Poems you adore

[WhiteCrow]

I've been going through some old files, found some old poetry as well as a folder called "poems that I like".

I wonder what are peoples favourite poems on here?

I absolutely love this one, I find it quite touching but simple, and the story behind it is really a very tragic and sad one, because more than a poem, it's actually a code. But still very beautiful,

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours.

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.

For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

[Andrew Curnow]

I've heard that poem before, I think, but don't know the story behind it. What is it?

Poems... We did TS Eliot on my A-Level Lit course, which didn't exactly wow me. Having said that, though, certain lines have stuck in my head ever since. I did use to know Jabberwocky off by heart (yes, I know that's not Eliot, keep up at the back!) but I think my favourite poem from Carroll is the one with many titles from the second Alice book, which starts:

I'll tell thee everything I can
There's little to relate
I saw an aged, aged man
A-sitting on a gate

And ends (from memory, so excuse any errors):

...Or madly squeeze a right hand foot
Into a left hand shoe
I weep. For it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know
Whose hair was whiter than the snow
Whose face was very like a crow
With eyes like cinders all aglow
Who seemed distracted by his woe
Who muttered mumblingly and low
As if his mouth were full of dough
That summer evening long ago
A-sitting on a gate.

[Andrew Curnow]

Actually, my Dad 'published' a book of poems about 25 years ago (it was printed at home, simply with the aim of raising money for the Chapel restoration fund) some of which I think are really excellent. I'll see if I can find it and put a couple up. I just hope he won't then track me down and sue me for breach of copyright...

[Pip Madeley]

I'm a published poet.

Need to find the book so I can share it with you.

[SiHart]

I loved the Romantic poets best of all I think. Being an English Lit student at uni, we covered lots of poetry, but I remember enjoying the Milton to the Romantics course most of all from a poetry point of view.

My favourite of the Romantics was Samuel Coleridge, simply because his imagination was so unlimited (that might have been the opium, who can say!). To produce a poem as beautiful as Frost at Midnight then produce the fantastical Kubl Khan and follw them up with the epic Rime of the Ancient Mariner, well I was quite astounded! The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is wonderful. A narrative poem that's easy to read and quite accessible considering the time it was written. Wonderful.

Other stuff I love includes Seamus Heaney's work on the loss of innocence, Death of a Naturalist in particular, some of Betjeman's work and a poet called Andy Becher, who I've had the pleasure of getting to know through our writer's group at work. He published his first collection of poetry last year, and it's incredibly funny and incredibly rude and incredibly clever.

I don't get to talk about poetry very much, so I might end up taking this thread over for a bit!

Si xx

[Thasc]

I really like this by Helen Steiner Rice it appears at the beginning of The Roger Delgado Tribute Magazine, it's very poignant

When I Must Leave You

When I must leave you
for a little while,

Please do not grieve
and shed wild tears

And hug your sorrow
to you through the years,

But start out bravely
with a gallant smile;

And for my sake
and in my name

Live on and do
all the things the same,

Feed not your loneliness
on empty days,

But fill each waking hour
In useful ways,

Reach out your hand
in comfort and in cheer

And I in turn will comfort you
and hold you near;

And never, never
be afraid to die,

For I am waiting
for you in the sky!

[Pip Madeley]

I did a module about poetry during my time at uni. My favourite was Daffodils by William Wordsworth.

Was funny the day I had to recite it in class, in my Manc accent.

[Thasc]

That could have been a good verse to incorporate into Terror of The Autons

[Pip Madeley]

The daffs are dangerous, Brigadier!

[Thasc]

It always cracks me up when I hear Mike Yates asking the Doctor if the Daffs are dangerous

[Pip Madeley]

It cracks me up whenever Richard Franklin tries to act

[Thasc]

I know what you mean, his acting can be very cringeworthy at times can't it

[WhiteCrow]

I've heard that poem before, I think, but don't know the story behind it. What is it?

I was written by a code expert called Leo Marks,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Marks

It was written by him in December 1943, after the death of his girlfriend in a plane crash.

It was given as a code itself to agents who were dropped into France, it could be included in a letter somehow to show an agent had been compromised. The poem was given to special agent, Violette Szabo, who was one of the agents caught and eventually executed herself. Violette turned to be a special agent after the death of her husband.

So a barrel of laughs all around really! Hence why it's so touching I guess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_That_I_Have

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poem_code

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violette_Szabo

[Andrew Curnow]

That's really interesting, thanks for the links.

[Captain Tancredi]

I'm rather fond of the following, by Dorothy Parker (quoted from memory);

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.

[WhiteCrow]

That's really interesting, thanks for the links.

I think the back story is what probably what gives what is a lovely poem anyway a real emotional kick. Between the lines of that poem you know it tells a tale of sacrifice, and it's recitation for some was life-and-death.

Reading through it you almost feel it's a poem which is an acceptance of an agent of the price they might have to pay fo their country "the life that I have is all that I have, and the life that I have is yours", it's almost an oath, a pledge.

The second verse is an affirmation of how much the person loves their life. And yet they are still willing to surrender that love for their duty.

The third verse is an acceptance of the death which might await, but the fourth there's a hope that because they've surrendered the life and love for a purpose that they'll find peace.

It's very dark, because it's about death all the way through. But there is hope in it, that even in death there might be some peace beyond it. For an agent that would be that their work would bring about the end of the Nazis dominence, a cause which could bring them peace in their death.

[WhiteCrow]

Another Crow favourite.

Do not go gentle into that good night - Dylan Thomas

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.

You can hear it here as read by the author but to be honest it's not how I hear it when I read it,

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377

[Captain Tancredi]

Like the rest of Dylan Thomas, it was probably meant to be read by Richard Burton.

I like the Reverend Eli Jenkins's Prayer, which I first heard set to music in the style of a Welsh congregational hymn:

Every morning, when I wake,
Dear Lord, a little prayer I make,
O please to keep Thy lovely eye
On all poor creatures born to die.

And every evening at sun-down
I ask a blessing on the town
For whether we last the night or no
I'm sure is only touch-and-go.

We are not wholly bad or good
Who live our lives under Milk Wood
And Thou, I know, wilt be the first
To see our best side, not our worst.

O let us see another day!
Bless us, this holy night, I pray,
And to the sun we all will bow
And say goodbye- but just for now!

[WhiteCrow]

As I've said I've been going through a backup on an old computer hard disk. I've found this, I don't know where I got it and it reads a bit more like a meditation (which is what it probably is) than a poem, but I like it ...

Great sadness and suffering can be found in things both big and small.
And yet true happiness and joy can be found in the little things in life, the things so many people in the world seem to overlook.
Be calm. Be still.
And in it all you may find happiness, even if for just a fleeting moment.
But each moment counts, and in time will overcome even the fiercest of saddness.
We all wear so many different faces, so many colours and shapes.
Yet we all smile the same smile, as we all weep the same tears.
A touch can break the barriers of solitude.
A laugh can smash the silence of oppression.
A word can change the world forever.
It is dispair to know the world is suffering.
But in communion we know we do not suffer alone...

[Si Hunt]

I've had lots of poems published too. But here's one by someone else I like:

Living is a hazard,
It cannot be denied
For all the fools who've tried it
Every one has died

Si.

[Dirk Gently]

Nice Si, like that.

[WhiteCrow]

This one is actually one of mine, about feeling a little alienated in society, it was written about living in Germany which being the old Communist block was readjusting. I seemed to blend in well with the world around me, any a lot felt familiar but alien.

I owe a lot to the Sheffield University Creative Writing and Poetry Society. I joined trying to get my writing better, but I wasnt one for poetry. I did end up finding a poetic voice of some form, although not very diverse, I think most of my poems use the same rhythmic structure, and could easiy be written as monologues instead.

But for perhaps my darkest time of my life, poetry was a great release, giving voice to the brooding within. I don't write poetry anymore simply because I'm so much happier, I've nothing to say in angst ...

The Shadow Watcher

I look through the eyes of a foreigner
So secretly cast upon your shores
And walk through your concrete mortuary
In mute observance of your alien laws

I listen to you talking in your Mother tongue
And I comprehend your different ways
Watching as you try so hard to navigate
Through this societies bleak moral maze

I'm the shadowy watcher amongst you
Point you out if you think you can
The sinister zoologist amidst you
And my study is this ape called man ...

[WhiteCrow]

Of course I missed a favourite of mine The Raven by Edgar Alan Poe,

http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literat.../TheRaven.html

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm afraid I can't read that now without thinking of the Simpsons version, read by James Earl Jones!

[Captain Tancredi]

I'm afraid I can't read that now without thinking of the Simpsons version, read by James Earl Jones!

Which is, to be fair, pretty special and one of my favourite Simpsons skits...