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Poetry by Numbers: National Poetry Month game

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DWill

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Re: Poetry by Numbers: National Poetry Month game

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I like "Numbers," and "For Once,Then, Something," is one of my favorite Frosts. I could find only song lyrics by Jack Frost. I think I've heard of him.

Number Eleven

Plane crash in the desert, everybody walked away
Suitcase open to the breeze, light lifting up pretty heavy
So we climbed out, looked around us
Your shirt stuck to your skin
Wreckage shimmered under sky, nothing on the horizon
I know you can keep me warm
Have you ever seen the evening, the way it opens up
Lie down under a wing, we breathed in everything
I know you can keep me warm
The stranger in me shuddered, your eyes were partly closed
My hand deep in the still white sand, the stars dropped down so near
And I hope they never find us, just to disappear
We left it all behind us, now you'll find us here
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Re: Poetry by Numbers: National Poetry Month game

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I like Jack Frost 'Number Eleven', a plane crash in the desert can be a romantic situation, if you crash with the right person. Makes me wonder why he called it 'Number Eleven'?

Poor old Eleven, sandwiched between much more important numbers, ten as the base of our number system and twelve an even dozen and the number of inches in a foot (only Americans care about that now). Does anyone choose 'Eleven' as a favourite number? Nobody I know.

But as Robert Frost demonstrates, Eleven is not forgotten ... hendecasyllabic verse celebrates Eleven ... below another example in Latin and then in English.

Cui dono lepidum novum libellum
arida modo pumice expolitum?
Corneli, tibi: namque tu solebas
meas esse aliquid putare nugas.
Iam tum, cum ausus es unus Italorum
omne aevum tribus explicare cartis...
Doctis, Iuppiter, et laboriosis!
Quare habe tibi quidquid hoc libelli—
qualecumque, quod, o patrona virgo,
plus uno maneat perenne saeclo!

To whom do I dedicate this charming slim volume,
just now polished with dry pumice stone?
For you Cornellius, for you were accustomed to think
that my scribblings were something.
When already at the same time, you alone
dared to unfold the whole age of Italians in three scrolls,
learned, by Jupiter, and weighty!
For that reason have for yourself whatever this little book is,
and whatever you like, oh patron maiden,
let it last a long time, for more than one generation!
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Re: Poetry by Numbers: National Poetry Month game

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I found three poems for twelve and have decide to play my game again of guess which poem my excerpt comes from. Can you guess? This is not too hard. I will give hints if needed. The other 2 twelves were a William Cowper (very nice) and a Thomas Hardy.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
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Re: Poetry by Numbers: National Poetry Month game

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This one's slightly spooky, which I think is appropriate because somehow Twelve is a spooky number (don't be scared - its only a poem!):

Twelve Tree Barrow

When the moths are flitting, and the fields are still,
'Ware the darkling shadows on the haunted hill,
'Ware the ghosts with axe and spear and flint-headed arrow,
Trooping thro' the summer night,
Trooping when the moon is bright
On the twelve Tree Barrow.

What remembrance of red streams, what furious fray,
Makes the grass grow rich and rank on the mound to-day?
You may see the dead men's bones turned by harrow,
Skulls and thighs of mighty men
Slain in bloody battle then
At the Twelve Tree Barrow.

Draw the curtain closer, bar your windows tight,
Set no foot on yonder hill, tread not there to-night.
Ill for him who dares the spear and flint-headed arrow,
When the warriors wake by night,
Trooping when the moon is white
On the Twelve Tree Barrow.

Cicely Fox Smith
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Re: Poetry by Numbers: National Poetry Month game

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giselle wrote:I like Jack Frost 'Number Eleven', a plane crash in the desert can be a romantic situation, if you crash with the right person. Makes me wonder why he called it 'Number Eleven'?
Speaking of Jack Frost, he's now on the home page of booktalk with an advertisement for a book he wrote called "Why did You Name Me That?" Is that a coincidence or is it because I clicked on his song? Is it on your page too?
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Re: Poetry by Numbers: National Poetry Month game

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Saffron wrote:I found three poems for twelve and have decide to play my game again of guess which poem my excerpt comes from. Can you guess? This is not too hard. I will give hints if needed. The other 2 twelves were a William Cowper (very nice) and a Thomas Hardy.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
Honestly, I thought it was "The Highwayman," but then I searched using the second line and found that it was "The Raid of Paul Revere."

I don't have a good twelve, and may have just become the first to post a rap song. But got to stay in the game.

Twenty twelve poem


Twenty twelve is within reach

I don’t wanna rave or manic street preach

But the new agers doom date is looming

And the Mayan end point is zooming.



Now they’re calling it Ascension

Breakthrough to the nth dimension

A mighty change – can you feel it?

If you gotta problem, just heal it.



Your body’s just a vehicle – not you!

Makes you think about what you do

Makes you wonder who you are

If your body’s just like a bike or a car.



If you read this stuff straight it stinks

If you’re stoned you’ll be making more links

If you’re totally outa your head

You won’t care if you’re alive or dead.

Can you hear the gurgling, feel the grime

2012 is getting closer, the plughole of time

There’s a pull, there’s a whirling confusion

A shattering of each long-held illusion.



The projection screen we call reality is tearing

It’s time to be earth-shattering, daring

Time to change, to risk, to let it all rip,

Give yourself what you want, that baby, that trip!



Get it while you can, my lovelies, you lot

They may all be right or even if not,

You’re going to die anyway, it’s all a game

Live out your dreams, that’s why you came.

Jan Maloney
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Re: Poetry by Numbers: National Poetry Month game

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DWill wrote:
giselle wrote:I like Jack Frost 'Number Eleven', a plane crash in the desert can be a romantic situation, if you crash with the right person. Makes me wonder why he called it 'Number Eleven'?
Speaking of Jack Frost, he's now on the home page of booktalk with an advertisement for a book he wrote called "Why did You Name Me That?" Is that a coincidence or is it because I clicked on his song? Is it on your page too?
Yes, it is on my page too. I wondered if it was the same Jack Frost. In fact, I noticed the advert a few days before you posted the song and wondered who the heck he was!
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Re: Poetry by Numbers: National Poetry Month game

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Saffron wrote:
DWill wrote:
giselle wrote:I like Jack Frost 'Number Eleven', a plane crash in the desert can be a romantic situation, if you crash with the right person. Makes me wonder why he called it 'Number Eleven'?
Speaking of Jack Frost, he's now on the home page of booktalk with an advertisement for a book he wrote called "Why did You Name Me That?" Is that a coincidence or is it because I clicked on his song? Is it on your page too?
Yes, it is on my page too. I wondered if it was the same Jack Frost. In fact, I noticed the advert a few days before you posted the song and wondered who the heck he was!
I had noticed the Jack Frost book on the BT home page as well and did a double take .. poked about a bit on Jack Frost --- I think this is coincidence only and that there are two Jack Frosts. One that grew up in alabama and writes short stories and other is a singer/songwriter who's songs seem far from Alabama ... found a few pictures of the latter JF, he does not look anything like how I would picture the former JF!
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Re: Poetry by Numbers: National Poetry Month game

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Well thanks for delving into this cosmic convergence. I have noticed, as I'm sure everyone has, how ads pop up now in parallel to any search I've recently done. I don't really like it.

For 13, I can think of only one, though it's a bugbear for me. It might as well be 52 ways, for all I understand it. "O thin men of Haddam," indeed! I've been to Haddam. It's a picturesque hamlet on the Connecticut river, perfectly lovely. The shop that made my bicycle is there, in fact. But I never noticed a particular thinness in its male inhabitants.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Wallace Stevens

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
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Re: Poetry by Numbers: National Poetry Month game

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Girl Scout Picnic, 1954

by June Robertson Beisch


The parade began and the Bryant Jr. High School band
marched through the streets of Minneapolis
wearing white shirts, blue trousers, playing John Philip Sousa

Lance, Jack, Sharon and myself on drums,
strapped to our knees so we could play,
arms akimbo, drumsticks held high,

drum rolls, paradiddles, rim shots, flams
while the trumpets groaned and the bystanders
cheered us on in the rain-drenched streets.

The Girl Scouts strutted ahead of us wearing
their green uniforms, berets and badges
waving the Girl Scout flag, and smiling,

We could do anything after this, we felt,
twirling our drumsticks between our fingers
Such joy seems unimaginable until I conjure it

Not even Wordsworth's memory of
a field of daffodils comes close to it
The picnic later at the Minnehaha Falls Park,

then walking home much later in the dark
still filled with the sounds of it.
To march at thirteen through the streets of Minneapolis

is to ride in triumph through Persepolis.
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