A poem for Em (who doesn't like poetry.)
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
Philip Larkin. The miserable old git.
There are many things I like about this - the fact that it opens sounding just like a conversation in a pub, but at the same time is in perfect poetic iambic pentameter; the fact that there's not a redundant word in the whole thing; the breath-takingly pessimistic conclusion; the fact that it leaves you going, 'yes, but...' and thinking on it...
Anybody have any other poems they'd recommend for people who don't like poetry?
About horses
2 days ago
14 comments:
The greatest poem of all time (and probably the only one I know by heart) is of course Jabberwocky. Closely followed by Prufrock.
But I'm quite fond of this one as well. It's a bit hippyish and dated, but it presses the right buttons.
Tonight at Noon
by Adrian Henri
Tonight at noon
Supermarkets will advertise 3p extra on everything
Tonight at noon
Children from happy families will be sent to live in a home
Elephants will tell each other human jokes
America will declare peace on Russia
World War I generals will sell poppies on the street on November 11th
The first daffodils of autumn will appear
When the leaves fall upwards to the trees
Tonight at noon
Pigeons will hunt cats through city backyards
Hitler will tell us to fight on the beaches and on the landing fields
A tunnel full of water will be built under Liverpool
Pigs will be sighted flying in formation over Woolton
And Nelson will not only get his eye back but his arm as well
White Americans will demonstrate for equal rights
In front of the Black house
And the monster has just created Dr. Frankenstein
Girls in bikinis are moonbathing
Folksongs are being sung by real folk
Art galleries are closed to people over 21
Poets get their poems in the Top 20
There's jobs for everybody and nobody wants them
In back alleys everywhere teenage lovers are kissing in broad daylight
In forgotten graveyards everywhere the dead will quietly bury the living
and
You will tell me you love me
Tonight at noon
Schadenfreude for our times in Belloc's "Ballade of Good Tidings" which begins
The other day the Pound fell out of bed
With consequences that are far from clear;
For instance, Eldorado Deeps, instead
Of jumping up, incline to lurch and veer;
And while Commander Turtle thinks it queer
Professor Guff is willing to explain;
But anyohow, the quiet profiteer
Will miss the Riviera and champagne...
And so on to the ENVOI:
Prince, Oh my Prince, 'Tis heavenly to hear!
Stroke the piano; croon it once again:
"The Rich, the Very Rich, this very year,
Will miss the Riviera and Champagne.'
I read that Larkin poem in Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled, which is a jolly good read for someone just getting into poetry.
Snow in the Suburbs
Every branch big with it,
Bent every twig with it;
Every fork like a white web-foot;
Every street and pavement mute:
Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward when
Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again.
The palings are glued together like a wall,
And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall.
A sparrow enters the tree,
Whereon immediately
A snow-lump thrice his own slight size
Descends on him and showers his head and eye
And overturns him,
And near inurns him,
And lights on a nether twig, when its brush
Starts off a volley of other lodging lumps with a rush.
The steps are a blanched slope,
Up which, with feeble hope,
A black cat comes, wide-eyed and thin;
And we take him in.
Thomas Hardy, 1840-1928
And I don't even like cats!
A pedant writes: Actually, it's iambic quadrameter (four stresses per line).
Rub a dub dub
Thanks for the grub.
Well, it is lunchtime. I will think of something more profound later.
Phillip Larkin is my second favourite librarian. After Casanova.
Hogamus, higamus
Men are polygamous;
Higamus, hogamus
Women, monogamous.
Blue Skies Motel
Look at
that mother-fucking smoke stack
pointing
straight up.
See those clouds,
old time fleecy pillows,
like they say, whites and greys,
float by.
There's cars
on the street,
there's a swimming pool
out front -
and the trees
go yellow
now
it's the fall.
Robert Creeley
Tim, aw...
Ian, it's very timely.
Geoff, I like it. Less miserable than his novels too.
Tim, thought I'd got away with it...
Del, it's profound, yet to the point.
Billy - Casanova was a librarian?
KOS - ooh, contentious.
P, I like it a lot - I've never heard of Robert Creeley before.
Well, I can't say I'm won over yet, but you are chipping away at me, I am now armed with the Stephen Fry book (thanks pete) and all these poems to ponder and I am definitely following the last two lines of the Larkin one, so well I'll give it a go, but I'm not promising anything!!!
Anything by Betjeman, who normally comes up with a good rhyme and a fine rhythm. And he mentions places like Kentish Town so Londoners (and those who know the place) can say aah! and ooh! in comfort.
Tourists by DH Lawrence:
There is nothing to look at anymore.
Everything has been seen to death.
Always brought a smile to my face, that one. So uplifting.
BiB, he always reminds me of Paddington Bear.
Good one, Radge. You found the one he wrote which wasn't about boobs.
Em, I thought of some more you might like. One is ee cummings, the boys I mean are not refined, which isn't as rude as it first appears, actually being about soldiers, but I still like it, and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."
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