Charlie K

Some great stuff here. I will post on the whatsis thread about merging these.

So, I have been thinking about the qualities of poetry that I like, and resolving myself to read more of it and, aghast! to actually seek out books of poetry to consume instead of the way I have typically consumed poetry, in anthologies or randomly. I think I mentioned earlier I have been very turned on by Rexroth's translations and so picked up a selected Rexroth from the library. It's terrific. But it hammers home to me what I like about poetry and also illuminates for me that I don't know enough, as well read even as I am, about the structural side of poetry to know what is being presented to me. But, I think you don't have to, especially the angle from which I like it, which is...

I like brief poetry, in plain language. I don't want to have to struggle too hard to follow a poem - I am absolutely worn out by excessive symbolism (Wallace Stevens) or even narrative (many of the Victorians slay me with this). The intro to the Rexroth I am reading has a great description of how Rexroth breaks up lines, uses cadence, uses syllables and, whattayacallit, the emphases words take. Here's what I mean:

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rexroth/morrow.htm

For all its rhythmic diversity the lines do not vary beyond nine to eleven syllables (two thirds of the passage is comprised of hendecasyllables); there are four or five stresses per line, mostly four. Yet by unstrained employment of different punctuation, enjambment, and variable balancing of syllabic stresses Rexroth invokes in the reader an actual physical feeling, the sensation of being in this idle canoe, buffeted by irregular, lazy currents, exhausted but alert. It is a remarkable achievement of form, and is carried off with effortless sanguinity. The final four lines constitute such a balance of differing weights--the second line triadic, the third of almost equal proportions mounted on the fulcrum of that comma and balanced out from the middle by the repeated "songs, songs"--they can be compared to a Calder mobile.

It's above my level of technical ability but I know now that I like poets that, in this plain language format, break up their lines in a way that punches the verse. Example:

A Fervor Parches You Sometimes - Kenneth Rexroth

A fervor parches you sometimes,

And you hunch over it, silent,

Cruel, and timid; and sometimes

You are frightened with wantonness,

And give me your desperation.

Mostly we lurk in our coverts,

Protecting our spleens, pretending

That our bandages are our wounds.

But sometimes the wheel of change stops;

Illusion vanishes in peace;

And suddenly pride lights your flesh –

Lucid as diamond, wise as pearl –

And your face, remote, absolute,

Perfect and final like a beast's.

It is wonderful to watch you,

A living woman in a room

Full of frantic, sterile people,

And think of your arching buttocks

Under your velvet evening dress,

And the beautiful fire spreading

From your sex, burning flesh and bone,

The unbelievably complex

Tissues of you brain all alive

Under your coiling, splendid hair.

I like to think of you naked.

I put your naked body

Between myself alone and death.

If I go into my brain

And set fire to you sweet nipples,

To the tendons beneath your knees,

I can see far before me.

It is empty there where I look,

But at least it is lighted.

I know how your shoulders glisten,

How your face sinks into trance,

And your eyes like a sleepwalker's,

And your lips of a woman

Cruel to herself.

I like to

Think of you clothed, your body

Shut to the world and self contained,

Its wonderful arrogance

That makes all women envy you.

I can remember every dress,

Each more proud then a naked nun.

When I go to sleep my eyes

Close in a mesh of memory.

Its cloud of intimate odor

Dreams instead of myself.

***

What about you? What kind of poetry do you like?

WOW! hahahaha!

Here at STH we call that BOLSOK (Burst out laughing, spit on keyboard)

Oh how I've missed that!

Oi, blondie, lookin' good!

Damn! And me a huge Asian cinema and literature buff.

God dammit.

http://stei-23767.tributes.com/show/Bill-Brown-87093268

Bill Brown, 86, of Sarasota, formerly of West Bloomfield, Mich., died Oct. 29, 2009.

Services will be in Michigan.

Survivors include his wife of 55 years, Nan; sons Craig (wife Linda), and Bruce (wife Heather); a daughter, Cindy (husband Norb); and grandchildren Shannon, Ross, Cameron, Bryan and Brody. He is also loved by his granddogs, Anton, Jake, Romeo and Spike.

Born in Scotland, Bill was a retired Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Air Force (unimpressed by all bombers after the B29). Bill taught history at Ferndale High School (Mich.) for 36 years, positively impacting the lives of many.

He left everything better than he found it.

Memorial donations may be made to Homes for Autism, P.O. Box 904, Birmingham, MI 48012 (www.homesforautism.org).

Does the fact that you didn't stay in touch negate the fact that you obviously appreciated his teaching efforts?

Yes. In my personal nexus of Catholic, Confucian, Charliean guilt, honor and obligation I am in debt. Perhaps my only way out is to pay this forward somehow.

Loved the entirety of

 

Hmm, surely this is in the wrong thread?. It should be in the Declare a Love for Someone thread. Masako san is in fact the bald guy I would choose, well done metanoia. The candle that burns twice as bright, burns twice as fast, to quote from a Japanese proverb.

 

Loved that show to pieces. Loved it even more when I realise it was actually intensely meaningful fun, rather than just intensely crazy fun.

You guys are gonna kill me but who is this?

Awesome. First of all, I apologize, because I forgot we had another sub forum! I was actually looking for the other poetry thread, to revive it. Can we merge this one with that?

More to come.

Yep!

We are, you and me,

Like two pine needles

Which will dry and fall

But never separate.

-Anonymous

Rexroth has some fine translations from the Japanese:

http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/translations/japanese.htm

I've posted some of Rexroth's translations before. Some again:

http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/translations/chinese.htm#Men%20Poets

Because I think poetry is dying a long, slow, painful death in world letters. For two reasons:

-people don't read as much in general, they certainly don't read poetry

-poetry has become over-academicized; the poetry being produced is only appreciated by academics and other poets

This must change, because poetry is in the lifesblood of the world. And there's only one solution.

Read more poerty. And tell others.

So, I want to hear from you poets and poems you dig, and why. I want as many examples as possible. Anything you want to share.

I'll start. The Cold Mountain poems of Han Shan, translated by Gary Snyder (himself a fine poet and the character of Japhy Ryder in Kerouac's Dharma Bums). What I love about the translations of Chinese poetry is usually their brevity but also their rhythm. They seem to catalogue things - events, sights, feelings. Kenneth Rexroth has some other great translations.

http://www.hermetica.info/hanshan.htm

1

The path to Han-shan's place is laughable,

A path, but no sign of cart or horse.

Converging gorges - hard to trace their twists

Jumbled cliffs - unbelievably rugged.

A thousand grasses bend with dew,

A hill of pines hums in the wind.

And now I've lost the shortcut home,

Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?

2

In a tangle of cliffs, I chose a place -

Bird paths, but no trails for me.

What's beyond the yard?

White clouds clinging to vague rocks.

Now I've lived here - how many years -

Again and again, spring and winter pass.

Go tell families with silverware and cars

"What's the use of all that noise and money?"

3

In the mountains it's cold.

Always been cold, not just this year.

Jagged scarps forever snowed in

Woods in the dark ravines spitting mist.

Grass is still sprouting at the end of June,

Leaves begin to fall in early August.

And here I am, high on mountains,

Peering and peering, but I can't even see the sky

When I was 14 I hung out every day in Mr. Brown's class after school. He was my history teacher and we spent afternoons talking about Greeks and Romans and other things. You know, it just occurred to me, just now, that I may have bored Mr. Brown, but he indulged me. We hung out all the time. God, what was I doing?

I feel fairly confident in stating that you are SO WRONG! To a teacher, one of the great joys in your worklife is meeting genuinely curious kids who suck up information like sponges. You probably made mr. Brown very happy, Charlie.

Oh, I don't know. I wonder how he felt when I stopped coming around and instead starting chasing girls, and how he felt when I never contacted him as an adult to let him know what an enormous impact he was on me.

And then of course there's...

I don't think BJ Penn is all muscled out. In fact, I think he's got a nice, natural physique, no doubt shaped by conditioning but not tapered the way some men seek.

I have a terrific furry chest. Somehow I got it and Lou didn't, I think he's just got a bit of fluff - unless, do you shave your chest, Lou?

God, yeah. What with Carmody and Charlie's young 'uns, there's got to be some gold there.

 

Apologies if I've forgotten any other parents.

Obviously they have offspring with other people, in case that wasn't clear.

TF? What have you done with our kids, Carmody?! I thought you were watching them!

And the mother-flippin' BAWSS Takashi Shimura:

Not bald, by the way, but shaved his head for this role as you probably know.

Oh and how could we forget...

BJ Penn

Applesauce is picking up what I'm laying down. Couple thoughts:

-Some guys are destined to look awesome with hair or without. So they become handsome bald men but were handsome to begin with. I hate those guys - no, envy those guys. But into that category fall Stathem, Tucci, Ed Harris. Me, I lost Charisma points off my AD&D character sheet when I lost my hair.

-Taye Diggs has an unnatural advantage. How do I word this - the brothers rock a shaved head so much better, they can totally pull it off in ways us white dudes can't. That goes for a lot of clothes, too. They just look cool in a way that is inimitable.

-Asian dudes, too.

Now on with the show: Hunter S.

Henry Miller. Or, Fred Ward playing Henry Miller.

Thanks, Mark!

Jackson Pollock was a violent drunk but also a damn fine looking man.

I sometimes wear almost this exact same thing...