CestMoi posted:

I hope you're reading him in the intended language of his poetry, Arabic

MockingQuantum posted:

Hello poetry thread, I'm doing the forums reading challenge this year and I've decided to try and rekindle my former love of poetry, so to that end, I would like a wildcard poetry book for the reading challenge. It can be anything (please be gentle) as long as it's not impossible to find. I also only speak English, unfortunately.

Tree Goat posted:

what kinds of things do you like

MockingQuantum posted:

TBH I haven't read much of anything in years. In college I liked Anne Sexton, Sara Teasdale, Lord Byron, T.S. Eliot, Kahlil Gibran, Wisława Szymborska... I was just getting into more modern poetry but couldn't tell you any names off the top of my head. I'm sure there's tons of poets I read a lot that I'm totally forgetting, such is life

Tree Goat posted:

you might like brown's the virginia state colony for epileptics and feebleminded, that was from last year iirc and gives off sexton-y vibes

Tree Goat posted:

you might like brown's the virginia state colony for epileptics and feebleminded, that was from last year iirc and gives off sexton-y vibes

chernobyl kinsman posted:

prose poetry is almost universally maturbatory trash tho. the only exception I can think to make rn is poe's eureka, and then only because it's 1) insane and 2) weirdly spot on about the Big Bang somehow

Franchescanado posted:

Franchescanado posted:

Spanish Poem Guy posted:

Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.
With the shade around her waist
she dreams on her balcony,
green flesh, her hair green,
with eyes of cold silver.
Green, how I want you green.
Under the gypsy moon,
all things are watching her
and she cannot see them.

Green, how I want you green.
Big hoarfrost stars
come with the fish of shadow
that opens the road of dawn.
The fig tree rubs its wind
with the sandpaper of its branches,
and the forest, cunning cat,
bristles its brittle fibers.
But who will come? And from where?
She is still on her balcony
green flesh, her hair green,
dreaming in the bitter sea.

—My friend, I want to trade
my horse for her house,
my saddle for her mirror,
my knife for her blanket.
My friend, I come bleeding
from the gates of Cabra.
—If it were possible, my boy,
I’d help you fix that trade.
But now I am not I,
nor is my house now my house.
—My friend, I want to die
decently in my bed.
Of iron, if that’s possible,
with blankets of fine chambray.
Don’t you see the wound I have
from my chest up to my throat?
—Your white shirt has grown
thirsty dark brown roses.
Your blood oozes and flees a
round the corners of your sash.
But now I am not I,
nor is my house now my house.
—Let me climb up, at least,
up to the high balconies;
Let me climb up! Let me,
up to the green balconies.
Railings of the moon
through which the water rumbles.

Now the two friends climb up,
up to the high balconies.
Leaving a trail of blood.
Leaving a trail of teardrops.
Tin bell vines
were trembling on the roofs.
A thousand crystal tambourines
struck at the dawn light.

Green, how I want you green,
green wind, green branches.
The two friends climbed up.
The stiff wind left
in their mouths, a strange taste
of bile, of mint, and of basil
My friend, where is she—tell me—
where is your bitter girl?
How many times she waited for you!
How many times would she wait for you,
cool face, black hair,
on this green balcony!
Over the mouth of the cistern
the gypsy girl was swinging,
green flesh, her hair green,
with eyes of cold silver.
An icicle of moon
holds her up above the water.
The night became intimate
like a little plaza.
Drunken “Guardias Civiles”
were pounding on the door.
Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea.
And the horse on the mountain.

this broken hill posted:

lorca was a sweet sad gay artisan of the human heart

Mighty Crouton posted:

Any James Merrill fans out there? Feel like he's the most 🔥🔥 American poet since Wallace Stevens.

http://www.ronnowpoetry.com/contents/merrill/SelfPortrait.html

Also his voice is glorious: https://www.kwls.org/key-wests-life-of-letters/james-merrill-on-elizabeth-bishop-archives/

Laboratory Poem posted:

Charles used to watch Naomi, taking heart
And a steel saw, open up turtles, live.
While she swore they felt nothing, he would gag
At blood, at the blind twitching, even after
The murky dawn of entrails cleared, revealing
Contours he knew, egg-yellows like lamps paling.

Well then. She carried off the beating heart
To the kymograph and rigged it there, a rag
In fitful wind, now made to strain, now stopped
By her solutions tonic or malign
Alternately in which it would be steeped.
What the heart bore, she noted on a chart,

For work did not stop only with the heart.
He thought of certain human hearts, their climb
Through violence into exquisite disciplines
Of which, as it now appeared, they all expired.
Soon she would fetch another and start over,
Easy in the presence of her lover.

A. Questions posted:

*Why is every atom of Palestine’s ash an open wound?
*How does this wound create life with the implements of death?
*Is Palestine’s history an autumn that has migrated beyond the seasons?
*Why does the face of humanity wrinkle in the language of Arab leaders? And why is this language clogged with trains that run only on dead-end tracks that never end? And why are those tracks built by leaders who wage battles on trees and water?

E. A Hymn Bracing for the End posted:

Many gray hairs on my head,
but in my insides only the down of childhood.
Take away your alchemy, dear Poetry, raise it, discipline it, and teach it to mingle our bodies with our dreams;
how time can earn a place among our days and nights,
how minutes grunt in our veins like wild horses.
In your name, I flee myself to be myself,
and in your name I become joy and sadness in one inhale,
and I clamp my lips on your secrets.

The sky hangs like a rare painting in the earth’s museum,
and each is fighting to prove he alone stole it.
Up high, the sky’s seventh ceiling bucks and shudders, about to fall.
Why are harlots and pimps given another great role to play?
And in the name of the sky, must we awaken Job, Jeremiah, and Isaiah to display their afflictions again in al-Quds, and to confess how happy and free they once were?

Go on you way, dear Heaven.
Leave me a while to check on my limbs.

MockingQuantum posted:

TBH I haven't read much of anything in years. In college I liked Anne Sexton, Sara Teasdale, Lord Byron, T.S. Eliot, Kahlil Gibran, Wisława Szymborska... I was just getting into more modern poetry but couldn't tell you any names off the top of my head. I'm sure there's tons of poets I read a lot that I'm totally forgetting, such is life

quote:

I would've liked to've liked this book more
Than I did but it lacked a report
With me though I'll forgive it that and I'm forgiving
It, (for the hours it took hardly need reliving)
Recommended as it was by a pal and poet
Who loves the book and staked our friendship on it
Or did he? I forget but it isn't important
What's important here is that I only half-liked it

You see, I don't mean to be prudish or rudish or a boor
But I would've liked to've liked this book a bit more
Than I did and I'll tell you why, not that you care
And I'll example it as well because, well, I'm debonair

quote:

Little old white-haired man,
weak, half naked, barefoot,
with an enormous burden on his back,
up mountain and down valley,
over sharp rocks, across deep sands and bracken,
through wind and storm,
in hot and freezing weather,
runs on, running till he's out of breath,
crosses rivers, wades through swamps,
falls and climbs and rushes on
ever faster, no rest or relief,
battered, bloodied; till at last he comes
to where his way
and all his effort led him:
terrible, immense abyss
into which he falls, forgetting everything.
This, O virgin moon,
is human life.

CestMoi posted:

It is good and admirable to learn about poetry no matter how little you know or intrinsically stupid you are

OscarDiggs posted:

So; the poems I have looked don't exactly advertise what pentameter they are using so if I opened a poetry book to a random page and started reading one, how would I know how it's supposed to be read?

chernobyl kinsman posted:

Some great stuff in general.