I think that the most impressive feat that a poet can pull is to write words that have such steely conviction, such sorrow and might, in whatever language into which they've been translated. I've loved Akhmatova since I was young; there's something so constricted and unique about her; we're lucky to have her as a voice.

Edgar-- Thank you! I learnt both of those poems when at school, and it's a joy to revisit them; one of the things that I love about poetry from the deep past is its ability to combine ambiguity with clarity.

Diane-- Wow! I never would have read that poem if it were not for you; I confess that I've never heard of the poet. I don't think that she wasted a word; and the ending is quite amazing.

OL: One of the classics, which I happily re-read. One of the things that I love about Keats is poetry Within poetry, if you see what I mean; and that and the other famous ode, Ode to a Nightingale, illustrate that gift perfectly.

Cav-- Wow! That Breton poem is exhilerating; I loved it.

Seaglass-- I'd not heard of Kona until tonight, but I'm glad that I did; her poems were very interesting, and balanced in the sight of such emotive issues; I'm still trying to decide which I like the most.

Here's a bit of Heaney:

Personal Helicon

As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.

One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.

A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.

Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.

Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

"The Poor Orphan Child"
Charlotte Bronte

My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary;
Long is the way, and the mountains are wild;
Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary
Over the path of the poor orphan child.

"Why did they send me so far and so lonely,
Up where the moors spread and gray rocks are piled?
Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only
Watch o'er the steps of a poor orphan child,

"Yet distant and soft the night-breeze is blowing,
Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild;
God, in His mercy, protection is showing,
Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.
"Ev'n should I fall, o'er the broken bridge passing,
Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled,
Still will my Father, with promise and blessing,
Take to his bosom the poor orphan child.

"There is a thought that for strength should avail me,
Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled;
Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me;
God is a friend to the poor orphan child.

I love it, Colorbook! I did the Brontës-- their prose and their poetry-- but strangely, the whole course was tilted towards Anne Brontë. That's the first time I've come across that one; the good thing about the Brontës is how they transferred their prose skills into poetry, this poem being a good example of that.

Here's another Larkin poem I love:


'Next, Please'

Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; every day
Till then we say,

Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear,
Sparking armada of promises draw near.
How slow they are! And how much time they waste,
Refusing to make haste!

Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks
Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks
Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinkled,
Each rope distinct,

Flagged, and the figurehead with golden tits
Arching our way, it never anchors; it's
No sooner present than it turns to past.
Right to the last

We think each one will heave to and unload
All good into our lives, all we are owed
For waiting so devoutly and so long.
But we are wrong:

Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.
-Philip Larkin

Here's another Larkin poem I love:


'Next, Please'

Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; every day
Till then we say,

Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear,
Sparking armada of promises draw near.
How slow they are! And how much time they waste,
Refusing to make haste!

Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks
Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks
Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinkled,
Each rope distinct,

Flagged, and the figurehead with golden tits
Arching our way, it never anchors; it's
No sooner present than it turns to past.
Right to the last

We think each one will heave to and unload
All good into our lives, all we are owed
For waiting so devoutly and so long.
But we are wrong:

Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.
-Philip Larkin

I love that one too, Jjorge. I often imagine what a loss it would be if some poets did not decide to write...

I love the cadence of this poem by Dylan Thomas, Paper and sticks.

Paper and sticks and shovel and match
Why won't the news of the old world catch
And the fire in a temper start

Once I had a rich boy for myself
I loved his body and his navy blue wealth
And I lived in his purse and his heart.

When in our bed I was tossing and turning
All I could see were his brown eyes burning
By the green of a one pound note.

I talk to him as I clean the grate
O my dear it's never too late
To take me away as you whispered and wrote.

I had a handsome and well-off boy
I'll share my money and we'll run for joy
With a bouncing and silver-spooned kid

Sharp and shrill my silly tongue catches
Words on the air as the fire catches
You never did, he never did.

Oh I like that one drom.
I had never seen it before.

Thanks, Jjorge; I never saw it until I bought a Selected Poems edition of Thomas' work; it caught my eye.

WB Yeats--

When you are old.

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

So many beautiful poems here. I've been saving this one for April.

Green Fire

You are April,
Green fire,
A flame that flickers, glitters,
But never glows.

You are a ripple on the sea of Beauty
That clasps and cradles the light
On the bent mirror of its emerald bosom
With an eager gesture of dancing.
Then tosses it lightly away
Like a silver veil.

And you are the upward lilt
Of a delicious voice.
A flutter of lark-sweet laughter
As light as floating thistle-down.

Do I wish, I wonder,
That you should be May.
Should send out a bud of golden passion,
Should rise and break in a billow of foaming ecstasy?
Or would I have your music sound more deep
As from the wounded breast of lyric pain?

I cannot tell,
I cannot see past you now,
Because I must always look at you as you are,
My April,
My flame that flickers, gleams, but never glows.

Stirling Bowen

Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus" (1883)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"



Er... most probably already know, but this is the engraved at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.

Oh, and can't forget this one...

e.e. cummings

1(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l

iness

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.


W B Yeats, 1892



When you pass that lake in the early morning, there is a gentle soothing gloom beneath the trees, which is perfectly described by "purple glow" . . .

I know they're very common, but the Auden and the Frost on page one are two of my very favorites.

I also feel this one, by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed...

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more

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