National Poetry Day

[longrunsthefox]

Swear to God lads and lasses, been extremely unwell this last couple of days and haven't read a paper nor seen the news. What national poetry day is this? Throw a bit of light someone please.

"The UK's 16th National Poetry Day falls on Thursday 8 October 2009. This year's theme is Heroes and Heroines..."
...so as we are part of the UK ... yesterday, all over Tyrone people were talking in rhyme, verse and sonnet, on it....

[ONeill]

Yes, Mexicans have no business on this thread. They had theirs on the 1st of October and not a peep about it.

[theskull1]

Loved the war poets at school but admit I wouldn't spend too much time looking at poetry now. Great thread...hopefully it will stay a while.

What do youse think of this def jam poetry? Pretty powerful stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrNl6JCbOEw&feature=related

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

No English Language poetry effort could omit this lad...

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

[ONeill]

Patrick Kavanagh

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked 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 the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -
O 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 sign that's known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for 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
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay -
When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day.

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

FROM DEWY DREAMS

From dewy dreams, my soul, arise,
From love's deep slumber and from death,
For lo! the trees are full of sighs
Whose leaves the morn admonisheth.

Eastward the gradual dawn prevails
Where softly-burning fires appear,
Making to tremble all those veils
Of grey and golden gossamer.

While sweetly, gently, secretly,
The flowery bells of morn are stirred
And the wise choirs of faery
Begin (innumerous!) to be heard.

James Joyce

[redhugh]

Dunno who it is by , my Granny used to come out with it.

Oh woman of three cows a gra,
don't let your tongue thus rattle
don't be saucy,don't be stiff because you may have cattle
Ive seen and heres my hand to you,I only say what's true
there's many a one with twice your stock not half so proud as you
good luck to you ,don't scorn the poor,and don't be their despiser
for worldly wealth soon melts away and cheats the very miser
and death soon strips the proudest wreath from haughty human brow
then ask yourself should you be proud,oh woman of three cows.

[Caid]

I've always thought Heaney is over-hyped

Rudyard Kipling is the last word in poetry.  I'll also give a notable mention to the guy that does the BBC's big sports events like poems for big six nations games etc:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

[Donagh]

Pablo Neruda

A Dog Has Died[/b]
Translated, from the Spanish, by Alfred Yankauer

My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.

Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.

Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.

No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.

Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.

Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.

There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.

So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.




Drunk as Drunk

   
Translated from the Spanish by Christopher Logue

Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.



Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks

All those men were there inside,
when she came in totally naked.
They had been drinking: they began to spit.
Newly come from the river, she knew nothing.
She was a mermaid who had lost her way.
The insults flowed down her gleaming flesh.
Obscenities drowned her golden breasts.
Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears.
Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes.
They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs,
and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor.
She did not speak because she had no speech.
Her eyes were the colour of distant love,
her twin arms were made of white topaz.
Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light,
and suddenly she went out by that door.
Entering the river she was cleaned,
shining like a white stone in the rain,
and without looking back she swam again
swam towards emptiness, swam towards death.

[saffron sam2]

does any of ye know of good recitations.... and post them up!

Hated the recitations in the Scor.

If it wasn't this:

Lament for the Death of Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill
 
By Thomas Davis
 
"DID they dare, did they dare, to slay Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill?" 
"Yes, they slew with poison him they feared to meet with steel." 
"May God wither up their hearts! May their blood cease to flow, 
May they walk in living death, who poisoned Eoghan Ruadh." 
 
"Though it break my heart to hear, say again the bitter words.         
From Derry, against Cromwell, he marched to measure swords: 
But the weapon of the Sassanach met him on his way. 
And he died at Cloch Uachtar, upon St. Leonard's day. 
 
"Wail, wail ye for the Mighty One. Wail, wail ye for the Dead, 
Quench the hearth, and hold the breath—with ashes strew the head.         
How tenderly we loved him. How deeply we deplore! 
Holy Saviour! but to think we shall never see him more! 
 
"Sagest in the council was he, kindest in the hall, 
Sure we never won a battle—'twas Eoghan won them all. 
Had he lived—had he lived—our dear country had been free:         
But he's dead, but he's dead, and 'tis slaves we'll ever be. 
 
"O'Farrell and Clanricarde, Preston and Red Hugh, 
Audley and MacMahon—ye valiant, wise and true: 
But—what are ye all to our darling who is gone? 
The Rudder of our Ship was he, our Castle's corner stone.         
 
"Wail, wail him through the Island! Weep, weep for our pride! 
Would that on the battlefield our gallant chief had died! 
Weep the Victor of Beinn Burb—weep him, young and old: 
Weep for him, ye women—your beautiful lies cold! 
 
"We thought you would not die—we were sure you would not go,         
And leave us in our utmost need to Cromwell's cruel blow— 
Sheep without a shepherd, when the snow shuts out the sky— 
O! why did you leave us, Eoghan? Why did you die? 
 
"Soft as woman's was your voice, O'Neill! bright was your eye, 
O! why did you leave us, Eoghan? Why did you die?         
Your troubles are all over, you're at rest with God on high, 
But we're slaves, and we're orphans, Eoghan!—why did you die?"


It was this:

The Ballad of the t**ker's Son

by Sigerson Clifford

I was in school 'twas the first of May and the day the t**ker came
With his wild wide eyes like a frightened hare's and his head with its thatch on flame:
We liked the length of his bare brown legs, the patches upon his clothes,
The grimy strength of his unwashed hands and the freckles about his nose.

The master polished his rimless specks and he stared at him hard and long
Then he stood him up on a shaky bench and he called on him for a song.
O the t**ker looked at our laughing lips then a voice like a timid bird's
Did the master's bidding and these were his singing words:

"My father was jailed for sheep-stealing and my mother is black as a witch.
My sister off-ran with the Sheridan clan and my brother's dead-drunk in a ditch.
O Tralee jail would kill the devil but Tralee jail won't kill my Da
I'll mend you a kettle for one and four and I'll bring home porter to me ma."

Then he bowed his head as the schoolhouse shook with the cheers of everyone
And the master made me share my desk with the raggedy t**ker's son.
O the days dragged on and he sat down there his brown eyes still afraid
He heard the scholars' drowsy hum and turning to me he said:

"What would I want with X and Y and I singing the crooked towns
Or showing a drunken farmer the making of silver crowns?
Or will Euclid teach me to light a fire of green twigs in the rain
Or how to twist a pheasant's neck so it will not cry in pain?

And what would I want with ancient verse or the meaning of Latin words
When all the poetry I'll ever need rings the throats of the singing birds?"
But he stayed at school and his flowering mind it grew swift as the swooping hawk:
Then there came a day when we said goodbye to the master who smelled of chalk.

He went to the life of the ribbon roads and the lore of the t**ker bands:
They chained my bones to an office stool and my soul to a clock's cold hands
But I often thought of my t**ker friend and I cursed my smirking luck
That didn't make me a t**ker man as I fought the road to Puck
With a red-haired wife and a piebald horse and a splendid caravan
Roving the roads with Cartys and Wards the O'Briens or the Coffey clan.

Now the years went by and the Troubles came, and I found myself again
I was back where I whittled the worn desks, with the mountains and the rain.
They put a trench coat on my back, placed in my hands a gun
And up in the hills with the fighting men I found the t**ker's son.

And there on the slopes of the Kerry hills our love grew still more strong
And we watched the wren on the yellow whin spill his thimbleful of song
Then came a truce and I shook his hand for a while our fighting done
But I never spoke one word again to the red-haired t**ker's son.

'Tis many a year since he went away and over the roads the vans
Wheel gaily to horse and to cattle fairs with the O'Brien's or the Coffey clans.
The t**ker's son should be back again with the roads and the life he knew
Ah but I took the life of my red-haired friend in nineteen and twenty-two.


Every feckin Scor, year after year, you could be guaranteed to hear one or other or both of those works. I have a slight aversion to both now.

[Tony Baloney]

It's time C2K was updated to keep you boys out of this site. It's distracting you from the important task of educating West Belfast.

[saffron sam2]

It's time C2K was updated to keep you boys out of this site. It's distracting you from the important task of educating West Belfast.

Three times they've tried and three times we have got it unblocked. In a gesture of goodwill, we also got owc unblocked.

Young boys doing a test at the minute. ONeill's are probably playing computer games. Or writing poetry.

[thejuice]

Always been a fan of Blake, but more for his art than his poems.


The Garden of Love

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore,

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.



The Divine Image

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.

[longrunsthefox]

Me Da used to recite this one... (by Elizabeth Shane)

Wee Hughie

He's gone to school, wee Hughie,
An' him not four,
Sure I saw the fright was in him
When he left our door.

But he took a hand of Dinny and he took a hand of Dan
And with Joe's auld coat upon him, ach the poor wee man

I watched him to the corner o' our big turf stack,
An' the more his feet went forrit,
The more his head turned back.
I followed to the turnin'

An when they passed it by,
God help him he was cryin',

...An' maybe so was I. 

[ardmhachaabu]

Me Da used to recite this one... (by Elizabeth Shane)

Wee Hughie

He's gone to school, wee Hughie,
An' him not four,
Sure I saw the fright was in him
When he left our door.

But he took a hand of Dinny and he took a hand of Dan
And with Joe's auld coat upon him, ach the poor wee man

I watched him to the corner o' our big turf stack,
An' the more his feet went forrit,
The more his head turned back.
I followed to the turnin'

An when they passed it by,
God help him he was cryin',

...An' maybe so was I. 

My Ma would have recited it to us when we were growing up