Korean Job Discussion Forums

[JMO]

Hey lets post links to our favorite poems. I realise there is already a thread on this but I would like it if people could post links to the authors reading the poems if that is possible. I always understand the poem better if I can hear the person who wrote it.

So please post links to spoken versions of your fave poems. If you can't find spoken versions, written ones will do. A little analysyis on the poem and why you like it would be cool too.

[JMO]

Well i'll start off even though this isn't quite my favorite.

this is by seamus heaney and its called "Mossbawn Sunlight"..

i love this poem because i didn't understand it when i first read it for school. I gave it to my mom who is from the same generation and background as the author and she explained it to me. What I love about it really is the memory of her face as she read it out loud with complete conviction first time..she knew what it was about alright. She explained the words but i never really got the essence of this poem as I could tell she had. All she said really was he had put into words something that she had always known but never said..or words to that effect.

Press play to hear the poem..

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=1393

[the1andonly]

Razors pain you
Rivers are damp.
Acids stain you
Drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful
Nooses give.
Gas smells awful
You might as well live.

[JMO]

[catycat]

I love Raglan Road by Patrick Kavanagh (or anything by P K, for that matter). I remember studying his poems for the leaving cert, and its hard to pick only one, but I think Raglan Road is it.


On Raglan Road of an Autumn day
I saw her first and knew,
That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I might someday rue.
I saw the danger and I passed
Along the enchanted way.
And I said,"Let grief be a fallen leaf
At the dawning of the day."

On Grafton Street in November, we
Tripped lightly along the ledge
Of a deep ravine where can be seen
The worth of passion play.
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts
And I not making hay;
Oh, I loved too much and by such and such
Is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind,
I gave her the secret signs,
That's known to the artists who have known
The true gods of sound and stone.
And her words and tint without stint
I gave her poems to say
With her own name there and her own dark hair
Like clouds over fields of May.

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet
I see her walking now,
And away from me so hurriedly
My reason must allow.
That I had loved, not as I should
A creature made of clay,
When the angel woos the clay, he'll lose
His wings at the dawn of day.




BTW, I love to hear Luke Kelly sing this song.
You should sing my song,' and I said 'What's that, Mr Kavanagh?' and he said 'Raglan Road''. So he gave me permission. I got permission from the man himself.' (Geraghty, Luke Kelly 38f)

[JMO]

[faster]

Here are a couple by Marvin Gardens. I don't know much about him but he did a public reading on the street in Chicago when I lived there (1995) and it was terrifying. I also saw a guy reading on the street in Portland, 6 years later, claiming to be him, so I'm a bit confused:

Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck's dangerous knowledge of this guilty secret drew unwelcome attention.
Unaware of the breadth of this surveillance, Affleck nonetheless more
than once found himself brushed by a heavy hand.

During an evening walk he was suddenly surprised by an unusual
bright light that appeared to fall on him causing his whole body to tremble.
Assuming he was having a heart attack, he hurried home and lay down,
not knowing what to expect.

After a while, the light that filled his whole body went away,
and Ben Affleck felt himself moved, not by his own will
but by a different impulse from within himself.
He wondered what could be moving him so strongly, but
since he felt calm and conscious he just followed the motions
as they developed.

Poetry insists on this illusion,
(even the most sensitive apparatus always leaves something
to be desired) - forcing it, breaking it,
embodying it...
we shall see what strategies enjoyed literary
currency in this regard.



Of Course, There Were Notable Exceptions

Brute power unfolding there
the cement of mendacity holding white society
together swiftly disintegrates
as happens with so many aspects of our work.

This sounds exotic and poetic now, some
34 years after it was chosen,
it is already empty and hollow
because at home there is a Trojan Horse
that has become aware of itself
and is now struggling to get on its feet
but we cannot play our double game for long.

Subsequently produced on the stage as well.
Most of the audience was annoyed
as were some of the participants
none of whom were informed beforehand.

There is nothing left over.
There are cops everywhere.
The Body is tropical, warm, hot: fire!


Koan

You have the same shoes as I,
but I got mine cheaper than you,
but you have a job.


Correctional Facility

1. Somebody wants you dead.
2. You've just been given a soulful kiss!
3. You just woke up from a dream about your best friend's father...
4. You are so bored. You're in detention & are daydreaming. You are so bored.
5. You are in love with each other but are afraid to say so.
6. You are new neighbors meeting for the first time.
7. You are sick & tired.
8. You are telling your parents that you are pregnant.
9. You are spies, sent from a foreign land to learn secrets.
10. You're driving a truck on a dirt road in the summer & you have nowhere to go.
11. You've never met, but here you are, wearing each others' pants.
12. You each have one piece of the Magickal Amulet of Universal Truth. You must combine the pieces to form the Amulet & then Heavenly Light will shine on you forever!
13. You've been given a choice that will affect everything in your future. You have a few minutes to think about it.

[stevemcgarrett]

JMO:

[tumbleweed_marijane]

For Jane-Charles Bukowski

225 days under grass
and you know more than I.
they have long taken your blood,
you are a dry stick in a basket.
is this how it works?
in this room
the hours of love
still make shadows.

when you left
you took almost
everything.
I kneel in the nights
before tigers
that will not let me be.

what you were
will not happen again.
the tigers have found me
and I do not care.

the nakedness of his grief and sense of loss is horrifying. newly loved.

[merlot]

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

-- William Carlos Williams

[stevemcgarrett]

merlot:

One of the best imagist poems ever written. Wish that Williams had been my personal physician. Talking about poetry, I'd have nearly forgotten whatever pain I was in.

[ddeubel]

Through these long winter holidays, I've been revisiting the guy who first turned me on to many things, in particular Li Po and lots of Asian poetry - Kenneth Rexroth.

He wrote a great and quiet poem - A letter to WCW. In part he wrote,

[tsumetai mizu]

Here's a great reading of a great poem. Dylan Thomas is the reader. Brings up a lot of memories as I read this poem at my father's funeral a few years back.


Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Dylan Thomas


Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.



Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.



Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377

[faster]

Yeah, Kenneth Rexroth is great.

I've been reading George Oppen for 16 years and haven't even come close to exhausting the meaning in his work.

[Omkara]