Poetry: Your Thoughts?

[GrinningManiac]

Everyone did Poetry in school. It was as boring as watching paint dry, if the paint was dry in the first place and in another room whilst you underwent total sensory depravation. We read the mindless dribbling of modern poets with very little to say and no real life experience to base it on.

I, like everyone else, hated poetry. But I loved English, and I took Literature for A-level. That comes with poetry.

Then I found War Poetry, specifically WW1, specifically Wilfred Owens.

It's amazing! He actually has something to say that is both meaningful, resounding and poingant (I cannot spell that damned word for the life of me). Here's the third stanza of "Insensibility"

Happy are these who lose imagination:
They have enough to carry with ammunition.
Their spirit drags no pack.
Their old wounds, save with cold, can not more ache.
Having seen all things red,
Their eyes are rid
Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever.
And terror's first constriction over,
Their hearts remain small-drawn.
Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle
Now long since ironed,
Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.

It's moving stuff, and that's not even the best stuff. Dulce Et Decorum Est is brilliant as well.

So, fellow Escaperoonies, what is your view on Poetry, and what, if you like it, do you like most?

 

[FinalDream]

I don't like it, I much prefer a novel or short story. Maybe its because of the school days putting me off very early in life.

 

[Quick Ben]

I completely agree with you. A lot of the poems I've come across in school ranged from bland to complete bullshit. The result being that I'm not very fond of poetry in general. However there are some gems buried there in the pile of shit and meh, and the poems of Wilfred Owens are definitely among those gems.

Edit: Some other favourites of mine are the Norwegian poems Du må ikke sove (Dare Not To Sleep) by Arnulf Øverland and Til Ungdommen (To the Youth) by Nordahl Grieg.

Spoiler: English translations

Til Ungdommen
To English By Rod Sinclair (2004)

Faced by your enemies
On every hand
Battle is menacing,
Now make your stand

Fearful your question,
Defenceless, open
What shall I fight with?
What is my weapon?

Here is your battle plan,
Here is your shield
Faith in this life of ours,
The common weal

For all our children?s sake,
Save it, defend it,
Pay any price you must,
They shall not end it

Neat stacks of cannon shells,
Row upon row
Death to the life you love,
All that you know

War is contempt for life,
Peace is creation
Death?s march is halted
By determination

We all deserve the world,
Harvest and seed
Hunger and poverty
Are born of greed

Don?t turn your face away
From needs of others
Reach out a helping hand
To all your brothers

Here is our solemn vow,
From land to land
We will protect our world
From tyrants? hand

Defend the beautiful,
Gentle and innocent
Like any mother would
Care for her infant.

Dare not to sleep!
By Arnulf Øverland
Translated from Norwegian by Lars-Toralf Storstrand

I was awakened one morning, by the quaintest of dreams
?twas like a voice, spoken to me
It sounded afar - like an underground stream,
I rose and said: Why do you call me?

Dare not to slumber! Dare not to sleep!
Dare not believe, it was merely a dream!
Yore I was judged.
The gallows were built in the court this evening,
They?ll come for me ? 5? in the morning


This dungeon is teeming,
And barracks stand dungeon by dungeon
we lie here, awaiting, in cold cells of stone,
We lie here, we rot, in these murky holes.

We know not ourselves, what does lie ahead
Who will be the next one they'll reach for.
We moan and we shriek: But do you take heed?
Is there none among you who?ll hearken?

No one can see us,
None know what befalls us.
Yet more:
None will believe - what the day will bring us!

And then You defy: This dare not be true!
That men can be utterly evil.
There has to be some one with merits pure
Oh, brother, you still have a great deal to learn

They said: You will give your life, if commanded
We?ve given it now, for naught it was handed
The world has forgotten, we?ve all been deceived
Dare not to sleep in this hour - this eve.

You oughtn?t go to your business hence,
Or think: What?s your loss ? or what is your gain?
You oughtn?t attribute your fields and your kine,
Nor say you?ve enough - with all that is thine.

You oughn?t abide, sitting calm in your home
Saying: Dismal it is, poor they are, and alone
You cannot permit it! You dare not, at all.
Accepting that outrage on all else may fall!
I cry with the final gasps of my breath:
You dare not repose, nor stand and forget

Pardon them not - they know what they do!
They breathe on hate-glows, and evil pursue,
They fancy to slay, they revel with cries,
Their desire is to gloat, when our world is at fire!
In blood they are yearning to drown one and all!
Don?t you believe it? You?ve heard the call!

You know how infants will soldiers remain,
While dashing through streets, fields, chanting ?bout pain
Aroused by their mothers? assurance of glory
They?ll shelter their land - and they?ll never worry

You know the fatality of the lies,
that glory and faith and honor abides
You discern the dauntless dreams of a child,
A saber, a banner, he?ll flaunt them so wild,

And then they?ll leave home for a rainfall of steel,
?Till last they hang ragged on barbed wire will,
Decaying for Hitler's Aryan call,
That is what a man?s for - after all?

I couldn?t imagine ? too late now it is
My sentence is just: The verdict's no miss
I believed in prosperity, dreamt about peace
In labor and fellowship; love?s fragrant kiss
Yet those who don?t die on the battlefield,
Their heads for the axeman, will certainly yield

I cry in the gloom - if only you?d knew
There is but one thing - befitting to do
Defend yourself, while your hands are still yearning,
Protect your offspring - Europe is burning.

***

I shook from the chill. To dress, up I rose
Without stars were shining, so far, yet so close
?twere simply a brilliant ray in the east,
Admonishing warning from the dream that just ceased

The day that soared up from earths furthermost strand
Augmenting with blood ? and with firebrand
It grew with terror - like a breath that was lost
It seemed like the starlight - was slain by the frost.

I weighed: Something is imminent - and it?s dire
Our era is over ? Europe?s on fire!

Seems like I have a fondness for poetry about war...

 

[Marter]

Some poems really touched me, but most of the ones encountered in school were rather boring.

 

[Jack and Calumon]

Poetry, By Jack Nicholls
The fire within my eyes can only see,
The delight of which is poetry.
My Heart loves it,
Every last bit!
People write and people love
All beautiful like a dove!
Rhyming or not,
Held together like a powerful knot,
Is my love for Poetry!


Calumon's Cake, By Calumon
I want some Cake,
But I don't wanna Bake.
Jack get in there,
don't fall over the bear.
Make me a cake,
For I don't wanna Bake.​

[sub]Totally Improvised stuff[/sub]

 

[Doitpow]

Am very...very picky with my poetry. I loathe war poetry, love poems, 99% of 'dark' poetry.
Poetry has to be short, imaginative, stylistic, original and has to have a reason for being a poem as opposed to a song or piece of flash fiction. I would argue that poetry has the worst 'Good to Bad' ratio of any art, probably because most of it is written by people who think it is easy.
Some of the stuff from The Hawk in the Rain is sublime. They work as poems because they are not about humanity, and the flow and rhythm of them has a natural quality to it.
I also have a fondness for 'nonsense verse', but I don't really see that as poetry, more as song.

 

[FinalDream]

Maybe they should stop teaching it at schools to allow people to appreciate it later in life?

 

[TheDuckbunny]

I can't really stand any poetry. It all sounds so cheesy to me, even those that aren't meant to be.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

I can enjoy a good touching poem or short story. Any Robert Frost poem or an Edgar Allen Poe story does it for me.

 

[photog212]

I despise Walt Whitman like no other, but I do love the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and Dr. Seuss.

 

[UnSeEn60]

I <3 much poetry, especially my own *cough cough cough*.

Seriously, though, give some more a chance. Don't judge all poetry based on the junk you probably read in class. Billy Collins has some amazing poetry, and he's really accessible. Bukowski isn't bad either - gritty just like his novels. Then there are the epically long poems like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Dante's Infero, both of which are tough but very good.

 

[InvisibleSeal]

-snip-

Coincidence! That was the poem I was given for my unseen oral commentary last year. Wilfred Owen is amazing, he puts such meaning into his poems because he has experienced it all - have you read any of his other poems? Like "Spring Offensive" or "Dulce et Decorum est"? Also you might like Rosenberg: http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/18594-Isaac-Rosenberg-Break-of-Day-in-the-Trenches

I love poetry actually: both reading and writing. There are obviously poems I don't like because they have no meaning, or even because they are too pretentious, but I haven't come across many. Then again, it does take some of the joy out of poetry to have to do indepth analysis alot of the time.