there is just so much in Olds; they're not even so panoramic, just so full and imaginable. three a day, max.
― mustread guy (schlump), Thursday, 13 February 2014 03:09 (ten years ago) link
& wait is TDATL the recent one?
nah its one from the early 80s.
― i have the new brutal HOOS if you want it (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Thursday, 13 February 2014 03:41 (ten years ago) link
Petrarch b/w English Alliterative Revival stuff; then a reading of Villon's Testament to close the middle ages
― my collages, let me show you them (bernard snowy), Thursday, 13 February 2014 17:25 (ten years ago) link
newyear
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 28 February 2014 20:50 (ten years ago) link
Seaton's version of Cold Mountain Poems.
― Aimless, Friday, 28 February 2014 20:52 (ten years ago) link
read a.e. housman's 'a shropshire lad' on my kindle a few weeks ago. uneven but some great stuff.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 28 February 2014 21:15 (ten years ago) link
rereading Walcott after all the attention over the new collected poems.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 28 February 2014 21:20 (ten years ago) link
i read goethe and herrick, felt very leisured and cultured
― j., Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:59 (ten years ago) link
like an Englishman in 1841.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 1 March 2014 01:00 (ten years ago) link
xp ya Housman's great, seems underappreciated (maybe due to the conservatism of his forms?) but the books qua books hold together really well
― my collages, let me show you them (bernard snowy), Saturday, 1 March 2014 21:05 (ten years ago) link
Housman attracted such immoderate adulation in his day that there had to be a reaction against him for a time. Now it's safe to dust him off and put him back into his niche.
― Aimless, Saturday, 1 March 2014 21:09 (ten years ago) link
Aimless I forget, are you a UK poster?
― my collages, let me show you them (bernard snowy), Sunday, 2 March 2014 02:15 (ten years ago) link
that Shambhala Editions Cold Mountain Poems has caught my eye many times in B&N without my ever buying it... I've put so much effort into learning to appreciate european poetry these past few years, it's made me very reluctant to explore other traditions, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time
― my collages, let me show you them (bernard snowy), Sunday, 2 March 2014 02:18 (ten years ago) link
I post from Oregon, USA, where I've lived about 57 of my 59 years. But when you love literature and are a monoglot in English, you learn to love English lit.
― Aimless, Sunday, 2 March 2014 02:53 (ten years ago) link
― xyzzzz__, Friday, February 28, 2014 8:50 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
wow
― i have the new brutal HOOS if you want it (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 19:41 (ten years ago) link
At the moment, I've been dipping into my copy of Padraic Colum's poetry, titled Poems, a late compilation that does not identify itself as a 'collected poems of'. Padraic can't be described as anything but a "minor poet", but he had a nice touch when he keeps his loftier ambitions in check. Methinks the mere existence of Yeats lifted the work of every Irish poet well above what they could have achieved without him.
Just before that I was paddling around in the poetry of Stevie Smith and in doing so I decided to remove her from my shelves and sell her off during my next selling spree. A few of her early poems have charm, but her charms are very rapidly exhausted.
― Aimless, Thursday, 20 March 2014 16:12 (ten years ago) link
yknow, i think i would really enjoy a history of american poetry whose driving narrative was basically repetitions of
'i am the poet of america!!!'
'no you're not fukk u'
― j., Thursday, 20 March 2014 22:30 (ten years ago) link
america's one true poet was t.s. eliot iirc
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Thursday, 20 March 2014 22:34 (ten years ago) link
FITE!
― Aimless, Thursday, 20 March 2014 22:43 (ten years ago) link
rrrr tom you know me TOO WELL fukk u
no you know what ts eliot was the one true poet of 20th c. britannia and after that you guys have been up shit's creek, no bard to sing your songs, how does it feel
― j., Thursday, 20 March 2014 23:01 (ten years ago) link
i mean we got like. geoffrey hill and shit, i dunno
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Thursday, 20 March 2014 23:43 (ten years ago) link
rereading an old Helen Vendler collection published in the late seventies. Essays on Moore, Merrill, Stevie Smith, Lowell, Stevens, and Gluck.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 20 March 2014 23:47 (ten years ago) link
and, like, carol ann duffy
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Thursday, 20 March 2014 23:47 (ten years ago) link
all bases covered, is what i'm saying
albion liveth still and everafter
― j., Friday, 21 March 2014 00:23 (ten years ago) link
but they'll be doing it in the Championship come August
― fhingerbhangra (Noodle Vague), Friday, 21 March 2014 00:43 (ten years ago) link
can't see how anybody cd mistake Eliot's hyper-tense class paranoia for anything other than oh shit hold on
― fhingerbhangra (Noodle Vague), Friday, 21 March 2014 00:45 (ten years ago) link
so yeah i really don't have the stomach for louise gluck
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Friday, 21 March 2014 08:17 (ten years ago) link
she's a bit of a psychosexual hack tbh
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 21 March 2014 10:48 (ten years ago) link
nah that was your mother
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Friday, 21 March 2014 16:54 (ten years ago) link
which Gluck you been reading? I dig the two most recent collections, particularly A Village Life, where she sounds like an aging writer trying to age faster(?)
― Many American citizens are literally paralyzed by (bernard snowy), Friday, 21 March 2014 21:09 (ten years ago) link
Ararat and The House on Marshland. The first book felt too glib.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 22 March 2014 02:30 (ten years ago) link
i was reading the other one that starts with a and the one with the boat on the cover
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Saturday, 22 March 2014 14:55 (ten years ago) link
Meanwhile, apropos of the ongoing surrealism obsession mentioned on the other "what are you reading" thread, I picked up the recent (1990s) English translation of Breton's Clair de terre, which is mostly baffling, occasionally charming (as in the 'poem' listing off all of the Bretons in the Paris phonebook), and lacks a parallel French text due to copyright issues (boo!). Also bought a Gerard de Nerval selected works (not the Penguin edition, an older one, translated by Wagner--the Encyclopedia of Literary Translations into English praises his handling of the poetry, moreso than the novellas), which I am enjoying in spite of its hermetic density of allusion & personal mythology.
― Many American citizens are literally paralyzed by (bernard snowy), Sunday, 23 March 2014 00:11 (ten years ago) link
I should clarify: de Nerval's prose works (of which I've only tackled 'Sylvie' thus far) do not strike me as terribly obscure; but the poetry, which abounds in allusions both Classical and Medieval (thank heaven for endnotes!), seems also to take for granted a familiarity with the prose.
― Many American citizens are literally paralyzed by (bernard snowy), Sunday, 23 March 2014 00:16 (ten years ago) link
I haven't read De Nerval in years, but I enjoyed the copy I use to have. I think it was published by Exact Change. My favorite surrealist was Eluard, but sadly I never found a complete translation of him. I always wanted to like Lautréamont, but I never enjoyed actually reading him. Have you read Revolution of the Mind: The Life of Andre Breton by Mark Polizzotti? Breton was such a curious guy, I sort of hate him and love him.
― JacobSanders, Sunday, 23 March 2014 01:19 (ten years ago) link
the Polizzotti biography was recommended in the other thread; I may look into once I finish the Balakian, or if a cheap copy falls into my lap.
Maldoror is wonderful in small doses & particular moods, but the narrowness of its emotional range can get kind of suffocating. I don't know what to make of the Poesies, and I find the body of critical literature around Lautreamont somewhat maddening (possible exception: Gaston Bachelard's monograph, which I remember being decently insightful... I can't make heads or tails of Blanchot's long essay, though, & I usually dig his criticism)
― Many American citizens are literally paralyzed by (bernard snowy), Sunday, 23 March 2014 03:33 (ten years ago) link
Marvell. I don't know why
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Sunday, 23 March 2014 21:17 (ten years ago) link
I recently finished Anne Carson's latest book, Red Doc>, her oblique successor to Autobiography of Red, and while I enjoyed it I found it frustratingly diffuse in comparison to the earlier book or Nox. The strongest passages in the book, which focus on the death of G/Geryon's mother, follow from the Celan-pastiche lyrics on mourning in Decreation but seem a little too loosely connected to Red Doc>'s earlier wisps of narrative. I'll probably find more in it on a second reading, though.
― one way street, Monday, 24 March 2014 01:31 (ten years ago) link
To be clear, I don't generally read Carson for the sake of narrative.
― one way street, Monday, 24 March 2014 01:44 (ten years ago) link
i think the exact change edition of nerval had the poems translated by robert duncan from memory and they used the earlier wagner translations for the stories. and yeah, the chimera poems are pretty dense with classical/esoteric allusions (haven't read the wagner edition i have of his work yet, but it has a lot more editorial matter than the exact change). aurelia is a trip, and if you ever see a copy of his journey to the orient it's a+ 19th century orientalism
i read maldoror in snatches over lunch breaks while studying and loved it, so maybe it's best to approach it in pieces? (also have his complete works sitting here unread, so need to read poesies sometime too)
i think i prefer what i've read of the parasurrealist poets more than the actual thing, people like michaux & daumal, etc
― no lime tangier, Monday, 24 March 2014 06:38 (ten years ago) link
which reminds me of the very to the point and hilarious open letter daumal wrote to breton after rejecting the latter's invitation to join the surrealists which ends with daumal inviting breton to join his own group and includes this classic kiss off: "beware of eventually figuring in the study guides to literary history"
― no lime tangier, Monday, 24 March 2014 06:58 (ten years ago) link
Marvell's flecknoe poem is pretty good. I feel like I enjoy the prose translations provided of his Latin and Greek verse more so than I do his English verse, though, which is probably a sign that seventeenth c . verse is just not for me.
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Monday, 24 March 2014 20:37 (ten years ago) link
bro u gotta read herrick
― j., Monday, 24 March 2014 20:53 (ten years ago) link
i've read herrick but idk if i've read him y'know
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Monday, 24 March 2014 21:19 (ten years ago) link
you gotta do the hesperides all as a thing, none of this anthologized 'virgins' junk
― j., Monday, 24 March 2014 21:22 (ten years ago) link
man that shit sounds long though
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Monday, 24 March 2014 21:58 (ten years ago) link
well i thought for a second he was out of print but no, there is a lovely £125 edition from OUP last year. same for the next volume with commentary.
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Monday, 24 March 2014 22:00 (ten years ago) link
they're all super short tho, it's like a 17th c. blog
i luckily happened into a well-appointed old norton complete poetry of, for some reason he went so out of fashion that they seem to have stopped printing him, but there must be something like that kicking around your dusty old country
― j., Monday, 24 March 2014 22:02 (ten years ago) link
Now we’ve no hope of going back,cutter, to that grey quaywhere we moored twice and twice unwillingly cast off our cables to put out at the slack when the sea’s laugh was choked to a mutter and the leach lifted hesitantly with a stutter and sulky clack, how desolate the swatchways look, cutter …
… We have no course to set,only to drift too long, watch too glumly, and wait,wait.
Basil Bunting, Perche no Spero
― Slays two. Found gassed. Thinks of cat. (Chinaski), Saturday, 9 September 2023 21:16 (seven months ago) link
why would he want to go back to that? Does he say?
― dow, Saturday, 9 September 2023 23:18 (seven months ago) link
Oh wait, at least he wasn't here, right? I know the feeling.
― dow, Saturday, 9 September 2023 23:19 (seven months ago) link
McMichael, Four Good Things
― alimosina, Tuesday, 31 October 2023 22:28 (six months ago) link
was at the museum of contemporary art in barcelona this afternoon, and there’s an exhibit that features this poem, by forough farrokhad, which I found almost unbearably moving
My entire soul is a murky verseReiterating you within itselfCarrying you to the dawn of eternal burstings and blossomingsIn this verse, I sighed you, AH!In this verse,I grafted you to trees, water and fire
Perhaps life isA long street along which a womanWith a basket passes every day
Perhaps lifeIs a rope with which a man hangs himself from a branchPerhaps life is a child returning home from school
Perhaps life is the lighting of a cigaretteBetween the narcotic repose of two lovemakingsOr the puzzled passage of a passerbyTipping his hatSaying good morning to another passerby with a vacant smile
Perhaps life is that blocked momentWhen my look destroys itself in the pupils of your eyesAnd in this there is a senseWhich I will mingle with the perception of the moonAnd the reception of darknessIn a room the size of one solitudeMy heartThe size of one loveLooks at the simple pretexts of its own happiness,At the pretty withering of flowers in the flower potsAt the sapling you planted in our flowerbedAt the songs of the canariesWho sing the size of one window.AhThis is my lotThis is my lotMy lotIs a sky, which the dropping of a curtain seizes from meMy lot is going down an abandoned stairwayAnd joining with something in decay and nostalgiaMy lot is a cheerless walk in the garden of memoriesAnd dying in the sorrow of a voice that tells me:“I loveYour hands”I will plant my hands in the flowerbedI will sprout, I know, I know, I knowAnd the sparrows will lay eggsIn the hollows of my inky fingersI will hang a pair of earrings of red twin cherriesRound my earsI will put dahlia petals on my nailsThere is an alleyWhere the boys who were once in love with me,With those disheveled hairs, thin necks and gaunt legsStill think of the innocent smiles of a little girlWho was one night blown away by the windThere is an alley which my heartHas stolen from places of my childhoodThe journey of a volume along the line of timeAnd impregnating the barren line of time with a volumeA volume conscious of an imageReturning from the feast of a mirrorThis is the waySomeone diesAnd someone remainsNo fisherman will catch pearlsFrom a little stream flowing into a ditchI Know a sad little mermaidDwelling in the oceanSoftly, gently blowingHer heart into a wooden fluteA sad little mermaidWho dies with a kiss at night
her name sounded vaguely familiar, and it’s the director who made THE HOUSE IS BLACK — what a remarkable, regrettably brief life
― brony james (k3vin k.), Friday, 29 March 2024 16:02 (one month ago) link
Slowly reading my way through the 2022 Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers anthology. The longer narrative poems tend to feature lots of death and weird sex, and the shorter lyric ones are defiantly nihilistic in a sort of zen way. Recommended.
― o. nate, Monday, 1 April 2024 20:16 (one month ago) link
correction: 2002, not 2022.
― o. nate, Monday, 1 April 2024 20:18 (one month ago) link