Poetry?

Penelope · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 4:17 am Post subject:

I consider most of the people on this forum as 'friends' Saffron.

We talk about some very contentious issues.....and get to know one another without appearances getting in the way too much.

I have been thinking.....don't we love people for the oddest reasons?....It is not about being 'nice' or 'good' or cheerful or optimistic is it?

We used to have a grimly cheerful woman come into our office every morning.....beeming smile.....'Good Morning Ladies!!!' Some of us wanted to stab her and others wanted to poison her coffee!!! Laughing

Saffron · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 8:48 pm Post subject: Li-Young Lee reading aloud

I hope this works!

http://media.wwnorton.com/trade/nortonpoets/Lee_To-Hold.m4a

The link above is to an audio of Li-Young Lee reading his poem Hold. I posted an excerpt of this poem earlier in the thread. His voice and the tempo of his reading make the poem even more beautiful.

Saffron · Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 12:46 pm Post subject: From Blossoms

The poetry of Li-Young Lee is new to me. I can hardly believe I've not come across him before last Sunday, in the Book World section. Here is one more.

From blossoms

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

DWill · Freshman Joined: 31 Jan 2008 Posts: 243 Gender:

Pity poor me, with my slow connection. I can't see the video, but thanks for the poem.
Will

Saffron · Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 11:20 pm Post subject:

ralphinlaos · Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 3:00 am Post subject:

I feel for you, DWill; I have the same problem. My computer is so slow. I have a dial-up modem which people say is rather antiquated, but it's all that is available here. Sometimes it takes me a half-hour to get on this site and then long minutes to go from thread to thread. I pay US$20 per month for unlimited use of the internet - is that about the norm?

I can't get on YouTube at all.

When you live in a country with only one choice for an internet server, you take what you can get - or go without. It's the same here with cable TV; only one provider, so again, take it or leave it.

Ralph

Saffron · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 8:40 am Post subject: Henry David Thoreau

From Walden:

The one who came from farthest to my lodge, through deepest snows and most dismal tempests, was a poet. A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings? His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep.

--Henry David Thoreau

Saffron · Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 9:29 pm Post subject:

Poets.org is a great website. I found a whole page of poems that have flowers in them. Here are the first 3 stanzas of To Earthward by Robert Frost. If you want the rest or more poems with flowers go to:

More Frost
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15731

Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of--was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Downhill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.

More flowers:
http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/491?utm_source=poetsupdate_050808& utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=content&utm_content=flowerpoems

Saffron · Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 9:21 am Post subject:

Here's a poem I'd written in a card I'd sent to a friend in 1997 and this morning she sent it back to me in an email.

Poetry (A Perspective on Life)

it sustains me, carries me into the morrow
And the next and the next
it floats me gently on an old inner tube on a hot July Afternoon
Cool & Shady
Trees dip their branches in for relief
like my own toes dragging in the water
leaving a long ripple that follows me
a wake, my imprint momentary
And gone like the water it is written on.

ralphinlaos · Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 1:13 pm Post subject:

Nice imagery, Saffron. Lovely poem which does exactly what it is meant to do - evoke memories and emotions in the reader.

Here's one of my favorites -

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don't mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don't sing
all the time

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn't half bad
if it isn't you

Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
on your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen

and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing loves songs and having inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
"living it up"
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician

THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Now I have to see if I can find Shakespeare's "Seven Stages of Man;" I haven't read that in a long time.

Where's DWill? Studying or walking in the woods?

Ralph


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