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Birds and poetry (2 Viewers)

Colin, that is a fascinating project being undertaken by Patrick Roper. Many thanks for providing the link to the weblog – I found it utterly absorbing. I also liked the Flecker poem. It’s a nice idea - just hope there is a poet around in a thousand years’ time who will understand!

Andrew
 
Glad you enjoyed Patrick Roper, Christine & Andrew.


Spring is in the air here today:-

Slow Spring

O year, grow slowly. Exquisite, holy,
The days go on
With almonds showing the pink stars blowing
And birds in the dawn.

Grow slowly, year, like a child that is dear,
Or a lamb that is mild,
By little steps, and by little skips,
Like a lamb or a child.

Katharine Tynan

________________________________

Colin
 
Lovely poem by Katharine Tynan, Colin. I like her words.
"O year, grow slowly" I wish it would from now on. Spring is my favourite time but seems to pass too quickly!
Thanks also for the link to Patrick Roper's most interesting blog. Also for the poem by Flecker; it's unusual and very moving.

Thanks for the Bard's "Winter", Andrew, well worth reading again!
Nice Shelley too.

I agree with you, Steve about the first two lines of Romeo and Juliet
ActII; Sc1. Marvellous!

I came across this which we don't seem to have had before:


A Blackbird Singing


It seems wrong that out of this bird,
Black, bold, a suggestion of dark
Places about it, there yet should come
Such rich music, as though the notes'
Ore were changed to a rare metal
At one touch of that bright bill.

You have heard it often, alone at your desk
In a green April, your mind drawn
Away from its work by sweet disturbance
Of the mild evening outside your room.

A slow singer, but loading each phrase
With history's overtones, love, joy
And grief learned by his dark tribe
In other orchards and passed on
Instinctively as they are now,
But fresh always with new tears.

R.S. Thomas




Nerine

(sorry Andrew.);)
 
A fine poem from R S Thomas, Nerine - he certainly did write some thought provoking and lyrical verse. I usually find myself enjoying all I read of his and I'm surprised he's not more popular. Perhaps his directness and sometimes bitterness hasn't made him too many friends?


The Welsh Hill Country

Too far for you to see
The fluke and the foot-rot and the fat maggot
Gnawing the skin from the small bones.
The sheep are grazing at Bwlch-y-Fedwen,
Arranged romantically in the usual manner
On a bleak background of bald stone.

Too far for you to see
The moss and the mould on the cold chimneys
The nettles growing through the cracked doors.
The houses stand empty at Nant-yr-Eira,
There are holes in the roof that are thatched with sunlight,
And the fields are reverting to the bare moor.

Too far, too far to see
The set of his eyes and the slow pthisis
Wasting his frame under the ripped coat.
There’s a man still farming at Ty’n-y-Fawnry,
Contributing grimly to the accepted pattern,
The embryo music dead in his throat.

R S Thomas
 
Here's a rather nice poem from a modern American poet! I forget his name... (-;


Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbour
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Billy Collins

I found this on a fascinating "blog" on poetry that I think you'll agree is well worth some investigation: http://poemsandprose.blog.co.uk/2008/03/
 
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In working my way through that wonderful "blog", I came across this truly beautiful but very sad poem. The poet was inspired by a news article about a couple found dead in Ireland during the 1847 famine.


Quarantine

In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking - they were both walking - north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and a woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.

Eavan Bolando
 
Nerine, I actually enjoyed ‘A Blackbird Singing’ by R S Thomas, thank you – though the second verse would be perfect with the deletion of the word ‘sweet’!! My bird hasn’t started up yet though I’ll swear I heard him clearing his throat a few days ago! :-C

Andrew
 
Steve, ‘Quarantine’ is an excellent poem by Eavan Boland (don’t know where the editors of poemsandprose.blog found the final ‘o’ to make it Bolando, but it's surplus to requirements!). It is hard to imagine the scale of the human tragedy resulting from the famine in Ireland in the 1840s – in the space of four years, at least a million people died, a further million emigrated, and countless more had their lives disrupted or wrecked – in total about a third of the population was directly affected. Seamus Heaney captures the ghastliness of the situation well in the third section of this poem:


AT A POTATO DIGGING

I
A mechanical digger wrecks the drill,
Spins up a dark shower of roots and mould.
Labourers swarm in behind, stoop to fill
Wicker creels. Fingers go dead in the cold.

Like crows attacking crow-black fields, they stretch
A higgledy line from hedge to headland;
Some pairs keep breaking ragged ranks to fetch
A full creel to the pit and straighten, stand

Tall for a moment but soon stumble back
To fish a new load from the crumbled surf.
Heads bow, trunks bend, hands fumble towards the black
Mother. Processional stooping through the turf

Recurs mindlessly as autumn. Centuries
Of fear and homage to the famine god
Toughen the muscles behind their humbled knees,
Make a seasonal altar of the sod.

II
Flint-white, purple. They lie scattered
like inflated pebbles. Native
to the black hutch of clay
where the halved seed shot and clotted
these knobbed and slit-eyed tubers seem
the petrified hearts of drills. Split
by the spade, they show white as cream.

Good smells exude from crumbled earth.
The rough bark of humus erupts
knots of potatoes (a clean birth)
whose solid feel, whose wet inside
promises taste of ground and root.
To be piled in pits; live skulls, blind-eyed.

III
Live skulls, blind-eyed, balanced on
wild higgledy skeletons
scoured the land in "forty-five,"
wolfed the blighted root and died.

The new potato, sound as stone,
putrefied when it had lain
three days in the long clay pit.
Millions rotted along with it.

Mouths tightened in, eyes died hard,
faces chilled to a plucked bird.
In a million wicker huts
beaks of famine snipped at guts.

A people hungering from birth,
grubbing, like plants, in the bitch earth,
were grafted with a great sorrow.
Hope rotted like a marrow.

Stinking potatoes fouled the land,
pits turned pus into filthy mounds:
and where the potato diggers are
you still smell the running sore.

IV
Under a gay flotilla of gulls
The rhythm deadens, the workers stop.
Brown bread and tea in bright canfuls
Are served for lunch. Dead-beat, they flop

Down in the ditch and take their fill,
Thankfully breaking timeless fasts;
Then, stretched on the faithless ground, spill
Libations of cold tea, scatter crusts.

Seamus Heaney


Andrew
 
Andrew,
In honesty Seamus Heaney is not one of my favourite poets but this poem is quite amazing and really does say it, like sadly it must have been?
It's good to read the 'as always' great poems on this thread.
regards to you all
Merlin
 
Best wishes Merlin-hope you are well.

What a fantastic poem from Heaney Andrew.He is so brilliant at evoking images. You can smell the very soil in that poem.

I recommend "Famine" by Liam O'Flaherty for a portayal of how things really were for people in Ireland in the 1840s.
 
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Merlin and Colin, I agree with your comments on the Heaney poem. I think it is tremendous – like so much of his work it seems to imprint itself on the mind after only a couple of readings.

Thanks for the recommendation of the Liam O’Flaherty book, Colin. I will look out for it.

Here is a poem by Brian Patten that deals with blight of a different kind.


The Newcomer

'There's something new in the river,'
The fish said as it swam.
'It's got no scales, no fins and no gills,
And ignores the impassable dam.'

'There's something new in the trees.'
I heard a bloated thrush sing.
'It's got no beak, no claws, and no feathers,
And not even the ghost of a wing.'

'There's something new in the warren,'
Said the rabbit to the doe.
'It's got no fur, no eyes and no paws,
Yet digs further than we dare go.'

'There's something new in the whiteness,'
Said the snow-bright polar bear.
'I saw its shadow on a glacier,
But it left no pawmarks there.'

Through the animal kingdom
The news was spreading fast.
No beak, no claws, no feather,
No scales, no fur, no gills,
It lives in the trees and the water,
In the soil and the snow and the hills,
And it kills and it kills and it kills.

Brian Patten


Andrew
 
Andrew,
I went to see Brian Patten last year and was very impressed by him and his poetry.
He has a natural ability when talking to people which is mirrored in his poetry. If he comes near you, I recommend anyone to go and hear him.

Just leaving now (Thursday) to go to Africa for a few weeks hopefully to see some amazing birds ( I know that all birds are amazing, some just slightly more than others)

kind regards
Merlin
 
Interesting reading re the Irish poems,esp re the potato famine.My father's ancestors came to this country due to the problems,as did many other Irish people.The poems shown,really do portray the hardships endured by these people.
 
Not sure if this is buried up thread or not but lovely poem by American Indian with similar theme to one above:

Eagle Poem

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can't see, can't hear
Can't know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren't always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circles in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon, within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.


~ Joy Harjo ~
 
you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.

Deborah, thank you for a beautiful poem by Joy Harjo, a poet unknown to me. I enjoyed it very much.

Andrew, I’m glad you liked R S Thomas's “A Blackbird Singing”.
Your Seamus Heaney poem about the potato famine is absolutely brilliant, many thanks for that one and also for Brian Patten.

….and Steve, Eavan Boland’s “Quarantine” is so very sad, a wonderful poem.
I also liked "The Welsh Hill Country" by R S Thomas, written so honestly, a moving poem.

Another one by Brian Patten:

The Bee's Last Journey

The Bee's Last Journey to the Rose
I came first through the warm grass
Humming with Spring,
And now swim through the evening's
Soft sunlight gone cold.
I'm old in this green ocean;
Going a final time to the rose.
North wind, until I reach it
Keep your icy breath away
That changes pollen into dust.
Let me be drunk on this scent a final time,
Then blow if you must.

Brian Patten

Nerine
 
Patten was introduced to me many years back by a late friend and I was amazed then that I had somehoiw missed him along the way even though I knew of the Liverpool poets - or thought I did. Some of his poems are astonishingly good and can be very moving. Here are a couple that I like - no birds though but the poems themselves fly, no... they soar:

A few questions about Romeo

And what if Romeo,
lying in that chapel in Verona,
miserable and spotty, at odds with everything,
what if he'd had a revelation from which
Juliet was absent?
What if, just before darkness settled
the arguments between most things,
through a gap in the walls he'd seen
a garden exploding,
and the pink shadow of blossom
shivering on stones?
What if,
unromantic as it seems,
her mouth, eyes, cheeks and breasts suddenly became
ornaments on a frame
common as any girl's?

Could he still have drunk that potion had he known
without her the world still glowed
and love was not confined
in one shape alone?

From the prison the weary imagine
all living things inhabit
how could either
not have wished to escape?
Poor Romeo, poor Juliet, poor human race


Sleep now
In Memory of Wilfred Owen

Sleep now,
Your blood moving in the quiet wind;
No longer afraid of the rabbits
Hurrying through the tall grass
Or the faces laughing from
The beach and among cold trees.

Sleep now,
Alone in the sleeves of grief,
Listening to clothes falling
And your flesh touching God;
To the chatter and backslapping
Of Christ meeting heroes of war.

Sleep now,
Your words have passed
The lights shining from the East
And the sound of flak
Raping graves and emptying seasons.

You do not hear the dry wind pray
Or the children play a game called soldiers
In the street.

Brian Patten
 
Deborah, a nice poem by Joy Harjo. Thanks for posting it.

Nerine and Steve, good poems from the excellent Brian Patten.

Talking of the Liverpool poets, here is one I like from Roger McGough:-

You and I

I explain quietly. You
hear me shouting. You
try a new tack. I
feel old wounds reopen.

You see both sides. I
see your blinkers. I
am placatory. You
sense a new selfishness.

I am a dove. You
recognize the hawk. You
offer an olive branch. I
feel the thorns.

You bleed. I
see crocodile tears. I
withdraw. You
reel from the impact.

Roger McGough


And a topical poem from the inimitable ED:


AN AWFUL TEMPEST MASHED THE AIR

An awful tempest mashed the air,
The clouds were gaunt and few;
A black, as of a spectre's cloak,
Hid heaven and earth from view.

The creatures chuckled on the roofs
And whistled in the air,
And shook their fists and gnashed their teeth,
And swung their frenzied hair.

The morning lit, the birds arose;
The monster's faded eyes
Turned slowly to his native coast,
And peace was Paradise!

Emily Dickinson



Merlin, hope you have a great time in Africa.


Andrew
 
Nice to see Roger McGough here. I've always liked his poems but often think that he sometimes doesn't quite make it somehow. I might have posted the following poems before but, well, they're surely worthwhile!


Defying Gravity

Gravity is one of the oldest tricks in the book.
Let go of the book and it abseils to the ground As if, at the centre of the earth, spins a giant yo-yo To which everything is attached by an invisible string.

Tear out a page of the book and make an aeroplane.
Launch it. For an instant it seems that you have fashioned
A shape that can outwit air, that has slipped the knot. But no. The earth turns, the winch tightens, it is wound in.

One of my closest friends is, at the time of writing,
Attempting to defy gravity, and will surely succeed.
Eighteen months ago he was playing rugby, Now, seven stones lighter, his wife carries him aw-

Kwardly from room to room. Arranges him gently
Upon the sofa for the visitors. ‘How are things?’
Asks one, not wanting to know. Pause. ‘Not too bad.’
(Open brackets. Condition inoperable. Close brackets.)

Soon now, the man that I love (not the armful of bones)
Will defy gravity. Freeing himself from the tackle He will sidestep the opposition and streak down the wing
Towards a dimension as yet unimagined.
Back where the strings are attached there will be a service
And homage paid to the giant yo-yo. A box of left-overs
Will be lowered into a space on loan from the clay. Then, weighted down, the living will walk wearily away.

Roger McGough


And here's a little beauty:

The Bright Side

Things are so bad
I am reduced to scraping
The outside of the barrel.

And yet, I do not despair.
In the yard there are many
Worse off than myself. (Well, four:

A one-eyed rat
A three-legged cat
A corpse and the lavatory door.)

Roger McGough
 
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