A Favorite Poem

DWill · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:44 pm Post subject:

I guess it should be against the rules for me to daisychain my own post, but I'll do it anyway. From "After Apple Picking":

The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

(This next poem is in the voice of the woodchuck.)

A DRUMLIN WOODCHUCK

One thing has a shelving bank,

Another a rotting plank,

To give it cozier skies

And make up for its lack of size.

My own strategic retreat

Is where two rocks almost meet,

And still more secure and snug,

A two-door burrow I dug.

With those in mind at my back

I can sit forth exposed to attack

As one who shrewdly pretends

That he and the world are friends.

All we who prefer to live

Have a little whistle we give,

And flash, at the least alarm

We dive down under the farm

We allow some time for guile

And don't come out for a while

Either to eat or drink.
We take occasion to think.

And if after the hunt goes past

And the double-barreled blast

(Like war and pestilence

And the loss of common sense),

If I can with confidence say

That still for another day,

Or even another year,

I will be there for you, my dear,

It will be because, though small

As measured against the All,

I have been so instinctively thorough

About my crevice and burrow.

---Robert Frost

Saffron · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 9:13 pm Post subject:

DWill, I think this little DRUMLIN WOODCHUCK is going to be a difficult little fellow to follow.

Saffron · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 9:20 pm Post subject:

The Milestone by the Rabbit-Burrow

(On Yell’Ham Hill)

In my loamy nook
As I dig my hole
I observe men look
At a stone, and sigh
As they pass it by
To some far goal.

Something it says
To their glancing eyes
That must distress
The frail and lame,
And the strong of frame
Gladden or surprise.

Do signs on its face
Declare how far
Feet have to trace
Before they gain
Some blest champaign
Where no gins are?

–By Thomas Hardy

Who will be next and what poem will you post?

WildCityWoman · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject:

Great thread!

I like what you did with this, Will.

DWill · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 8:02 am Post subject:

Thanks, Carly. And great follow, Saffron. How did you find this? Thomas Hardy as I recall gave up his novels to concentrate on poetry. I like the typical mood of his poems, wistful, maybe a little gloomy, not surprised by anything. But, as you say, the task is for somebody to spin another from your rabbit-burrow poem. Good luck!

Saffron · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 8:06 am Post subject:

Rose Kolarich · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 10:27 am Post subject:

What are the rules of this game? Do the poems have to be linked by an association of exact words, or can I take off with ideas as well? All I can think of, though it’s a bit far-fetched, is the idea of talking stones

(“At a stone, and sigh
As they pass it by
To some far goal.

Something it says”)

which reminds me of William Blake’s poem “The Clod & the Pebble”

‘Love seeketh not Itself to please,
‘Nor for itself hath any care;
‘But for another gives its ease,
‘And builds a heaven in Hell's despair.’

So sang a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet :
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet :

‘Love seeketh only Self to please,
‘To bind another to its delight ;
‘Joys in another's loss of ease,
‘And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.’

Let me know if I'm off-track!

Saffron · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 10:34 am Post subject:

Very nice! You've got the idea, Rose. So, I wonder, were to next? Anyone?

DWill · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 1:06 pm Post subject:

Hey, that's very good, Rose. The rules are not very rigid here. Our panel of judges tries allow for creativity since this is, after all, a poetry thing. It's perfectly good to link up themes or feelings as well as subjects and phrases. I would say it's even okay to link by opposites, which could be interesting. I always liked that Blake poem. It seems to have both innocence and experience within it.
DWill

DWill · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 1:07 pm Post subject:

Hey, that's very good, Rose. The rules are not very rigid here. Our panel of judges tries allow for creativity since this is, after all, a poetry thing. It's perfectly good to link up themes or feelings as well as subjects and phrases. I would say it's even okay to link by opposites, which could be interesting. I always liked that Blake poem. It seems to have both innocence and experience within it.
DWill

Rose Kolarich · Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 2:01 am Post subject:

GentleReader9 · Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 6:42 pm Post subject:

Here is a poem by June Jordan which starts with a topaz (stone as well as color) city that sings, then moves into a nocturnal reverie in which love (?) attraction (?) is an unexplored, secret possibility, perhaps offered, but primarily felt by the one who loves and tries not to want too openly to be loved back. (?) She will never tell us if I'm right about her meaning.

Toward a City That Sings

Into the topaz the crystalline signals
of Manhattan
the nightplane lowers my body
scintillate with longing to lie positive
beside
the electric waters of your flesh
and
I will never tell you the meaning of this poem:
Just say, "She wrote it and I recognize
the reference." Please
let it go at that. Although
it is all the willingness you lend
the world
as when you picked it up
the garbage scattering the cool
formalities of Madison Avenue
after midnight (where we walked
for miles as though we knew the woods
well enough to ignore the darkness)
although it is all the willingness you lend
the world
that makes me want
to clean up everything
in sight
(myself included)

for your possible discovery

--June Jordan
from a 1980 book called Passion which was "dedicated to Everbody scared as I used to be."

Saffron · Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 8:37 am Post subject:

Ok, here's my link in the chain and an extra loop, just for fun.

This is from Riding the A by May Swenson. I don't know that the A train of this poem is Manhattan subway train, but when I hear A train I always think NYC and the poem also has a bit of lust in it.

Wheels
and rails
in their prime
collide,
make love in a glide
of slickness
and friction.
It is an elation
I wish to pro-
long.
The station is reached
too soon.

And here is my loop. If I'd respond to Rose's posting of The Clod & the Pebble I would have picked up the last line with the following quote from Hilda Doolittle.

"Sing and your hell is heaven. Your heaven less hell."

I am glad I waited, nice post GentleReader!

Saffron · Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 12:54 pm Post subject: Emily Dickinson

Besides the autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the haze.

A few incisive mornings,
A few ascetic eves,--
Gone Mr. Bryant's goldenrod,
And Mr. Thomson's sheaves.

Still is the bustle in the brook,
Sealed are the spicy valves;
Mesmeric fingers softly touch
The eyes of many elves.

Perhaps a squirrel may remain,
My sentiments to share.
Grant me, O Lord, a sunny mind,
Thy windy will to bear!

DWill · Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 1:22 pm Post subject:

Getting that old winter is a-comin' in feeling from the last posted by Saffron. Think I will prolong the Autumn feeling with a repeat of stanza 3 from Keats' wonderful "To Autumn" , previously shown by Saffron. (Like hit tunes, poems should be replayed.)
TO AUTUMN

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.


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