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Birds and poetry (3 Viewers)

Adey Baker said:


I must say, im a big fan of Walt Whitman. Ever seen the film "Dead Poets Society" with Robin Williams as an English teacher, in, i think, 50's America? Wonderful film.

I know i must be careful not to stray to far from thread theme, but heres a favourite Walt Whitman of mine:

O Me! O Life! - Walt Whitman

O Me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the
foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I,
and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the
struggle ever renew'd,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see
around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me
intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring-What good amid these, O me,
O life?
Answer.
That you are here-that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

How about that for a final verse? Such power, i love it. I considered having this as my BF signature, but thought the one i chose to be more apt.

tracker
 
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I must admit to not being an expert on poetry but being very keen on classical music I've noticed a number of composers using Whitman's work.

Delius set 'Sea Drift' to music and Vaughan Williams used his words in 'Towards the Unknown Region' and his Symphony No. 1, 'A Sea Symphony' - 'Behold! The sea itself...'
 
Your right Steve. I also think he could be very controversial too.
Did he ever include birds in his work? (Quick shift to retrieve bird theme in poetry......... LOL.... ;) )

tracker
 
I know what you mean, Steve - he does put in a few 'O's and 'beholds', etc. but even a non-expert like me can appreciate that he's writing from the heart.

Tastes change, as well, don't they - so what's new and exciting at one time can seem a bit out of fashion at another time.
 
I suppose he also reflected in quite a large way, the troubles facing his country, during their civil war. (America, that is)

tracker
 
Ive just found this one by Walt Whitman where he mentions birds:

Wood Odors

Morning after a night-rain
The fresh-cool summer-scent
Odors of pine and oak
The shade.

Wandering the negligent paths
-the soothing silence,
The stillness and the veiled
The myriad living columns of the temple
The holy Sabbath morning

Incense and songs of birds
in deep recesses
But most the delicate
smells fitting the soul

The sky aloft, seen through
the tree-tops
All the young growth &
green maturity of May

White laurel-blossoms within reach
wood-pinks below-overhead stately tulip-
trees with yellow cup-shaped
flowers.

The meow
meo-o-ow of the cat-bird,
cluck of robin,gurgle
of thrush delicious

Over and under these,
in the silence,delicate wood-odors
Birds flitting through the trees

tracker
 
tracker said:
I must say, im a big fan of Walt Whitman. Ever seen the film "Dead Poets Society" with Robin Williams as an English teacher...
One reasons from many that I left profit-at-any-cost industry and became an English teacher, Tom. What a great film that is - even if a bit fanciful in some ways.
 
tracker said:
Did he ever include birds in his work? (Quick shift to retrieve bird theme in poetry......... LOL.... ;) )

tracker
Yes - as any American will tell you, I should think - in arguably his second most famous poem, 'The Dalliance of Eagles'.

THE DALLIANCE OF THE EAGLES
Walt Whitman

Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)
Skyward in the air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing.




[1880]
 

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tracker said:
Your right Steve. I also think he could be very controversial too.
Did he ever include birds in his work? (Quick shift to retrieve bird theme in poetry......... LOL.... ;) )

tracker
Another of Walt's is "To the Man-of-War-Bird" - which I think is another name for the firgate. I'm not a huge Whitman fan, but I find this quite evocative :

THOU who hast slept all night upon the storm,
Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions,
(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st,
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)
Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating,
As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee,
(Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast.)

Far, far at sea,
After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shores with wrecks,
With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene, 10
The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun,
The limpid spread of air cerulean,
Thou also re-appearest.

Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)
To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,
Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails,
Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating,
At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America,
That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,
In them, in thy experience, had'st thou my soul, 20
What joys! what joys were thine!

Walt Whitman
 
tracker said:
I hope its not a cheat on the thread?............. :eek!: ;)

Maybe we could do a 'BF Poets Corner', whereby members could attempt to write a piece of poetry, relating to birding or other wildlife?

tracker
Well I didn't start the thread - but I certainly found it a welcome addition; however much as I enjoy reading poetry, I've never been tempted to try writing it myself .... and you'd certinaly be a hard act to follow now !!!

Annie
 
scampo said:
Whilst we are on Auden, can I be forgiven for posting a rather long poem with but a fleeting reference to birds? It's deceptively simple, but look at these wonderful lines:

"‘O look, look in the mirror?

O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless..."
Thanks for posting this - it was one I'd read years ago and forgotten about. You're right about the lines you quote above - wonderful !!

Here's another of Auden's, which I love, that has a passing reference to birds :

Seascape
Look, stranger, at this island now

The leaping light for your delight discovers,
Stand stable here
And silent be,
That through the channels of the ear
May wander like a river
The swaying sound of the sea.

Here at the small field's ending pause
Where the chalk wall falls to the foam, and its tall ledges
Oppose the pluck
And knock of the tide,
And the shingle scrambles after the sucking surf,
and the gull lodges
A moment on its sheer side.

Far off like floating seeds the ships
Diverge on urgent voluntary errands;
And the full view
Indeed may enter
And move in memory as now these clouds do,
That pass the harbour mirror
And all the summer through the water saunter.

WH Auden
 
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AnnieW said:
Well I didn't start the thread - but I certainly found it a welcome addition; however much as I enjoy reading poetry, I've never been tempted to try writing it myself .... and you'd certinaly be a hard act to follow now !!!

Annie

Your kind words are appreciated, thanks Annie. Although i do believe there is a poem lying inside each one of us!

Theres been plenty of inspiration from everyones posts here. Its been a great thread.......... :t:

tracker
 
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Well Annie and Tom - it's been wonderful reading these poems. What a good idea this has been.

I hope I haven't already posted it, but here is one from my favourite poet, Philip Larkin - poignant and wistful: I do like my poems that way!

By the way - what wonderful ways he has with words:

"Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses..."

"fresh-peeled voice"

"childhood... is a forgoten boredom"

Coming


On longer evenings,
Light, still and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses.
A thrush sings,
Laurel-surrounded
In the deep bare garden,
Its fresh-peeled voice
Astonishing the brickwork.

It will be spring soon,
It will be spring soon -
And I, whose childhood
Is a forgotten boredom,
Feel like a child
Who comes on a scene
Of adult reconciling,
And can understand nothing
But the unusual laughter,
And starts to be happy.

Philip Larkin
 
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I enjoyed that last one, scampo. Thanks

Poetry can certainly nurture and feed our deepest needs, very much like an essential oil, only this oil for our emotions.

tracker
 
Thankyou all so much for contributing to this thread.I didn't dream it would receive this many replies,all I expected were a few poem titles which included birds.So as I started the thread with an extract from one of Norman Nicholsons poems,here is another of his shorter ones.
The Cocks Nest
The spring my father died-it was winter,really,
February fill-grave,but March was in
Before we felt the bruise of it and knew
How empty the rooms were-that spring
A wren flew over to our yard,over Walter Willson's(the local grocers shop)
Warehouse roof and the girls schoo;playground
From the old allotments that are no more than a compost
For raising dockens and cats.It has found a niche
Tucked behind the pipe of the bathroom outflow,
Caged in a wickerwork of creeper; then
Began to build:
Three times a minute,hour after hour,
Backward and forward to the backyard wall,
Nipping offneb-fulls of the soot-spored moss
Rooted between the bricks.In a few days
The nest was finished.They say the cock
Leases an option of sites and then leaves the hen
To choose which nest she will.She didn't choose our yard.
And as March gambolled out,the fat King Alfred sun
Blared down too early from it's tinny trumpet
On new potato-beds,the still bare creeper,
The cocks nest with never an egg in,
And my father dead.
Norman Nicholson

Most of Norman Nicholson's work is very dark,due to the environment in which he was raised.This poem is no exception.
Again thankyou for all the contributions,they have all been printed and filed away in a folder.I cannot go back to mention them all,2 which stand out,Charles's The Dodo,and Tracker your poem "Wood Odours",spelt the English way,one can just imagine walking through a wood on an early summer morning.Early,not late summmer.Certainly invokes a whole host of memories.

Again,a huge thankyou to everyone.
 
scampo said:
I hope I haven't already posted it, but here is one from my favourite poet, Philip Larkin - poignant and wistful: I do like my poems that way!
One of my favourite by Larkin is deceptively simple in its language; I love the line "Their greenness is a kind of grief" and its a poem that comes to mind each spring :

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin


I can't think of anything bird related by Larkin .... but I'll have a root through a couple of books !!!


 
christineredgat said:
Thankyou all so much for contributing to this thread.I didn't dream it would receive this many replies,all I expected were a few poem titles which included birds.
Well thankyou for starting it off ..... I've really enjoyed reading things that I haven't read in a long time and finding some completely new !! I love the Norman Nicholson - and have printed them off. I've also appreciated having Steve's knowledagble insight into the peoms and poets !!!

Looking forward to reading some more

Annie
 
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