Today's poet

[Hes]

I think it is impossible at some level not to analyse the poetry that you read or even write.

Its an interesting thought. I often create work (prints) instinctually just because I feel the need to make it and then years later I can see extra layers of meaning in them that is relevant to my state of mind at the time.

[Harry H Howgill]

Aah Pablo. I've just bought another book of his and am enjoying it too. There are some ones I'll post sometime soon.

I also got Il Postino today. Well I was meant to, but they sent me the wrong DVD!

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.

O bright magnolia bursting in the foam,
magnetic transient whose death blooms
and vanishes--being, nothingness--forever:
broken salt, dazzling lurch of the sea.

You & I, Love, together we ratify the silence,
while the sea destroys its perpetual statues,
collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness:

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics,
galloping water, incessant sand,
we make the only permanent tenderness.

Pablo Neruda Sonnet IX

[Harry H Howgill]

It is not a word spoken,
Few words are said;
Nor even a look of the eyes
Nor a bend of the head,

But only a hush of the heart
That has too much to keep,
Only memories waking
That sleep so light a sleep.

Sarah Teasdale

[Harry H Howgill]

Like barley bending
In low fields by the sea,
Singing
in hard wind
Ceaselessly;

Like barley bending
And rising again,
So would I, unbroken,
Rise from pain;

So would I softly,
Day long, night long,
Change my sorrow
Into song.

Sarah Teasdale

[freckle]

Hi Freckle

I love this poem because of the images it provokes, but I can't make up my mind what the message is. He is sad when he writes it and thinks the swans will eventually move on? Have I missed the point entirely?

Stef

Hi Stef

I am glad you asked the question becuase it made me take another look ....

I agree with hes's interpretation that possibly the man watching has been through some changes in his life, that have wearied him and that he finds reassurance in the swans and the sense of continuity they bring to his life. I wondered if he sounded a little envious of them in that they appear to be oblvious of eotional pain and I also wondered whether the "broken rings" might be indirectly referring to a roken marriage (but then again that might just be my bias!)....which brings me to another point touching on the analysis of poems. I think Hes makes another interesting point about her work in that she looks back and finds multiple layers of meaning to her work which may reflect her mind at the time of production...i also think with poetry we inevitably interpret it from our concious and unconscious standpoint and sometimes in terms of what is emotionally salient for us at the time. I think the latter is what can be quite therapeutic and ctahertic about the process of reading poetry.....

right i am off for a bit but hope to be back soon....

evening all

[freckle]

Like barley bending
In low fields by the sea,
Singing
in hard wind
Ceaselessly;

Like barley bending
And rising again,
So would I, unbroken,
Rise from pain;

So would I softly,
Day long, night long,
Change my sorrow
Into song.

Sarah Teasdale

this is so beautiful harry thanks for posting

[freckle]

before i nick off i'll post this and tentatively propose a night of "tasting" and "seeing" on the thread.........?

Wild strawberries
Helen Dunmore

What I get, I bring home to you:
a dark handful, sweet-edged,
dissolving in one mouthful.

I bother to bring them for you
though they’re so quickly over,
pulpless, sliding to juice

a grainy rub on the tongue
and the taste’s gone. If you remember
we were in the woods at wild strawberry-time

and I was making a basket of dock-leaves
to hold what you’d picked,
but the cold leaves unplaited themselves

and slid apart, and again unplaited themselves
until I gave up and ate wild strawberries
out of your hands for sweetness.

I licked at your palm:
the little salt-edge there,
the tang of money you’d handled.

As we stayed in the woods, hidden,
we heard the sound system below us
calling the winners at Chepstow,
faint as the breeze turned.

The sun came out on us, the shade blotches
went hazel: we heard names
bubble like stock-doves over the woods

as jockeys in stained silks gentled
those sweat-dark, shuddering horses
down to the walk.

[Hes]

The White Owl

unsettled from sleep
the silent hunter rises
and escapes the day


three hares on the run
piebald pigs in dappled snow
I follow the fox

[Harry H Howgill]

The White Owl

unsettled from sleep
the silent hunter rises
and escapes the day


three hares on the run
piebald pigs in dappled snow
I follow the fox

That's lovely. I drove through the Dales today and couldn't believe the number of Hares and Pheasant I saw. It was beautiful as the sun was setting.

Did you see the fox, or were you following prints?

[Harry H Howgill]

Hare lollops on by
Dips under the field gate
A clear run ahead