Poetry?...meh..

[Feck]

Well at least nobody has mentioned Burns

And as for Haiku and sonnets .....i'm not sure that a terrible pun becomes any more worthy if it is constrained by the rules of limerick.

You mean I SHOULD have mentioned that Burns was one of the four poetry books I own?

Well you have now ....If you tell me at least one of the others is Baudelaire then I won't mock you.

[Svartalf]

Well at least nobody has mentioned Burns

And as for Haiku and sonnets .....i'm not sure that a terrible pun becomes any more worthy if it is constrained by the rules of limerick.

You mean I SHOULD have mentioned that Burns was one of the four poetry books I own?

Well you have now ....If you tell me at least one of the others is Baudelaire then I won't mock you.

Actually the complete list is
-Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal
-the Complete Works of Robert Burns
-TS Eliot Cats
and the Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Poe, which I got solely for the sake of the stories, but could only get those in an edition that bundled them with the darn poetry.
-

[Pappa]

Sorry too, Pappa. Do you still love me?

Of course.

[Pappa]

I agree. Then again I love Jack Kerouac which evidently is not too cool these days

I loved Dharma Bums, but never got into On The Road enough to ever finish it. It was so long ago, I don't remember the plot now.

[Tigger]

Sorry too, Pappa. Do you still love me?

Of course.

[Pappa]

If you don't like haiku, Senryū can be a bit more fun, since it's about human foibles, and is often cynical or darkly humorous while haiku tend to be about nature and is more serious:

dorobō wo
toraete mireba
wagako nari

The robber,
when I catch,
my own son


Haiku is all about zen and nature but probably not everyone's cup of tea, especially not Japanese cap of tea, with the practise of making and drinking tea developed to art and ceremony.

Alternative translation of "fu-ru-i-ke ya" is:

an ancient pond
a frog jumps in
the splash of water

And while Basho is the most famous of 4 great haibuns, he isn't necessarily most popular or understood. My favourite is Kobayashi Issa:

In the cherry blossom's shade
there's no such thing
as a stranger.

Pissing in the snow
outside my door--
it makes a very straight hole.

In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
gazing at flowers.

And of course, don't forget the wonderful poetry of Taigu Ryokan (which a totally brilliant person introduced me to).

[Brian Peacock]

And The Moon And The Stars And The World

• Long walks at night--
  that's what good for the soul:
  peeking into windows
  watching tired housewives
  trying to fight off
  their beer-maddened husbands.
  
  • -- Charles Bukowski

[Beelzebub2]

If you don't like haiku, Senryū can be a bit more fun, since it's about human foibles, and is often cynical or darkly humorous while haiku tend to be about nature and is more serious:

dorobō wo
toraete mireba
wagako nari

The robber,
when I catch,
my own son


Haiku is all about zen and nature but probably not everyone's cup of tea, especially not Japanese cap of tea, with the practise of making and drinking tea developed to art and ceremony.

Alternative translation of "fu-ru-i-ke ya" is:

an ancient pond
a frog jumps in
the splash of water

And while Basho is the most famous of 4 great haibuns, he isn't necessarily most popular or understood. My favourite is Kobayashi Issa:

In the cherry blossom's shade
there's no such thing
as a stranger.

Pissing in the snow
outside my door--
it makes a very straight hole.

In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
gazing at flowers.

And of course, don't forget the wonderful poetry of Taigu Ryokan (which a totally brilliant person introduced me to).

Not to mention great haikus Pappa's been writing. Can't wait to see the anthology.

[Brian Peacock]

Its a boy

• he was Italian
  born in a dark tunnel
  a rigid time-table controls a constant desire
  the walled garden held my tongue
  the tree climbers make friends with the restless
  a full beard tutors the dog
  
  So, one Spring morning there was an dancer approaching
  and the illegal cottage cheese consortium
  withered as on the slopes of Mt. Kilamongina
  
  In Dundee the moment passed
  the Queen gave the cake its name
  only by the adventure was he understated
  reading the bill of implications
  Uncle Ben wrestled the dinner from my ips
  
  If the coffers were dry I would whittle a goat
  tying a pair of socks to a light
  if only it was that easy to piss on someone's chips
  
  the Australians new that the sport was broken
  the shares had depreciated
  and my apology brought only a yoghurt of pain
  low budgets meant the crowd was tiny
  and the mary horse was naught but meat
  
  Boundless optimism cures no debts
  have a bang on this my friend
  
  • -- Mr B Peacock

[Pappa]

Not to mention great haikus Pappa's been writing. Can't wait to see the anthology.

I seem to be going through a haiku dry spell.

[Svartalf]

I don't understand
The Why of that haiku craze
It gets so boring.

[JimC]

How about this poem from WW2, Rum?

Beach Burial, by Kenneth Slessor, written just after El Alamein...

Softly and humbly to the Gulf of Arabs
The convoys of dead sailors come;
At night they sway and wander in the waters far under,
But morning rolls them in the foam.

Between the sob and clubbing of gunfire
Someone, it seems, has time for this,
To pluck them from the shallows and bury them in burrows
And tread the sand upon their nakedness;

And each cross, the driven stake of tidewood,
Bears the last signature of men,
Written with such perplexity, with such bewildered pity,
The words choke as they begin -

'Unknown seaman' - the ghostly pencil
Wavers and fades, the purple drips,
The breath of wet season has washed their inscriptions
As blue as drowned men's lips,

Dead seamen, gone in search of the same landfall,
Whether as enemies they fought,
Or fought with us, or neither; the sand joins them together,
Enlisted on the other front.

[Posse Comitatus]

Modern poetry is basically dead in as far as, as far as I can tell, no one outside the world of academia seems to care even slightly, (and in any bookshop the poetry section seems to consist of one shelf, nearly everything being either pre-20th century or Seamus Heaney), which is a shame because books like the one above are incredible and really a match for any prose I've read from the last decade. It's not a collection of poems but more of a verse novella about the Mau Mau uprising- it's more Paradise Lost than Sonnet 18, coming in at around 60-odd pages.

As a starting point for getting into poetry (or if you just want a good read) I really, really, couldn't recommend it strongly enough. I don't think it's what most people expect from poetry nowadays which is a massive strength, though it does make you wonder why more people aren't doing similar things with the form.

[Imagination Theory]

Aggggggh! There are so many! Just a few from the top of my head;

Anna Akhmatova,

Marina Tsvetaeva,

Vladimir Mayakovsky,

Andrei Voznesensky,

Sergei Yesenin,

Tell me what you think?


If you want some more names just tell me.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Aggggggh! There are so many! Just a few from the top of my head;

Anna Akhmatova,

Marina Tsvetaeva,

Vladimir Mayakovsky,

Andrei Voznesensky,

Sergei Yesenin,

Tell me what you think?


If you want some more names just tell me.

There's a link here somewhere - are they all Italian?