Your Favorite Classical Poets

[JCSTREET]

TATHAGATA

And can we consider Basho a classical poet?
he is one of my favorites
some examples:
=======his quote===============

I cannot think why not

 

[Tathagata]

Re: TATHAGATA

And can we consider Basho a classical poet?
he is one of my favorites
some examples:
=======his quote===============

I cannot think why not

I cannot think..

But thank you

 

[Angeline]

Re: Re: Ah Yeats!

Good Morning Ms Ange
wonderful to see you
: )

She ( McKennitt) does a great version of " God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen"
almost arabic and celtic combined, conjures images of jerusalem
and sand dunes in the nights
wonderful stuff
if you can find it ,listen to it
She also has a version of " Carrickfergus" ( where she sings back up)
that is slated to play at my funeral.....

Hello there Tath. You know it's always good to see you, too.

I have heard Carrickfergus--it's so lovely. I really like Lorena, and her brand of anglo-celtic folk whatever it is. lol.

 

[Sappholovers]

McKennitt and poetry

McKennitt's voice so often offers us such beautiful lyrical joy and solace....and sensuality.

For music to accompany lovemaking, my first choice is probably Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez" and my second is McKennitt's "Marco Polo" in her Book of Secrets CD.

I also love "The Highwayman" from that CD, and she invokes Dante beautifully in some songs as well. I must listen to her do Yeats tonight.

Now if she just did Petrarch or Neruda....or more Shakespeare and Yeats.

 

[Angeline]

Re: McKennitt and poetry

McKennitt's voice so often offers us such beautiful lyrical joy and solace....and sensuality.

For music to accompany lovemaking, my first choice is probably Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez" and my second is McKennitt's "Marco Polo" in her Book of Secrets CD.

I also love "The Highwayman" from that CD, and she invokes Dante beautifully in some songs as well. I must listen to her do Yeats tonight.

Now if she just did Petrarch or Neruda....or more Shakespeare and Yeats.

The Roderigo concerto is one of my favorite pieces of classical music, and so yes I'd have to concur, but sometimes I think Billie Holiday is the way to go instead. Ok more of the time. Maybe most, lol.

 

[Sappholovers]

Sandra Cisneros (not classical yet, but a favorite contemporary writer)

Sandra Cisneros was awarded one of the McArthur Genius Award grants, and I consider her among the be very best of our contemporary writers. She has written a novella, "House on Mango Street," and a wonderful collection of stories, "Woman Hollering Creek." She also has written two volumes of poetry, "My Wicked, Wicked Ways," and "Loose Woman." These two poems are from "Loose Woman":

Love Poem for a Non-Believer

Because I miss
you I run my hand
along the flat of my thigh
curve of the hip
mango of the ass
imagine it your hand across
the thrum of ribs
arpeggio of the breasts
collarbones you adore
that I don't

My neck is thin
You could cup
it with one hand
Yank the life from me
if you wanted

I've cut my hair
You can't tug
my hair anymore
A jet of black
through the fingers now

Your hands cool
along the jaw
skin of the eyelids
nape of the neck
soft as a mouth

And when we open like apple
split each other in half and
have seen the heart
of the heart
of the heart that part
you don't I don't
show anyone the part
we want to reel

back as soon as it
is suddenly unreeled like silk
flag or the prayer call
of a Mohammed we won't
have a word for this except
perhaps religion


Loose Woman (excerpts)

They say I'm a beast
And feast on it. When all along
I thought that's what a woman was.

They say I'm a bitch.
Or witch. I've claimed
the same and never winced.

They say I'm a macha, hell on wheels,
viva-la-vulva, fire and brimstone,
man-hating, devastating
boogey-woman lesbian.
Not necessarily,
but I like the compliment

......

By all acounts I am
a danger to society
I'm Pancha Villa
I break laws
upset the natural order
anguish the Pope and make fathers cry
I am beyond the jaw of law
I'm la desperada, most wanted public enemy
My happy picture grinning from the wall.

I'm an aim-well
shoot-sharp
sharp-tongued
sharp-thinking
fast-speaking
foot-loose
loose-tongued,
let-loose
woman-on-the-loose
loose woman
Beware, honey.

I'm Bitch. Beast. Macha.
!Wachale!
Ping! Ping! Ping!
I break things.

 

[BooMerengue]

Oh... I am in big trouble now... Music to make love to? hhmmm...

I think Billie Holiday would be terriffic... afterwards while smoking a cigarette. But how 'bout Billy Idol?? "In the midnight hour... she cried 'More! More! More!' With a rebel yell, she cried 'More! More! More!' ohhh, yeahhhhhhh...

LOL

I am looking for one more poem... my fav since I was 7 and I read it in my older brothers Reader. Back in a sec...

 

[BooMerengue]

Found it!



October's Party
George Cooper

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came-
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.

The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners,
And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.

Then, in the rustic hollow,
At hide-and-seek they played,
The party closed at sundown,
And everybody stayed.
Professor Wind played louder;
They flew along the ground;
And then the party ended
In jolly "hands around."

I was a very singular, lonely child; I wanted to be invited to this party more than anything! LOL Hey! I'd go now if I could!

 

[tarablackwood22]

dylan thomas

The Force That Through 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 of 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.

***************************************
even now - new poem......please read.

talking to pirates - new poem......please read.

 

[Sappholovers]

Sensual music/classic poets

There are two threads about sensual music ("The most sensual music" and "Favorite Sexual Songs"). Yes, I would include Billie Holliday in a line-up with Bessie Smith (some of the best bawdy songs ever), Dinah Washington ("Teach Me Tonight" is a favorite), Nina Simone, and Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald (and Aretha Franklin).

For poetry accompanying the blues and jazz, give me Langston Hughes (e.g., "Montage of a Dream Deferred"). I love his poem "Advice":

Folks, I'm telling you
birthing is hard
dying is mean
so get yourself
a little loving
in between

Now Edna St. Vincent Millay is also beautiful. I was glad to see someone mention her. For writing about love and sex, she's one of my favorites from the early 20th century...and Dorothy Parker is not as lyrical, but she has some witty, fun, slice of life, cuttingly sarcastic poems about the heart and love and men and women.

 

[Angeline]

Langston Hughes

is wonderful--another of my favorites. There used to be a site (which I can't find now) where you could listen to this amazing recording of him reading some of his poems backed by jazz by Leonard Feather and (!) Mingus. I'd give you the link if I still had it...

And you know when he reads, he doesn't try to emphasize the blues voice in his poetry, but boy it comes across like a locomotive.


A few of his I love--

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
*****

Night funeral
In Harlem:

Where did they get
Them two fine cars?

Insurance man, he did not pay--
His insurance lapsed the other day--
Yet they got a satin box
for his head to lay.

Night funeral
In Harlem:

Who was it sent
That wreath of flowers?

Them flowers came
from that poor boy's friends--
They'll want flowers, too,
When they meet their ends.

Night funeral
in Harlem:

Who preached that
Black boy to his grave?

Old preacher man
Preached that boy away--
Charged Five Dollars
His girl friend had to pay.

Night funeral
In Harlem:

When it was all over
And the lid shut on his head
and the organ had done played
and the last prayers been said
and six pallbearers
Carried him out for dead
And off down Lenox Avenue
That long black hearse done sped,
The street light
At his corner
Shined just like a tear--
That boy that they was mournin'
Was so dear, so dear
To them folks that brought the flowers,
To that girl who paid the preacher man--
It was all their tears that made
That poor boy's
Funeral grand.

Night funeral
In Harlem.
*****

 

[Sappholovers]

The voice (and poetry) of Langston Hughes

There's a wonderful CD of Langston Hughes reading his poetry that is part of Random House's "The Voice of the Poet" series. The list of poets in this series can be found at the website: www.randomhouse.com/audio

He's my favorite American poet to read...and to read aloud. My Mom had me recite prayers at night. My father had me recite some poems (by Willam Cullen Bryant and Robert Frost). I continued the tradition of reading and reciting poems at night for my three daughters, but preferred Langston Hughes. I love his poetry for children.... and his political poems ("Freedom's Plow") and all of his poems....

 

[Angeline]

Re: The voice (and poetry) of Langston Hughes

There's a wonderful CD of Langston Hughes reading his poetry that is part of Random House's "The Voice of the Poet" series. The list of poets in this series can be found at the website: www.randomhouse.com/audio

He's my favorite American poet to read...and to read aloud. My Mom had me recite prayers at night. My father had me recite some poems (by Willam Cullen Bryant and Robert Frost). I continued the tradition of reading and reciting poems at night for my three daughters, but preferred Langston Hughes. I love his poetry for children.... and his political poems ("Freedom's Plow") and all of his poems....

I've been trying to find a copy of Weary Blues for a while--the book. I hear it's out of print, but I understand it contains some of his best blues poetry.

 

[Sappholovers]

The Weary Blues

Angeline,

For out of print books, I love two internet search services: alibris.com and bookfinder.com. They have some (expensive) copies of "The Weary Blues."

But you can find all 860 of Hughes' poem in a Collected Works paperback by Vintage/Random House (for $15 or less).

 

[Angeline]

Re: The Weary Blues

Angeline,

For out of print books, I love two internet search services: alibris.com and bookfinder.com. They have some (expensive) copies of "The Weary Blues."

But you can find all 860 of Hughes' poem in a Collected Works paperback by Vintage/Random House (for $15 or less).

Thank you.

 

[Clare Quilty]

For the purposes of this thread, how are you defining "classical poets?" Does that imply a particular span of years, or does it refer generally to any famous poet of the past?

 

[perks]

Love's Distresses

WHO will hear me? Whom shall I lament to?
Who would pity me that heard my sorrows?
Ah, the lip that erst so many raptures
Used to taste, and used to give responsive,
Now is cloven, and it pains me sorely;
And it is not thus severely wounded
By my mistress having caught me fiercely,
And then gently bitten me, intending
To secure her friend more firmly to her:
No, my tender lip is crack'd thus, only
By the winds, o'er rime and frost proceeding,
Pointed, sharp, unloving, having met me.
Now the noble grape's bright juice commingled
With the bee's sweet juice, upon the fire
Of my hearth, shall ease me of my torment.
Ah, what use will all this be, if with it
Love adds not a drop of his own balsam?
- 1789 Goethe translated by Browning


and

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W. H. Auden

 

[tungtied2u]

Auden

Thanks Perks. I love that poem.

 

[perks]

Re: Auden

Thanks Perks. I love that poem.

me too. I just read it this summer at my grandfather's funeral. It always makes me cry. It's beautiful.

 

[Byron In Exile]

. . .

 

[jthserra]

The Bridge is a bit long for here, so...

At Melville's Tomb
Hart Crane



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death's bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.

Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.

Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides . . . High in the azure steeps
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.

 

[JCSTREET]

CARRICKFERGUS

Hello there Tath. You know it's always good to see you, too.

I have heard Carrickfergus--it's so lovely. I really like Lorena, and her brand of anglo-celtic folk whatever it is. lol.

WOW - IT'S JUST NORTH OF bELFAST--A FAVORITE WITH (oops) Sunday drivers

This spectacular castlecrowned crag on the famous north Antrim coast was shaped when the sea cut deep into the land, exploiting cracks on either side of the rock.

The nomadic boatmen - Ireland's first inhabitants - who crossed from south-west Scotland in about 7,000 BC and left their flinty axes all along this rugged coast, must have seen the crag from the sea and may have ventured their flimsy coracles into the huge cave that runs through the rock to the land. You can still visit it by boat today.

The early Christians and the Vikings were drawn to this romantic place and an early Irish fort once stood here. For its crowning glory, however, the crag had to await the coming of those master-builders, the Normans. They had a habit of consolidating their victories by building castles, and they knew a good site when they saw one.

The battling MacDonnells ruled all this north-eastern corner of Ulster in the, late 16th century. Steeped in myth and legend and inhabited by giants, ghosts and banshees wailing through the sea mist, it has the most dramatic coastline in the British Isles, a veritable textbook illustrating the geological story of the earth. The ancient rocks stick out as brightly coloured cliffs along the edge of the plateau. There are red sandstones, white chalk, black basalt and blue clavs.

Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, first built this castle at Dunluce. It often came under siege. In 1584 Sorley Boy MacDonnell captured it from the English when one of his men, employed in the castle, hauled his comrades up the cliff in a basket.

Sorley Boy came into some money in 1588 when the Spanish Armada treasure ship Girona was wrecked by storm off the Giant's Causeway. He used it to modernise the castle but he must have skimped on the kitchen, since in 1639 it fell into the sea and carried away the cooks and all their pots. Today the pretty blue flower of Dunluce' clusters round the castle's ruined shell and drifts of seapinks are the only sentinels.


--

this oughta help ur poetry

I just came back from 12 years in Northern Ireland in 2002

 

[Angeline]

Dover Beach
Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

 

[BooMerengue]

Re: CARRICKFERGUS

WOW - IT'S JUST NORTH OF bELFAST--A FAVORITE WITH (oops) Sunday drivers

This spectacular castlecrowned crag on the famous north Antrim coast was shaped when the sea cut deep into the land, exploiting cracks on either side of the rock.

The nomadic boatmen - Ireland's first inhabitants - who crossed from south-west Scotland in about 7,000 BC and left their flinty axes all along this rugged coast, must have seen the crag from the sea and may have ventured their flimsy coracles into the huge cave that runs through the rock to the land. You can still visit it by boat today.

The early Christians and the Vikings were drawn to this romantic place and an early Irish fort once stood here. For its crowning glory, however, the crag had to await the coming of those master-builders, the Normans. They had a habit of consolidating their victories by building castles, and they knew a good site when they saw one.

The battling MacDonnells ruled all this north-eastern corner of Ulster in the, late 16th century. Steeped in myth and legend and inhabited by giants, ghosts and banshees wailing through the sea mist, it has the most dramatic coastline in the British Isles, a veritable textbook illustrating the geological story of the earth. The ancient rocks stick out as brightly coloured cliffs along the edge of the plateau. There are red sandstones, white chalk, black basalt and blue clavs.

Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, first built this castle at Dunluce. It often came under siege. In 1584 Sorley Boy MacDonnell captured it from the English when one of his men, employed in the castle, hauled his comrades up the cliff in a basket.

Sorley Boy came into some money in 1588 when the Spanish Armada treasure ship Girona was wrecked by storm off the Giant's Causeway. He used it to modernise the castle but he must have skimped on the kitchen, since in 1639 it fell into the sea and carried away the cooks and all their pots. Today the pretty blue flower of Dunluce' clusters round the castle's ruined shell and drifts of seapinks are the only sentinels.


--

this oughta help ur poetry

I just came back from 12 years in Northern Ireland in 2002

Thats interesting, JC. I've read somewhere that my ancestors, one Clan MacMeanmain ( later to become Mac Mennamins) were castle Keepers for the Mac Donnells (or O'Donnells) I just wish I could find all the links in that line of blood and sorrow!

 

[tarablackwood22]

e. e. cummings

somewhere i have never traveled


somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

****************************************


Born Too Late - new poem......please read!

even now - new poem......please read.