Hail Poetry!

Welcome to A2K, Julie!

A Cornish poet
Great that so many people want to talk about poetry tonight! Here's one by Charles Causley, who lives and writes in Cornwall:

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO LULU?

What has happened to Lulu, mother?
What has happened to Lu?
There's nothing in her bed but an old rag doll
And by its side a shoe.

Why is her window wide, mother,
The curtain flapping free,
And only a circle on the dusty shelf
Where her money-box used to be?

Why do you turn your head, mother,
And why do the tear-drops fall?
And why do you crumple that note on the fire
And say it is nothing at all?

I woke to voices late last night,
I heard an engine roar.
Why do you tell me the things I heard
Were a dream and nothing more?

I heard somebody cry, mother,
In anger or in pain,
But now I ask you why, mother,
You say it was a gust of rain.

Why do you wander about as though
You don't know what to do?
What has happened to Lulu, mother?
What has happened to Lu?

Whew, D'Artagnan. That's a sad piece!

What did happen to Lulu?? Why did she have to go? Will she come back? Does this remind you of a Beatles song???

Thanks for posting! I haven't heard of Charles Causley, but he's written a really good poem, very thoughtful and evocative.

Glad you liked it, Piffka. Causley's written a lot of great stuff. He's not too well known (or published) in the U.S. I found that poem in a volume of his collected works, 1951-2000, which I had sent from the UK. As you can see, he's been writing for a while!

Fifty years of writing poetry? I'll say!

Why don't you post another?

Piffka,

I know that you have studied much and are very literate when it comes to Poetry. :wink: It is very apparent. I need to ask you a question/ favor for me. which you do not have to do unless you want. Would you please read my newest poem in original writing, not to mention if you choose to please look at some of my other poems. Please I do not mean to be a fly on your ass. I just need to know if I should give up.....


By the way Dylan's the man

MellowGemini
You said:

"I wrote it so quick on impulse that it was hard to put it all
together tight."


Here's something else to think about.

The idea or inspiration for a poem (or the central part of it) may come to you in a flash so you hurry to write it down; but usually, that's just the beginning and , in a sense, the easy part.
Generally poets then re-work, modify, and polish their poem until they get it just right.

That can take a lot of time.

It doesn't necessarily mean continuously working on the poem. For example you may be dissatisfied with a line or a word and try out numerous possibilities but still haven't got what you want.
You may then leave the poem for a day or a week or more and come back to it.

Meanwhile it's still rolling around in your mind and in your sub-conscious mind (believe me!) Eventually the word or line that works for you will come.

I once read that Elizabeth Bishop wrote seventeen drafts of her nineteen line poem 'One Art' over a period of six months before she was satisfied. *

I must say that I have written more than a few poems on an impulse and then considered them done. The wish to have the finished product to show someone or make them laugh or whatever
lead me to take the easy, quick way.

They weren't very good.

The two or three poems that I'm proud of were the result of a two part process:
A surge of 'inspiration'

A much longer process of polishing


I also want to say that it takes COURAGE to ask, as you did, for
opinion/criticism of your work. We all have sensitive feelings and would prefer to hear all praise even though it's constructive criticism that most helps us to grow and improve.

I was impressed with the thoughtful advice that Piffka gave you.
I hope it will help. keep writing.
jjorge



*PS Here is Bishop's poem. It's my favorite.

'One Art'

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
The art of losing's not too hard to master
Though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
(Elizabeth Bishop)

Bishop begins with what seems to be, in effect, a 'handbook' on dealing with progressively greater losses.
Initially the poem seems to be humorous, even as the losses become greater and greater.

In the last stanza however, the cover of humor and exaggeration are dropped just enough to give us a glimpse of the speaker's true anguish, and the poem is revealed to be a love poem.

Well, as Jjorge said, I did look at MG's poem. Not sure if I should have -- free advice is worth all that you pay for it. Anyway, hope I didn't offend you and thanks Jjorge for being nice.

Thank you also for reminding us that even though poetry is, in the main, very short, it is also formed by a craftsperson. I've read Bishop's poem before, but didn't know that it was a six month effort. Just think of the changes that must have gone through her head... as well as the poem. Wouldn't it be interesting to see the development of it? I imagine, knowing my own efforts at writing, that there were changes made to certain words, then words reverted back to their original place. Fascinating.

The idea of the poem is so timely. We all have to face change and loss. Recognizing it as a non-disaster... even if it FEELS that way: a sign of maturity, of growing up, of acceptance. The important thing to remember being we can't do much about it anyway! I really like how she has built-in "asides" to herself, as though she is still talking to herself, giving herself a peptalk to move on. Normally I don't think I'd like that means of breaking up the poem, but in this one, it works well.

I'm assuming that MellowGemini meant Dylan THOMAS when he said "Dylan's the man." Dylan Thomas wrote a line which still haunts me, a line so perfect and complete it is a synopsis of all the literature in the world, of all life. It is the ending line to A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London: "After the first death, there is no other."

Here is Thomas's most famous poem, rightfully so. Rightfully famous and wonderfully well-written. This poem has helped many to face death, their own or their parents' death, by knowing someone else has faced it themselves.


DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

...........

This, however, may be my favorite Dylan Thomas poem:

THE FORCE THAT THROGH THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

Piffka

As I recall, I read the story (about 'One Art' taking six months and seventeen drafts) in the introduction to a biography of Bishop. I just now spent a few minutes looking for it but I can't seem to lay my hand on it.

Anyway, the author was in a Bishop archive (at Vassar I think)
looking at her workbooks and actually examined the seventeen successive drafts. It WOULD be a fascinating learning experience to see them and get a glimpse of the process that she went through with the poem.

BTW MellowGemini might be referring to Bob Dylan rather than Dylan Thomas.

Interestingly Bob Dylan, whose real name is something else (which eludes me at the moment) took his stage name from Dylan Thomas who he is said to have admired.

There are various types of poetry. One form rarely studied in the USA is Arabic poetry.

We should begin to post some on this site.

New Haven -- Thanks for the idea. Why don't you post one here, but if you'd like to create a topic devoted to Arabic Poetry... and I don't think there is one... go ahead and start one. I'm sure there would be interest.

Jjorge -- 17 different versions? The mind boggles. I once saw some notebooks from Theodore Roettke. It could not have been a messier, more scribbly set of sweated-over pages. Fascinating how he'd write a word, scribble it out, write it again, scribble it out! I suppose for people who now compose online, that sort of thing will never be seen again. Too bad!

Piffka:

I will!

Good. Good.

Won't you post your favorite (short) Arabic poem here as well? I think it is particularly interesting if you can also say who translated it and when.

Thanks!

Another one by Charles Causley
Here, Piffka, per your request, another poem by Charles Causley:

TOM BONE

My name is Tom Bone,
I live all alone
In a deep house on Winter Street.
Through my mud wall
The wolf-spiders crawl
And the mole has his beat.

On my roof of green grass
All the day footsteps pass
In the heat and the cold,
As snug in a bed
With my name at its head
One great secret I hold.

Tom Bone, when owls rise
In the drifting night skies
Do you walk round about?
All the solemn hours through
I lie down just like you
And sleep the night out.

Tom Bone, as you lie there
On your pillow of hair,
What grave thoughts do you keep?
Tom says, 'Nonsense and stuff!
You'll know soon enough.
Sleep, darling, sleep.'

Oh, it's a riddle! (Pretty easy to solve, but v. cool!)
Thanks! D'A.

Yes, but what is Tom Bone's great secret, Piffka?

I dunno! Maybe death is not a (deep) sleep and a forgetting?

piffka and jjorge, you would have loved "An Afternon With Elizabeth Bishop", an event that was part of The New Yorker Festival last September, and that I was lucky enough to attend. The afternoon consisted of readings from Bishop's poems and letters, as well as performances of three songs for which Bishop's poems provided the text. On the stage behind the readers was a screen, onto which slides of Bishop's paintings were projected. (In addition to being a great poet, she was also a talented water-colorist; the distribution of talent in the world is so unfair.)

Just about everyone who is anyone in the world of poetry was there: Seamus Heaney, Helen Vendler, Jorie Graham (who read piffka's favorite, "One Art"), Alice Quinn (the poetry editor of The New Yorker), etc. Katha Pollitt (the columnist for The Nation, who is herself a poet) spoke about having taken a class that Bishop taught at Harvard in the 1970's. She (Pollitt) said something so wonderful about Bishop's style as a teacher that I wrote it down: "She bore with our youthful idiocies as if they were new and interesting, and made her wonder, 'What will people think of next?'" (No mean feat, when you're dealing with undergraduates.)

Seating for the event, which was held at Town Hall, was general admission, so I got there about half an hour early, only to discover that the doors weren't open yet and there was a long line of people snaking down 44th Street for almost a block. As we stood there waiting for the doors to open, just about everyone who walked past asked what we were in line for, and almost everyone had the same reaction when they heard the answer: "I can't believe there are this many people standing in line to get into a poetry reading!" Well, believe it -- and I think I speak for everyone who stood in that line when I say it was time well spent.

Hi Bree,
The New Yorker Festival sounds great -- I've been studying last September's program's online, just to "torture" myself. You're lucky to have gotten tickets to the Bishop readings, apparently tickets were available to all events a month ahead of time. Wouldn't it be fun (for me) to plan a trip to NYC just to catch that Festival??? Dream on, of course, still....

BTW - I do like it very much, but it was Jjorge who said One Art was his favorite... at least favorite of Bishop's poetry. I have a feeling he may love an Emily Dickinson poem even more. They're like children, we can love them all if we want!

Thanks for letting us know about this.... just so we could dream!

Piffka, Thank you so much for your imput :wink:. Iam very shure of hearing and allowing myself to accept your feedback.

You at times refer to it as a negative like as though I may not want to hear it. When in all honesty those that are willing to take time out and share, Especcially the amount of charcters you typed. Makes me very proud and happy.

For you took time out of your own personal maybe important time to reach out and that is very admired. Anyone that educates me and makes me look at something I need to see I will not prune from a tree ever as bad fruit or judge

I do have to say one thing though(Sorry) . Yes the snowflake was cold we all know they are. On the other hand my relationship whether it be past or present I do not view as cold. HONESTLY how could I talk about being proud of her or dedicate it to her viewing it in a cold manner. I used the snowflake not as a cute metaphor. Instead I used it to symbolize UNIQUE for we also all know that no snow flake is the same