Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I've been reading "No Other Book" a collection of essays by American poet/critic Randall Jarrell, and it's very good and I recommend it muchly
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Disappointed. I thought you were gonna respond to my Wallace Stevens post. Who's Randall Harrell when he's at home is he as good as Wallace Stevens?
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
The Bloom video is interesting. For someone to be so buzzing off poetry. I've never felt like that really.

But then, you get people who say they don't even like music. It's not all given to us.

Not sure where I came across Jarrell being feted as a great critic but he's definitely worth reading.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
It would be good (or would it be ruinous?) to be granted the capability to appreciate everything (within moral reason) that people appreciate.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Sorry, I was being rude but i'm just getting into Stevens and I saw you posted a poem and got excited.

I'd imagine everyone on here who's into poetry likes him except Luka who'd fucking hate him.

He's very difficult to understand and it will probably take me years with him, but also strangely quite easy to read, calming even, secular-religious, romantic, colourful, philosophical, delicate... I love it.

And yeah, gonna say early Prynne definitely springs to mind again, (I said this about Celan recently too) especially the longer Stevens one's I've read which are just as much statements of his poetics as -very beautiful - poems themselves.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
The Bloom video is interesting. For someone to be so buzzing off poetry. I've never felt like that really.

But then, you get people who say they don't even like music. It's not all given to us.

Not sure where I came across Jarrell being feted as a great critic but he's definitely worth reading.
I really like Harold Bloom actually. Haven't read any of his books yet but I've seen a fair few interviews and talks and he's so impressive, especially on Shakespeare.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I've not read all that much by him. He is difficult. But he writes beautifully, so that you don't necessarily regret not understanding what he's on about.

Here are some I remember reading by a pool in Cyprus





 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I really like Harold Bloom actually. Haven't read any of his books yet but I've seen a fair few interviews and talks and he's so impressive, especially on Shakespeare.
Sometimes I get sick of him and his Shakespeare is God stuff but then I read something by him and it's always valuable
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
"Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
Is equally converted into palms,
Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,
Madame, we are where we began. Allow,
Therefore, that in the planetary scene
Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,
Proud of such novelties of the sublime,
Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince."
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Funnily enough in Jarrell yesterday I came across this poem by Frost

Provide, Provide
The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag,
Was once the beauty Abishag,

The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.

Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.

Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone.

Some have relied on what they knew;
Others on simply being true.
What worked for them might work for you.

No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard,
Or keeps the end from being hard.

Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
"Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
Is equally converted into palms,
Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,
Madame, we are where we began. Allow,
Therefore, that in the planetary scene
Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,
Proud of such novelties of the sublime,
Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince."
Wow, very Shakespearian, hadn't read that before.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Notes Towards A Supreme Fiction is great, read that one yesterday. His longer ones are like poetic essays more than anything.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I was going to put this in very short poems thread but it's not short enough. It's by Christopher Logue. I googled him/this and discovered it was turned into a song by Donovan (then covered by Joan Baez) and it was enlightening to compare their versions to the (to my ears much preferable) music that comes with just reading it.

Be not too hard, for life is short,
And nothing is given to man;
Be not too hard when he is sold and bought,
And he must manage as best he can;
Be not too hard when he blindly dies
Fighting for things he does not own;
And be not too hard when he tells lies,
Or his heart is sometimes like a stone;
Be not too hard, for soon he'll die,
Often no wiser than he began;
Be not too hard, for life is short,
And nothing is given to man.
 

luka

Well-known member
ABYSS : 2

At least given up for, cause loose in choke
let and leave both in the way marine inside
cash and crash, fast torment. Let for this
so casual flourish for spray passage sloop
younger by far all of say to know, going like
this granted no favour, affective turn a clip
in such want. Relic custodian leaving over
too ardent, too much as just so. Fluent ask
in grasp for air light wiling, hold the child
out first, our ransom list and lost bear this
plain enough. Not for frantic little from that
know this at brim cracked up in daylight pro-
file visible the cries distant lurk to chill
bet to know past hearing, amplitude wave narrow
crested at this driven. Below trace steerage
run out of doubt go down to it, to make sink or
swallow, past bearing out now, our guest limit
afforded to break, knowing so. In vital offer
detachment separable inexpensive all wasteful
across this shiny-bright horizon laid out.

JH Prynne.
 

luka

Well-known member
its like it was written with tweezers. i think its very good, this poem. this book had a big influence on me although i doubt
ive ever read it.
 

luka

Well-known member
i love the drooping curves of this sentence its like flamingoes

so casual flourish for spray passage sloop
 
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