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Thread: Today's poet

  1. #13281
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    Re: Today's poet

    Baby swallows are ace aren't they? You're very lucky to have them in your shed. I get them lined up on the telephone wires outside my spare bedroom window and have spent many happy times looking out on them as they get fed by their parents.
    Quote Originally Posted by Mossdog View Post
    Yes, that's weird!

    I've 'got' 4 baby swallows in my stone shed - they're BRILLIANT and make me smile constantly with their puffed out chests, can-do attitude and tendency every evening to line up shoulder to shoulder on the rafters.

  2. #13282
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    Re: Today's poet

    Quote Originally Posted by Hes View Post
    Nice Hopkins and Thomas posts Alf! I haven't been on here for ages but am still reading poetry when I get a chance. Not writing much though, just the occasional haiku.

    I like this one from Kathleen Jamie:

    Halfling


    Bird on the cliff-top
    the angle of your back
    a master-stroke:
    why should kittiwakes

    plunge at your head
    with white shrills?
    You're only just falling
    from your parents' care,

    They've dared slope off
    together, to quarter
    the island's only glen
    leaving you sunlit, burnished,

    glaring out to sea,
    like one bewildered.
    Some day soon you'll
    topple to the winds

    and be gone, a gangrel,
    obliged to wander
    island to mountain,
    taking your chances -

    till you moult at last
    to an adult's mantle
    and settle some scant
    estate of your own. Already

    the gulls shriek Eagle!
    Eagle! - they know
    more than you
    what you'll become.
    Thanks for posting Hes, I like Kathleen Jamie's work :thumbup:

  3. #13283
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    Re: Today's poet

    The Land of Nod


    From Breakfast on through all the day
    At home among my friends I stay,
    But every night I go abroad
    Afar into the land of Nod.

    All by myself I have to go,
    With none to tell me what to do--
    All alone beside the streams
    And up the mountain-sides of dreams.

    The strangest things are there for me,
    Both things to eat and things to see,
    And many frightening sights abroad
    Till morning in the land of Nod.

    Try as I like to find the way,
    I never can get back by day,
    Nor can remember plain and clear
    The curious music that I hear.

    Robert Louis Stevenson

  4. #13284
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    Re: Today's poet

    Sad news about the death of Seamus Heaney, a very fine poet and author. I have a collection of his poems and his translation of Beowulf.
    Probably my favourite poem of his written after the death of his mother.

    When all the others were away at Mass

    When all the others were away at Mass
    I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
    They broke the silence, let fall one by one
    Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
    Cold comforts set between us, things to share
    Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
    And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
    From each other’s work would bring us to our senses.
    So while the parish priest at her bedside
    Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
    And some were responding and some crying
    I remembered her head bent towards my head,
    Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives–
    Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

    Seamus Heaney

  5. #13285
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    Re: Today's poet

    Miracle

    Not the one who takes up his bed and walks
    But the ones who have known him all along
    And carry him in -

    Their shoulders numb, the ache and stoop deeplocked
    In their backs, the stretcher handles
    Slippery with sweat. And no let-up

    Until he's strapped on tight, made tiltable
    And raised to the tiled roof, then lowered for healing.
    Be mindful of them as they stand and wait

    For the burn of the paid-out ropes to cool,
    Their slight lightheadedness and incredulity
    To pass, those who had known him all along.

    Seamus Heaney

  6. #13286
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    Re: Today's poet

    You just beat me to it, Alf.
    I recall attending a packed reading by him at Cambridge in about 1977.
    Few great poets are also nice people. He seemed to be one of the few.


  7. #13287
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    Re: Today's poet

    This one of his is lush. Blackberry picking as a lesson in life


    Blackberry-Picking

    Late August, given heavy rain and sun
    For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
    At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
    Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
    You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
    Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
    Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
    Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
    Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
    Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
    Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
    We trekked and picked until the cans were full
    Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
    With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
    Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
    With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
    We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
    But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
    A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
    The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
    The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
    I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
    That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
    Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

    Seamus Heaney

  8. #13288
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    Re: Today's poet


  9. #13289
    Moderator Mossdog's Avatar
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    River by Carol Ann Duffy

    Down by the river, under the trees, love waits for me

    to walk from the journeying years of my time and arrive.

    I part the leaves and they toss me a blessing of rain.



    The river stirs and turns consoling and fondling itself

    with watery hands, its clear limbs parting and closing.

    Grey as a secret, the heron bows its head on the bank.



    I drop my past on the grass and open my arms, which ache

    as though they held up this heavy sky, or had pressed

    against window glass all night as my eyes sieved the stars;



    open my mouth, wordless at last meeting love at last, dry

    from travelling so long, shy of a prayer. You step from the shade,

    and I feel love come to my arms and cover my mouth, feel



    my soul swoop and ease itself into my skin, like a bird

    threading a river. Then I can look love full in the face, see

    who you are I have come this far to find, the love of my life.
    Am Yisrael Chai

  10. #13290
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mossdog View Post
    River by Carol Ann Duffy

    Down by the river, under the trees, love waits for me

    to walk from the journeying years of my time and arrive.

    I part the leaves and they toss me a blessing of rain.



    The river stirs and turns consoling and fondling itself

    with watery hands, its clear limbs parting and closing.

    Grey as a secret, the heron bows its head on the bank.



    I drop my past on the grass and open my arms, which ache

    as though they held up this heavy sky, or had pressed

    against window glass all night as my eyes sieved the stars;



    open my mouth, wordless at last meeting love at last, dry

    from travelling so long, shy of a prayer. You step from the shade,

    and I feel love come to my arms and cover my mouth, feel



    my soul swoop and ease itself into my skin, like a bird

    threading a river. Then I can look love full in the face, see

    who you are I have come this far to find, the love of my life.

    Nice choice Mossy. I am going to see Carol Ann Duffy reading her poems at the end of the month at our local 'Literary Festival'. I also have a ticket for Simon Armitage's reading the night before as well which I am looking forward to.

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