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Re: Poems for beginners

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 8:54 am
by DWill
"Poem a Day" appears on my computer. They're often quite good, though I don't read them all. And I'd say they generally don't have that quality I complained about in modern poetry. They're good beginner poems, for a general audience, which to me are just good poems!

The World Seems…

Gregory Orr

The world seems so palpable
And dense: people and things
And the landscapes
They inhabit or move through.

Words, on the other hand,
Are so abstract—they’re
Made of empty air
Or black scratches on a page
That urge us to utter
Certain sounds.
And us:
Poised in the middle, aware
Of the objects out there
Waiting patiently to be named,
As if the right words
Could save them.
And don’t
They deserve it?
So much hidden inside each one,
Such a longing
To become the beloved.

And inside us: the sounds
That could extend that blessing—
How they crowd our mouths,
How they press up against
Our lips, which are such
A narrow exit for a joy so desperate.

Re: Poems for beginners

Posted: Sat May 24, 2014 7:25 am
by Saffron
There are definitely modern poets out there that are writing poems that are direct and accessible poems. I heard this one the other day on The Writer's Almanac.


In a Country None of Us Called Home

by Peg Bresnahan

I don't remember what city
we were in. Barbara and I ate
something in a restaurant
I can't name, sat at a table
near two women we'd never met,
then saw again later
at a play I don't recall.
I'm uncertain how it happened
we left the crowded theatre
beside them, the four of us bunched
on a corner fanning for a cab.

Then the one in a striped dress
put two fingers into her mouth
and shrilled a piercer, the kind
that cuts street lamps in two.
It turned out we wanted
the same hotel and shared the ride.
Barbara asked her to teach us
how to whistle. Knee to knee,
the way you sometimes wish everyone
in the world could sit, our mouths
wide open, we laughed like old friends,
chins and fingers wet with spit.

Re: Poems for beginners

Posted: Sat May 24, 2014 7:29 am
by Saffron
DWill wrote:"Poem a Day" appears on my computer. They're often quite good, though I don't read them all. And I'd say they generally don't have that quality I complained about in modern poetry. They're good beginner poems, for a general audience, which to me are just good poems!

The World Seems…

Gregory Orr

The world seems so palpable......

A narrow exit for a joy so desperate.

Just an FYI: Gregory Orr will be at the Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark, NJ at the end of October. Of course, I will be there.

Re: Poems for beginners

Posted: Tue May 27, 2014 2:16 am
by geo
Saffron wrote: In a Country None of Us Called Home by Peg Bresnahan . . .
I love the simplicity of this poem, the deep meaning of a fun moment in time.

Thanks for starting this thread up again, Saffron.

Re: Poems for beginners

Posted: Tue May 27, 2014 2:16 am
by geo
Suburban

by John Ciardi

Yesterday Mrs. Friar phoned. "Mr. Ciardi,
how do you do?" she said. "I am sorry to say
this isn't exactly a social call. The fact is
your dog has just deposited—forgive me—
a large repulsive object in my petunias."

I thought to ask, "Have you checked the rectal grooving
for a positive I.D.?" My dog, as it happened,
was in Vermont with my son, who had gone fishing—
if that's what one does with a girl, two cases of beer,
and a borrowed camper. I guessed I'd get no trout.

But why lose out on organic gold for a wise crack?
"Yes, Mrs. Friar," I said, "I understand."
"Most kind of you," she said. "Not at all," I said.
I went with a spade. She pointed, looking away.
"I always have loved dogs," she said, "but really!"

I scooped it up and bowed. "The animal of it.
I hope this hasn't upset you, Mrs. Friar."
"Not really," she said, "but really!" I bore the turd
across the line to my own petunias
and buried it till the glorious resurrection

when even these suburbs shall give up their dead.

Re: Poems for beginners

Posted: Fri May 30, 2014 11:57 am
by geo
The Span of Life
by Robert Frost

The old dog barks backward without getting up;
I can remember when he was a pup.

Re: Poems for beginners

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 6:54 am
by Litwitlou
geo wrote:The Span of Life
by Robert Frost

The old dog barks backward without getting up;
I can remember when he was a pup.

Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)
from The Water Babies

WHEN all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green ;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen ;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away ;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.

When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown ;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down ;
Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among :
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.

Re: Poems for beginners

Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2017 5:33 am
by Litwitlou
The Eagle

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Re: Poems for beginners

Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:55 pm
by Cattleman
Here's another by Robert Frost; short but powerful.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Re: Poems for beginners

Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2017 7:24 am
by Litwitlou
Modern Poetry, and most schools of poetry before Modern I can understand and enjoy. On the other hand I guess I'm just not smart enough to deal with Contemporary Poetry.

Summer by Louise Gluck

Remember the days of our first happiness,
how strong we were, how dazed by passion,
lying all day, then all night in the narrow bed,
sleeping there, eating there too: it was summer,
it seemed everything had ripened
at once. And so hot we lay completely uncovered.
Sometimes the wind rose; a willow brushed the window.

But we were lost in a way, didn't you feel that?
The bed was like a raft; I felt us drifting
far from our natures, toward a place where we'd discover nothing.
First the sun, then the moon, in fragments,
stone through the willow.
Things anyone could see.

Then the circles closed. Slowly the nights grew cool;
the pendant leaves of the willow
yellowed and fell. And in each of us began
a deep isolation, though we never spoke of this,
of the absence of regret.
We were artists again, my husband.
We could resume the journey.

Robert Frost said this type of poetry was like playing tennis with the net down. Reads like very good prose to me. I just don't get it.