National Poetry Week

[Stouffer]

To add a bit of sophistication to the GF what are your favourite poems. Mine are two GCSE study poems but for whatever reason I've never forgotten them.

 

Digging - Seamus Heaney

 

 

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

 

Under my window a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

 

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

 

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

 

By God, the old man could handle a spade,

Just like his old man.

 

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner's bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, digging down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

 

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I've no spade to follow men like them.

 

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I'll dig with it.

 

 

 

 

Dulce Et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen

 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

 

 

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

 

 

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

 

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

[Mark P]

I remember Digging too.

[gazelle]

There was a young man from Peru,

who fell asleep in his canoe,

while dreaming of Venus,

he played with his penis

and woke up covered in goo.

[Stu Monty]

To add a bit of sophistication to the GF what are your favourite poems. Mine are two GCSE study poems but for whatever reason I've never forgotten them.

 

Digging - Seamus Heaney

 

 

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

 

Under my window a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

 

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

 

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

 

By God, the old man could handle a spade,

Just like his old man.

 

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner's bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, digging down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

 

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I've no spade to follow men like them.

 

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I'll dig with it.

 

 

 

 

Dulce Et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen

 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

 

 

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

 

 

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

 

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

 

I liked the second one, not so much the first. What does the Latin translate as?

 

There's a poem Gillian Clarke did about an unemployed coal miner that I really liked when I was doing my A-Levels but I can't for the life of me find it online.

[Stouffer]

What does the Latin translate as?

 

"It is sweet and honourable to die for one's country."

[Owen]

If

and

The Raven

 

Both deserve to be on here. To be honest, I'm not really up on poetry, but I remember the Wilfred Owen one.

[Remmie]

I have aids

No I don't

This poem isn't about split personality you know

Shouldn't this rhyme?

 

Isn't this that problem that the likes of Woody Allen have I forget what it's called

Hypno toad

All hail

Fly high lesbian seagull

 

Fuckity fuck,

This doesn't rule like the bus

Most of you wouldn't know the bus if it shat in your hand and you hit yourself with it

Tits McGhee

 

I just wrote that off the top of my head

I call Springpuppet in wintertime contemplating the horror of marzipan, specifically the really sugary type you get on kid's birthday cakes that makes your mouth feel like it's filled with Candy floss ejaculation

[Stu Monty]

I have aids

No I don't

This poem isn't about split personality you know

Shouldn't this rhyme?

 

Isn't this that problem that the likes of Woody Allen have I forget what it's called

Hypno toad

All hail

Fly high lesbian seagull

 

Fuckity fuck,

This doesn't rule like the bus

Most of you wouldn't know the bus if it shat in your hand and you hit yourself with it

Tits McGhee

 

I just wrote that off the top of my head

I call Springpuppet in wintertime contemplating the horror of marzipan, specifically the really sugary type you get on kid's birthday cakes that makes your mouth feel like it's filled with Candy floss ejaculation

 

I seem to have a new favourite poet. Where can I purchase more of your works?

[kopitegaz]

There was a young man from Peru,

who fell asleep in his canoe,

while dreaming of Venus,

he played with his penis

and woke up covered in goo.

 

 

And I thought you were such a nice young lady too ;)

[RedinSweden]

I have aids

No I don't

This poem isn't about split personality you know

Shouldn't this rhyme?

 

Isn't this that problem that the likes of Woody Allen have I forget what it's called

Hypno toad

All hail

Fly high lesbian seagull

 

Fuckity fuck,

This doesn't rule like the bus

Most of you wouldn't know the bus if it shat in your hand and you hit yourself with it

Tits McGhee

 

I just wrote that off the top of my head

I call Springpuppet in wintertime contemplating the horror of marzipan, specifically the really sugary type you get on kid's birthday cakes that makes your mouth feel like it's filled with Candy floss ejaculation

 

 

Ace. Beautiful and offensive at the same time. Remmie for Poet Laureate

[Uncle_Meat]

The Waste Land - TS Eliot

 

Howl - Allen Ginsburg

 

 

Superfine!

[Remmie]

Isn't this that problem that the likes of Woody Allen have I forget what it's called

Nuerosis was the word I was looking for. For further work, purchase You fucking Aids-ridden Cuntaxe by Springpuppet. A moving work of pilgrimage, cheese, coming of age, toast, wanton desire, philosophy, sandwiches, hardships and group hugs, it is sure to rock the poetry world to it's bare foundations like marmite (just an example of the complex simile's you may find in this work or as I prefer: masterpiece of modern times)

[Stu Monty]

Nuerosis was the word I was looking for. For further work, purchase You fucking Aids-ridden Cuntaxe by Springpuppet. A moving work of pilgrimage, cheese, coming of age, toast, wanton desire, philosophy, sandwiches, hardships and group hugs, it is sure to rock the poetry world to it's bare foundations like marmite (just an example of the complex simile's you may find in this work or as I prefer: masterpiece of modern times)

 

Someone I hold dear once told me that I often speak of my love for rather odd and obscure works of art like this and insinuated that it may make me a bit of a pretentious twat. Could you assuage my fears that any purchase of this most specialist of poetry will not leave me open to such accusations?

[Remmie]

Someone I hold dear once told me that I often speak of my love for rather odd and obscure works of art like this and insinuated that it may make me a bit of a pretentious twat. Could you assuage my fears that any purchase of this most specialist of poetry will not leave me open to such accusations?

It would make you an utter cunt.