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beck123 #190066 03/18/10 10:14 PM
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you shall above all things be glad and young
for if you're young, whatever life you wear

it will become you; and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on; and his mind take off time

that you should ever think, may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies, the foetal grave
called progress, and negation's dead undoom.

i'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

ee cummings


"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
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Originally Posted By: LukeJavan8
Hello,
We've had too many blizzards here too: 100 days of continual
snow, so I appreciated your poem contribution. Thanks.


And we've just had 100 consecutive days above 20 C (68 F).

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Another American favorite: William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

The Poem

It's all in
the sound. A song
Seldom a song. It should

be a song - made of
particulars, wasps,
a gentian - something
immidiate, open

scissors, a lady's
eye - waking
centrifugal, centripetal

Avy #190083 03/19/10 01:24 PM
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I reacted not to the post, but the 'making fun of a form' sense of the limerick.

Don't get me wrong, I happened to enjoy a limerick or two, especially if well written and witty (with just a touch of salacity). I don't mind analysis or even over-analysis, but my question was innocent. I did not understand what you were saying. Now that I do, I have no problem with it.

Now, for my limerick story. Years ago, the founder of Oedilf (the Omniscient (née Oxford) English Dictionary in Limerick Form and I found ourselves to be the only two participants on a fortnightly words-related chat. He had very strong opinions on modern poetry (as in it not really being poetry at all) and the superior verse form which is the limerick. I started out on my task of twitting him: first, by mentioning that I particularly liked the limericks of Edward Leary, and had never quite gotten used to the fifth line not have the same rhyme word (and usually a identical construction) as the first one. He soon disabused me of my fantastically absurd notion. The we moved on to a factoid which I found highly amusing. many people who take poetry seriously (and that includes folks from the only if it rhymes and scans school as well as dyed in the wool free verse modernists and posts) dismissed the limerick as a minor poetic form at best. This was enough to launch the fellow into the atmosphere, and I feared for my life upon his re-entry. He raged and raged for many minutes, which is a difficult thing to do in chat form. I quickly began trying to extract myself from the situation. I assured him these were not my feelings, as I found the occasional well-written limerick a momentary joy, and I was not very passionate about them either way in the Grand Scheme of Things. It was then that he uttered an expletive or two, and we stood there (on our fingertips as it were) silently mouthing our despair like fish out of water before deciding that the day was getting on without us and we departed. It was the last time we were to speak.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
zmjezhd #190086 03/19/10 03:01 PM
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Originally Posted By: joe friday
in fact, it reminds me of those folks who 'workshop' limericks in an attempt to perfect the form. 8-)


thanks for the 'limerick story', zmjezhd; I'm afraid I despaired of having to try to explain my somewhat snarky comment (smiley notwithstanding), but you've rather done that for me.
-joe (enigmas 'Я us) friday

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Originally Posted By: doc_comfort
Originally Posted By: LukeJavan8
Hello,
We've had too many blizzards here too: 100 days of continual
snow, so I appreciated your poem contribution. Thanks.


And we've just had 100 consecutive days above 20 C (68 F).



That is my idea of heaven: I am green with envy.
It was 60degF yesterday, but snow predicted tonight and tomorrow.


----please, draw me a sheep----
zmjezhd #190094 03/19/10 05:42 PM
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Originally Posted By: zmjezhd
get the the translation of this

Try this; the site has some translations into other languages and commentary. Celan was one of the great 20th century poets. He was a German-speaking Romanian Jew.


Thanks so much, he really is a great poet.

This has always been on of my favorites.

God's Grandeur

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge |&| shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast |&| with ah! bright wings.



kah454 #190096 03/19/10 05:54 PM
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Yes, very nice, thanks much.


----please, draw me a sheep----
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Gerard Manley Hopkins

Hopkins is one of my favorites. he even coined a great poetic term, sprung rhythm. Here's my favorite:

The Windhover

Quote:
I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Nice, the two poems by a new to me poet.

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