I think he should have stopped at the first stanza.....

I have to agree with you frog. Have you tried reading it from the end back to the beginning? It's just as awful!!

giselle wrote: Going back to the HYAM PLUTZIK poem, I found the following quote from Wiki:

"British poets Ted Hughes and Thom Gunn included some of his poems in their 1963 anthology Five American Poets. Hughes wrote that “Hyam Plutzik’s poems have haunted me for twenty-five years” with their “point-blank, wholehearted simplicity of voice. … The best of his work seems to me marvelously achieved, a sacred book.”

To me this is a poem about war or the effects of war on people. The trenches, the whiff of musk over the fields, the hope of a morning star. Wiki also mentioned that Plutzik was of Russian Jewish family and served in the US army during WWII. I have heard that those who fought in the trenches never forgot the smell.

Yes, this makes sense. I really liked this poem. If this one is any indication, I can see how the poetry of Plutzik could haunt someone.

realiz wrote:cummings is great, but, I don't think this is one of his best. This one almost has a Dr Suess feel to it, or maybe I have children's poems on my mind because of An Animal Alphabet, which I thought was particularly bad, though I am sure with good illustration and an enthusiastic reading could be enjoyed by young children, but on its own, I am at a loss at why it was included.

The Hugh MacDiarmid one, I'm not sure about. I'll have to read the A E Houseman poem and then go back and have a second look.

I wanted to comment on both of these poems. Frist, the Cummings. It is one of my favorite poems. I think the turned around sentences, that in an odd way manage to make sense in our minds as we read the poem, captures the complex and often contradictory nature of a town, i.e. the same quality can have both a positive and a negative aspect.

As for the MacDiarmid: I buy the sentiment, but is the poem successful? I'm not so sure.

giselle wrote: Regarding An Animal Alphabet I must say that on first blush it reads like a children's poem but I sometimes wonder what the poet is saying behind the words (if anything). To me, An Animal Alphabet reads like a teasing description of a small town or village with its local characters who may behave, for example, like:

"The Bountiful Beetle,
who always carried a Green Umbrella when it didn't rain,
and left it at home when it did.

Reading the poem I see a whole village of people fitting the descriptions of these various animals and all their various foibles. Maybe this poem is like Alice in Wonderland, a kids story on the surface, but deeper meanings that interest adults below the surface. Or maybe its a kids poem and there are no other meanings.

Reading this poem didn't do much for me, but I really like the idea you suggest as a portrait of a village.

Penelope wrote:Sorry about the ear-worm....here's another one:-

It goes to the tune of 'Gentle Gifts' - I think that is an Amish song:

Now, I'm not a Christian, but this one melds with the pagan so beautifully:

I danced in the morning when the world was young
I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun
I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth......

This tune reminds me of the Irish Stage Musical - 'River Dance'.

Penny, this is a traditional Irish song and it was in River Dance. And I would guess that it does have pagan roots.

realiz wrote:I found this poem flowed a little easier reading here without the staggered lines, though it might lose something of the feeling of things not quite lining up anymore in those aging years of life. I love the picture of this very old man suddenly having a moment of physical clarity as he performs a movement that his muscles have long forgotten. I love the reaction of 'my mother'. Bravo.

This poem made me smile. It was my surprise in the "Bravo" by the invalid mother that brought the smile, nice touch by old William Carlos Williams. I have always liked his poetry. Often they are like little quick sketches of life. Question for you, realiz, what made you think the dancer was old?

Penelope wrote:Oh Saffron, Welcome Back!!

As I came in by Fiddich-side,

Way fun to read this poem, more fun than the subject would warrant.

Saffron wrote:

Question for you, realiz, what made you think the dancer was old?

I thought it was an old man too, so I went back to re-read. I think it is the way they are sitting together,the two people, and one in the kitchen (making a cup of tea?) he was in a soiled vest, so they are comfortable with one another in the way that, I feel, people of the same generation would be. Also, his mother was 'surprised' by the perfect pirouette. How clever to conjur up such an image. Like a photograph, a little snapshot in time. I'm going to look up more of this man's poetry now, since Saffron says many of his are like this.

Thankyou.

Penelope wrote:As Much as You Can
by CP Cavafy

I do like it....and its sentiments. And I'm sure DWill agrees with this philosophy.... [/i]

I believe you are right, Penny. DW has been rather scarce around the poetry forum these days. Wonder if he's given up poetry for the pleasures of the outdoor life.

I haven't kept up with all the poems, because I'm trying to steer away from the internet in general for a while. I'm sorry for my lack of participation in this project, but most of the poems I have read, and I compliment the editors on their choices and Penelope for choosing the book. If they can put a somewhat obscure but deserving poet like William Stafford in, they're all right and they know their poetry. I saw Stafford read and talk about poetry when he came to Colo. State when I was studenting there. He was a small, soft-spoken man then in his mid-fifties who considered every word he said, and I then thought, "This is the model for a poet." Nothing academic about him, and he wrote most often about the outdoors, as he did in the poem above about the bomb-testing site. Not afraid to make a moral point in a poem, either, which I think should be allowed a poet. I hope it's okay if I slip in one of my favorites of his.

Returned To Say

When I face north a lost Cree
on some new shore puts a moccasin down,
rock in the light and noon for seeing,
he in a hurry and I beside him

It will be a long trip; he will be a new chief;
we have drunk new water from an unnamed stream;
under little dark trees he is to find a path
we both must travel because we have met.

Henceforth we gesture even by waiting;
there is a grain of sand on his knifeblade
so small he blows it and while his breathing
darkens the steel his eyes become set

And start a new vision: the rest of his life.
We will mean what he does. Back of this page
the path turns north. We are looking for a sign.
Our moccasins do not mark the ground.

Stafford died in 1993.

DWill, I think I understand your inclination to avoid the internet, but I was quite moved by the poem you just posted, probably because it involves native American Indians.....and I am always drawn to anything involving that race.

Do you think you could go through the poem line-by-line for us? Would you mind doing that?

Then clear off if you must!!

Only teasing....