Ok, it's time for a new thread, and mentions in two other threads of poetry prompt me to ask .... what's your favourite poem? who is your favourite poet? And why?

My answers are, 1) The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin, and 2) John Betjeman, and the reason is the same in both cases; the ability to conjure up a scene and put you in it, while using only the bare minimum of words. Poetry (to me) is the art of making the minimum amount of words do the maximum amount of work.

Of course not all people's experience of poetry is positive; I quote from that great sage and philosopher nigel molesworth;

Sir the Burial Sir of Sir John Moore Sir at Corunna Sir
(A titter from 2B they are wet and I will tuough them up after.)
Notadrumwasheardnotafuneralnote shut up peason larffing
As his corse
As his corse what is a corse sir? gosh is it?
to the rampart we carried (whisper you did not kno your voice was so lovely)
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot. PING! Shut up peason i know sir he's blowing peas at me
Oer the grave where our hero we buried.
(A pause a grave bow i retire and Egad! peason hav placed a dainty pin upon mine seat. Fie!)



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Jon: <hushed whisper> There may be a typo in the subject thread. I think someone said you can change it. I guess it's actually you as you started the thread.</hushed whisper>

I also like Larkin. I've mentioned before Tom Courtney's 'Pretending to be Me' It's now in London. Go see it if you can.

There's different things you can get from different poems. Descriptions - for example the horror of the trenches - cannot be bettered than in good poetry.

Having said all that, I like 'Please Mrs Butler' (see other thread) and 'The Lion and Albert' as well

There's a famous seaside place called Blackpool,
That's noted for fresh air and fun...

Peotry ? Never come across that before. Is it poetry for people with very posh accents ? Or poetry for peons ? (A familiar slogan from many revolutionary marches).

I'm currently separated from much of my poetry collection, but I've just picked up Mum's copy of 'Parlour Poetry - 101 improving gems'. It contains all sorts of classics of Victoriana, from excellent to terrible, and with entertaining notes and parodies. Sample titles include

Come Home, Father.
The Arab's Farewell to his Steed (suddenly I see a horse in a bowler hat).
Oh, No ! We Never Mention Her. (!)
The Cane-bottom'd Chair (We all know what Victorians did in secret, nudge-nudge, wink-wink)
An Indian Mother About To Destroy Her Child (Victorians liked death, didn't they ?).
Elihu (There's no answer to that !)
The Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Never Touch Mine. (Bet you don't get out much)
The Green Eye of the Yellow God (One of the best Dangermouse episodes)
The Old Man's Comforts, and How He Gained Them. (parodied by Lewis Carroll as 'You are old, Father William')

There's holes in the sky
Where the rain gets in.
They're ever so small,
That's why rain's thin.

- the incomparable Spike Milligan.

Just going to add this gem from Mum's collection, as it's one of the shortest, and worst.

CONDUCTOR BRADLEY

John Greenleaf Whittier

Conductor Bradley (may always his name
Be said with reverence !), as the swift doom came,
Smitten to death, a crushed and mangled frame,

Sank with the brake he grasped just where he stood
To do the utmost that a brave man could,
And die, if needful, as a brave man should.

Men stooped above him; women dropped their tears
On that poor wreck beyond all hope or fears,
Lost in the strength and glory of his years.

What heard they ? Lo ! the ghastly lips of pain,
Dead to all thought save duty's, moved again:
"Put out the signals to the other train!"

No nobler utterance, since the world began,
From lips of saint or martyr ever ran,
Electric, through the sympathies of man.

Ah me ! how poor and noteless seem to this
The sick-bed dramas of self-consciousness,
Our sensual fears of pain and hopes of bliss !

Oh, grand, supreme endeavour ! Not in vain
That last brave act of failing tongue and brain !
Freighted with life, the downward-rushing train.

Following the wrecked one, as wave follows wave,
Obeyed the warning which the dead lips gave.
Others he saved - himself he could not save.

Nay, the lost life *was* saved. He is not dead
Who in his record still the earth shall tread,
With God's clear aureole shining round his head.

We bow, as in the dust, with all our pride
Of virtue dwarfed the noble deed beside.
God give us grace to live as Bradley died !


Thank heaven I never had to to analyse anything like that at school !

that's so mcgonagallesque it's scary. As is the word 'mcgonagallesque'.

I generally like Betjeman's poems too (but then I'm not from Slough :-). I have also read & particularly liked quite a lot of Kipling's poems, some by John Masefield, some by Hillaire Belloc, and some by various authors whose names I've forgotten since I had to learn them back in school. (Who wrote 'The Highwayman'? Or the one that begins _ "Is anybody there? said the traveller, Knocking on the moon-lit door." ?) ... Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll (and 'Father William' was one of MY father's favourite poems, although "William" wasn't his own name, alongside 'If'...)

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"Some days I diet, other days they serve lasagne."



Post Edited (03-19-03 19:14)

Yep. I immediately thought 'McGonagall' as well.

So did I - which just shows poetry doesn't have to be good to be memorable.

The Highwayman is by Alfred Noyes, I think. Alfred something, anyway

I've always loved an eclectic selection of poetry, but I think my favourite poem of all time is "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

I'm still yearning for more Yeats. That Scott Fredericks has a lot to answer for!



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

My favourite poem of all time has to be Jabberwocky, followed by some of Spike Milligan's stuff (Soldier Freddy for example).

My English teacher once asked us to write a poem about Sundays for homework. Forgot about the darned thing until about midnight, then dashed something off in half an hour. Handed it in, forgot about it.

Half term a couple of weeks later (and my birthday, thoughtful of Mum, that). Phone call from Hethersett Society. Did I want to read my prize-winning poem at meeting on Friday night ?
What poem ? What prize ?
A poem about Sunday. Everyone at school had written a poem about Sunday and they had been entered into this competition run by the Society. My class teacher had been told that I had won a prize just before half-term, but had forgotten to tell me.
Went to meeting with Fiona Kerslake (winner of younger catagory), read poem, won TV theme quiz and box of After Eight (to go with the four other boxes of chocolates I got for my birthday) and got given £2 book token.
Few days later, spent book token on book about Status Quo (Didn't tell my English teacher...)

Ahh, the life of a poet...

Book about Status Quo? was every chapter the same, only with the words in a slightly different order?



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

I'll bet there were only three words...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Damn damn damn that was the joke I was looking for and didn't quite get. Still, you can't always get whatever you want.



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Whenever you want.

But if you try some times, you might find you get what you need. And that's a different band to Status Quo.



Post Edited (03-21-03 15:28)

PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Down, Down, Deeper and Down

Always sounded like a firm of solicitors to me.

Here's some Yeats for Sarah. It seems appropriate, somehow.

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all around it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Here's a nice family poem

The Twins

In form and feature, face and limb,
I grew so like my brother
That folks got taking me for him
And each for one another.
It puzzled all our kith and kin,
It reach'd an awful pitch;
For one of us was born a twin
And not a soul knew which.

One day (to make the matter worse),
Before our names were fix'd,
As we were being washed by nurse,
We got completely mix'd.
And thus, you see, by Fate's decree,
(Or rather Nurse's whim)
My brother John got christened me,
And I got christened him.

This fatal likeness even dogg'd
My footsteps when at school,
And I was always getting flogg'd-
For John turn'd out a fool.
I put this question hopelessly
To everyone I knew-
What would you do if you were me,
To prove that you were you ?

Our close resemblence turned the tide
Of my domestic life;
For somehow my intended bride
Became my brother's wife.
In short, year after year the same
Absurd mistakes went on;
And when I died - the neighbours came
And buried brother John !

H S Leigh

From Erich Maria Remarque

American novel: A story in which two people want each other from the beginning but don't get each other until the end of the book.

French novel: A story in which two people get together right at the beginning, but from then until the end of the book, they don't want each other any more.

Russian novel: A story in which the two people don't want each other or get each other - and for 800 pages brood about it.