Today's poet

[Alf]

I too feel mixed emotions ...i respect plaths poetry but i think hughes the better poet and i feel that he had to suffer an awful lot of flak on account of her mental health difficulties.....CONTROVERSIAL view perhaps and i do not want to appear to be simplifying the situation as ther was a dialetic between them but i think he has all too often been demonised....

I am in the Plath camp on this one freckle. I think you are right about Hughes poetry being stronger taken as a whole but who knows what she would have produced had she lived and managed her depression?

The 'Birthday letters' are very good but the passage of time before he published them has tarnished them in my eyes. He knew her state of mind when he cheated on her and must have known the dangers to her and her children as well. He was just as much "the owl's talons clenching my heart" as any depression was. I thought the Birthday letters was an old maudlin man full of self-pity still denying his responsibility in her death.

[Mossdog]

Lovely poem that SA and something which resonates with me as well and probably most fell runners and people who love the outdoors I would think.

Fully agree. And look what else I've found by him...


What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

Wendell Berry

[Mossdog]

I am in the Plath camp on this one freckle. I think you are right about Hughes poetry being stronger taken as a whole but who knows what she would have produced had she lived and managed her depression?

The 'Birthday letters' are very good but the passage of time before he published them has tarnished them in my eyes. He knew her state of mind when he cheated on her and must have known the dangers to her and her children as well. He was just as much "the owl's talons clenching my heart" as any depression was. I thought the Birthday letters was an old maudlin man full of self-pity still denying his responsibility in her death.

Personally I find I'm not in any camp. These were just two extremely talented, special people whose time together was immensely emotionally explosive, ultimately febrile and sadly, eventually destructive (for both). But I'm not sure that being judgemental or side taking is particularly helpful or necessary. We can all enjoy and also all suffer the magnificence of their crafted words. They were, as we all are, simply subject to their natures and the random exigencies of chance and circumstance. These were not people with evil intent (so few of us really are). Sure they took personal decisions and yes some might say they got these wrong - but that's life, literally that chaotic Apollonian and Dionysian fusion, but, hey, at least that way it's never ever boring and makes for a very rich narrative!!!

[Mossdog]

THE QUIET WORLD

By Jeffrey McDaniel


In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.


Jeffrey McDaniel

[Alf]

THE QUIET WORLD

By Jeffrey McDaniel


In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.


Jeffrey McDaniel

Some forumites would find 167 words a bit restrictive Thanks for posting Mossy it made me look at some of his other stuff. He has a very original style.

The Forgiveness Parade

There's nothing like a full moon reflected in the eyes of a blind man
using a telescope to stir a bowl of Russian alphabet soup
for the cosmonauts who orbited the shadow of Jupiter
and are landing in an ocean of tears
shed by cold blooded murderers who miss their mothers convulsively
in their prison cells being wheeled caravan-style down Oswald Boulevard
as part of the Forgiveness Parade where relatives of the victims
stand quietly holding banners like 'Apology Accepted' as the vandals
stumble past in shackles followed by the hijackers and the pickpockets who
march single file up the fire escape of a skyscraper built by arsonists.

Jeffrey McDaniel

[Alf]

I know its not December but it feels like it at the moment and the twigs of the Birches in my garden still imprint the sky.

The Prospect

The twigs of the birch imprint the December sky
Like branching veins upon a thin old hand;
I think of summer-time, yes, of last July,
When she was beneath them, greeting a gathered band
Of the urban and bland.

Iced airs wheeze through the skeletoned hedge from the north,
With steady snores, and a numbing that threatens snow,
And skaters pass; and merry boys go forth
To look for slides. But well, well do I know
Whither I would go!

Thomas Hardy

[freckle]

I am in the Plath camp on this one freckle. I think you are right about Hughes poetry being stronger taken as a whole but who knows what she would have produced had she lived and managed her depression?

The 'Birthday letters' are very good but the passage of time before he published them has tarnished them in my eyes. He knew her state of mind when he cheated on her and must have known the dangers to her and her children as well. He was just as much "the owl's talons clenching my heart" as any depression was. I thought the Birthday letters was an old maudlin man full of self-pity still denying his responsibility in her death.

A good point Alf who knows what might have been produced....Mossy I am not taking sides I just prefer his poetry but perhaps won't look at it in the same way after Alf's comments!

[freckle]

THE QUIET WORLD

By Jeffrey McDaniel


In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.


Jeffrey McDaniel

this is beautiful especially the last few lines

[freckle]

more on a theme of quietness...

A QUIET JOY – Yehuda Amichai

I’m standing in a place where I once loved.
The rain is falling. The rain is my home.

I think words of longing: a landscape
out to the very edge of what’s possible.

I remember you waving your hand
as if wiping mist from the windowpane,

and your face, as if enlarged
from an old blurred photo.

Once I committed a terrible wrong
to myself and others.

But the world is beautifully made for doing good
and for resting, like a park bench.

And late in life I discovered
a quiet joy
like a serious disease that’s discovered too late:

just a little time left now for quiet joy.

[Alf]

more on a theme of quietness...

A QUIET JOY – Yehuda Amichai

I’m standing in a place where I once loved.
The rain is falling. The rain is my home.

I think words of longing: a landscape
out to the very edge of what’s possible.

I remember you waving your hand
as if wiping mist from the windowpane,

and your face, as if enlarged
from an old blurred photo.

Once I committed a terrible wrong
to myself and others.

But the world is beautifully made for doing good
and for resting, like a park bench.

And late in life I discovered
a quiet joy
like a serious disease that’s discovered too late:

just a little time left now for quiet joy.

I like the idea of using the world as a park bench