DMusic.com | for indie musicians and fans | Free MP3 music downloads - Forums: The General Forum: Who is your favourite poet (at the moment)?

Forums > The General Forum

Who is your favourite poet (at the moment)?

thought-fox	Date: June 21, 2004 @ 6:55 PM At the moment I am recovering from being blown away by Pablo Neruda. I'd heard the name, but knew nothing about him, so when I found a Penguin edition of Selected Poems in bi-lingual edition on a shelf in a second-hand book shop, something made me buy it. If you don't (as I didn't) know who he was, here is some info: Pablo Neruda, the internationally acclaimed Latin American poet, was born in 1904 in Parral, Chile. In 1920 he went to Santiago to study and published his first book of poems, La cancion de la fiest (1921); and his second collection, Crepusculario (1923), brought him instant recognition, In 1924 he published the enormously popular Veinte poemas de amor y una concion desesperada. From 1927 to 1945 he served as Chilean consul in Rangoon, Java and Barcelona, and was writing continuously. Greatly infulenced by events in the Spanish Civil War, Neruda joined the Communist Party after the Second World War, and his changed attitudes registered themselves in his poetry. From now on he regarded his poetry not as an elite pursuit but as a statement of human solidarity addressed to 'simple people'. Canto general is a poem of epic proportions, tracing the history of Latin America and evoking the grandeur of its landscapes. It also introduces political polemic. Always a prolific poet, Neruda continued to write poetry throughout the fifties and sixties, and in 1971 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Poetry. From 1970 to 1973 he served under Allende as Chilean ambassador to Paris. Pablo Neruda died in 1973, shortly after the coup in Chile which ousted Allende. Here's one of his poems: There's No Forgetting (Sonata) If you should ask me where I've been all this time I have to say 'Things happen.' I have to dwell on stones darkening the earth, on the river ruined in its own duration: I know nothing save things the birds have lost, the sea I left behind, or my sister crying. Why this abundance of places? Why does day lock with day? Why the dark night swilling round in our mouths? And why the dead? Should you ask me where I come from, I must talk with broken things, with fairly painful utensils, with great beasts turned to dust as often as not and my afflicted heart. These are not memories that have passed each other nor the yellowing pigeon asleep in our forgetting; these are tearful faces and fingers down our throats and whatever among leaves falls to the ground: the dark of a day gone by grown fat on our grieving blood. Here are violets, and here swallows, all things we love and which inform sweet messages seriatim through which time passes and sweetness passes. We don't get far, though, beyond these teeth: Why waste time gnawing the husks of silence? I know not what to answer: there are so many dead, and so many dikes the red sun breached, and so many heads battering hulls and so many hands that have closed over kisses and so many things that I want to forget. ------ If you read it in the original language, it rhymes, I don't speak the language, but I love to look at the original words. As I said at the beginning, this stuff just totally blows me away. So. Who's your favourite and why?
dkeifer	Date: June 22, 2004 @ 8:35 AM At the moment, Josephine Jacobsen. For most of her career, her chief subject was death--although there was nothing gothic about her at all. In fact, she was very clinical--even chilly. Very matter of fact. You'd have a poem about a guy singing Calypso music and suddenly there's Death--not lurking or anything creepy, but rather just there, out in the open, plain as day. At first I couldn't take her stuff--it was just too unnerving. Then I sort of realized that what I'd taken as coldness was really a kind of courage, a necessity for confronting her subject without flinching so as to be able to look at it long enough to get it down right. She usually wrote free (sort of free, anyway--always measured, even when not strictly metered), but this one rhymes. The Blue-Eyed Exterminator The exterminator has arrived. He has not intruded. He was summoned. At the most fruitless spot, a regiment of the tiniest of ants, obviously deluded, have a jetty ferment of undisclosed intent. The blue-eyed exterminator is friendly and fair; one can tell he knows exactly what he is about. He is young as the day that makes the buds puff out, grass go rampant, big bees ride the air; it seems the spring could drown him in its flood. But though he appears modest as what he was summoned for, he will prove himself more potent than grass or bud, being a scion of the greatest emperor. His success is total: no jet platoon on the wall. At the door he calls good-bye and hitches his thumb. For an invisible flick, grass halts, buds cramp, bees stall in air. He has called, and what has been called has come.
thought-fox	Date: June 22, 2004 @ 9:49 AM mmmm, I liked that! Even better on second and third readings. I hadn't heard of her, just looked her up on the web. Looks like she died last year at a fine old age (94 or 5). For anyone who'se interested, here's a cut and paste: One of Ms. Jacobsen's most notable literary accomplishments was serving as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1971 to 1973, the most distinguished post an American poet can hold, recently retitled National Poet Laureter. In 1988, she won the L. Marshal Award for the best book of poetry, The Sisters, published the previous year. In 1993, Ms. Jacobsen received the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America and in 1994 she was elected to the Prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters, the only poet and only woman elected that year. Additionally, the Poetry Society of America awarded her its highest honor, the Robert Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry, in 1997. I particularly like the lines "He is young as the day that makes the buds puff out,/ grass go rampant, big bees ride the air;/ it seems the spring could drown him in its flood." She uses consonance really well, eg: the t's in fruitless, spot, regiment, tiniest, ants, jetty, ferment and intent. It follows the t's in 'exterminator'. Yes, I'm full of admiration, shall look for more of her work.
sqrlcub	Date: June 22, 2004 @ 1:48 PM I've been on a Martial kick lately. I love his cattiness. However, I've been going back and forth between him and early ee cummings. For some reason, "Here is little Effy's head" has been sticking in my mind.
figfarmer	Date: June 22, 2004 @ 2:18 PM I am my own favourite poet as well as being my own favourite short story and song writer. http://mywebpage.netscape.com/ltilander/index.html
sepidman	Date: June 22, 2004 @ 7:03 PM yup, i agree....fig is my fav
thought-fox	Date: June 22, 2004 @ 7:43 PM for the fig farmer!!! COME ON EVERYBODY!!
thought-fox	Date: June 22, 2004 @ 7:44 PM (I prefer dates myself)
DevonPowell	Date: June 23, 2004 @ 3:34 PM Lucille Clifton - Teacher at SMCM where I went to school. Wonderful person, amazing writer. Maya Angelou - Just a fantastic and gifted poet. Seamus Heaney - spoke at my commencement years ago ~~~ brilliant. Shakespeare ~~~ Perpetually.
100thmonk	Date: June 23, 2004 @ 6:52 PM Alfred Jarry
figfarmer	Date: June 23, 2004 @ 11:56 PM Well, maybe you can have a date if you shave your legs.
thought-fox	Date: June 24, 2004 @ 8:41 AM Wow Devon! Seamus speaking (what's a commencement, btw?) Have you got 'Electric Light'? I got a signed hard-back as a present, but never saw or met him. I think it's his latest - great stuff: 'The Fragment' 'Light came from the east,' he sang, 'Bright guarantee of God, and the waves went quiet. I could see headlands and buffeted cliffs. Often, for marked courage, fate spares the man It has not marked already.' And when their objection was reported to him - That he had gone to bits and was leaving them Nothing to hold on to, his first and last lines Neither here nor there - 'Since when,' he asked, 'Are the first line and last line of any poem Where the poem begins and ends?' for Figfarmer (but I've changed my mind about dates now)
chrismacmanus	Date: June 24, 2004 @ 9:28 AM One of the libraries at my uni is named after Seamus Heaney - he studied here and taught here for a while, never go there though - not for us science types
DevonPowell	Date: June 24, 2004 @ 10:16 AM I don't have any of his books, only selected poems... Commencement is a college graduation ceremony, where all the grads get to listen to someone speak and inspire (hopefully) and then walk across the stage picking up your degree and symbolizing completion and moving forward. Or something like that... The year before, we had Steny Hoyer speak (congressman/politician), and tho he was witty and kept it short, it wasn't very good, in the inspirational sense. Seamus was definitely inspiring, and tho I was too caught up in the moment to even think about remembering his words, they were very poignant and I remember feeling the sun, smelling the water and thinking "this is a bit of all-right".
thought-fox	Date: June 24, 2004 @ 12:21 PM Wierd that they call it 'commencement'. I gues it means the beginning of the rest of your life! Chris, Ireland produces such great writers and musicians. Two years ago we went to Sligo to visit W.B. Yeats' stomping ground. Rosses Point was breathtaking. We wanted to buy a house and live in Ireland (might still do it). Don't give me science type! You couldn't produce the music you do, if that was true!
ps-I-forgot	Date: June 24, 2004 @ 2:10 PM There's a poem I red by Charles Bukowski which I love. I think it's titled something like "Red Mercedes" about where he's going to the horse track to watch the races, whilst drunk, and some snob in a Mercedes almost hit him so he's screaming for the guy threatening to beat him up when he noted the driver pulling a gun from his glove compartment and how the poem ends with him walking away to the races and proclaiming in the final line: "that losing horse that I betted on was perhaps the best bet I'd have ever made."
jeddak	Date: June 24, 2004 @ 2:25 PM Don't read a whole lot of poetry, but I like Neruda a lot. Have to read English translations, 'cause I don't read Spanish. All-time favorite, for the past eight years or so, has to be Mary Oliver.
vladb	Date: July 8, 2004 @ 4:23 PM In my opinion the greatest poet has to be Anne Sexton. Her frank and brutal honesty acts like a window into her slowly collapsing world. She was a genius it the truest sense of the world.
RaXDaCapo	Date: July 9, 2004 @ 12:55 PM I never head of Pablo Neruda until i watched Barbershop. But my favorite poets besides myself are... Tupac Shakur and Robert Frost
DevonPowell	Date: July 11, 2004 @ 12:45 AM Large article on Pablo Neruda on the cover of BOok world (newspaper - washington post) today for anyone interested...
100thmonk	Date: July 13, 2004 @ 11:05 PM friedrich nietsche
UnbreakableTed	Date: August 14, 2004 @ 2:04 PM Bukowski. Not that I'm much for poetry. Find "8 count" and read it. I command it.
AgentMGD	Date: September 27, 2004 @ 9:23 PM i mostly read russian poetry of course Pushkin is favorite however i do like Tiutchev and Ivanov kiss
onewhodreams	Date: September 27, 2004 @ 11:42 PM Viggo Mortensen

Post A Reply
From:	Guest	(Icons - Linking)
Post: