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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Poetry Slam!

Poetry Slam!

by Tim F|  April 30, 20079:25 am| 61 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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I’m not that big a fan of honoring every random thing with its own calendar slot,* but I like poetry so it seems fitting to send off National Poetry Month with at least one post on the topic. The whole idea of favorite poets does a disservice to the art, since we go through times when any of two dozen poets and specific works speaks to us more strongly than the others. I have had Donne periods, Frost, Pound and Wislawa Szymborka. Often I switch between being mesmerized at the mythic renderings of Gary Snyder’s beatnik life and frustration with the way that he poemizes ordinary journal entries by adding arbitrary line breaks. For a few demented nights in college I was a Neruda guy.

So instead of picking our favorite poets, let’s use this thread to recall the poems that we can write down without looking them up. By definition that will make this a thread for poetry wonks, as if that is a bad thing. I will lead off with one of the few poems that I both like and (hopefully) remember in full.

Fire and Ice
Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I’ve known enough of hate
to say that for destruction ice is also great
and would suffice.

***

(*) Please remind me when Intergalactic Coblogger Week comes around this year. For some stupid reason I keep missing it.

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Reader Interactions

61Comments

  1. 1.

    Zifnab

    April 30, 2007 at 9:35 am

    Damn you Walt Witman! Leaves of grass my ass!

  2. 2.

    Generic Eschaton Commenter

    April 30, 2007 at 9:39 am

    Roses are red,
    Violets are blue,
    Worst. President. Ever.

  3. 3.

    Bob In Pacifica

    April 30, 2007 at 9:42 am

    The Warriors are winning.
    This is just the beginning.

  4. 4.

    Wilfred

    April 30, 2007 at 9:48 am

    next to of course god america i
    love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
    say can you see by the dawn’s early my
    country ’tis of centuries come and go
    and are no more what of it we should worry
    in every language deafanddumb
    thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
    by jingo by jee by gosh by gum
    why talk of beauty what could be more beauti-
    ful than these heroic happy dead
    who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
    they did not stop to think they died instead
    then shall the voice of liberty be mute?”

    He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water.

    e.e. cummings “next to of course god america i”, (1926)

  5. 5.

    Zifnab

    April 30, 2007 at 9:58 am

    1.

    Half a league, half a league,
    Half a league onward,
    All in the valley of Death
    Rode the six hundred.
    “Forward, the Light Brigade!
    “Charge for the guns!” he said:
    Into the valley of Death
    Rode the six hundred.

    2.

    “Forward, the Light Brigade!”
    Was there a man dismay’d?
    Not tho’ the soldier knew
    Someone had blunder’d:
    Their’s not to make reply,
    Their’s not to reason why,
    Their’s but to do and die:
    Into the valley of Death
    Rode the six hundred.

    3.

    Cannon to right of them,
    Cannon to left of them,
    Cannon in front of them
    Volley’d and thunder’d;
    Storm’d at with shot and shell,
    Boldly they rode and well,
    Into the jaws of Death,
    Into the mouth of Hell
    Rode the six hundred.

    4.

    Flash’d all their sabres bare,
    Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
    Sabring the gunners there,
    Charging an army, while
    All the world wonder’d:
    Plunged in the battery-smoke
    Right thro’ the line they broke;
    Cossack and Russian
    Reel’d from the sabre stroke
    Shatter’d and sunder’d.
    Then they rode back, but not
    Not the six hundred.

    5.

    Cannon to right of them,
    Cannon to left of them,
    Cannon behind them
    Volley’d and thunder’d;
    Storm’d at with shot and shell,
    While horse and hero fell,
    They that had fought so well
    Came thro’ the jaws of Death
    Back from the mouth of Hell,
    All that was left of them,
    Left of six hundred.

    6.

    When can their glory fade?
    O the wild charge they made!
    All the world wondered.
    Honor the charge they made,
    Honor the Light Brigade,
    Noble six hundred.

    Copied from Poems of Alfred Tennyson,
    J. E. Tilton and Company, Boston, 1870

  6. 6.

    Teak111

    April 30, 2007 at 10:04 am

    so much depends on

    a red wheelbarrow

    glazed with rainwater

    beside the white chichens.

    -Willian Carlos Williams

  7. 7.

    Teak111

    April 30, 2007 at 10:06 am

    Don’t know the reason
    Stay here all season
    nothing to show but this brand new tatoo
    Its a real beauty
    Mexican cutie
    How it go here I haven’t a clue

    Wasted away again in Mar……oh you know the rest.

  8. 8.

    Rome Again

    April 30, 2007 at 10:16 am

    Breathe deep the gathering gloom
    Watch lights fade from every room
    Bedsitter people look back and lament
    Another day’s useless energy spent.

    Impassioned lovers wrestle as one,
    Lonely man cries for love and has none.
    New mother picks up and suckles her son,
    Senior citizens wish they were young.

    Cold hearted orb that rules the night,
    Removes the colors from our sight.
    Red is grey and yellow white,
    But we decide which is right.
    And which is an illusion?

  9. 9.

    Wilfred

    April 30, 2007 at 10:17 am

    Sundays too my father got up early
    and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold
    then with cracked hands that ached
    from labor in the weekday weather made
    banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

    I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
    When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
    and slowly I would rise and dress,
    fearing the chronic angers of that house.

    Speaking indifferently to him,
    who had driven out the cold
    and polished my good shoes as well.
    What did I know, what did I know
    of love’s austere and lonely offices?

    Robert Hayden, “Those Winter Sundays”

  10. 10.

    demimondian

    April 30, 2007 at 10:25 am

    I met a traveller from an antique land
    Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
    Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
    Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
    And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
    The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
    And on the pedestal these words appear:
    `My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
    Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
    The lone and level sands stretch far away.

    — Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelly

  11. 11.

    Wilfred

    April 30, 2007 at 10:35 am

    More Shelley: “England in 1819”

    An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king
    Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
    Through public scorn – mud from a muddy spring;
    Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
    But leechlike to their fainting country cling,
    Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow;
    A people starved and stabbed in the untilled fied –
    An army, which liberticide and prey
    Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;
    Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
    Religion Christless, Godless – a book sealed;
    A Senate – Time’s worst statue unrepealed –
    Are graves, from which our glorious Phantom may
    Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

  12. 12.

    Ted

    April 30, 2007 at 10:37 am

    There once was a man from Nantucket,
    Who had a ….
    .
    .
    .
    .

    Damn, I can never remember all of that one. But it’s my favorite poem.

  13. 13.

    pretty good dog

    April 30, 2007 at 10:47 am

    Provide, Provide – Robert Frost

    The witch that came (the withered hag)
    To wash the steps with pail and rag,
    Was once the beauty Abishag,

    The picture pride of Hollywood.
    Too many fall from great and good
    For you to doubt the likelihood.

    Die early and avoid the fate.
    Or if predestined to die late
    Make up your mind to die in state.

    Make the whole stock exchange your own!
    If need be occupy a throne,
    Where nobody can call you crone.

    Some have relied on what they knew;
    Others on simply being true.
    What worked for them might work for you.

    No memory of having starred
    Atones for later disregard,
    Or keeps the end from being hard.

    Better to go down dignified
    With boughten friendship at your side
    Than none at all. Provide, provide!

  14. 14.

    Aaron M

    April 30, 2007 at 10:50 am

    Only a fragment, but still my favorite bit of poetry ever:

    Do I contradict myself?
    Very well then, I contradict myself.
    (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

    (Whitman, Song of Myself)

  15. 15.

    dlw32

    April 30, 2007 at 10:53 am

    since feeling is first
    who pays any attention
    to the syntax of things
    will never wholly kiss you

    — ee cummings

  16. 16.

    Zifnab

    April 30, 2007 at 11:00 am

    Jingle Bells
    Batman Smells
    Robin Laid an Egg

    Batmobile
    lost one wheel
    And Joker took ballay

    GI Joe
    Went to Mexico
    And Barbie came out gay

  17. 17.

    tBone

    April 30, 2007 at 11:03 am

    GI Joe
    Went to Mexico
    And Barbie came out gay

    This is th inevitable result when moonbats control Congress. I hope you’re happy, Leftards.

    On topic: where is Birdzilla? This thread is made for his particular talents.

  18. 18.

    Jake

    April 30, 2007 at 11:06 am

    Damn it, Ted stole my favourite poem.

  19. 19.

    Gus

    April 30, 2007 at 11:20 am

    Wallace Stevens, The Emperor of Ice Cream

    Call the roller of big cigars,
    The muscular one, and bid him whip
    In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
    Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
    As they are used to wear, and let the boys
    Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.
    Let be be finale of seem.
    The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

    Take from the dresser of deal,
    Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
    On which she embroidered fantails once
    And spread it so as to cover her face.
    If her horny feet protrude, they come
    To show how cold she is, and dumb.
    Let the lamp affix its beam.
    The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

    I’ll admit that I had to look it up for the line breaks, though I can recite it. I don’t know why I love this poem, maybe for the richness of the language, the wonderful alliterations particularly. I also like the “be being finale of seem” concept

  20. 20.

    scarshapedstar

    April 30, 2007 at 11:22 am

    l(a

    le
    af
    fa

    ll

    s)
    one
    l

    iness

    – e.e. cummings

  21. 21.

    canuckistani

    April 30, 2007 at 11:22 am

    O freddled gruntbuggly,
    thy micturations are to me
    As plurdled gabbleblotchits
    On a lurgid bee
    Groop, I implore thee
    My foonting turlingdromes
    And hooptiously drangle me
    With mankly bindlewurdles,
    Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
    See if I don’t!

    -Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz

  22. 22.

    Larv

    April 30, 2007 at 11:24 am

    More Frost:

    I saw a dimpled spider, fat and white,
    On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
    Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth.
    Assorted characters of death and blight,
    Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
    Like the ingredients of a witch’s broth-
    A snow-drop spider, a flower like froth,
    And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

    What had that flower to do with being white,
    That wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
    What brought the kindred spider to that height,
    Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
    What, but design of darkness to appall?
    If design govern in a thing so small.

  23. 23.

    Third Eye Open

    April 30, 2007 at 11:31 am

    “A woman’s a woman I say, and I put my binoculars between her kneecaps, and I have seen where empires have fallen”

    -Bukowski

    you can’t truly appreciate his work without having experienced being flat broke, drunk, with a hooker you don’t remember soliciting rummaging through your pants as the roaches crawl over the snub-nose .45 pointing at you from the dresser…but it’s fun to pretend, either way

  24. 24.

    Caya

    April 30, 2007 at 11:32 am

    The golf links lie so near the mill
    That almost every day
    The laboring children can look out
    And see the men at play.

    Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn

  25. 25.

    Punchy

    April 30, 2007 at 11:34 am

    Down at best spot its me and JD
    and we’re sellin’ more birds than a pet shop
    The spots hot, and everybody nervous
    that’s when the blue car serve us
    Oh why did fools have to let loose
    heard 6 pops from a deuce-deuce
    Big Tom hadda push us
    13 niggahs running straight to the bushes
    For dey Gats so they can draw down
    why muthafuckah like me gotta fall down?

    —Ice Cube (real poetry, bitches)

  26. 26.

    jenniebee

    April 30, 2007 at 11:45 am

    zomg, poetry thread.

    But the Consul’s brow was sad,
    And the Consul’s speech was low,
    And darkly looked he at the wall,
    And darkly at the foe.
    “Their van will be upon us
    Before the bridge goes down;
    And if they once may win the bridge,
    What hope to save the town?”

    Then out spake brave Horatius,
    The Captain of the Gate:
    “To every man upon this earth
    Death cometh soon or late.
    And how can man die better
    Than facing fearful odds,
    For the ashes of his fathers,
    And the temples of his gods,

    “And for the tender mother
    Who dandled him to rest,
    And for the wife who nurses
    His baby at her breast,
    And for the holy maidens
    Who feed the eternal flame,
    To save them from false Sextus
    That wrought the deed of shame?

    “Haul down the bridge, Sir Consul,
    With all the speed ye may;
    I, with two more to help me,
    Will hold the foe in play.
    In yon strait path a thousand
    May well be stopped by three.
    Now who will stand on either hand,
    And keep the bridge with me?”

    Then out spake Spurius Lartius;
    A Ramnian proud was he:
    “Lo, I will stand at thy right hand,
    And keep the bridge with thee.”
    And out spake strong Herminius;
    Of Titian blood was he:
    “I will abide on thy left side,
    And keep the bridge with thee.”

    “Horatius,” quoth the Consul,
    “As thou sayest, so let it be.”
    And straight against that great array
    Forth went the dauntless Three.
    For Romans in Rome’s quarrel
    Spared neither land nor gold,
    Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life,
    In the brave days of old.

    Then none was for a party;
    Then all were for the state;
    Then the great man helped the poor,
    And the poor man loved the great:
    Then lands were fairly portioned;
    Then spoils were fairly sold:
    The Romans were like brothers
    In the brave days of old.

    Now Roman is to Roman
    More hateful than a foe,
    And the Tribunes beard the high,
    And the Fathers grind the low.
    As we wax hot in faction,
    In battle we wax cold:
    Wherefore men fight not as they fought
    In the brave days of old.

    –Lays of Ancient Rome, Macaulay

    Fuck Sparta. Fuck it right in the ear.

  27. 27.

    Focus On Your Own Damn Family!

    April 30, 2007 at 11:46 am

    Tell me, O octopus,I begs
    Is them things arms, or is they legs?
    I marvel at thee, Octopus
    If I were thee, I’d call me us.

    — Ogden Nash

  28. 28.

    jenniebee

    April 30, 2007 at 11:50 am

    dlw32:

    wholly to be a fool while spring is in the world

    my blood approves,
    and kisses are a better fate than wisdom.

    damn, I never can remember the line breaks and punctuation of a cummings poem. Better to switch to Browning:

    GR-R-R–there go, my heart’s abhorrence!
    Water your damned flower-pots, do!
    If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
    God’s blood, would not mine kill you!
    What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
    Oh, that rose has prior claims–
    Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
    Hell dry you up with its flames!

    At the meal we sit together;
    Salve tibi! I must hear
    Wise talk of the kind of weather,
    Sort of season, time of year:
    Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely
    Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt:
    What’s the Latin name for “parsley”?
    What’s the Greek name for “swine’s snout”?

    Whew! We’ll have our platter burnished,
    Laid with care on our own shelf!
    With a fire-new spoon we’re furnished,
    And a goblet for ourself,
    Rinsed like something sacrificial
    Ere ’tis fit to touch our chaps–
    Marked with L. for our initial!
    (He-he! There his lily snaps!)

    Saint, forsooth! While Brown Dolores
    Squats outside the Convent bank
    With Sanchicha, telling stories,
    Steeping tresses in the tank,
    Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
    –Can’t I see his dead eye glow,
    Bright as ’twere a Barbary corsair’s?
    (That is, if he’d let it show!)

    When he finishes refection,
    Knife and fork he never lays
    Cross-wise, to my recollection,
    As I do, in Jesu’s praise.
    I the Trinity illustrate,
    Drinking watered orange-pulp–
    In three sips the Arian frustrate;
    While he drains his at one gulp!

    Oh, those melons! if he’s able
    We’re to have a feast; so nice!
    One goes to the Abbot’s table,
    All of us get each a slice.
    How go on your flowers? None double?
    Not one fruit-sort can you spy?
    Strange!–And I, too, at such trouble,
    Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

    There’s a great text in Galatians,
    Once you trip on it, entails
    Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
    One sure, if another fails;
    If I trip him just a-dying,
    Sure of heaven as sure can be,
    Spin him round and send him flying
    Off to hell, a Manichee?

    Or, my scrofulous French novel
    On gray paper with blunt type!
    Simply glance at it, you grovel
    Hand and foot in Belial’s gripe;
    If I double down the pages
    At the woeful sixteenth print,
    When he gathers his greengages,
    Ope a sieve and slip it in’t?

    Or, there’s Satan!–one might venture
    Pledge one’s soul to him, yet leave
    Such a flaw in the indenture
    As he’d miss till, past retrieve,
    Blasted lay that rose-acacia
    We’re so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine . . . .
    ‘St, there’s Vespers! Plena gratia
    Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r–you swine!

  29. 29.

    canuckistani

    April 30, 2007 at 11:53 am

    I didn’t memorize this one, but it’s such a fine companion piece for the Lays of Ancient Rome that I had to dig it out-

    Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
    Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
    Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
    And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
    Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
    But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
    Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
    Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

    Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling,
    Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
    But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
    And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
    Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
    As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

    In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
    He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

    If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
    Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
    And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
    His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
    If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
    Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
    Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
    Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
    My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
    To children ardent for some desperate glory,
    The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
    Pro patria mori.

    Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est

  30. 30.

    demimondian

    April 30, 2007 at 11:56 am

    Some primal termite knocked on wood
    And tasted it
    And found it
    Good
    And that is why your cousin May
    Fell through the parlor floor
    to-
    day

    — Ogden Nash

    I sang a setting of this at my senior recital, and so this is the scansion I remember. I know it isn’t Nash’s.

    (The song cycle also included a setting of Octopus — in 9/8, and equipped with the slitheriest accompaniment on Earth.)

  31. 31.

    Geoff

    April 30, 2007 at 12:02 pm

    Twas brillig and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
    All mimsy were the borogroves,
    And the mome raths outgrabe.

    “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
    The jaws that bite and claws that catch!
    Beware the jub-jub bird and shun
    The frumious bandersnatch!”

    He took his vorpal sword in hand,
    Long time the manxome foe he sought –
    So rested he by the tum-tum 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 sword went snickersnack
    And with its head he left it dead
    And went gallumphing back.

    “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
    Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
    Oh frabjous day! Calooh! Callay!”
    He chortled in his joy.

    Twas brillig and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
    All mimsy were the borogroves,
    And the mome raths outgrabe.

    -Lewis Carroll, “Jabberwocky”

  32. 32.

    Teak111

    April 30, 2007 at 12:02 pm

    LET us go then, you and I,
    When the evening is spread out against the sky
    Like a patient etherised upon a table;
    Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
    The muttering retreats 5
    Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
    And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
    Streets that follow like a tedious argument
    Of insidious intent
    To lead you to an overwhelming question …
    Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
    Let us go and make our visit.

    In the room the women come and go
    Talking of Michelangelo.

    Ok. I looked that one up. Still a fav.

    Love that last rhyme. “Women come and go talking of Michelangelo”

    Google is truely amazing. Just enter a few words of a poem, and up turns the whole thing.

  33. 33.

    srv

    April 30, 2007 at 12:16 pm

    Life’s a jest and all things show it
    I thought so once, but now I know it

    John Gay

  34. 34.

    srv

    April 30, 2007 at 12:24 pm

    When you wish upon a star,
    makes no difference who you are,
    anything your heart desires,
    will come to you.

    If your heart is in your dreams,
    no request is too extreme,
    when you wish upon a star,
    as dreamers do.

    Like a bolt out of the blue,
    fate will step in and see you through,
    when you wish upon a star,
    all your dreams will come true.

  35. 35.

    BrianM

    April 30, 2007 at 12:29 pm

    Still more Frost:

    Nature’s first green is gold,
    Her hardest hue to hold.
    Her early leaf’s a flower,
    But only so an hour.
    Then leaf subsides to leaf.
    So Eden sank to grief.
    So dawn goes down to day.
    Nothing gold can stay.

    That was once the entirety of my comment from the floor at a software conference.

    Someday I hope to go hiking in the winter without snow falling from an evergreen making me think of this Frost poem:

    The way a crow shook down on me
    A dust of snow from a hemlock tree
    Has given my heart a change of mood
    And saved some part of a day I had rued.

  36. 36.

    Nikki

    April 30, 2007 at 12:40 pm

    In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
    A stately pleasure-dome decree:
    Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
    Through caverns measureless to man
    Down to a sunless sea.
    So twice five miles of fertile ground
    With walls and towers were girdled round:
    And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
    Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
    And here were forests ancient as the hills,
    Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
    –Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan or A Vision in A Dream”

  37. 37.

    Nikki

    April 30, 2007 at 12:41 pm

    Pretty women wonder where my secret lies
    I’m not cute or built to suit a model’s fashion size
    But when I start to tell them
    They think I’m telling lies.
    I say
    It’s in the reach of my arms
    The span of my hips
    The stride of my steps
    The curl of my lips.
    I’m a woman
    Phenomenally
    Phenomenal woman
    That’s me.

    I walk into a room
    Just as cool as you please
    And to a man
    The fellows stand or
    Fall down on their knees
    Then they swarm around me
    A hive of honey bees.
    I say
    It’s the fire in my eyes
    And the flash of my teeth
    The swing of my waist
    And the joy in my feet.
    I’m a woman
    Phenomenally
    Phenomenal woman
    That’s me.

    Men themselves have wondered
    What they see in me
    They try so much
    But they can’t touch
    My inner mystery.
    When I try to show them
    They say they still can’t see.
    I say
    It’s in the arch of my back
    The sun of my smile
    The ride of my breasts
    The grace of my style.
    I’m a woman
    Phenomenally
    Phenomenal woman
    That’s me.

    Now you understand
    Just why my head’s not bowed
    I don’t shout or jump about
    Or have to talk real loud
    When you see me passing
    It ought to make you proud.
    I say
    It’s in the click of my heels
    The bend of my hair
    The palm of my hand
    The need for my care.
    ‘Cause I’m a woman
    Phenomenally
    Phenomenal woman
    That’s me.

    –Maya Angelou, “Phenomenal Woman”

  38. 38.

    demimondian

    April 30, 2007 at 12:45 pm

    This is the way the world will end
    This is the way the world will end
    This is the way the world will end.
    Not with a bang,
    but a whimper.

  39. 39.

    jenniebee

    April 30, 2007 at 1:01 pm

    Wilfred Owen ftw! “Dulce et Decorum Est” is another of my faves.

    keeping in the martial meme:

    An Irish Airman Forsees his Death
    W. B. Yeats

    I KNOW that I shall meet my fate
    Somewhere among the clouds above;
    Those that I fight I do not hate
    Those that I guard I do not love;
    My country is Kiltartan Cross,
    My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
    No likely end could bring them loss
    Or leave them happier than before.
    Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
    Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
    A lonely impulse of delight
    Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
    I balanced all, brought all to mind,
    The years to come seemed waste of breath,
    A waste of breath the years behind
    In balance with this life, this death.

  40. 40.

    Librarian

    April 30, 2007 at 1:07 pm

    Daddy
    by: Sylvia Plath

    You do not do, you do not do
    Any more, black shoe
    In which I have lived like a foot
    For thirty years, poor and white,
    Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

    Daddy, I have had to kill you.
    You died before I had time–
    Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
    Ghastly statue with one gray toe
    Big as a Frisco seal

    And a head in the freakish Atlantic
    Where it pours bean green over blue
    In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
    I used to pray to recover you.
    Ach, du.

    In the German tongue, in the Polish town
    Scraped flat by the roller
    Of wars, wars, wars.
    But the name of the town is common.
    My Polack friend

    Says there are a dozen or two.
    So I never could tell where you
    Put your foot, your root,
    I never could talk to you.
    The tongue stuck in my jaw.

    It stuck in a barb wire snare.
    Ich, ich, ich, ich,
    I could hardly speak.
    I thought every German was you.
    And the language obscene

    An engine, an engine
    Chuffing me off like a Jew.
    A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
    I began to talk like a Jew.
    I think I may well be a Jew.

    The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
    Are not very pure or true.
    With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
    And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
    I may be a bit of a Jew.

    I have always been scared of you,
    With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
    And your neat mustache
    And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
    Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You–

    Not God but a swastika
    So black no sky could squeak through.
    Every woman adores a Fascist,
    The boot in the face, the brute
    Brute heart of a brute like you.

    You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
    In the picture I have of you,
    A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
    But no less a devil for that, no not
    Any less the black man who

    Bit my pretty red heart in two.
    I was ten when they buried you.
    At twenty I tried to die
    And get back, back, back to you.
    I thought even the bones would do.

    But they pulled me out of the sack,
    And they stuck me together with glue.
    And then I knew what to do.
    I made a model of you,
    A man in black with a Meinkampf look

    And a love of the rack and the screw.
    And I said I do, I do.
    So daddy, I’m finally through.
    The black telephone’s off at the root,
    The voices just can’t worm through.

    If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two–
    The vampire who said he was you
    And drank my blood for a year,
    Seven years, if you want to know.
    Daddy, you can lie back now.

    There’s a stake in your fat black heart
    And the villagers never liked you.
    They are dancing and stamping on you.
    They always knew it was you.
    Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.

    From “Ariel”, 1966

  41. 41.

    Librarian

    April 30, 2007 at 1:10 pm

    Ezra Pound

    In a Station of the Metro

    The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
    Petals on a wet, black bough.

  42. 42.

    HyperIon

    April 30, 2007 at 1:14 pm

    Toil and grow rich,
    What’s that but to lie
    with a foul witch,
    And after, drained dry,
    to be brought
    to the chamber where
    lies one sought
    with despair.
    Yeats

  43. 43.

    Tulkinghorn

    April 30, 2007 at 1:15 pm

    Crow’s First Lesson – by Ted Hughes

    God tried to teach Crow how to talk.

    “Love,” said God. “Say, Love.”
    Crow gaped, and the white shark crashed into the sea
    And went rolling downwards, discovering its own depth.

    “No, no,” said God. “Say Love. Now try it. Love.”
    Crow gaped, and a bluefly, a tsetse, a mosquito
    Zoomed out and down
    To their sundry flesh-pots.

    “A final try,” said God. “Now, Love.”
    Crow convulsed, gaped, retched and
    Man’s bodiless prodigious head
    Bulbed out onto the earth, with swivelling eyes,
    Jabbering protest —

    And Crow retched again, before God could stop him.
    And woman’s vulva dropped over man’s neck and tightened.
    The two struggled together on the grass.
    God struggled to part them, cursed, wept —

    Crow flew guiltily off.

  44. 44.

    Librarian

    April 30, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    plato told

    him:he couldn’t
    believe it(jesus

    told him; he
    wouldn’t believe
    it)lao

    tsze
    certainly told
    him,and general
    (yes

    mam)
    sherman;
    and even

    (believe it
    or

    not(you
    told him:i told
    him;we told him
    (he didn’t believe it,no

    sir)it took
    a nipponized bit of
    the old sixth

    avenue
    el;in the top of his head:to tell

    him

    e.e. cummings

  45. 45.

    annie's granny

    April 30, 2007 at 1:46 pm

    Time will say nothing but I told you so,
    Time only knows the price we have to pay;
    If I could tell you I would let you know.

    If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
    If we should stumble when musicians play,
    Time will say nothing but I told you so.

    There are no fortunes to be told, although,
    Because I love you more than I can say,
    If I could tell you I would let you know.

    The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
    There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
    Time will say nothing but I told you so.

    Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
    The vision seriously intends to stay;
    If I could tell you I would let you know.

    Suppose all the lions get up and go,
    And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
    Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
    If I could tell you I would let you know.

    — If I Could Tell You, W. H. Auden

  46. 46.

    jenniebee

    April 30, 2007 at 2:00 pm

    It’s long, but worth it. Excerpted from Rosetti’s “Goblin Market”:

    Tender Lizzie could not bear
    To watch her sister’s cankerous care
    Yet not to share.
    She night and morning
    Caught the goblins’ cry:
    “Come buy our orchard fruits,
    Come buy, come buy;” –
    Beside the brook, along the glen,
    She heard the tramp of goblin men,
    The yoke and stir
    Poor Laura could not hear;
    Long’d to buy fruit to comfort her,
    But fear’d to pay too dear.
    She thought of Jeanie in her grave,
    Who should have been a bride;
    But who for joys brides hope to have
    Fell sick and died
    In her gay prime,
    In earliest winter time
    With the first glazing rime,
    With the first snow-fall of crisp winter time.

    Till Laura dwindling
    Seem’d knocking at Death’s door:
    Then Lizzie weigh’d no more
    Better and worse;
    But put a silver penny in her purse,
    Kiss’d Laura, cross’d the heath with clumps of furze
    At twilight, halted by the brook:
    And for the first time in her life
    Began to listen and look.

    Laugh’d every goblin
    When they spied her peeping:
    Came towards her hobbling,
    Flying, running, leaping,
    Puffing and blowing,
    Chuckling, clapping, crowing,
    Clucking and gobbling,
    Mopping and mowing,
    Full of airs and graces,
    Pulling wry faces,
    Demure grimaces,
    Cat-like and rat-like,
    Ratel- and wombat-like,
    Snail-paced in a hurry,
    Parrot-voiced and whistler,
    Helter skelter, hurry skurry,
    Chattering like magpies,
    Fluttering like pigeons,
    Gliding like fishes, –
    Hugg’d her and kiss’d her:
    Squeez’d and caress’d her:
    Stretch’d up their dishes,
    Panniers, and plates:
    “Look at our apples
    Russet and dun,
    Bob at our cherries,
    Bite at our peaches,
    Citrons and dates,
    Grapes for the asking,
    Pears red with basking
    Out in the sun,
    Plums on their twigs;
    Pluck them and suck them,
    Pomegranates, figs.” –

    “Good folk,” said Lizzie,
    Mindful of Jeanie:
    “Give me much and many: –
    Held out her apron,
    Toss’d them her penny.
    “Nay, take a seat with us,
    Honour and eat with us,”
    They answer’d grinning:
    “Our feast is but beginning.
    Night yet is early,
    Warm and dew-pearly,
    Wakeful and starry:
    Such fruits as these
    No man can carry:
    Half their bloom would fly,
    Half their dew would dry,
    Half their flavour would pass by.
    Sit down and feast with us,
    Be welcome guest with us,
    Cheer you and rest with us.” –
    “Thank you,” said Lizzie: “But one waits
    At home alone for me:
    So without further parleying,
    If you will not sell me any
    Of your fruits though much and many,
    Give me back my silver penny
    I toss’d you for a fee.” –
    They began to scratch their pates,
    No longer wagging, purring,
    But visibly demurring,
    Grunting and snarling.
    One call’d her proud,
    Cross-grain’d, uncivil;
    Their tones wax’d loud,
    Their look were evil.
    Lashing their tails
    They trod and hustled her,
    Elbow’d and jostled her,
    Claw’d with their nails,
    Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
    Tore her gown and soil’d her stocking,
    Twitch’d her hair out by the roots,
    Stamp’d upon her tender feet,
    Held her hands and squeez’d their fruits
    Against her mouth to make her eat.

    White and golden Lizzie stood,
    Like a lily in a flood, –
    Like a rock of blue-vein’d stone
    Lash’d by tides obstreperously, –
    Like a beacon left alone
    In a hoary roaring sea,
    Sending up a golden fire, –
    Like a fruit-crown’d orange-tree
    White with blossoms honey-sweet
    Sore beset by wasp and bee, –
    Like a royal virgin town
    Topp’d with gilded dome and spire
    Close beleaguer’d by a fleet
    Mad to tug her standard down.

    One may lead a horse to water,
    Twenty cannot make him drink.
    Though the goblins cuff’d and caught her,
    Coax’d and fought her,
    Bullied and besought her,
    Scratch’d her, pinch’d her black as ink,
    Kick’d and knock’d her,
    Maul’d and mock’d her,
    Lizzie utter’d not a word;
    Would not open lip from lip
    Lest they should cram a mouthful in:
    But laugh’d in heart to feel the drip
    Of juice that syrupp’d all her face,
    And lodg’d in dimples of her chin,
    And streak’d her neck which quaked like curd.
    At last the evil people,
    Worn out by her resistance,
    Flung back her penny, kick’d their fruit
    Along whichever road they took,
    Not leaving root or stone or shoot;
    Some writh’d into the ground,
    Some div’d into the brook
    With ring and ripple,
    Some scudded on the gale without a sound,
    Some vanish’d in the distance.

    In a smart, ache, tingle,
    Lizzie went her way;
    Knew not was it night or day;
    Sprang up the bank, tore thro’ the furze,
    Threaded copse and dingle,
    And heard her penny jingle
    Bouncing in her purse, –
    Its bounce was music to her ear.
    She ran and ran
    As if she fear’d some goblin man
    Dogg’d her with gibe or curse
    Or something worse:
    But not one goblin scurried after,
    Nor was she prick’d by fear;
    The kind heart made her windy-paced
    That urged her home quite out of breath with haste
    And inward laughter.

    She cried, “Laura,” up the garden,
    “Did you miss me?
    Come and kiss me.
    Never mind my bruises,
    Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
    Squeez’d from goblin fruits for you,
    Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
    Eat me, drink me, love me;
    Laura, make much of me;
    For your sake I have braved the glen
    And had to do with goblin merchant men.”

  47. 47.

    Krista

    April 30, 2007 at 2:05 pm

    I’m not even going to pretend to have a long poem memorized. But here’s a short one that I’ve memorized, followed by my favourite poem.

    “Jenny Kissed Me” – Leigh Hunt

    Jenny kissed me when we met,
    Jumping from the chair she sat in.
    Time, you thief! who love to get
    Sweets into your list, put that in.
    Say I’m weary, say I’m sad;
    Say that health and wealth have missed me;
    Say I’m growing old, but add-
    Jenny kissed me!

    “I Knew a Woman” – Theodore Roethke

    I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
    When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
    Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
    The shapes a bright container can contain!
    Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
    Or English poets who grew up on Greek
    (I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek.)

    How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
    She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and stand;
    She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin:
    I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
    She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
    Coming behind her for her pretty sake
    (But what prodigious mowing did we make.)

    Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
    Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
    She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
    My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
    Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
    Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
    (She moved in circles, and those circles moved.)

    Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
    I’m martyr to a motion not my own;
    What’s freedom for? To know eternity.
    I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
    But who would count eternity in days?
    These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
    (I measure time by how a body sways.)

  48. 48.

    inchin along inchon

    April 30, 2007 at 2:12 pm

    Razors pain you
    Rivers are damp
    Acids stain you
    And drugs cause cramp
    Guns aren’t lawful
    Nooses give
    Gas smells awful
    You might as well live

  49. 49.

    HyperIon

    April 30, 2007 at 2:15 pm

    Krista,

    i had forgotten about that Roethke poem! i wrote an essay on it in freshman english many years ago. and now that i live in seattle, i have learned much more about the author (who taught at UW for years). much of his work is excellent.

    thanks for reminding me.

  50. 50.

    Krista

    April 30, 2007 at 2:30 pm

    It’s the type of poem that secretly, all women wish would be written about them.

  51. 51.

    DougJ

    April 30, 2007 at 3:25 pm

    I have too short an attention span to read a whole poem, but I’ve always loved this part of The Tower by Yeats. This is corny — and typically male — but it kept going through my mind when I was watching those highlights of Walter Payton when he died:

    They shall inherit my pride,
    The pride of people that were
    Bound neither to Cause nor to State.
    Neither to slaves that were spat on,
    Nor to the tyrants that spat,
    The people of Burke and of Grattan
    That gave, though free to refuse –
    pride, like that of the morn,
    When the headlong light is loose,
    Or that of the fabulous horn,
    Or that of the sudden shower
    When all streams are dry,
    Or that of the hour
    When the swan must fix his eye
    Upon a fading gleam,
    Float out upon a long
    Last reach of glittering stream
    And there sing his last song.

    In the most adolescent part of my mind, I like to think that I have pride of people that were bound neither to cause nor state.

  52. 52.

    mere mortal

    April 30, 2007 at 6:04 pm

    I keep two with me, always.

    First, as so many above, Frost:
    They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
    Between stars, stars where no human race is.
    I have it in me so much nearer home
    to scare my self with my own desert places

    And Second, Yeats:
    Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,
    Enwrought with golden and silver light,
    The blue, and the dim, and the dark cloths
    Of night and light and the half light,
    I would spread the cloths under your feet.
    But I, being poor, have only my dreams.
    I have spread my dreams under your feet
    Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

    Also, though I cannot keep the entire thing in my head, every time I hear a racist spew his hate at other people, these lines of Countee Cullin’s Incident ambush me, and I become angry, and sad:

    I saw the whole of Baltimore,
    from May until December,
    Of all the things that happened there,
    that’s all that I remember.

    Finally, for humility, this one often comes to mind,
    A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!”
    “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”
    – Stephen Crane, “A Man Said to the Universe”

    Would that I could keep as much great poetry in mind as I can great music lyrics. Though I suppose that may be a false distinction.

  53. 53.

    grumpy realist

    April 30, 2007 at 7:42 pm

    Death be not proud
    Although some have called Thou
    Mighty and Dreadful, for Thou are not so
    And soon our best men with Thee doth go
    Rest of their Bones and Souls delivery
    Thou are slave to Fate, Kings, Chance and Desperate Men
    And doth with Poison and Sickness dwell
    Poppies and Charmes, can make us sleepe as well.
    And better than thy stroke. Why swelt’st thou then?
    One short sleep past, and we wake Eternally,
    Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

    –John Donne

    (Now if I could just remember that wonderful piece of spleen Catullus wrote about his mistress Lesbia. I only remember one line, which translates as her “trolling the streets of Rome stripping [of money] the descendents of great-souled Remus.”

  54. 54.

    Krista

    April 30, 2007 at 8:17 pm

    He was pretty messed-up about Lesbia, though. Some of his stuff about her was pretty vicious, and then you have this:

    Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
    and let us judge all the rumors of the old men
    to be worth just one penny!
    The suns are able to fall and rise:
    When that brief light has fallen for us,
    we must sleep a never ending night.
    Give me a thousand kisses, then another hundred,
    then another thousand, then a second hundred,
    then yet another thousand more, then another hundred.
    Then, when we have made many thousands,
    we will mix them all up so that we don’t know,
    and so that no one can be jealous of us when he finds out
    how many kisses we have shared.

  55. 55.

    Krista

    April 30, 2007 at 8:21 pm

    And this is the one you were talking about…Carmen 58

    Caelius, our Lesbia, that Lesbia,
    that same Lesbia, whom Catullus loved
    more than himself and more than all his own,
    now loiters at the cross-roads and in the backstreets
    ready to toss-off the grandsons of the brave Remus.

  56. 56.

    DougJ

    April 30, 2007 at 8:58 pm

    Some of his stuff about her was pretty vicious,

    I’ve always thought of Catullus as the original uncivil blogger. The David Broders of his day hated him, I’m told.

  57. 57.

    funkyb0ss

    April 30, 2007 at 9:38 pm

    There’s a polar bear in our Frigidaire
    He likes it ’cause it’s cold in there
    With his seat in the meat, and his face in the fish
    And his big hairy paws in the buttery dish
    He’s nibbling the noodles, he’s munching the rice
    He’s slurping the soda, he’s licking the ice
    And he lets out a roar when I open the door
    And it gives me a scare to know he’s in there
    That polary bear in our Frigidtydaire
    -Shel Silverstien

  58. 58.

    grumpy realist

    April 30, 2007 at 10:07 pm

    Yah, here’s the original:

    Caeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa,
    Illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam
    plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes
    nunc in quadriviis et angiportis
    glubit magnanimi Remi nepotes.

    Martial’s noted for the original of the Dr. Fell rhyme:

    Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare
    hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.

    (I do not love thee, Sabidi, nor can I tell you why.
    This so much I can say, I do not love thee.)

    (I’m one of those anal bastards that prefers literature and poetry in the original because I miss so much with the translations…plus I’m always wondering how much actually can be translated from language to language, especially with something like poetry, which in differing languages is pulling on an entirely different set of images and metaphors from that language’s culture and history. )

  59. 59.

    Fruitbat

    April 30, 2007 at 10:25 pm

    There’s a star in the wind
    And the wind winds high
    Blowing alight, through fog, through night
    Through cold, through cold and the bitter alone
    There high in the sky rides a star, my own
    And the star is a word…of white, of white,
    And the star in the wind is a word.

    I hope that’s how it goes. One of my favorite poems from a true master of his chosen field, which wasn’t poetry.

  60. 60.

    Beej

    May 1, 2007 at 12:19 am

    Hope is a thing with feathers
    That perches in the soul,
    And sings the song without the words
    And never stops
    At all
    –Emily Dickinson

    I’m nobody. Who are you?
    Are you nobody too?
    Then there’s a pair of us. Don’t tell.
    They’ll banish us, you know.
    How dreary to be somebody.
    How public, like a frog
    To shout your name the livelong day
    To an admiring bog.
    –Emily Dickinson

    I read her poems and a little biographical info on her in high school and thought she must have been a stuffy, prissy goody-two-shoes. It wasn’t until twenty years later that someone gave me a volume of her poems and I discovered she could bloodlessly slice pretensions to pieces and leave them lying in neat rows, never to be reassembled. Boy was I wrong the first time!

  61. 61.

    Boston Tom

    May 1, 2007 at 10:06 am

    They fuck you up, your mum and dad,
    They may not mean to but they do.
    They give you all the faults they had
    And add some extra just for you.

    But they were fucked up in their turn
    By fools in old style hats and coats
    Who half the time were soppy stern
    And half at one another’s throats.

    Man hands on misery to man,
    It deepens like a coastal shelf.
    Get out as early as you can
    And don’t have any kids yourself.

    Philip Larkin, that exquisite laureate of morose self-pity. I don’t vouch for the punctuation or even word accuracy, as this is truly from memory. I read t his one once — once! — and though I have a poor recall for lyric, it stuck. I was in high adolescence at the time and at war with me mum — so you figure it out.

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