Poetry

[Themistocles]

With all the talk about novels and writing I thought I'd bring up the oldest form of storytelling: poetry. So does anyone here read it? Who do you love? Since this is a Christian forum, I thought I'd post two Christian poems I love. The first is by Gerard Manley Hopkins, a late 19th century Jesuit.

Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spáre, strange;
Whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)
With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:

Práise hím.

The second is Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot and it's much, much longer, so I won't post the whole thing here. Instead I'll give you a link to the whole thing and a few nice sections. But honestly, Eliot's hard enough to understand as it is: you probably won't get much out of a few disconnected sections. So read the whole thing. Oh, and bonus: that site has an audio-file of Eliot reading the poem himself.

Ash Wednesday

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?....

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And I pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still. ....


Post some of your favorite poets and poems although I'm not sure how copyright works with poetry so if you're going for a contemporary poet you're probably better off not posting the whole thing.

 

[Scottish Knight]

I liked that first poem you posted.

I like George Herbert's poems. A couple of my favourites:
Aaron


Holiness on the head,
Light and perfections on the breast,
Harmonious bells below, raising the dead
To lead them unto life and rest:
Thus are true Aarons drest.


Profaneness in my head,
Defects and darkness in my breast,
A noise of passions ringing me for dead
Unto a place where is no rest:
Poor priest, thus am I drest.


Only another head
I have, another heart and breast,
Another music, making live, not dead,
Without whom I could have no rest:
In him I am well drest.


Christ is my only head,
My alone-only heart and breast,
My only music, striking me ev'n dead,
That to the old man I may rest,
And be in him new-drest.


So, holy in my head,
Perfect and light in my dear breast,
My doctrine tun'd by Christ (who is not dead,
But lives in me while I do rest),
Come people; Aaron's drest.


Gratefulness

You that have giv'n so much to me,
Give one thing more, a grateful heart.
See how your beggar works on thee
By art.

He makes your gifts occasion more,
And says, If he in this be crossed,
All you have giv'n him heretofore
Is lost.

But you did reckon, when at first
Your word our hearts and hands did crave,
What it would come to at the worst
To save.

Perpetual knockings at your door,
Tears sullying your transparent rooms,
Gift upon gift, much would have more,
And comes.

This notwithstanding, you still went on,
And did allow us all our noise:
Nay, you have made a sigh and groan
Your joys.

Not that you have not still above
Much better tunes, than groans can make;
But that these country-airs your love
Did take.

Wherefore I cry, and cry again;
And in no quiet can you be,
Till I a thankful heart obtain
Of thee:

Not thankful, when it pleases me;
As if your blessings had spare days:
But such a heart, whose pulse may be Your praise.

 

[crishmael]

I haven't read a lot of poetry in my life, but over the past few years I've been reading more. I enjoy Whitman and Dickinson, and I've recently discovered Anna Akhmatova, and I've really been impressed by her work. I also enjoy Melville's later poetic work.

 

[Athanasius7]

I am not someone who has read much poetry (mainly the only poetry I read being by Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton), but I did love that poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

 

[Thunder Peel]

The Hot Dog That Saved the World


Once there was a hot dog who was cooked to perfection
The lesser ones attacked him with relentless persecution
Still he longed from something greater than those attacks
And to be freed from someone's digestive track

He put on a cape and flew into the sky
To escape the buns and relish and backyard rye
To save a bus of children from going off a bridge
And to boogie down at the nightclub Funky Ridge

One day an evil donut tried to enslave mankind
The hotdog said, "That glazed menace has really got us in a bind!"
So they fought long into the night in a blaze of glory
Until the sun arose to tell a different story

The donut had been defeated and lay melted upon the ground
His shape more of a blob than perfectly round
Yet the hotdog was to exist no longer
He had been eaten by a dog and lay covered in slobber

Don't despair children, for your food could save the day
Whether cheese or noodles or a delicate soufflé
Then you can write an epic poem as a worthy epitaph
And annoy all the members in the Singles Forum on CF

 

[MehGuy]

Nope, I have not really read many books in my life much less poetry. Though Emily Dickinson seemed a little depressed in her writings, which was kinda cool lol.

Poetry probably does have some rich nutrients I could extract and use in my work, just not sure if I'll ever get down to looking and studying it.

 

[Ryu2000]

Poetry's never been my thing, but I've recently really gotten into old Anglo-Saxon poetry such as "The Wanderer" and "Dream of the Rood."

 

[Themistocles]

Scottish Knight,

I'd heard of Spencer but hadn't read anything of his. Thanks for those. I like this bit in the second one:

This notwithstanding, you still went on,
And did allow us all our noise:
Nay, you have made a sigh and groan
Your joys.

 

[ceh85]

I read some Wilfred Owen at school and it was amazing. Apart from that I don't read a lot of poetry. I love what I've read of Shakespeare's sonnets though.

 

[Nom De Guerre]

Only my own really. *shrug*

 

[Scottish Knight]

I read some Wilfred Owen at school and it was amazing. Apart from that I don't read a lot of poetry. I love what I've read of Shakespeare's sonnets though.

Have you read "The parable of the old man and the young" by Owen? One of my favourites by him. I found it very moving when it was read out at the end of the BBC drama "Regeneration"


"So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him, thy son.
Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,
A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one."

 

[ceh85]

No I hadn't read that one til now but I like it. The one I remember best is 'Anthem for Doomed Youth'. It seemed like you could explore and go deeper and deeper into the poem and that there were so many meanings/inferences to be found. It's so tragic to think he died just a few days before the end of the war.

Anthem for Doomed Youth
by Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.


I also really liked the Carol Ann Duffy stuff I read at school. I liked the images and intensity in her poems, and that they use simple language.

"Valentine"

Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

I just found this quote from her: "Poetry, above all, is a series of intense moments - its power is not in narrative. I'm not dealing with facts, I'm dealing with emotions." I like that.

 

[Themistocles]

I like that Owen poem (another poet I'd only barely heard of). Here's one from John Donne:

Hymn to God, in My Sickness

Since I am coming to that holy room,
Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made thy music; as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before.

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown
Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie
Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown
That this is my south-west discovery,
Per fretum febris, by these straits to die,

I joy, that in these straits I see my west;
For, though their currents yield return to none,
What shall my west hurt me? As west and east
In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,
So death doth touch the resurrection.

Is the Pacific Sea my home? Or are
The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem?
Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar,
All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them,
Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.

We think that Paradise and Calvary,
Christ's cross, and Adam's tree, stood in one place;
Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me;
As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face,
May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace.

So, in his purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord;
By these his thorns, give me his other crown;
And as to others' souls I preach'd thy word,
Be this my text, my sermon to mine own:
"Therefore that he may raise, the Lord throws down."

 

[ceh85]

Wow I really like that. I haven't read any Donne before but have heard good things. May have to check him out now! Who else do you read?

 

[Themistocles]

Wow I really like that. I haven't read any Donne before but have heard good things. May have to check him out now! Who else do you read?

I just discovered a great Polish Poet, Czlesaw Milosz, who was a Christian who struggled with doubt but ultimately came down on the side of faith. He fought and escaped nazism and communism so he deals with big issues too. Here's a short poem:

Veni Creator

Come, Holy Spirit
bending or not bending the grasses,
appearing or not above our heads in a tongue of flame,
at hay harvest or when they plough in the orchards or when snow
covers crippled firs in the Sierra Nevada.
I am only a man: I need visible signs.
I tire easily, building the stairway of abstraction.
Many a time I asked, you know it well, that the statue in the church
lift its hand, only once, just once, for me.
But I understand that signs must be human,
therefore call one man, anywhere on earth,
not me- after all I have some decency-
and allow me, when I look at him, to marvel at you.

Christians do pretty well in poetry; we can claim, outright, 3 of the top 4 (Dante, Milton, Eliot) and the 4th, Shakespeare, may well have been Christian. Other poets, like William Wordsworth and Seamus Heaney (sometimes called the greatest living poet) are Christian but approach God indirectly if at all. And then there are secular poets who are inoffensive: Tennyson ("Ulysses") and Keats ("Ode to a Nightingale") are wonderful. Whitman has his moments (read "When Lilacs Last in a Door-yard Bloom'd" aloud). Frost, who I'll love to my dying day for opening the gates of poetry for me- for being accessible enough to love before I knew anything or had read anything- was an oddball religiously who seemed to end up, at the last, in our camp.

 

[HighwayMan]

my favourite poem is Paradise Lost, but you'll forgive me for not posting the full text.

 

[ceh85]

I just discovered a great Polish Poet, Czlesaw Milosz, who was a Christian who struggled with doubt but ultimately came down on the side of faith. He fought and escaped nazism and communism so he deals with big issues too. Here's a short poem:

Veni Creator

Come, Holy Spirit
bending or not bending the grasses,
appearing or not above our heads in a tongue of flame,
at hay harvest or when they plough in the orchards or when snow
covers crippled firs in the Sierra Nevada.
I am only a man: I need visible signs.
I tire easily, building the stairway of abstraction.
Many a time I asked, you know it well, that the statue in the church
lift its hand, only once, just once, for me.
But I understand that signs must be human,
therefore call one man, anywhere on earth,
not me- after all I have some decency-
and allow me, when I look at him, to marvel at you.

Christians do pretty well in poetry; we can claim, outright, 3 of the top 4 (Dante, Milton, Eliot) and the 4th, Shakespeare, may well have been Christian. Other poets, like William Wordsworth and Seamus Heaney (sometimes called the greatest living poet) are Christian but approach God indirectly if at all. And then there are secular poets who are inoffensive: Tennyson ("Ulysses") and Keats ("Ode to a Nightingale") are wonderful. Whitman has his moments (read "When Lilacs Last in a Door-yard Bloom'd" aloud). Frost, who I'll love to my dying day for opening the gates of poetry for me- for being accessible enough to love before I knew anything or had read anything- was an oddball religiously who seemed to end up, at the last, in our camp.

Thanks for posting that, it's so easy to relate to! I will have to check some of those names out. The only poetry I have is Dante's Inferno which I read for a class, and some Byron for some reason

 

[AlexBP]

With all the talk about novels and writing I thought I'd bring up the oldest form of storytelling: poetry. So does anyone here read it? Who do you love?

I certainly do read poetry. There was a long time during my college years when I did not; I wasn't a Christian at the time. Then there was a period in graduate school when I became severely depressed, and I rediscovered poetry. I can remember three poems in particular that helped me understand why life was worth living after all.

Post some of your favorite poets and poems although I'm not sure how copyright works with poetry so if you're going for a contemporary poet you're probably better off not posting the whole thing.

Not a problem for me. I like the old guys (and girls), and I definitely think that poetry should rhyme.


Comfort, by Robert Service.

Say! You’ve struck a heap of trouble—
Bust in business, lost your wife;
No one cares a cent about you,
You don’t care a cent for life;
Hard luck has of hope bereft you,
Health is failing, wish you’d die—
Why, you’ve still the sunshine left you
And the big blue sky.

Sky so blue it makes you wonder
If it’s heaven shining through;
Earth so smiling ‘way out yonder,
Sun so bright it dazzles you;
Birds a-singing, flowers a-flinging
All their fragrance on the breeze;
Dancing shadows, green, still meadows—
Don’t you mope, you’ve still got these.

These, and none can take them from you;
These, and none can weigh their worth.
What! you’re tired and broke and beaten?—
Why, you’re rich—you’ve got the earth!
Yes, if you’re a tramp in tatters,
While the blue sky bends above
You’ve got nearly all that matters—
You’ve got God, and God is love.

 

[AlexBP]

I am not someone who has read much poetry (mainly the only poetry I read being by Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton)

I love Chesterton and Belloc as well. Chesteron wrote hundreds of poems and they're all great, at least as far as I can tell. What's really amazing is that he mastered so many different forms, from sonnets to limericks to lengthy epics. He also did every tone from solemn and somber to light-hearted and funny. This is one of my favorites:

The Aristocrat

The Devil is a gentleman, and asks you down to stay
At his little place at What'sitsname (it isn't far away).
They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new,
And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do;
He can shoot the feathered cherubs if they fly on the estate,
Or fish for Father Neptune with the mermaids for a bait;
He scaled amid the staggering stars that precipice, the sky,
And blew his trumpet above heaven, and got by mastery
The starry crown of God Himself, and shoved it on the shelf;
But the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't brag himself.

O blind your eyes and break your heart and hack your hand away,
And lose your love and shave your head; but do not go to stay
At the little place in What'sitsname where folks are rich and clever;
The golden and the goodly house, where things grow worse for ever;
There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain,
There are souls more sick of pleasure than you are sick of pain;
There is a game of April Fool that's played behind its door,
Where the fool remains for ever and the April comes no more,
Where the splendour of the daylight grows drearier than the dark,
And life droops like a vulture that once was such a lark:
And that is the Blue Devil that once was the Blue Bird;
For the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't keep his word.

 

[LBP]

I haven't read a lot of poetry in my life, but over the past few years I've been reading more. I enjoy Whitman and Dickinson, and I've recently discovered Anna Akhmatova, and I've really been impressed by her work. I also enjoy Melville's later poetic work.

Now, there is a strange combination! Whitman is also one of my absolute favorites - I just downloaded everything he ever wrote (prose, too) on my Kindle for $0.95. I had never even heard of Anna Akhmatova until I married my Belarusian wife three years ago, but she was indeed great (if a bit on the grim and dark side). I also love Rupert Brooke, who died very young. "Heaven" is his best-known poem, if not necessarily his best and not exactly a Christian classic:

[SIZE=+1]HEAVEN[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]by: Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)[/SIZE]
FISH (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow,
Good Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud! -- Death eddies near --
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.