I've been posting snippets of poetry on Facebook in an experimental attempt to inject some culture into the social network. It's been quite fun for me actually, scanning my school texts/anthologies and reading the scrawled marginalia of my adolescent self in all her conscientious earnestness (eg. On Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn 'Tone: slow, quiet...Tension: immortality of the world on the urn, yet it's never lived...'). I think I went through a phase of trying to fit all the lecture notes in the margins of my poetry anthology. Good on my arts-student self; determined to do my bit to save the planet in truth and beauty.
But back to the poetry snippets. So far I've chosen bits from Dylan Thomas, Emily Dickinson, William Blake, WH Auden, Sylvia Plath, WB Yeats and Judith Wright. This next poem deserves a longer quote, so I thought I'd give it its own post:
An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow - Les Murray
There's a fellow weeping down there. No one can stop him.
The man we surround, the man no one approaches
simply weeps, and does not cover it, weeps
not like a child, not like the wind, like a man
and does not declaim it, nor beat his breast, nor even
sob very loudly—yet the dignity of his weeping
not like a child, not like the wind, like a man
and does not declaim it, nor beat his breast, nor even
sob very loudly—yet the dignity of his weeping
holds us back from his space, the hollow he makes about him
in the midday light, in his pentagram of sorrow,
and uniforms back in the crowd who tried to seize him
stare out at him, and feel, with amazement, their minds
longing for tears as children for a rainbow.
in the midday light, in his pentagram of sorrow,
and uniforms back in the crowd who tried to seize him
stare out at him, and feel, with amazement, their minds
longing for tears as children for a rainbow.
Obviously, it's best read in it's entirety - check it out at http://www.lesmurray.org/pm_aor.htm
But you can feel the raw emotion and sense of place, hey? I think it's a brillliant poem; it tells a story, pulls you in and makes you question what you would've said/thought/done.
Admittedly, poetry is probably the least accessible form of literature - much easier to read a novel or even a play. But I'm discovering so many gems in the pages of these poets (Did you know that the line 'The heart asks pleasure first' was first penned by Emily Dickinson?) The best poems are like word pictures; even better, they capture sights, sounds, smells, emotions.
So, hopefully I've inspired you to dust off your old 'Metaphysical poets' text or 'Norton Anthology of Poetry' and have another look at those poems that may bear more fruit for you now that you've lived a few more years on this dappled globe. Tip: most poems will make much more sense if you read them aloud and slowly.
Looking forward to bookgroup this month, where we all pick a poet and get to 'present' them to the group... Yeah, I know, I need to go back to torturing high school students soon or my bookgroup may have an uprising, Arab Spring style.
Meantime, what's your favourite poet/ poem?
Wishing you truth, beauty and rainbows,
helen xox
