craner

Beast of Burden
I just couldn't stick to the short, miserable remit, so threw in a load of exuberant, entertaining stuff for him to chew on.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Luke's been bugging me all day to reply to Droid's plea, but I did warn him that it would probably go down like a bucket of sick.
 

droid

Well-known member
That is helpful, thanks to you both.

Sorry to give you the impression Im a total dullard. Ive read Shakespeare, Hardy, Wordsworth, Dickinson, some Auden, O Hara, Keats, Yeats, Heany, Kavanagh, Behan, Kinsella, various Irish & European epics, a smattering of Japanese zen stuff - did most of this in school actually.

I guess by 'short and miserable', I basically meant 'modern'.
 

luka

Well-known member
Gerald Manley Hopkins' sonnets, Frank O Hara, Emily Dickinson, Ben Jonson epigrams, Ezra Pound translations of Chinese poets, Catullus translated by Peter Whigham, Shakespeare's sonnets, E. E. Cummings.

Very good suggestions. Second the Hopkins (from Stratford in Newham, like me) Frank O Hara is the only poet absolutely everyone likes, I've not read BJ and Ezras chinese stuff can verge on kitsch, but yes to the sonnets and even to Catullus. But do read Auden. He's right for you.
 

luka

Well-known member
Best book for understanding poetry is not fucking Fry but Karl Shapiro and Robert Beum's 'A Prosody Handbook', which you can probably pick up from Amazon Marketplace for 1 pence.

I recommend Hamburgers The Truth of Poetry.
 

luka

Well-known member
I think if you were willing to make an effort you could get good value from Pound and poets who, following his lead, introduce history into their work. Olson, David Jones, Clayton Eshleman....
 

luka

Well-known member
I'm probably the best from this century I suppose.
You should probably read anti imperialists like aime cesaire and the Cuban Nicolas Guillen.

(may be spelt incorrectly)
 

luka

Well-known member
You might get some joy out of the objectivists. Reznikoff is political. Oppen you might get on with. The Greeks are great, cavafy of course but also ritsos and seferis and at least one other name I can't remember
 

luka

Well-known member
Duino Elegies.
Holderlin. Trakl. Celan.

I'm giving Neruda a second chance but not ready to endorse him yet.

Valery (although I'm more interested in the prose)
Artaud to be done with the judgement of God
 

jenks

thread death
Not modern but if you want short and miserable then you can't beat the anglo-saxons - something like Deor or The Wanderer.

also not modern but this?

Chidiock Tichborne was a young man sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered for his part in the Babington plot to assassinate Elizabeth I in 1586. The night before his execution, in the Tower, he wrote this poem:

ELEGY
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain;
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
The spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung;
The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves be green,
My youth is gone and yet I am but young,
I saw the world and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
I sought my death and found it in my womb,
I looked for life and saw it was a shade,
I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I am but made;
My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
 
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