|
Posted on 01/02/2006 7:52:08 AM PST by Soaring Feather
|
Here's a classic poet whom I love!
"I Have Loved Hours at Sea"
by Sara Teasdale
I have loved hours at sea, gray cities,
The fragile secret of a flower,
Music, the making of a poem
That gave me heaven for an hour;
First stars above a snowy hill,
Voices of people kindly and wise,
And the great look of love, long hidden,
Found at last in meeting eyes.
I have loved much and been loved deeply --
Oh when my spirit's fire burns low,
Leave me the darkness and the stillness,
I shall be tired and glad to go.
Glad to hear you are gonna trash the rules..;)
Oh, please meet KnittingAConundrum.
This link is a wonderful place to find poetry.
http://www.emule.com/poetry/
I truly love this work!
Sonnet XLIII
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee ? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life !--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
The best way to understand word flow is to read poetry written by good poets, and see how they play with sounds and meaning and rhythm.
I recommend:
Alexander Pope (who could amazingly make couplets not sound trite, in part because of internal rhythm and use of both alliteration and assonance)
Robert Browning (just because. And don't miss Love Among the Ruins)
T.S. Elliot. You must read Old Possum's Book of Cats, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Ash Wednesday and the Hollow Men. He doesn't play a lot of rhyme games, but does nicely structured verse. Prufrock might be the best poem written in the pre-1960 20th Century.
Shel Silverstein, because of the way he plays with words. Get out of his children's stuff and read some of the songs he wrote, like the Cover of the Rolling Stone. You can get to them here: http://www.banned-width.com/
JRR Tolkien's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. A great working of alliterative verse.
And Shakespeare. And Yeats. And Allen Ginsberg, especially Kaddish. And Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach.
A poem for the day, because it's Friday.
The First Blow
The whip travels in a descending arc,
three thongs carrying weights of lead
double headed cargo
to increase the impact.
The hand that wields is
the rough and calloused hand
of a soldier doing a duty,
unknowing,
uncaring
of whose back it was in front of him.
Perhaps as he swings,
he thinks of all the looks of disdain,
the women who turn away,
the men who spit when he passes
and they think he does not see,
this strange people
with their strange hates
and strange language
and strange god,
and in retalliation,
he swings harder.
Yet his hand is not alone
on the braided leather of the handle,
his hand,
shadowed by every hand,
my hand,
my arm swinging the leather,
my sin adding to the agony
of that blow,
my darkness slapping against his skin,
causing him to gasp for breath
as it bites
my weakness the lead gouges digging.
Mea culpa,
mea culpa,
mea maxima culpa.
I had the worst sinus headache yesterday, but this morning, it hasn't started up. I'll go work at the library a few hours this morning (where I catalog stuff. It's a technical library and the articles are mostly science related, believe it or not.) and play it by ear.
WOW, this is powerful!
Thank You.
You must be feeling much better.
It's not new, but it's one of my favorite meditative poems.
Looking forward to hearing from you again. Thank You, for coming to the Lair.
Have a great day.
Glad you know Knitting.
Knitting, enjoy your day. Science is great.
Old Welsh triad:
Three things enrich the poet:
myth
creative power
and a store of ancient verse.
I would say for myth, it's the material people think is important about life, where they are, what motivates them.
You have to have creative ability if you are going to write.
The old verse teaches you so much about writing!
Cellblock Evolution
Patterns of light and dark shape the world about,
and the prisoner knows each, as if an old friend.
They are the external world to him, until the end,
and so he feels secure in their daily presence about.
Day is ‘lights on’ and the hours move in ordered flow,
until ‘lights out’, and night descends with a firm hand.
The cell and the hallway are his small world’s land,
known, trod into familiarity, and some unknown to go.
Routine is his life now, patterns set within the mind,
and to them, he is even more a prisoner, for life.
Such is the embryonic womb amid violent strife,
and here is a sort of wisdom only one like he will find.
Whoa. I was just in prison. Fantastic writing.
Very nice dragonfly. I hope someone didn't use it for fishing. ;)
"Whoa. I was just in prison."
OK, what were you doing there????
You put me there. LOL
Damn!
Mailed you some forms to look over. use them as ideas and see what you can work with them, but remember that poetry is your viewpoint and forms are just a thing to drape them on to see how they hang!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
