Poetry Forum

I’ve been pre-occupied recently with the gap between my experience of poetry and what I perceive (partly through the unwillingness of readers to buy poetry) to be most people’s experience of it. I think of poetry as the most important art form we have. It contains sound (the voice, its rhythms, music), & thought (ideas, opinions, imaginings) & vision (pictures, images, conjurations). And poetry mixes sound, thought and vision into story-telling, that most fundamental use of language, the basis of so much discourse (‘how was your school/work/lover today, darling?’). I’ve been reading and re-reading this poem wondering how I can communicate my joy in it to someone who ‘doesn’t get on with’ poetry.

Michael Mackmin

Passing by the little mosque, built on a paan shop,
Whose imam coughs on a loudspeaker
Five times a day –

'last triumph of the poem’s arrival is when “it tells you its intention”, at which point the poet can give a sigh of satisfaction, and relax, at least for a while. It’s the sharing of control between poet and poem that seems to be the core plot of Stevenson’s graceful narrative.' (Rumens)

We had an appetite for appetite.
We poured melted lard all over our
popcorn which we then covered
with a snowstorm of salt. We smoked,
we snorted, we cavorted with people
who were best left alone.

We’re engaging in Self-Distraction
We’re ain’t payin’ no damn attention

she’d take your hand and press it warmly. Lean in
to read the lilting script along the lintel: And all manner
of things shall be well. It’s time to leave her side now.
Her story has been told, and rests inside you as you go.

This Lime-tree Bower my Prison

[Addressed to Charles Lamb, of the India House, London]

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge;—that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.

..................................Now, my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven—and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined
And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.

.............................................. A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook
Beat its straight path along the dusky air
Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,
While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still,
Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

A spit is measurement of soil depth judged by the length of the blade of a spade. It is used to describe how deep a trench should be dug. As in single digging is one spit deep, double digging is two spits deep.

dendrologists, find that trees talk with
each other through roots

Jessica Goodfellow: “Poetry unmuddles my muddled thoughts and muddles my clear ones. My current project is writing based on the loss of my mother’s only brother on Denali in 1967, in one of the worst mountain-climbing accidents in U.S. history. We hardly talk about this tragedy in our family; by doing so I am both muddling and unmuddling our feelings and fears.”

Fog By Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

wings sticky with verbs,
her diaphragm tickled with nouns
that won’t settle or fly off