Poetry Appreciation Thread

Not Thrive
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This thread is to appreciate the art of poetry and different poets. You can also try writing your own poetry, just make sure to put the title “Own Work”. Additionally, no AI poetry.

I will start. I like Shakespeare, and I actually acted out this part from Macbeth in my High School English Class. I was playing Macduff.

Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 3. England. Before the King’s palace. Lines 2081-2119.

  • Macduff. Hum! I guess at it.

  • Ross. Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes
    Savagely slaughter’d: to relate the manner,
    Were, on the quarry of these murder’d deer,
    To add the death of you.

  • Malcolm. Merciful heaven!
    What, man! ne’er pull your hat upon your brows;
    Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
    Whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.

  • Macduff. My children too?

  • Ross. Wife, children, servants, all
    That could be found.

  • Macduff. And I must be from thence!
    My wife kill’d too?

  • Ross. I have said.

  • Malcolm. Be comforted:
    Let’s make us medicines of our great revenge,
    To cure this deadly grief.

  • Macduff. He has no children. All my pretty ones?
    Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
    What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
    At one fell swoop?

  • Malcolm. Dispute it like a man.

  • Macduff. I shall do so;
    But I must also feel it as a man:
    I cannot but remember such things were,
    That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
    And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
    They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
    Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
    Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!

  • Malcolm. Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
    Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

  • Macduff. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes
    And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
    Cut short all intermission; front to front
    Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
    Within my sword’s length set him; if he 'scape,
    Heaven forgive him too!

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Question: If there are images placed between parts of a poetric text, does it still count as poetry?

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As long as it isn’t AI, and it helps people visualize or conceptualize the subject of the poem, sure. I honestly forgot about Calligrams, or when the words of a prose, like a poem, form an image.

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Translated from russian with rough rhymes

A. T. Tvardovsky “Forgotten War”

From my old, dirty and torn folder
Two lines about the youngster-soldier,
That, in the year of '39,
Was shot in Finland and died on ice
A little body lied clumsly
Of childish soldier who died vainly.

Coat was tied to ice by winter frost,
The hat escaped and flew away.
It seemed that body wasn’t lost,
And that it’s still ran to it’s post,
But it was caught by the moist…

And for the reason I cannot explain,
Among the bigger, bloodier war,
I pity those who died in vain,
As if it’s me, in lonely pain
As if it’s me who lies here
Frostbitten, wrinkled, rotten
On a war that’s long forgotten,
Forgotten, small, I’m here.

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To be fair the winter war is still well-known to this day, even if just as a part of the larger WW2.

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From Rumi. Part of Kulliyat-i-Shams 2667

This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness

Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:
This place made from our love for that emptiness!

Yet somehow comes emptiness,
this existence goes.

Praise to that happening, over and over!
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.

Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
that work is over.

Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope,
free of mountainous wanting.

The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw
blown off into emptiness.

These words I’m saying so much begin to lose meaning:
Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:

Words and what they try to say swept
out the window, down the slant of the roof.

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Understood, I wanted to know this for the future to come…

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Here’s a short fraszka[1] written by Jan Izydor Sztaudynger:


Życie mnie
Mnie!

~ Skarga zmiętego, Jan Izydor Sztaudynger

Translation:


Life crumples
Me!

~ Complaint of the crumpled, by Jan Izydor Sztaudynger

  1. fraszki are short, rhymed and often humorous poems introduced to and popularised in Poland by Jan Kochanowski in the latter half of the XVI century. This genre of poetry has been developed from epigrams ↩︎

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Synonym humor has been around for quite a while…

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Well, in this case it’s homonym humor, but the gist of what you said remains the same.

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Same appearance, different meanings…

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E. F. Letov “Solar Overthrow” / Е.Ф. Летов “Солнцеворот”

Original

Наше дело большое, почётное
Словно кипение масла в кровавой каше
Словно строчка бегущая прочь
Словно тёплый хлев
Словно млечный дождь
В мире без греха

Наше дело последнее, словно патрон
Словно вечно последний подвиг
Словно всякий последний раз
Словно первый вдох
Словно первый шаг
В мире без греха

Ливнем косым постучатся в нашу дверь
Гневные вёсны, весёлые войска
Однажды
Только ты поверь —
Маятник качнётся в правильную сторону
И времени больше не будет.

Наше дело пропащее, словно палец
Оторванный вражеской пулей
На священной народной войне,
Словно санный след
Словно смертный бог
В мире без греха

Наше дело геройское, словно житейская школа
Заслуженных пощёчин
Словно железная хватка земли
Словно наяву
Словно налегке
В мире без греха.

Translated from russian

Our work is outstanding, mindful
Just like the boiling oil in bloody beverage
Just like the lines that are forever on to
Just like the warm barnyard
Just like the milky rain
In the world without a sin

Our work is culminating, just like patron
Just like forever sunsetting battle
Just like any finishing turn
Just like the first breath
Just like the first step
In the world without a sin

With the tilted stream of rain
They will bang on our door:
Springs full of hatred, fulfilled singing troops
And someday
Only you believe —
Pendulum will swing to our righteous side
And time will inevitably vanish

Our work is all pointless, just like a finger
That was torn by enemy bullet
While fighting the sacred war,
Just like yellow snow
Just like mortal God
In the world without a sin

Our work is all heroic, just like a folk school
Of well-deserved face slapping
Just like the iron grip of the earth
Just before our eyes
Just walking without weight
In the world without a sin

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If the time itself is no more, so would be the minds of all…

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From Carrying Our Words by Ofelia Zepeda - Poems | Academy of American Poets

Carrying Our Words

by Ofelia Zepeda, Tohono O’odham Nation of southwestern Arizona, USA.

We travel carrying our words.
We arrive at the ocean.
With our words we are able to speak
of the sounds of thunderous waves.
We speak of how majestic it is,
of the ocean power that gifts us songs.
We sing of our respect
and call it our relative.

Translated into English from O’odham by the poet.

’U’a g T-ñi’okı˘

T-ñi’okı˘ ’att ’an o ’u’akc o hihi
Am ka:ck wui dada.
S-ap ‘am o ’a: mo has ma:s g kiod.
mat ’am ’ed.a betank ’i-gei.
’Am o ’a: mo he’es ’i-ge’ej,
mo hascu wud. i:da gewkdagaj
mac ’ab amjed. behě g ñe’i.
Hemhoa s-ap ‘am o ’a: mac si has elid, mo d. ’i:mig.

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Information sharing truly is an amazing capability of people’s…

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Y. S. Entin “The Sun will rise” / Ю. С. Энтин “Солнце взойдет”

Original

Луч солнца золотого
Тьмы скрыла пелена.
И между нами снова
Вдруг выросла стена.

Ночь пройдёт, наступит утро ясное,
Знаю, счастье нас с тобой ждёт.
Ночь пройдёт, пройдёт пора ненастная,
Солнце взойдёт!
Солнце взойдёт!

Петь птицы перестали,
Свет звёзд коснулся крыш.
В час грусти и печали
Ты, голос мой услышь.

Ночь пройдёт, наступит утро ясное,
Знаю, счастье нас с тобой ждёт.
Ночь пройдёт, пройдёт пора ненастная,
Солнце взойдёт!
Солнце взойдёт!

Translated

Ray of golden sunset
Hidden by a cloud of darkness’ veil
And, inbetween of us, again
A wall rised from below

The night will end, and the morning will arrive,
I know — happiness will eventually befall
Night will end, and the time of darkness will derive,
The Sun will rise
The Sun will rise

No tune is sung by avians,
Stars’ shine just reached the Earth
In the hour of the pitful woe and pain
You will hear my ringing voice

The night will end, and the morning will arrive,
I know — happiness will eventually befall
Night will end, and the time of darkness will derive,
The Sun will rise
The Sun will rise

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They can do sing quite nicely through.

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River Roads by Carl Sandburg. Part of Cornhuskers.

Let the crows go by hawking their caw and caw.
They have been swimming in midnights of coal mines somewhere.
Let ’em hawk their caw and caw.

Let the woodpecker drum and drum on a hickory stump.
He has been swimming in red and blue pools somewhere hundreds of years
And the blue has gone to his wings and the red has gone to his head.
Let his red head drum and drum.

Let the dark pools hold the birds in a looking-glass.
And if the pool wishes, let it shiver to the blur of many wings, old swimmers from old places.

Let the redwing streak a line of vermillion on the green wood lines.
And the mist along the river fix its purple in lines of a woman’s shawl on lazy shoulders.

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I feel like that’s a response to the “birds can’t even make a tune” line (and it probably is).

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Demain, dès l’aube by Victor Hugo (Author of Les Misérables)

Demain, dès l’aube, à l’heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Vois-tu, je sais que tu m’attends.
J’irai par la forêt, j’irai par la montagne.
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.

Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,
Sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit,
Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,
Triste, et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.

Je ne regarderai ni l’or du soir qui tombe,
Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,
Et quand j’arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe
Un bouquet de houx vert et de bruyère en fleur.

Tomorrow, at first dawn

Tomorrow, at first dawn, when the country starts to whiten,
I will set out. You see, I know you’re waiting for me.
I will go by forest, I will go by mountain,
Away from you I can no longer remain.

I will walk with eyes fixed onto my thoughts,
Without seeing outside, nor hearing any noise,
Alone, unknown, my back bent, my hands crossed,
Forlorn, and the day for me will be night.

I will watch neither the gold of the falling evening,
Nor the sails in the distance descending on Harfleur,
And when I get there, I will put on your grave
A bunch of green holly and blooming heather.

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