LizzieD: 2013*4 (April: National Poetry Month)

Stay tuned. I mean to post some of my all-time favorite poems here from time to time. I am bemused about their variety. Anybody seeing a connection should let me know what I'm saying about myself!

#1 - and I wish your world may be mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful. (I was afraid of that: I don't know how to leave blank spaces in one line, so it doesn't look like the poem that Cummings wrote. If somebody can tell me, I'll fix it.)

in Just -
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

~ E. E. Cummings

I wanted an image too, and thought of our little gem of a theater, built in 1928 and recently restored. The best I can do is a link to about 2 minutes of theater organ and panning camera: Carolina Civic Center

O.K. Here's a shot of the chandelier down...

BEST of the First Quarter (Only first-time books)

The Sisters Brothers
Above All Things
Precursor
Defender
Hotel World
The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors
The Philosopher's Pupil
Straight Man
Explorer
Dr Thorne
Cleopatra: A Life

APRIL
1. At Lady Molly's (reread)
2. This Body of Death
3. The Observations
4. Lamb
5. Blood & Beauty
6. Ignorance
7. The Shutter of Snow

APRIL TIOLI Attempts
Challenge 3 about words within words in the title: Master of the Senate (aster and ate)
Challenge 4 with two people pictured on the cover: Blood & Beauty
Challenge 9 with a 4-syllable word on page 13: This Body of Death (evidently)
Challenge 10 (from Bonnie) about double letters in both title and author's name: At Lady Molly's by A. Powell
Challenge 12 (I think) about a prize-listed book: Ignorance (Orange) and Lamb (Orange)
Challenge 15 about starting a trend (from christiguc):The Shutter of Snow

NEW to my house in April
1.Finity's End - PBS
2. Tripoint - PBS
3. The Light Between Oceans - Kindle
4. A Great Improvisation - AMP
5. A Dangerous Vine - PBS
6. The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine - PBS
7. Leviathan Wakes - Kindle Daily Deal
8. Provincial Daughter - Karen, with thanks
9. New and Selected Poems: Mary Oliver ✔ - AMP
10. Shadowy Horses - Kindle Daily Deal (Well, I had to. My ma will enjoy this one so much...)
11. The Little Company - PBS (Thank you, Deborah for all six!)
12. Enormous Changes at the Last Minute - PBS
13. Sunflower - PBS
14. Golden Miles - PBS
15. From Man to Man - PBS
16. The Hours Before Dawn - PBS
17. Life After Life ✔ - Kindle
18. The White Devil - PBS
19. Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus - AMP
20. Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, and Patriot - Kindle Deal
21. The Watchers - Kindle Deal
22. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Kindle - $1.99!
23. Flight Behavior - Kindle ✔

Is it ok to talk here? Referring back to the last thread, I got about 1/3 of the way in to Cleopatra and something caused me to set it aside (dark winter weather? wanting to be taken some place *other*?) but your enthusiasm for it is urging me to pick it back up again.

Here's a Mary Oliver poem for you, for poetry month:

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety--

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light--
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

Welcome, Tui, first visitor - and with a thread-warming gift too! Lovely!!!
I do hope you'll feel happy if you get back to *Cleopatra*. Did I mention that I love Stacy Schiff on the basis of that one book?
In fact, I'd very much welcome other favorite poems or poems of the moment if you have time to transcribe one here!

Just droppin' a star, Peggy : ).

Thank you, Nancy, you star, you.

Happy new thread, Peggy! I'll come back for a longer visit later when you've had a chance to unpack.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. I feel I ought to have read more poetry, but it always scares me slightly, and I don't know what to try.

I've discovered a liking for translations of Old English poetry. The alliterative nature of the poetry really appeals to me. But they're all a bit long to type out, so I'll just point you towards my most recent poetry read. The death of king Arthur

Julia, I'm up and ready for company. You know you're always welcome!
Helenliz, welcome to LT, the 75ers, and my thread. In some other existence I know I spoke Anglo-Saxon, and theoretically, I'd love to relearn it. Many thanks for the link!

Great new thread, Peggy. I love the cummings poem; it's one of my favorites because it captures perfectly my favorite season -- if spring every arrives here this year!

Would you like one of my favorite poems?

Here it is:

You Fit Into Me
by Margaret Atwood

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

Oh, here's another short one I love:

This Is Just to Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

A host of terrific poems to encounter here.....

That Carolina house sure is a gem, Peggy! Have you seen anything in it yet? I expect so - but anyway - it's very sedate inside compared to buildings built around the same time - Burlington's Flynn theatre is wildly decorated. The theatre in Rutland is a bit more tasteful. I'll see if I can find photos of them - in both cases, total miracle that they were preserved.

Here's the Flynn:

very intense art deco decor throughout.....

My mother was born and raised in Hutchinson, Kansas (she's 88 years old). The Hutchinson Fox Theatre originally opened on 8 June 1931, and that's where she saw movies like Snow White and Gone With the Wind. She was an usherette there in high school, and in her diaries she writes about getting home at 1:00 a.m. after working--on a school night. I guess it's not a big wonder that her father was relieved she somehow managed to graduate--ha. The theater, like the one you show in Vermont, Lucy, is also "intense art deco" and has been beautifully renovated. So glad to see these places preserved--and used!

Love the Atwood poem which is new to me, Esqs, and the WCW, an old favorite. Thanks!
Many thanks for the great theater pictures, Lucy and Becky. I'm going to try again for a good one of the Carolina one more time.
We agree, Beth! And I'm glad that you came.
I neglected to say that this was a bridge afternoon, so I haven't read a thing all day. I'm antsy, so I'm going to prowl around just a little and then sit down with LBJ!

I love your e. e. cummings poem at the top, Peggy! I read that poem in competition (way) back in high school! Wednesday night I went to a Caroline Kennedy book-signing, and they had three regional & state Poetry Out Loud winners recite. Anyway, here's the poem Ms. Kennedy recited (blessedly short, so I could remember it):

Careless Willie

Willie, with a thirst for gore
Nailed his sister to the door.
Mother said, with humor quaint,
"Careful, Willie--don't scratch the paint!"

The end.

The Atwood poem made me actually snort with laughter. That was brilliant.

Oh, how wonderful...a place to post our favorite poems.

Here is one of my favorites. It captures the feeling of mid life in few words:

Dorothy Parker
Indian Summer

In youth it was a way I had to do my best to please
and change with every passing lad
to suit with his theories

But now I know the things I know
and do the things I do

And if you do not like me such
to hell my love with you.

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

Dorothy Parker spoke to me when I read this poem. So much of early life is spent trying to please and change to fit with those around us.

In mid and later life, we grow weary of trying to please and allow ourselves the benefit and luxury of saying, ok, here I am and I'm not so anxious to mold to everyone in my path.

I am another Mary Oliver fan. This poem speaks to me this time of year because I feel great hope when the trees begin to leave out. I am so ready for spring.

Happy Poetry Month, Peggy! Thanks for the reminder.

When I Am Among the Trees
by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

Welcome, and especially welcome with poems, Donna, Linda, Julia, and Terri!
So Caroline K. recites Little Willy verses???? The only one I know is ....

Little Willy committed sin
And drank up all his father's gin.
When his Ma saw he was plastered,
She said, "Go to bed, you little bastard." (Well, as my senior English teacher had it, "Go to bed, you bad little boy," but I'm not coy.)
Linda, that's not a D.Parker poem that I knew before. Thank you very, very much!
Also, I like Mary Oliver more and more, and I thank you for that one, Donna. "to be filled with light and to shine"! Lovely!
Julia and Esqs, I was going to save this one for later, but here's another M. Atwood poem that makes me laugh:

Siren Song

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who had heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I don’t enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.

~Margaret Atwood

I *love* Atwood's "Siren Song"!

“My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends It gives a lovely light!


“Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!”

I've been A fan of Edna St. Vincent Millay since high school Peggy. Nice new thread:-)

Hi Peggy, noticed on Donna's thread that you bought The Light Between Oceans for your Kindle. I'm presently reading this one, and it is excellent! (I've been disappointed in more than one of this year's Orange nominees, but this is not one of them!)

Hi Peggy - I read a great story about Mary Oliver. She was walking in the woods and felt inspired, but she didn't have anything to write with. She later went back and hid pencils in several trees.

My favorite poem will likely not be a shocker to you, Peggy:

I hate and I love. Why do I do this, perhaps you ask?
I don't know, but I feel that it's happening and I am tortured.

(I hope Catullus forgives me for the unpoetic translation. I've never been satisfied with any translation of this particular poem - the Latin is so beautiful.)

Ah, Amber, I also love Catullus and your translation stands up as well as any of them. Horace even more than Catullus speaks to me, probably because I was middle-aged when I discovered him.
Beth, that's a great story about Mary Oliver! Your post tipped the scales and I went to AMP and ordered the cheapest volume I could find, Mary Oliver: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1, which will at least let me read some of her older work. I see that she has been very prolific!
Nancy, I couldn't resist the $5.something price, so I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying it.
Bonnie, when I think of E. St.V. M, I think immediately of my high school and college favorite, Elinor Wylie. Thanks!
Esqs., she gets me with the word "squatting"!

>19 Donna828:: I like that poem by Mary Oliver very much too. In fact, I haven't read one of her poems that I haven't liked, although some sing to me, particularly the ones which celebrate her love of the natural world.
>24 BLBera:: isn't that a most excellent story!

Peggy, your new thread has all the neighbours dropping by with poetry (much less fattening than baking) to celebrate the advent of Spring. I just discovered Mary Oliver a year ago--as an American poet, she hadn't peeked over the 49th parallel at me--and went on a bit of a binge, getting about 6 of her books. I have heard that she is very ill and feel sad about that. You Amurcans will lose a unique and important voice with her loss.

Of course if I hid pencils in trees I would forget which trees.....
Love the siren song. My nephew, for a little while when he was still little enough to pick up would whisper in the ear whoever was designated to babysit him thus:

You are my love
My only love.

ha!

Of course if I hid pencils in trees I would forget which trees.....

As would I...

And once you'd forgotten which trees you'd hidden the pencil in, they'd be overtaken by the tree & not be very useful anyway. I'm thinking a smaller scale version of the bicycle in a tree, http://www.neatorama.com/2007/05/25/a-bicycle-eaten-by-a-tree/

This one is long, but this has been my very favorite poem since I discovered it in the mid-60s.

Fern Hill

by Dylan Thomas

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

One of my most favourite poems as well. I always read it in his kind of sing songish voice.

Another of my favorites is "Lady Lazarus" by Sylvia Plath.

I'm not typing out the whole thing :) It can be viewed here.

I used to have it memorized. Sadly I cannot say that I do anymore.

Peggy, the lovely poem regarding The Sirens, reminds me of one of my favorite J.W. Waterhouse paintings of Ulysess and the Sirens.

What a feast of poems! Thank you!!!
Tui, you are the one who brought Mary Oliver to my attention. I wished for a book or so at PBS, but they apparently don't turn up often. I can see why......Nobody is getting mine when it arrives! I'm sorry that she is ill. I read that she has been writing for 50+ years - yes - she was born in '35 so she's accumulating a few years.
Lucy, your nephew must be quite a charmer even now. He certainly had the siren song down pat. (I'd lose pencils too, Lucy and Esqs., but I wish I still had a little woods to leave them in.)
Helen Liz, that's - I don't know what that picture is. Life is inexorable, isn't it?
Roni, thank you for giving us "Fern Hill." So much to love in that poem whatever the reader's age!
Esqs, I had never read "Lazarus." That's a powerful, disturbing poem. I can see why you'd learn it. I'm expecting to put up some that I used to have memorized too, but they'll have to wait.
Classy illustration! Thank you, Linda!
I wish that I had read something to report on tonight, but it didn't happen today and might not happen tomorrow either. It feels a little like a day wasted, but that's not really true.

Stopping by to say hi! I hope you enjoy The Light Between Oceans as I did, but I must admit that Life After Life has been my most enjoyable read so far this year!:)

New thread - Hooray! OK, I am not that much into poetry. Well, sometimes I do enjoy it. However, this is a kid one and his books helped me to teach reading to my son *smile*

I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!
Dr. Seuss

I can read in red. I can read in blue.
I can read in pickle color too.
I can read in bed, and in purple. and in brown.
I can read in a circle and upside down!
I can read with my left eye. I can read with my right.
I can read Mississippi with my eyes shut tight!

There are so many things you can learn about.
But…you'll miss the best things
If you keep your eyes shut.
The more that you read, the more things you will know
The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.

If you read with your eyes shut you're likely to find
That the place where you're going is far, far behind
SO…that's why I tell you to keep your eyes wide.
Keep them wide open…at least on one side.

Happy new thread Lizzie!

Here's my poetic contribution, courtesy of the Poem-a-Day email from poets.org. It's one of my favorites:

The Daffodils
by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
  That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
  A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
  And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
  Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
  Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
  In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
  In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
  Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

I can assure you that in my corner of Blighty, not only are the daffs not out yet but any cloud is scudding along at a high rate of knots and it most certainly not short of company.

But that has put me in a spring is round the corner sort of hopeful mood - even if we're a good month behind normal.

I'm sorry for the late spring all around, HelenL. We have finally had a couple of days with some blue sky and sun, both much welcome! Our azaleas are blooming, so we're really not very far behind the norm if we are at all. Of course, the danger in N.C. is that we go straight from winter to summer with no buffer of spring. I do dread the heat and humidity and threat of drought.
Thank you for Wordsworth, Julia! We haven't had a sea of daffs this year, but what we did have are long gone.
And thank you for Dr. S, Bianca. I'll try to keep at least one eye open.
Deborah, I need to buy reading time along with the books I have coming in (Cee's brilliant wish) so that I can get to *Between Oceans* and need Life After Life. What a sort of bad thing for our Jill McCorkle that her book with the exact same title came out at the same time as Atkinson's. Two very different propositions, but an equally good title for each book!

Hi Peggy - You're celebrating National Poetry Month in style here.

Helenliz, I am in complete sympathy with you! We have yet to see a single daffodil bloom either, although I did some greenery poking up through the ground the other day so fingers crossed they are on their way. I hope the Wordsworth reminds Mother Nature what she's supposed to be doing in April!

All this poetry is ever so delightful....

Thanks for initiating this Peggy.

We haven't even seen a snowdrop in VT.

Beth, it's fun to see what people like, isn't it? I can never predict successfully.
I'm sorry Helen, Julia, and Lucy - and probably Linda too. Spring will come. We finally have had 2 days of true spring-like weather.......in the 70s and sunny with a little breeze. I'd love a whole month of this before summer, but that's not likely to happen. You folks in the cold now can remember how you had it when we're dealing with high temps and higher humidity here in N.C.

AT LADY MOLLY'S by Anthony Powell
The only bad thing about reading this one in the first part of the month is that I am now instructing myself to wait until May to read Casanova's Chinese Restaurant. This is book #4, and the dance is in full swing. We meet some new delightful characters - and sure enough! - become better acquainted with old friends. I very much enjoyed this one, and that's all I'm going to say. So there.

It's the humidity that gets me the most--76% here today; 10% in my son's Colorado town. Born and raised in Colorado myself, I've never really adjusted to what still feels to me to be very high humidity. At some point I just give up--close the windows and turn on the AC. I try to wait as long as I can, but sometimes I cave very early.

I'm glad you're enjoying your Powell series, Peggy.

Peggy, delighted that Powell's dance is in flu swing, and that the series just keeps getting better!

I so agree with you on the humidity, labwriter! Muggy, swampy days will send me to the AC switch faster than anything. Especially at night; I just cannot sleep if I feel sticky and sweaty and like nothing is evaporating.

Just dropping by to say hello, Peggy.

Sorry I can't think of a poem to offer . . . there are some very lovely ones here.

Becky and Julia, it was 87° here today; I don't know about the humidity, but it's real sinus weather. Our house is still nice and cool, so no AC yet - and 87 wouldn't be enough to trigger it anyway. Thank you and Nancy for the good wishes about the AP.
Terri, you're always welcome with poem or without. Here's another that I love although I'm not completely sure why. I certainly don't ascribe to the sentiment even as a joke. I like the archaic flavor of the impossible tasks and the wonky meter. I also notice that everything that I've put up so far, and most of what I will add, has been heavily anthologized. I guess they really do pick the good stuff.
I know I'm not going to be able to format this correctly, and that takes away a little too.

Song

Goe and catche a falling starre,
Get with child a mandrake roote,
Tell me where all past yeares are,
Or who cleft the Divels foot,
Teach me to heare Mermaides singing,
Or to keep off envies stinging,
And finde
What winde
Serves to advance an honest minde.

If thou beest borne to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand daies and nights,
Till age snow white haires on thee,
Thou, when thou retorn'st, wilt tell mee
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And sweare
No where
Lives a woman true, and faire.

If thou findst one, let mee know,
Such a Pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet doe not, I would not goe,
Though at next doore wee might meet,
Though shee were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet shee
will bee
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

~ John Donne

My mother adored Donne and loved that poem. Thank you Peggy!

Loving the poetry. I am fond of it - in small doses. :)
Here's my contribution - since my current knitting is socks and it's currently about 5F outside...

Ode to My Socks

Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.

Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my shoes.

The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.

Pablo Neruda

Am thoroughly enjoying the poetic theme here, Peggy. I love the Donne and also Jenn's Neruda.

Same here. The Donne is an old friend and the Neruda is a new one.

Really enjoying the all the poetry here. What a wonderful celebration of Poetry Month. Thanks Peggy (and contributors).

Well, I was just moved to exclaim "Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" on another thread, and realized I had to come over here to share the whole poem on your thread, Peggy. Of course, Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky will be familiar to many. I love to read it aloud--it's almost like chewing something tangible!

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

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub 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 Tumtum 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 blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

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

I love the sound devices in "Jabberwocky."

Nothing to add, as I'm a relative newbie to poetry compared to the lovely ones being posted here!

Yay for National Poetry Month! I'm learning so much! :)

Hi Peggy, I love the theatre pictures up there. Considering I have a phobia of live theatre (sort of), it is odd that I really really love the theatres themselves.

Our Isaac Theatre Royal was badly damaged in our earthquakes, but thanks to it having been earthquake strengthened before the first ones, it can be repaired. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa performed there after the first (not that bad ) one, and I went to that performance. And after the worst earthquake (Feb 2011) it was no longer fit for entering. Ian McKellan did a fundraiser for it, as he is a huge supporter of it, and theatres in general. It was/is such a beautiful building- like the ones you have up here already.

And, poetry too! I have read some really nice ones here already, and will be back for more.

I loved reading the Donne. I never realized that the title of one of my favorite baseball books, Nancy Willard's Things Invisible to See came from a John Donne poem.

Roni, I used to know the whole thing by heart. Now only the first two verses come out in one piece.

I love coming to my thread and finding new poems. Why didn't I think of this sooner?
Jenn, the Neruda is wonderful even (maybe especially?) in translation. Oh, Nancy, Lucy, Tui, Peg, and Stephen, I'm happy to find Donne lovers. I wouldn't have expected anything else. Stay tuned. I have at least another couple I want to post while the book is out.
Roni, thanks for "Jabberwock." Like Tui, I know parts of it. I have to say that it's always been those raths that upset me. Plain old raths, I could take - but mome raths!!! Especially since they outgrabe. (Hi, Esqrs and Tina!) It's probably an abomination, but after my 11th graders learned, or not, as much about parts of speech as they were likely to, I gave them "Jabberwock" to parse. They were amazed when they could do it, and sort of proud.
Megan, that's both fascinating and terrifying about your theater and the earthquake. I do hope it will be reclaimed. We're having a round about our 1920s-era city hall/firehouse. The city council voted to tear it down because it was going to cost at least $150,000 to bring it up to code, and then there was no use for it........only one very narrow staircase, etc. The town has gone ballistic, and they're reconsidering. I'm surprised, but I found an image, and here it is....

Oh I"m so sorry I have no poetry to offer. Ohh you have hit the 70's with your weather! Nice! We have had some sunny days , but today was very windy! It is staying light out until about 8 pm or so lately - so yes, spring is here!

One of my favourite (concise!) poems, by Wendy Cope:

Two Cures for Love
1. Don't see him. Don't phone or write a letter.
2. The easy way: get to know him better.

Chiming in as another great fan of Donne! I'm also a Wyatt fan, and this is my favorite of his, likely because he clearly share a kindred poetic soul with the likes of Catullus and Ovid:

They Flee From Me

They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.

Deborah, it was almost 90° yesterday! We're expecting some clouds and rain, so today will be back down in the 70s. 70s are wonderful; 80s are pretty nice; 90s are too doggone much!
Kerry, thanks for the Cope - wryly wise.
Wyatt is wonderful too. Thank you, Amber! When I think of all the great poetry I haven't read, I do nearly despair.
Meanwhile, I'm closing in on my E. George, This Body of Death. Good mystery + !

Gorgeous photo of your historic City Hall, Peggy. Glad Council is reconsidering.

Oh I did so enjoy the Neruda!

We have to have some Dickinson:

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul –

Nancy, thanks for your kind words. It is a pretty building although it's in sad, sad shape. And the council has reconsidered and is out hunting funds. The public library was upstairs when I was a child, so it's dear to me.
Beth, that's a lovely Dickinson to have! Here's to a LOT of prancing Poetry!

THIS BODY OF DEATH by Elizabeth George
I can't tell you how happy I am to find George back to her old style! (The answer is very happy!!) This is a big, complex book with lots of plot threads that finally make a single picture. I was probably slow in realizing the major factor in the big picture, but I got there before the end. LT has a lot of good reviews, so I don't feel compelled to write one too. I'll simply say that I was glad to get more Barbara with Azhar and Hadiyyah, and I foresee that the new character among the police, Isabelle Ardery is going to give me someone to be displeased with.
This is not the one to read if you've never read the series. It is probably too long, but I didn't ever tire of it. Welcome back, EG!

Hi Peggy, I'm really enjoying all the poetry here and glad to see the Dickinson. You make the George series sound awfully good but it sounds like there was a gap in the quality. That's always disappointing with series reading. Glad it's picked up for you again:-)

Bonnie, there was a gap in something. She killed off a major character and wrote a whole book about the sad little life of the child killer with almost no references to her other continuing characters. If I want social commentary, I'll read something else.
Now. I'm skipping more Donne for the moment because I've been reciting as much as I remember of this one all day, and maybe typing it correctly will exorcise it. On the other hand, it was extremely useful for self-entertainment at faculty meetings.....

"Bantams in Pine-Woods"

Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan
Of tan with henna hackles, halt!

Damned universal cock, as if the sun
Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.

Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the personal.
Your world is you. I am my world.

You ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat!
Begone! An inchling bristles in these pines,

Bristles, and points their Appalachian tangs,
And fears not portly Azcan and his hoos.

~ Wallace Stevens

So, here is one of my favorites (though Jabberwocky is definitely up there for me too)

I Love the Dark Hours of My Being
Rainer Maria Rilke

I love the dark hours of my being
When my mind drops into the deep.
There I find, as in old letters,
My daily life already lived
Like a legend, conquered far and wide.
Then the knowledge comes: I have space
For another wide and timeless life.
So, sometimes I am like a tree
Ripe and rustling over a grave,
Realizing the dream of the forgone
(whom its living roots embrace)
That had been lost in sorrows and songs.

Peg, I've never read Rilke, and now I can't think why. That's a wonder. Many thanks!

I can't believe the weather difference between here and there. Although our weather has improved some. We have gone from negative temps with wind chill on Tuesday to my kids wearing shorts to school today - because it's a balmy 44 F :)

Loving the poems. That Stevens poem is just a wonder, isn't it?

I've got one from Mother Said by Hal Sirowitz. I can't say exactly why I find this book so entertaining, but I do. And this poem is charming. :)

How I Came To Be

Father brushed his hair back
before he went to meet my mother
in the lobby of the Hotel Astor. He
waited under the clock. She
checked the buttons on her blouse
to make sure none were opened. Then
she walked toward him. They kissed.
They went to a dance. When the waiter
wasn't looking, my father kept pouring some Scotch,
that he hid in his pocket, into his soda.
He got drunk. She walked him to a park bench,
& fed him coffee & peanuts until he gradually
got sober. I wasn't born yet.
I was only a vague idea in their minds
that became clearer the more he walked her home.

Charming is the precise word for that poem, Jenn. Many thanks! I had never heard of Hal Sirowitz, but on the list he goes. Many thanks for that too!
(Hi, Lucy! I love that WS.)

I'm not very good with poetry but the Jabberwocky is definitely a favourite with me too.

*snicker-snack*

#90? We still have the heating on!

Really, I'm not very good with poetry either, Heather, but I know what I like. (A lot like art.) (Ha ha ha)
I'm going to put one of my very, very favorites up. Why I love this one so much (well, it's a great poem) is beyond me. Then I'm off to bed to get away from Boston.

From Lessons of the War
TO ALAN MICHELL

Vixi duellis nuper idoneus
Et militavi non sine gloria

NAMING OF PARTS

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighbour gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For to-day we have naming of parts.

~ Henry Reed

We definitely have the heat on. 22F tonight with the promise of 4-8 inches of snow tonight and off and on snow showers through the week. We need the moisture, but I admit to being ready for warm weather. At least most of the trees haven't blossomed yet.

Oh dear, Jenn. I hate to tell you that I saw my first humming bird yesterday. They've been around for about a week, but I hadn't actively watched for them until yesterday. And we're greening out. When you speak of how blessedly cool your summer is, I'll try to remember how I had spring and you didn't.

Even we in Vermont have gotten a break this week......frogs and crocuses and such. Nothing blooms here for awhile yet, although the pussy willows are nice.

Spring's mighty nice....
I posted this on Jan's thread, but I guess it really belongs here.
LBJ: I haven't read 50 a day, but I'm so close that I'm keeping on.
Honestly, I simply can't believe the man. I've just read about his publicity from his Preparation Sub-committee. Even when they caught him obviously lying for publicity, the facts didn't stick. Talk about a Teflon Politician!
Otherwise, I'm plugging along with my ER ARC, Blood & Beauty. Sarah Dunant is a pleasing writer, and I don't see how the Borgias could possibly be dull, but I'm not driven to read this one. When I do pick it up, I enjoy it, but it's not as compelling yet as I had thought it would be almost half-way through.
And I do love to pick up the Mass Observation diaries in We Are at War...really compelling!
And I'm dawldling my way through The Observations, which is a lot of fun. I'm not sure that I would have put it on a short list, but it's fun.

>74 LizzieD: Just making a guest appearance after coming across this passing entry. I am so pleased for you, Peggy, that you have all of Rilke ahead of you. Were I prone to absolutes, I would tell you he is my favorite poet. But under these circumstances, I am tempted to say he is my favorite poet not named Emily. In any case, you must at some propitious moment read The Duino Elegies. And Letters to a Young Poet.

One of the first lines stellarwoman presented to me, early on: "For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation." --from Letters to a Young Poet

---
"What Survives"

Who says that all must vanish?
Who knows, perhaps the flight
of the bird you wound remains,
and perhaps flowers survive
caresses in us, in their ground.

It isn't the gesture that lasts,
but it dresses you again in gold
armor --from breast to knees--
and the battle was so pure
an Angel wears it after you.

--

"Blank Joy"

She who did not come, wasn't she determined
nonetheless to organize and decorate my heart?
If we had to exist to become the one we love,
what would the heart have to create?

Lovely joy left blank, perhaps you are
the center of all my labors and my loves.
If I've wept for you so much, it's because
I preferred you among so many outlined joys.

Hello all,
Stopping by to second (third) my vote for Rilke. One of my most treasured memories is visiting Ronda in Southern Spain and staying at the inn where Rilke spent time writing (his room can be viewed there). The inn has a statue of him as well (see below). Should anyone be interested in his life, I recommend Rilke: A Life by Wolfgang Leppmann, a terrific biography.

Thanks Rex and Peg! You are convincing me to make an effort to fill yet another literary vacuum. I have avoided poetry in translation for most of my adult life, but the poems quoted here are poetry in English too - no doubt about that.
I am advised.

Hi Peggy, dropping in to say hi and catch up. Still enjoying the poetry : ).

Hi, Nancy. I'm glad you're enjoying, and I see that it's time to post another. First, however, ....

THE OBSERVATIONS by Jane Harris

I quite enjoyed this tale of an Irish girl on her own in 19th century Scotland. In fact, I enjoyed it a lot more than I did Harris's later effort Gillespie & I. (I see that I gave *G&I* four stars, and I have no idea why.) The difference is the narrative voice of Bessy Buckley, who has seen it all and done it all at fifteen and is hopeful of escaping her alcoholic mother and finding a place for herself with some love. She thinks that she has found both when she arrives at a big house called Castle Haivers (no castle there: a hint of things to come) and is taken on by the mistress of the house as a maid of all work with the added requirement that she keep a diary of her daily activity and most intimate thoughts.
It is sort of Sarah Waters-Light. It was fun, but I don't for the life of me see why it made the Orange Short List for its year.

Fabulous work, Rilke!

I ordered The Duino Elegies right away. If I have any force of character, it's certainly not going into resisting so many hearty recommendations from people whom I respect.

Hello Dear Peggy

I took some vacation days yesterday-Friday and my daughter is helping me get books in order.

I miss our buddy Stasia. I know she is swamped with mid terms

I hope your day is a good one.

Regarding #89, like you, I wonder why some books get high awards and then there are those that I love and aren't even in the running.

>89 LizzieD:: I liked The Observations too, although I wasn't wowed by it. For what it's worth I think it was actually long listed, not short listed.

Hi Peggy, I've been enjoying your month of poems here on your thread.

Here's one I like, from Garrison Keillor's Good Poems; he dedicates the book, To all the English teachers, especially the great ones.

The Icelandic Language, by Bill Holm

In this language, no industrial revolution;
No pasteurized milk; no oxygen, no telephone;
only sheep, fish, horses, water falling.
The middle class can hardly speak of it.

In this language, no flush toilet; you stumble
through dark and rain with a handful of rags.
The door groans, the old smell comes
up from under the earth to meet you.

But this language believes in ghosts;
chairs rock by themselves under the lamp; horses
neigh inside an empty gully, nothing
at the bottom but moonlight and black rocks.

The woman with marble hands whispers
this language to you in your sleep, faces
come to the window and sing rhymes; old ladies
wind long hair, hum, tat, fold jam inside pancakes.

In this language, you can't chit-chat
holding a highball in your hand, can't
even be polite. Once the sentence starts its course,
all your grief and failure come clear at last.

Old inflections move from case to case,
gender to gender, softening consonants, darkening
vowels, till they sound like the sea moving
icebergs back and forth in its mouth.

What a great Garrison Keillor poem.

Becky, thank you very much for that good poem! I don't know Bill Holm or the Icelandic language, but I like that poem! You remind me that I've liked most of the Borzoi/Knopf/Doubleday poems this year. I should post some of them when I finish my very favorites...and I'll get another one up right now, heavily anthologized again!
Laura, that was obviously my reaction. My Orange list has it on the short list for '07, and the cover of the book claims that it was a "finalist" for the Orange. Peculiar.
Dear Linda, I'm off to your place to speak. It's always a pleasure to see you here.

I Knew a Woman

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 we did 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).

~Theodore Roethke

That is a fabulous poem, the Holm!

Today's Knopf Poem-a-Day is by Marge Piercy!

The level

A great balance hangs in the sky
and briefly on the black pan
and on the blue pan, the melon
of the moon and the blood orange
of the sun are symmetrical
like two unmatched eyes glowing
at us with one desire.

This is an instant’s equality,
a level that at once
starts to dip. In spring
the sun starts up its golden
engine earlier each dawn.
In fall, night soaks
its dye into the edges of day.

But now they hang, two bright
balls teasing us to balance
the halves of our brain, need
and will, gut and intellect,
you and me in an instant’s grace—
understanding no woman, even
Gaia, can always make it work.

>89 LizzieD:: Observations left me kind of flat when I read it. Must look back a year or two to see what I actually said about it.

>98 ronincats:: I love Marge Piercy's novel Woman on the Edge of Time.

Tui, thanks for posting the Piercy poem. I perked right up when I saw her name too.
I'm looking forward to reading some of the Orange list, but none of them has appealed to me except *Bodies*, and I don't plan to reread it right now.
Hi, Esqrs, I read *Woman on Edge* a couple of years ago and didn't like it as much as I had remembered loving Piercy when I read her in the 70s. I didn't think it was bad, but it wasn't love for me like Vida or He, She, and It or Gone to Soldiers. I'll be surprised if I reread any of them, but I loved them at the time.
*LBJ* remains as fascinating as it is HUGE, and that's saying a LOT!

T'weren't me: Roni.

Yep, 'twas I who posted the Piercy poem.

Woman on the Edge of Time was the first Piercy I ever read and I didn't like it, enough that I planned not to read her again. It was in a contemporary fiction college class, and the prof was using it to cover his science fiction requirement. It's a cheat for that. Years later though, a used copy of Gone to Soldiers crossed my path, and I agree I love love love it... so much that when I was a bookseller, I was able to get people to special order it because for some reason Borders Corporate thought we shouldn't have it on our bookshelves.

I do enjoy the way Piercy 'turns' her poems at the end. She's a great reader.

Interesting that so many folks didn't like Woman on the Edge of Time. I enjoyed it, myself. Perhaps I should read more Piercy and see what I think of, say, Gone to Soldiers.

Love the Roethke, Peggy : ).

*LBJ* remains as fascinating as it is HUGE, and that's saying a LOT!

I agree with you, Peggy. Great observation!

Waving hello - enjoying the poetry. It would make some kind of fun anthology...

Speaking of making fun anthologies, a few summers ago, I taught a course called "Young Writers on Computers," and it was dedicated to helping middle schoolers learn new ways to write and how to use the computer effectively. It was great.

We did six-word memoirs near the end of the class, and I was able to compile them into a poem to publish in the anthology that was given to all of the students and teachers at the end.

The six-word poem allegedly has its base in Ernest Hemingway's poem of six words:

For sale.
Baby shoes.
Never worn.

If you're into the genre, try reading Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. It's fantastic.

Roni, thank you for posting the Piercy poem; Tui, excuse me for misusing your name. It bothers me when I can't read!
Katie and Esqrs, *Soldiers* is certainly much different from *Woman on Edge* although it has a little mystic flair in one part.
I'm not sure what I would think about it now although I'm pretty sure that I would want her to trim a little fat...
And Esqrs, 6-word poems are great!
Hi, Lucy.... Piercy's a great reader?
Me too, Nancy!!!
Hi, Becky. I can't remember whether you've read #4. It comes out May 7 in pb, and I intend to spend the big bucks to grab a copy!
Hi, Jenn!! An anthology, eh?
Well! I have been to two church services and a duo-harpsichord program in our lovely theater (see above). The short-haired performer is one of my life-time friends, and I'm posting a YouTube performance here so you can listen to one of the numbers they performed. If you think of harpsichords as being tinkly little cuties, look at these French monsters - both made from the same plans of a museum piece. Bev's ex-husband, a talented oboist, built hers, and it is gorgeous.
And finally since it's Sunday, here's my favorite of Donne's Holy Sonnets, XIV.

Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,' and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due,
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely'I love you,' and would be loved faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie:
Divorce mee,'untie, or breake that knot againe,
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

I haven't read Donne for a long time. There's a reason that sonnet is so famous. Wow.

Which brings to mind one of the few poems I've actually memorized, by the great e. e. cummings:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Oh, Roni, another favorite! I love the "leaping greenly spirits of trees" just for a starter. My current profile picture is of a beauty.
Katie, read more Donne!!!

For sale.
Baby shoes.
Never worn.

That is the tale of my eldest child's first year. His first pair of actual shoes at walking age were baby size 7 (I think). All those cute little infant shoes people gave us never fit him, ever. My youngest is now in Kindergarten and is wearing a pair of kid's size 11 shoes that the elder son wore at maybe age 3. He's sporting mens size 14 now.

You can see how that little six word poem resonates with me...

ee cummings' poem reminded me of:
Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things--
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced - fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

This will describe my weather...

Delicate crystal lace
blooms bright
against gentle curves
tender green beginnings
of new leaves
cradle Winter's remains
in the fickle embrace
of Spring

From a blog I don't read, but just came across this poem -
http://anerissara.blogspot.com/2009/04/poetry-friday-rap-spring-snow.html

Piercy lives in Wellfleet, Ma where I was the library director for a time and often reads at the library.

Ummm. That's nice, Jenn. Your son's feet sound like mine. I was wearing my adult size by the 6th grade. *sigh* Anyway, I like your interpretation better than my immediate thought of miscarriage.
Love "Pied Beauty," Tui. Don't love thinking about sprung rhythm.
Interesting, Lucy! How much did you ever talk to her?
I am being my normal bad self. Wanting to read Kindle in bed last night as less droppable on face (or hurting less than LBJ dropping on face) when I drift off, I started Lamb, which is on this year's WPfF (I'm trying to stop saying "Orange") (sounds like the sound you make when you're tired or irritated) long list. I didn't think I'd like it (a 50-something man takes an 11 year-old girl across country not for sex but for company), but it's agreeably readable and it goes quickly. I'll likely finish it tomorrow or the next day. Today I also read the Borgias (Blood & Beauty) instead of LBJ....just not getting much reading time lately.
Tomorrow Ma and I head out of town on a shoe-shopping trip (nobody in town sells AAAA shoes, which we both need; catalogue sales are if- y) which might possibly include a stop at a couple of used book stores. YaY! (It's not like I haven't been tearing up AMP and PBS this month, but never mind!)

*waving* at Peggy

I love the ee cummings selection!! :)

W00T! Stasia on my thread!
And Tina on my thread too!! I love eec!
Still reading about the Borgias and LBJ.
Here's a little snippet from Elinor Wylie, who was my favorite poet when I was in high school.

Pretty Words

Poets make pets of pretty, docile words.
I love smooth words, like gold-enamelled fish
Which circle slowly with a silken swish,
And tender ones, like downy-feathered birds:
Words shy and dappled, deep-eyed deer in herds,
Come to my hand, and playful if I wish,
Or purring softly at a silver dish,
Blue Persian kittens, fed on cream and curds.

I love bright words, words up and singing early;
Words that are luminous in the dark, and sing;
Warm lazy words, white cattle under trees;
I love words opalescent, cool, and pearly,
Like midsummer moths, and honied words like bees,
Gilded and sticky, with a little sting.

Hi Peggy, I was reading this today with one of my grade 11 English students, and we enjoyed it. I thought it belonged here:

The Splendor Falls
by Lord Alfred Tennyson

The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O, hark, O, hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O, sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying,
Blow, bugles; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

I'm going to share 2 with you. the first I used as the quote in my thesis, on the grounds that its title was the one word I'd probably used more than any other "If..."

The second was the first rhyme I learnt and you can blame my grandad for that one.

Kipling's If.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

The line about meeting triumph & disaster that I find has the most resonance. During my doctorate there were days of agony and ecstasy. I can still remember printing the results of about 6 months experiments, taking in the results, and taking this piece of paper and running all over the building showing people the result. Meant nothing to them, but it was huge to me. Don't get a buzz like that very often.

and (just to lower the tone) Author unknown (to me) source grandad.
I eat my peas with honey,
I've done it all my life,
It makes the peas taste funny
but it keeps them on my knife.

Ooh, I love all the poetry here. People's favourites are great to peruse. I like nittnuts, in #77. Its sweet. And I have never been able to "get" un-rhyming poems. But this one, I think I do (get, that is).

The only poem I remember from childhood is Pam Ayers, I Wish Id Looked After Me Teeth. It scared me into brushing! And I used to know only a couple by heart, Shakespears "The Quality of Mercy" soliloquy, and an anonymous one....

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to a mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.

For it isn't your father or mother or wife
Whose judgement upon you must pass;
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.

He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest,
For he's with you clear up to the end,
And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the man in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you've cheated the man in the glass.

I love this one, and had it read out at my friends funeral when we were 18.

I think the 'eat my peas with honey' verse is by Spike Milligan. I don't have my copy of Silly Verse for Kids with me but I think it's in that.

Still reading about the Borgias and LBJ.

Hilarious juxtaposition, Peggy.

The poem I remember from childhood is "Sick" by Shel Silverstein:

"I cannot go to school today/ said little Peggy Ann McCay/ I have the measles and the mumps..."

Nancy and Helen and Megan, I'm happy to see Tennyson and Kipling and Anonymous gracing my thread! Thanks for the attribution for peas/honey, Kerry. I'm reminded of an Edward Lear (I'm pretty sure that's who it is;could be wrong).

You shake and shake the ketchup bottle;
First none'll come out and then a lot'll.

It struck me that way too, Becky. Glad to find a fellow humorist. This morning I finished my second Orange/WPfF nominee, and here's what I'm thinking....

LAMB by Bonnie Nadzam

I believe that this is a first novel; if so, it's a heck 'uv a polished work for a first-timer.
David Lamb is handsome, smart, charming, self-absorbed, self-justifying, seductive, manipulative....in short, David Lamb is a mess. His wife has left him, his father has died, and his business partner is suggesting that he take some time off before the business suffers. In his own mind Dave is basically a good person, loved and sought-after, yet always an outsider.
By chance he meets 11 year-old Tommie, who is the butt of her girl-friends' meanness, but otherwise is unremarkable. Dave decides that he will be able to change Tommie's life and return a smarter, better version of her to her mother. So he offers and Tommie accepts a trip to his cabin in the Rockies for just a few days.
This is just creepy, but Dave is attractive enough in his vulnerabilities and Tommie is attractive enough in her innate generosity to keep the reader turning pages to see how it plays out. I didn't think I'd like it at all before I started. I put it on my Kindle because it was cheap and nominated. I'm glad I did.

>129 LizzieD:: OMG, I'm creeped out just reading that...but then you say it's so worth it! That's a real quandary.

Great review of Lamb, Peggy. When I learned what the premise of the novel was, I didn't think it was one I wanted to explore, but you've changed my mind about that. Like Tad says, That's a real quandary.

>130 TadAD:: me too, Tad. I don't think so. Nope.

>129 LizzieD: Hmmmm, what to do? Well I read Lolita and lived to tell the tale and this sounds pretty tame by comparison. Pondering....

Here is a poem by Merritt Malloy. I discovered her writings years ago:

AGE

I don't know what it is like to be old
But I think it's living long enough
To make a joke of the things
That were once breaking your heart

Tad and Nancy, I am not pushing the book at all, and certainly not to Tui. I'm just surprised that it worked for me as well as it did. Bonnie, if you can manage Lolita, you can certainly manage Lamb. The Amazon page has an author interview in which she talks a bit about the identity of the narrator, who steps into prominence from time to time (an effect that I wasn't crazy about). She says that she thinks she knows who the narrator is, but I don't. I'd think that it was Tommie as an adult except that she knows things about Lamb from before they met that she probably wouldn't. Anyway, it was short and interesting.
Linda, that's an attention-getter.

BLOOD & BEAUTY by Sarah Dunant
I reviewed this ER ARC on the book page, so you may look there if the Borgias interest you. I like Sarah Dunant's prose style, but somehow this one never came to life. That's a shame because I'd think the Borgias would burn every page. I asked for a non-fiction Borgia history/biography on the April ER list, and I really hope that I get it.

I'd think the Borgias would burn every page - I would have to agree with you there.

Lamb does sound interesting and tricksy - but if it is as 'tactful' as Lolita (seems to us now, anyway) then it might be worthwhile.

Hi, Jenn and Lucy. Lamb is not graphic for what that's worth.
I think it's time for another poem, and it wouldn't be right if R. Frost were not represented here..... So here's an old favorite.

Birches

when I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust -
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows -
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

I do love the poems of Robert Frost!

Yes, Robert Frost captures images so wonderfully.

Peggy - National Poetry Month is, in April, a celebration of American poetry as we Brits have our National Poetry Month in October just to be obtuse (the Brits not I).

I agree with you that Robert Frost best exemplifies the spirit of American poetry for me but the earlier lyrical works of Whitman also are chock full of brazen images. Take his Native Moments

NATIVE MOMENTS

Native moments - when you come upon me - ah you are here now,
Give me now libidinous joys only,
Give me the drench of my passions, give me life coarse and rank,
To-day I go consort with Nature's darlings, to-night too,
I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the mid-night orgies of young men,
I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers,
The echoes ring with our indecent calls, I pick out some low person for my dearest friend,
He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate, he shall be one condemned by others for deeds done,
I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my companions?
Oh you shunn'd persons, I at least do not shun you,
I come forthwith in your midst, I will be your poet,
I will be more to you than any of the rest.

The poem reminds me that I am back posting to my favourite site!

Have a lovely weekend.

Welcome, Paul! Thank you for the Whitman - I would have neglected him. And hello to Roni and Linda! Frost may have been a sort of rotten human being, but you can't argue with the strength of his poetry - or I can't.
I have been bad. I just put Flight Behavior on my Kindle, and I'm GLAD!!!

I am pondering Lamb. Although I love Nabokov, I have never read Lolita - I just cannot get over the subject matter. Hmmm. . .

WHat? What? Robert Frost a rotten human being? Do tell me more.

And let us not forget Carl Sandburg!

Fog

THE fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

or

from The People, Yes

Lincoln?
He was a mystery in smoke and flags
Saying yes to the smoke, yes to the flags,
Yes to the paradoxes of democracy,
Yes to the hopes of government
Of the people by the people for the people,
No to debauchery of the public mind,
No to personal malice nursed and fed,
Yes to the Constitution when a help,
No to the Constitution when a hindrance
Yes to man as a struggler amid illusions,
Each man fated to answer for himself:
Which of the faiths and illusions of mankind
Must I choose for my own sustaining light
To bring me beyond the present wilderness?

Lincoln? Was he a poet?
And did he write verses?
“I have not willingly planted a thorn
in any man’s bosom.”
I shall do nothing through malice: what
I deal with is too vast for malice.”

Death was in the air.
So was birth.

or

Chicago

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

Hi, Stasia!!!
Linda, he was apparently a terror to his wife and children. I'm not sure how I know that; I certainly didn't get it from my English prof for whom I did my scholarship work for a couple of years. She met him in England when she was studying there, and they remained good friends for all of his life. I hope I'm wrong. Does anybody really know?

I don't know any specifics, Peggy, but I also had the impression that Frost had a difficult personality. Given what Wikipedia says about his personal life, though, I'm now inclined to give him a pass.

Wikipedia:
Robert Frost's personal life was plagued with grief and loss. In 1885 when Frost was 11, his father died of tuberculosis, leaving the family with just eight dollars. Frost's mother died of cancer in 1900. In 1920, Frost had to commit his younger sister Jeanie to a mental hospital, where she died nine years later. Mental illness apparently ran in Frost's family, as both he and his mother suffered from depression, and his daughter Irma was committed to a mental hospital in 1947. Frost's wife, Elinor, also experienced bouts of depression.
Elinor and Robert Frost had six children: son Elliot (1896–1904, died of cholera); daughter Lesley Frost Ballantine (1899–1983); son Carol (1902–1940, committed suicide); daughter Irma (1903–1967); daughter Marjorie (1905–1934, died as a result of puerperal fever after childbirth); and daughter Elinor Bettina (died just three days after her birth in 1907). Only Lesley and Irma outlived their father. Frost's wife, who had heart problems throughout her life, developed breast cancer in 1937, and died of heart failure in 1938.

Peggy, I'm presently reading Flight Behaviour, and enjoying. Glad you got it for your Kindle : ). Are you reading it presently?

Roni is right - don't forget Carl Sandburg - Lincoln is a great poem.
Frost was difficult sure but bad or awful may be stretching it a tad.
Frost, Auden, Eliot, Hughes (I know most of the ladies won't like that), Larkin, Betjeman, Owen, Yeats, MacNeice and Dylan Thomas would be my top ten English language poets of the last century in no particular order other than Thomas would be first!

Thanks for your list, Paul. I can agree with some and maybe fight about some (Larkin, Betjeman, Hughes for 3). I've been putting on my really old favorites, so they are bound to be familiar to everybody. I'd put Thomas first in your list too, I think - or Auden or Eliot or Frost.....
Nancy, I think Flight Behavior will follow Ignorance. I like *I* but not as much as you did, I don't think. Of course, I'm not quite half through.
Thanks for the Frost info, Roni. He certainly had enough tragedy to make him foul-tempered. That looks even worse than Mark Twain's family life.

April is almost gone, but not without another little poem by William Carlos Williams.....

TO A POOR OLD WOMAN

munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand

They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her

You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand

Comforted
A solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air.
They taste good to her

Love that poem! & Love "This is Just to Say" by W C W. I handed it to a 6th grader and she looked at me as though she was nuts. She obviously never lived with some of the people I've lived with.

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

I'm way behind on this thread, and with all the lovely poetry I didn't want to just skim, but I wanted to tell you about today's 'On Being' radio interview with Marie Howe. She's the current NY State poet laureate, teaches at Sarah Lawrence, and sounds like someone I would love to know. Her poem on Magdalene and the Seven Devils really hit me.

here's the web site of the show, and also links to her poems.

http://www.onbeing.org/program/the-poetry-of-ordinary-time-with-marie-howe/5301

Hi, Katie. Always good to see another WCW fan; you join Esquiress and me and others too, I'm sure.
Judy, thank you for the link to Marie Howe. I had never heard of her, but I have to say that she writes visceral poetry.
If I'm going to post the rest of my long-time loves, I'd better get cracking!

Western wind, when will thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!

~ Anonymous

Peggy/Katie - Love the WCW which reminds me so much of my own midnight forays into one of our refridgerators and the inevitably stern faced consequences when SWMBO realises the treat she has been saving up is beyond half eaten.

I haven't contributed a poem yet, because I can never choose what to put in, but here is an amusing one by a poet I greatly like:

WIFE HITS MOOSE
By Thomas Lux

Sometime around dusk moose lifts
his heavy, primordial jaw, dripping, from pondwater
and, without psychic struggle,
decides the day, for him, is done: time
to go somewhere else. Meanwhile, wife
drives one of those roads that cut straight north,
a highway dividing the forests

not yet fat enough for the paper companies.
This time of year full dark falls
about eight o'clock -- pineforest and blacktop
blend. Moose reaches road, fails
to look both ways, steps
deliberately, ponderously . . . Wife
hits moose, hard,

at slight angle (brakes slammed, car
spinning) and moose rolls over hood, antlers --
as if diamond-tipped -- scratch windshield, car
damaged: rib of moose imprint
on fender, hoof shatters headlight.
Annoyed moose lands on feet and walks away.
Wife is shaken, unhurt, amazed.

-- Does moose believe in a Supreme Intelligence?
Speaker does not know.
-- Does wife believe in a Supreme Intelligence?
Speaker assumes as much: spiritual intimacies
being between the spirit and the human.
Does speaker believe in a Supreme Intelligence?
Yes. Thank You.

Lucy, thank you for waiting until that one came to you. It's a winner!

IGNORANCE by Michele Roberts

For good reviews you should read Rhian's and Nancy's on the book page. Mine would fall somewhere between the two but a bit closer to Rhian's I think. This is from the Orange/WPfF long list. I can see why it was nominated and why it didn't make the short list. (I don't think it's any better than Arcadia, which I'm still sorry was not nominated.)
Set in the small French village of Ste-Marie-du-Ciel in the years surrounding WWII, it tells the story of Jeanne Nérin, and to a lesser degree her acquaintance Marie-Angèle Baudry. Jeanne's mother, a Jewish widow, has converted to protect herself and her daughter. They are very poor, supported by the mother's taking in laundry and doing sewing. Everybody in the village knows that they are Jewish, and Jeanne suffers abuse, including sexual abuse before she turns 14. Marie-Angele, on the other hand, is allowed to be self-indulgent as far as her grocer-father's resources allow. The pattern follows them all their lives.
Roberts's prose is often stunning; I was eventually stunned into insensibility. As is common these days, we get no quotation marks and punctuation is if-y. The story is narrated by Jeanne, Marie-Angèle, Jeanne's daughter Andrée, and one of the nuns, skipping forward and backward through time. At first I wanted more insights into the thoughts and feelings of Jeanne and Marie-Angèle; I ended up wanting less. I can see why some readers love the book but equally why others are left cold. I found myself thinking about the characters when I wasn't reading (a good thing) but was never compelled to get back to them (a bad thing). For me - 3½ stars.

Taking a Hint from Becky and Lucy ~~~

Here's where I am with my April reading, both what I said I'd read and what I'm really reading:

The Shutter of Snow - I think I'll be able to finish this one tomorrow even though I'm not quite half through it. I've been reading it little bit by little bit, and since it's a descent - or occasionally an ascent - into madness, that has been enough.
Master of the Senate - I'm still reading and loving this one and am not quite half through it too.
Religions of Rome - I haven't touched this all month, and it is really, really fascinating!
Iris: The Life of Iris Murdoch - This pretty much ground to a halt this month, but again, I'm looking forward to getting back.
We Are at War - I put this down to finish the little Orange things and am very eager to get on with it.
Life and Fate - Haven't touched it this month. Oh gee. I'm not going to have to start over am I?
Midnight Riot - Too much fun! I'll be polishing it off in the next few days so that I can really get into
Heavy Time and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
AND I'm eager to start either Life after Life or Flight Behavior - sort of depends on my mood on May 1.

I just pulled Heavy Time out as well, but think I'll finish off a light paranormal library book first, since I think I can finish it within April. I didn't want to let the month go by without mentioning the OTHER poem (besides Kipling's If) that I think a great many US students had to learn in school. It ends with that stirring refrain:

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

How many of you can instantly recognize it?

Can provide the title?

Can name the author?

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole...

I know! I know!!! Both of them!!!! And yes, I certainly had to memorize it back in the very early 60s.

I know the name, but the author is........ I have no idea!!!! Bits of this poem turn up everywhere, no?

>158 LizzieD: AND I'm eager to start either Life after Life or Flight Behavior - sort of depends on my mood on May 1.

Life After Life, Life After Life, Life After Life!!! I don't think you'll regret it Peggy.

I had to fumble for the author, Lu, but my head is bloody but unbowed.
Gee, Bonnie. I guess I could take a hint.....

My favorite poem is by Emily Dickinson. I am not much of a poetry reader, sad to say.

A solace of ripe plums

I LOVE that line. I can taste it.

It sort of stirs a memory, but I can't place it. But, what with not being American, I'm hoping that 1) I won't be drummed out the thread and 2) enlightenment will be provided shortly.

I think I know the poem? Not because I learnt it in school (British schools don't in general go in for that stirring sort of poem) but I've seen the film of the same name (with Morgan Freeman) twice.

I gave Ignorance three stars in the end although I did consider three and a half. Initially, I thought I was going to be very involved in the characters, but as the book progressed I just slightly lost interest. Glad you're enjoying Midnight Riot - is us great fun, isn't it.

Morning greetings to Stasia, Jenn, Helen, and Rhian.
Stasia, I should have recorded a Dickinson; there's so much to love. Jenn, isn't that a great line? But "They taste good to her. They taste good to her," sort of fills me with the poignancy of old age.
Helen, you should be thinking British poet!!! And you are always welcome on the thread!!!!
Yes, Rhian, *MR* is a riot!!! I'll be glad to get back to it, but I'm spending the day being mad with Emily Holmes Coleman. I think I liked Ignorance better as it progressed. Aren't we funny in our differences?
Meanwhile, for some reason that I won't analyze too closely, here's one of my very favorite Horace odes in my less than adequate translation.

O, fountain of Bandusia, you sparkle more than glass.
Tomorrow you, worthy of praise, will receive with flowers and sweet wine
A young goat whose forehead swells with its his first horns,
Promising both love and battles
In vain; for this offspring of the frolicking herd
Will stain your cold streams with his red blood.

The cruel season of the blazing Dog Star cannot touch you,
For you offer your refreshing chill to the oxen tired from the plow
and to the wandering cattle.

You will also join the famed fountains
Because I sing of your oak that stands upon the hollowed stones
From which your speaking waters spring down.

Peggy, thoroughly enjoyed your review of Ignorance. Curious to see what you'll pick up May 1: Life After Life or Flight Behavior.

Nice Horace! If you didn't tell us, we'd never know the translation was inadequate. :)

I recognize the earlier poem as well - but couldn't tell you the author without looking it up. I didn't learn it in school either, that I can remember. I remember lots of Shakespearean sonnets, Donne, Kipling and Frost and Dickinson...

For my last contribution, the poem that we would BEG my dad to recite to us at bedtime. He did it magnificently. We loved it.

Gunga Din

YOU may talk o' gin an' beer
When you're quartered safe out 'ere,
An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;
But if it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water, 5
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.
Now in Injia's sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them black-faced crew 10
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.

It was "Din! Din! Din!
You limping lump o' brick-dust, Gunga Din!
Hi! slippy hitherao! 15
Water, get it! Panee lao!
You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din!"

The uniform 'e wore
Was nothin' much before,
An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind, 20
For a twisty piece o' rag
An' a goatskin water-bag
Was all the field-equipment 'e could find.
When the sweatin' troop-train lay
In a sidin' through the day, 25
Where the 'eat would make your bloomin' eyebrows crawl,
We shouted "Harry By!"
Till our throats were bricky-dry,
Then we wopped 'im 'cause 'e couldn't serve us all.

It was "Din! Din! Din! 30
You 'eathen, where the mischief 'ave you been?
You put some juldee in it,
Or I'll marrow you this minute,
If you don't fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!"

'E would dot an' carry one 35
Till the longest day was done,
An' 'e didn't seem to know the use o' fear.
If we charged or broke or cut,
You could bet your bloomin' nut,
'E'd be waitin' fifty paces right flank rear. 40
With 'is mussick on 'is back,
'E would skip with our attack,
An' watch us till the bugles made "Retire."
An' for all 'is dirty 'ide,
'E was white, clear white, inside 45
When 'e went to tend the wounded under fire!

It was "Din! Din! Din!"
With the bullets kickin' dust-spots on the green.
When the cartridges ran out,
You could 'ear the front-files shout: 50
"Hi! ammunition-mules an' Gunga Din!"

I sha'n't forgit the night
When I dropped be'ind the fight
With a bullet where my belt-plate should 'a' been.
I was chokin' mad with thirst, 55
An' the man that spied me first
Was our good old grinnin', gruntin' Gunga Din.

'E lifted up my 'ead,
An' 'e plugged me where I bled,
An' 'e guv me 'arf-a-pint o' water—green; 60
It was crawlin' an' it stunk,
But of all the drinks I've drunk,
I'm gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.

It was "Din! Din! Din!
'Ere's a beggar with a bullet through 'is spleen; 65
'E's chawin' up the ground an' 'e's kickin' all around:
For Gawd's sake, git the water, Gunga Din!"

'E carried me away
To where a dooli lay,
An' a bullet come an' drilled the beggar clean. 70
'E put me safe inside,
An' just before 'e died:
"I 'ope you liked your drink," sez Gunga Din.
So I'll meet 'im later on
In the place where 'e is gone— 75
Where it's always double drill and no canteen;
'E'll be squattin' on the coals
Givin' drink to pore damned souls,
An' I'll get a swig in Hell from Gunga Din!

Din! Din! Din! 80
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Tho' I've belted you an' flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

That's a rouser that is, Jenn! I'm impressed that your dad recited that for you - and at bedtime! I would have been too excited to sleep, and I imagine your mother may have had something to say on that account. I notice that both you and HelenL were moved to quote Kipling, and that surprises me a little and makes me happy too.
I also see that Roni quoted a lot of Sandburg above, and I missed it until right now. I think maybe we crossposted, and I just didn't see it.

>159 ronincats:: Roni: Not sure if anyone has answered your question, but the name of the poem is "Invictus" and the author is William Ernest Henley.

There you go. Thanks, Peg.

Nope, certain we didn't do that at school. We did quite a lot of WW1 poetry, but that doesn't move me in a positive way.

Yet another instance where I find myself extraordinarily ill-read.

I like that Ode. Translating is hard work but I think you nailed it!

Helen, that was a sort of strange concentration for teens, I think. We read a little WWI poetry, and I was moved, but we had what I believe now was a pretty decent survey. I doubt that you're ill-read except in the way that we all are. That's another way of saying that I have many, many huge holes in my reading that may have to die with me.
You're generous, Lucy!

THE SHUTTER OF SNOW by Emily Holmes Coleman
Read Lucy's review. This is quite an amazing little book. Reality and hallucinations swirl together in a scary, beautiful blend so that reality becomes skewed and sanity feels bland. Marthe Gail, suffering from the results of puerperal fever that resulted in "toxic exhaustive psychosis" (or at least, that's what the introduction says that Coleman herself suffered from) lives through two winter months in an asylum. She does not suffer from inhibitions that would prevent her saying exactly what she thinks of the people around her. Sometimes she's funny; sometimes she breaks your heart. I know they missed her when she left. I'll miss her now that I've finished the book.

Time to end April's poetry month. Time for the best---

116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

~William Shakespeare

Aw, thanks Peggy. And I'm so glad you loved Shutter too.

It occurs to me that you might like a bit of nudging ahead toward a May thread.......

And here is a bit of Shel to keep things moving along:

“Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
'Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain't been there before.”
― Shel Silverstein

You are right, Lucy, about the nudging ahead, and I appreciate you and Shel doing it for me. I was too old to meet him as a child, but my first year of college I found Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book, and here's one of my favorites....

E is for egg.
See the egg.
The egg is full of slimey goosey white stuff and icky yellow stuff.
Do you like to eat eggs?
E is also for Ernie.
Ernie is the genie who lives in the ceiling.
Ernie loves eggs.
Take a nice fresh egg and throw it as high as you can and yell "Catch, Ernie! Catch the egg!"
And Ernie will reach down and catch the egg.

Hey Peggy! Adding my nudge...

Really glad you enjoyed The Observations. I think I liked it slightly more than you did - I really enjoyed the narrative voice she gave Bessy.

On the other hand, Lamb still doesn't appeal despite your review...

Oooo have to read that one to our Ernie. In fact I think there are more than a few Ernie poems......

I just dropped by to say that, quite independent of your review, I tagged Charles Batty as Asperger-like in The Misses Mallett, as did you...which I discovered when I read your review just a few minutes ago. We disagree about Rose though.

Nittnut, have you read No Heaven for Gunga Din? I love that little book.

And it's Beltane, so poetry month is over. I can recite Scots Wha Hae by heart but I'll save it for next year.

Well, I went to add The Shutter of Snow to the BlackHole and discovered it was already there. Unfortunately my local library still does not have a copy.

I will keep that in mind Stasia in case a copy turns up at one of my used bookshop haunts.

#186: I appreciate that, Lucy!

Stasia, I will watch for it too. You put that in your BlackHole when I reviewed that a couple of years ago, so you've waited a long time for it.

Happiness is coming in and finding nudges. Thank you, Heather, Lucy, Tui, and Stasia!
Heather, I liked *Observations*; one thing is that I think that Bessy's charming voice changed as she loved her mistress more and more. Tui, I'd give a lot to hear you recite "Scots Wha Hae wWd" - maybe you could put it on YouTube??? I'm interested that we disagreed about Rose.
And you and Lucy are pretty nifty to be hunting a copy of *Shutter* for Stasia! This is a great place!

I forgot to say that I did score a copy of The Borgias by G.J. Meyer from ER. Woopee! Or *gulp* I see that it is over 500 pages long. Guess I'll be working on that awhile.

Delighted for your ER score of The Borgias, Peggy. It's a chunkster!

>187 alcottacre:. Stasia, I just received a copy of The Shutter of Snow last week from PBS so maybe you can also get one there. I believe you belong, don't you?

Hi Peggy, just nudging you along. I was positively smitten with Bessy's voice; totally charmed so the weak ending didn't bother me at all. I loved it.

I got The Borgias as well, Peggy. Let me know when you get it--maybe we can do a tandem read.

*nudge*

*nudge*

Congrats on getting an ER copy of The Borgias! I read the NetGalley ARC earlier this year and found out that a lot of the little I thought I knew about the family is probably wrong. It did take me quite a while to read it, so it's good that you're prepared for the length.

>189 LizzieD:: oh gosh, hope I didn't sound argumentative or stroppy there. It was just that you didn't think Rose's character worked because you didn't believe her...her what...can't remember your wording. I don't think the way she does about things but I didn't disbelieve her character. She was the lynch pin for everything holding together, with her self-control and ability to keep her thoughts to herself. She mostly allowed Henrietta to come to certain realisations by herself (with discreet nudges in the background to help Charles). She also knew that the younger Francis just wouldn't have worked for her whereas the older one was coming into himself by the end of the novel. A lot of Rose's character came through in what she didn't do, rather than what she did, if that makes any sense. She was extremely subtle and teetered on the edge of not working at times but I think, on the whole, that she did.

Just one more message to go before the automatic continue feature--aren't you excited?

Okay - I get to do the honors this time. I got to do it for Becky too!

I've been away for the day, having taken my ma to a doctor in a neighboring town. We had a good visit and a very nice lunch in an old house/restaurant, and I'm THRILLED to be able to start May's thread on the 2nd...............now I have to get busy and get some decorations up.
Thank you, Roni, Tui, Carrie, Helen, Esqrss, Nancy, and Bonnie!!! You're really friends, some of you multiple times!!!
Tui, you didn't sound argumentative or stroppy at all (gee, I hope I didn't). It's been just long enough for me to have forgotten what I objected to so strongly in Rose, and I certainly can't tell from that review. I do recall that she sort of spoiled the book for me - maybe I didn't get her subtlety at all: very possible. I'm certainly not going to go back to figure out why at this stage of my reading career - especially with Master of the Senate in hand and The Borgias coming up.
Roni, I'd love to read it with you when we get it! Carrie, I'm encouraged that you enjoyed it!
Bonnie, I know that Stasia does PBS, so I'll remind her to check it later... I just looked and no copy is available right this minute.