I think there should be a place where we can post and store poems....favourite poems, or pieces that seem particularly relevent to you at this time. Whatever, just feel free to add them =)

I've been back into a little Buk phase after reading his reprinted collesctions of short stories/articles, and it encouraged me to delve back into his poetry...this one seemed a fitting start to the thread:

A Poem Is A City

A poem is a city
a poem is a city filled with streets and sewers
filled with saints, heroes, beggars, madmen,
filled with banality and booze,
filled with rain and thunder and periods of
drought, a poem is a city at war,
a poem is a city asking a clock why,
a poem is a city burning,
a poem is a city under guns
its barbershops filled with cynical drunks,
a poem is a city where God rides naked
through the streets like Lady Godiva,
where dogs bark at night, and chase away
the flag; a poem is a city of poets,
most of them quite similar
and envious and bitter...
a poem is this city now,
50 miles from nowhere,
9:09 in the morning,
the taste of liquor and cigarettes,
no police, no lovers, walking the streets,
this poem, this city, closing its doors,
barricaded, almost empty,
mournful without tears, aging without pity,
the hardrock mountains,
the ocean like a lavender flame,
a moon destitute of greatness,
a small music from broken windows...

a poem is a city, a poem is a nation,
a poem is the world...

and now I stick this under glass
for the mad editor's scrutiny,
the night is elsewhere
and faint gray ladies stand in line,
dog follows dog to estuary,
the trumpets bring on gallows
as small men rant at things
they cannot do.

That was a perfect way to start a thread like this. Lately, I've been incredibly moved by the poems of Wilfred Owen, and blown away by the structure. He died so young, but his legacy is part of a continuing examination of war that goes all the way back to the Duke of Wellington's grief at the loss of so many men at Waterloo. This one is perhaps his most famous, and one of my favorites.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

There once was a man from Nantucket...

SLH, that was incredible. Relentless.

Go_State, you need to post the whooole poem. It's more fun that way.

I often feel really nervous reading 'love' poems. Some make me cringe and weep, some make me smile and weep. There's a fine line between beautiful sentiment and a pile of vomit in front of your feet - ee cummings is so far away he can't even see the line:

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

iceage, I love that poem. It reminds me of someone special.

Who put canned laughter
Into my crucifixion scene?

-Charles Simic, "The Voice at 3 A.M."

Great topic. I'd mention some of Juvenal's satires (naturally), along with some Catullus, who would probably be firmly enconsced in the emo scene if he were alive today:


I hate and I love. Why do I do it, you might ask?
I don't know, but I feel it happening to me and I'm tearing apart.


Most of my favourites are too long to listed here, so I'll post and short and sweet one written by Horace concerning the desecration of Roman burial grounds, even if it may be hit by the tl;dr attack...


Not long ago I was a useless piece
Of wood, a fig tree's trunk. A carpenter
Debated what to make of me. I might
Have been a stool; instead he fashioned me
A god, Priapus. Awesome now, a god,
I panic thieves and birds. No thief gets past
My raised right hand. My crotch is armed with this
Obscenely long and red protrusion. Birds
Don't bother me. A reed stuck in my head
Spooks the pests and keep them off this new
And lovely park. A cemetery once
Disgraced this hill. The corpses carried here
Belonged to slaves. Their fellow slaves arranged
For cheap interment. Paupers shared the ground
In common graves. Pantolobus the sponge
Is buried somewhere here and Nomentanus
Who wasted all he had before he died.
That pillar over there marked out the lot:
A thousand feet in front, three hundred back,
And indicated that the monument
Should not descend to heirs. Today, however,
You'll find the Esquiline transformed. The bones
And litter swept away, the view is lovely:
A wholesome place to live or promenade
Some sunny afternoon along the rampart.
I haven't any problem handling vagrant
Thieves and prowling animals. The witches,
However, worry me. Their chants and drugs
Harry human souls. I've tried again and
Again to drive them off and stop their coming
Up here on moonlit nights to dig up bones
And baneful herbs. Nothing seems to work.
These eyes of mine have seen Canidia
Moving fast among the tombs. The robe she
Had on was black and tightly bound; her feet
Was bare, her hair disheveled. How she howled!
An older hag, Sagana, joined her wailing.
Their deathly pallor made the very sight
Of them bloodcurdling. Still I looked and saw
Them dig a trench with nothing but their nails.
I watched them sink their teeth into a lamb
As black as night and tear the thing apart.
The blood gushed down into the ditch – an offering
To make the dead come up and answer questions.
They held two dolls, one made of wool, the other
Of wax. The first was big and seemed to threaten
The one who had its waxen arms upraised
In supplication like a slave afraid
Of death. One witch addresses Hecate;
The other summons cruel Tisiphone.
Then serpents slithered out and Dis unleashed
Its dogs. The Moon, her face all red, refused
To witness such a sight and hid behind
A massive sepulcher. That's really what
I saw and if I'm lying, let my head
Be plastered white by crows and Julius
And dainty Pediatia and Voranus
The thief can piss and shit against me.
But why tell everything – how sad the sound
Echoed of dead, shrill voices answering
Sagana's questions, how the witches worked
With speedy stealth to bury a wolfhound's beard
And tooth of spotted snake, how high the flame
Exploded from the waxen doll, or how
I shuddered, witnessing this horror? Still
I took revenge and spooked those Furies bad.
My figwood ass squeezed out a fart. The blast
Of snapping timber boomed just like a popped
Balloon. The hags ran off in panic, back
To town. You should have seen Candidia.
Her teeth fell out. Sagana's wig flew off
Her head. The magic herbs and voodoo charms
They'd dropped lay scattered all across the ground.
It was enough to make you roar with laughter.

Horace, Satire 1.8.

Well, Juvenal, I guess this explains a lot of things.

Do you read these in Latin? I got out my books of Ovid lately. I had never really enjoyed The Amores so much before:

Why, I ask, does the bed seem so hard? I keep throwing off the bedclothes, and I'm sleepless through nights that seem interminable. I toss and turn till my tired bones ache. I might feel this way if I were being tried by Love. Has the clever god slipped in and made a secret attack on me?

Aye, so it is! Love's slender shafts feather my heart, and he twists my emotions in a savage gyre. Shall I surrender, or shall I fan the unexpected fire brighter by struggling against it? Ah, I'll surrender; for a burden feels lighter if borne willingly.

I've seen flames leap higher as a torch is whipped through the air, and I've seen them die when no one stirs them. Oxen who've learned to like the plow aren't beaten like the animals who jerk away from the first touch of the yoke. The skittish horse is broken with a toothed bit, but the veteran warhorse doesn't feel the reins.

Love goads the unwilling more sharply and viciously than it does those who admit they are enslaved. All right, then--I admit I'm your latest conquest, Cupid. I raise my conquered hands to accept your will. There's no point in fighting: I only ask your mercy and your peace. You would gain little honor from destroying an unarmed victim like me.

See, this is thing: I'm not skilled in reading Latin, in fact, not at all, but my god a bad translation can really ruin a piece. Those two translations for Catullus and Horace above came from the nether regions of the net and I found myself changing the odd word here and there. I feel that, generally, the best are the Penguin Classics translations. The Loeb are a tad dry in comparison.

really anything in "Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit," but here is one from that collection.

Charles Bukowski "I'm In Love"

she's young, she said,
but look at me,
I have pretty ankles,
and look at my wrists, I have pretty
wrists
o my god,
I thought it was all working,
and now it's her again,
every time she phones you go crazy,
you told me it was over
you told me it was finished,
listen, I've lived long enough to become a
good woman,
why do you need a bad woman?
you need to be tortured, don't you?
you think life is rotten if somebody treats you
rotten it all fits,
doesn't it?
tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a
piece of shit?
and my son, my son was going to meet you.
I told my son
and I dropped all my lovers.
I stood up in a cafe and screamed
I'M IN LOVE,
and now you've made a fool of me. . .
I'm sorry, I said, I'm really sorry.
hold me, she said, will you please hold me?
I've never been in one of these things before, I said,
these triangles. . .
she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all
over.she paced up and down,wild and crazy.she had
a small body.her arms were thin,very thin and when
she screamed and started beating me I held her
wrists and then I got it through the eyes:hatred,
centuries deep and true.I was wrong and graceless and
sick.all the things I had learned had been wasted.
there was no creature living as foul as I
and all my poems were
false.

My daughter reads Latin. Apparently, there's no good way to translate it and still preserve it. The translation of Ovid above is really a prose translation that I got from a fellow at Oxford. I didn't think that it was too bad, but it does sound awkward in places, doesn't it?

I think that it's too late for me to learn Latin. My hard drive doesn't have the capacity anymore, and too many files have been corrupted.

I know the feeling! That said, it's still easy to learn at beginners level. It's when you reach all the imperfect tenses that my eyes go crossed

My old Classics teacher used to say the same thing though: it's much better reading it in the original language. Then again, she did say that those with Latin were the freeloaders; she was more of an ancient Greek fan

...and I can't believe I forgot to mention Homer and Virgil My bad.

Have you read Classical Greek as well?

When I was a kid, the Oresteia owned me. It was by far my favorite play by anyone until I graduated from High School. I read and reread the Fagles' version many times. And it's beautiful in a way, but awkward in a way that I'm told Aeschylus was not. Ted Hughes translated it some years ago, and his version has been criticized for not being precise enough, but having a poet translate poetry brings you a version that feels almost sculpted, it's got such beautiful form and shape.

I've never attempted Greek, unfortunately. But yes, the Fagles translation of the Oresteia is incredible. I can also see classicists criticising Hughes but if a modern translator can still hold true to the original text than fair play to them. The exception, of course, is Juvenal, whose mucky bits need every bit of modern slang available to make them more shocking

I've never read anything but a snippet here and there of Juvenal. What should I start with?

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Hmm... basically the best way is to read him from Satire one onwards and see if you like his invective style.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is one of my all time top 5 poets


"Kubla Khan"

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Robert Frost