The Hot 100

[Saffron]

The final count down: Poems 100-1

[Saffron]

I thought I'd better pull this little thread out of the mothballs and give a good airing before we get started with it.

[DWill]

Good idea. Then I'll be sure to see it and not miss the hand-off (right?) It'll take some speeding up, some doubling up on certain days, to get through by, say, mid April. We might consider skipping The ancient Mariner, or read the Reduced Shakespeare version of it (which we'd have to write, actually). Or, the haiku of Coleridge's long poem.

[Penelope]

Please don't miss anything out!!

I wanted to put a post on here so that I'd get my email prompt because last time you started a new thread, I didn't.

What I wanted to say was, how lovely that we, from this thread seem to have gravitated towards the other thread about prayer being for slackers. Is it that 'poetry' is for slackers too?

Or is it that we are just friends and automatically cluster? Beware, you others! It's the attack of the Mutant Ninja Cyber Poets!!! :ninjajig:

[Saffron]

Please don't miss anything out!!
What I wanted to say was, how lovely that we, from this thread seem to have gravitated towards the other thread about prayer being for slackers. Is it that 'poetry' is for slackers too?

I do think poetry and prayer or being prayerful does go together.

Or is it that we are just friends and automatically cluster? Beware, you others! It's the attack of the Mutant Ninja Cyber Poets!!! :ninjajig:

I love to read your posts! You almost always sneak in a laught or two.

[oblivion]

Oooooh, I love both the Mutant Ninja Cyber Poets as well as the Kaiku version of Coleridge! Thanks, you two!

[DWill]

My cheatin' heart. I've come up with a clever way to get us home on time, and that is to start the last 100 now. We can whittle off about 10 days in this manner, going in parallel fashion for a week or so with 200-101. I know it might be booed as a sleazy trick, but from the safety of my nook here in Berryville, I'll take the risk!

100. "The Listeners," by Walter De La Mare. I like this. What an effective mood he creates with this little mystery poem. 3 dings.

IS there anybody there?' said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champ'd the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
'Is there anybody there?' he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Lean'd over and look'd into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplex'd and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirr'd and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starr'd and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:--
'Tell them I came, and no one answer'd,
That I kept my word,' he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

[Penelope]

DWill said:

My cheatin' heart. I've come up with a clever way to get us home on time, and that is to start the last 100 now. We can whittle off about 10 days in this manner, going in parallel fashion for a week or so with 200-101. I know it might be booed as a sleazy trick

Good Idea, that man!!

The Listeners:

We always had to learn Walter de la Mare poems at junior school so I always think of his poetry as childlike - but I like it. 2 dings

[oblivion]

My cheatin' heart. I've come up with a clever way to get us home on time, and that is to start the last 100 now. We can whittle off about 10 days in this manner, going in parallel fashion for a week or so with 200-101. I know it might be booed as a sleazy trick, but from the safety of my nook here in Berryville, I'll take the risk!

Fine with me! And, this provides me with a good excuse to cheat......I had never heard of de la Mare (typed with red cheeks and downward cast eyes), so this is what I came up with:

Matt Buckley (11/22/2009 9:06:00 AM)

The traveller has come to fulfil a duty. He had left something and promised to come back to it. It seems that a great time has passed. The air is still and the hall is empty (a hall that was probably filled some time ago with activity) What ever he left behind, he could now not summon. The sleeping group, could not be stirred. He has had communication with the listeners in the past - when the promise was made. The listeners are now sleeping and won't wake.

The traveller is actually searching for a lost unbridled imagination, for creativity. It is now gone, and he heads back to the logic-driven reality. One of Walter's main obsessions was with the ingenuity and vision of the child, and how over time, this is lost. In the traveller's journey to revisit or recover this way of existince, he can't stir it. He leaves and re-assures his soul that he tried ('tell them I came, and no one answered') . We often say that the soul has windows: note how the traveller peers into the window and sees nothing; no one is there to greet. Why the 'throng' no-longer responds 'perplexes' him. The listeners (the unbridled imagination) are present, but lie sleeping; discarded and left behind. There is a deathly feel, but it not the death of physical beings, these beings are not 'from the world of men'.

I'm not so sure I agree with this, though. I had a bit of the "Sleepy Hollow feeling" and felt as if perhaps the reader is meant to actually be the listener. Eerie and nice, Nathaniel Hawthorne would have loved it!
4 dings

[Saffron]

I'm not so sure I agree with this, though. I had a bit of the "Sleepy Hollow feeling" and felt as if perhaps the reader is meant to actually be the listener. Eerie and nice, Nathaniel Hawthorne would have loved it!
4 dings

3 from me. I don't know what to make of the analysis of the poem. I just like the "Sleepy Hollow" feel of this poem and enjoy the rhythm of it. And a nod to Mr. Cheatin Heart, brilliant solution!