Book Nook Cafe discussion

Please share your favorite poems here. Heard any poetry news? Let us know. Heard of some new poetry books? Do tell !

Post here about all poetry !

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne.

Chorus

For auld lang syne, my jo,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne,

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp!
And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

~~~Scottish poet Robert Burns


Eighteenth-century Scottish poet Robert Burns may well be most famous not for a poem he wrote, exactly, but for a poem he wrote down. According to Burns Country, a comprehensive website devoted to the poet, Burns, in a letter to an acquaintance, wrote, "There is an old song and tune which has often thrilled through my soul. You know I am an enthusiast in old Scotch songs. I shall give you the verses on the other sheet... Light be the turf on the breast of the heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment! There is more of the fire of native genius in it than in half a dozen of modern English Bacchanalians."

That song was a version that Burns fashioned of "Auld Lang Syne," which annually rings in the New Year at parties across the world, though most often sung out of tune and with improvised lyrics, as it has been described as "the song that nobody knows." Though the history of the authorship of the poem is labyrinthine and disputed, Burns is generally credited with penning at least two original stanzas to the version that is most familiar to revelers of the New Year.

Good post, Alias. I want to add that Robert Burns is the only poet (or writer, but i might be forgetting someone) who is celebrated with an annual dinner. I first heard of it as "Burns Supper" but there are many other names. It's held around his birthdate, which is January 25, and has a ceremony all its own. This link supplies plenty of info about it. Has anyone here attended one? Plenty of time now to plan your event. ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burns_su...

I'm trying to read a poem a day from Poems That Live Forever until I've read to completion - no time limit

So far I've read 3 poems

01.06.15 The Calf Path by Sam Walter Foss
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-ca...

01.07.15 The Main Truck or A Leap For Life by George P Morris
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-ma...

01.08.15 > The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-cr...

I love the title of the collection, Julia.

I like your plan of reading a poem a day. Also thanks for sharing the poems with us.

I really like the calf poem. I may have to check out this collection.

-- just went to Amazon---
I see it's out of print but there are a lot for sale from a penny up. I've never purchased a book for a penny. I should remember this when my next order qualifies for free shipping.

I was surfing yourtube and found an audio of Johnny Cash reciting the Cremation of Sam McGee and I love it!!! I usually can't stand to have something read to me, but I love this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJNZw...

I'll be looking for other audio versions for my poems.

2 new poems today

"The Shooting of Dan McGrew" by Robert Service
and "One, Two, Three" by Henry Cuyler Bunner

I love the imagery of the 2nd poem - the old woman and her grandson playing....

I was able to find audio of the Robert Service poem but not the Henry Cuyler Bunner one.... Links are below, hope you can access them....

The Shooting Of Dan McGrew
https://archive.org/details/JohnMacKe...

One Two Three
http://www.scrapbook.com/poems.php?mo...

2 more poems

Ginevra by Samuel Rogers - I didn't like this one so much. I'm new to poetry and had a hard time following the structure.
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/italy-...

I don't know alot about poetry, but out of all of the poems I do know, The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes is in my top 3. I don't know why, but I ADORE this poem. It's so romantic, but tragic at the same time. I looked for quite awhile, but couldn't find an audio link that I liked - I'm pretty bummed about not being able to find one.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/...

Julia wrote: "I don't know alot about poetry, but out of all of the poems I do know, The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes is in my top 3. I don't know why, but I ADORE this poem. It's so romantic, but tragic at the same time. I looked for quite awhile, but couldn't find an audio link that I liked - I'm pretty bummed about not being able to find one.
.."

Be bummed no more. :) Here are 2 links.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afzmo...

http://www.loudlit.org/audio/highwaym...
use pull down menu for the other verses

I am waiting for a copy of Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters by Elizabeth Bishop to arrive.

Alias - THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!! I LOVE them!!

You're welcome. :)

I like the audio because I am a newbie when it comes to poetry. It really helps.

Carol wrote: "I am waiting for a copy of Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters by Elizabeth Bishop to arrive."

Carol, I see it's almost 1000 pages !

Alias - I'm new to poetry too, and I agree with you. The audio helps alot.

Alias Reader wrote: "Carol, I see it's almost 1000 pages !"

I don't think anyone is waiting for her book, plus it is brutally cold with more 'snow / wintry mix' arriving 6:00 Monday morning and the forecast says it will end on 6:00 pm.

Julia wrote: "I'm trying to read a poem a day from Poems That Live Forever until I've read to completion - no time limit/..."

Neat idea, Julia! I enjoy reading poetry but haven't been structured enough to do so. This plan makes it simple.

When we were in Alaska a decade or so ago, we took a river boat tour. The captain stopped to allow us to watcfh some birds eating along a cliff, then recited a Robert Service poem. I'd never heard of Service but found that poem quite fitting. Bravo, Captain!

I only know a couple of poems by him, but I enjoy them very much! I've only come across 2 poems in this book so far, but I hope there are more.

I have just begun The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.


"Thus I set Pen to Paper with delight,
And quickly had my thought in black and white.
For having now my method in the end,
Still as I pull'd, it came; and so I penn'd
It down, until it came at last to be
For length and breadth the bigness which you see."

Carol wrote: "I have just begun The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. .."

I read PP. I liked it to start but then found it very repetitious.

I think I read that PP and the bible were the most popular books way back when.

Can you imagine what their life was like during that time?!

Carol wrote: "Can you imagine what their life was like during that time?!"

Beyond harsh, no doubt.

PP was also a book that was used to teach reading.

Insomnia

The Moon in the bureau mirror
Looks out a million miles
(and perhaps with pride, at herself,
But she never, never smiles)
Far and away beyond sleep, or
Perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.

By the Universe deserted,
She'd tell it to go to hell,
And she'd find a body of water,
Or a mirror, on which to dwell.
So wrap up care in a cobweb
And drop it down the well.

Into that World inverted
where left is always right,
where the shadows are really the body,
where we stay awake all night,
where the heavens are shallow as the sea
is now deep, and you love me.

-- Elizabeth Bishop

To a Tree

Oh, tree outside my window, we are kin,
For you ask nothing of a friend but this:
To lean against the window and peer in
And watch me move about! Sufficient bliss

For me, who stand behind its framework stout,
Full of my tiny tragedies and grotesque grieves,
To lean against the window and peer out,
Admiring infinites' mal leaves.

-- Elizabeth Bishop

:)

Bishop is a good poet. I haven't read enough of her work, so thank you, Carol, for sharing.

My mother had a stroke a year or so aago and I came across this poem one day after talking with her on the phone. It completely floored me.




“MY MOTHER GETS DRESSED

It is impossible for my mother to do even
the simplest things for herself anymore
so we do it together,
get her dressed.

I choose the clothes without
zippers or buckles or straps,
clothes that are simple
but elegant, and easy to get into.

Otherwise, it's just like every other day.
After bathing, getting dressed.
The stockings go on first.
This time, it's the new ones,

the special ones with opaque black triangles
that she's never worn before,
bought just two weeks ago
at her favorite department store.

We start with the heavy, careful stuff of the right toes
into the stocking tip
then a smooth yank past the knob of her ankle
and over her cool, smooth calf

then the other toe
cool ankle, smooth calf
up the legs
and the pantyhose is coaxed to her waist.

You're doing great, Mom,
I tell her
as we ease her body
against mine, rest her whole weight against me

to slide her black dress
with the black empire collar
over her head
struggle her fingers through the dark tunnel of the sleeve.

I reach from the outside
deep into the dark for her hand,
grasp where I can't see for her touch.
You've got to help me a little here, Mom

I tell her
then her fingertips touch mine
and we work her fingers through the sleeve's mouth
together, then we rest, her weight against me

before threading the other fingers, wrist, forearm, elbow, bicep
and now over the head.
I gentle the black dress over her breasts,
thighs, bring her makeup to her,

put some color on her skin.
Green for her eyes.
Coral for her lips.
I get her black hat.

She's ready for her company.
I tell the two women in simple, elegant suits
waiting outside the bedroom, come in.
They tell me, She's beautiful.

Yes, she is, I tell them.
I leave as they carefully
zip her into
the black body bag.

Three days later,
I dream a large, green
suitcase arrives.
When I unzip it,

my mother is inside.
Her dress matches
her eyeshadow, which matches
the suitcase

perfectly. She's wearing
coral lipstick.
"I'm here," she says, smiling delightedly, waving
and I wake up.

Four days later, she comes home
in a plastic black box
that is heavier than it looks.
In the middle of a meadow,

I learn a naked
more than naked.
I learn a new way to hug
as I tighten my fist

around her body,
my hand filled with her ashes
and the small stones of bones.
I squeeze her tight

then open my hand
and release her
into the smallest, hottest sun,
a dandelion screaming yellow at the sky.”
― Daphne Gottlieb, Final Girl

Wow ! Thank you for posting that.

Jon - thanks so much for this poem. For personal reasons, this poem is exactly what I need and has helped me through a difficult past couple of days.
Thank you again.

I am currently reading Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Final Year.

This poem was mentioned, so I thought I would post it.
---Sorry the spacing is off. You can see it correctly at this link.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetr...


For My People
By Margaret Walker


For my people everywhere singing their slave songs

repeatedly: their dirges and their ditties and their blues

and jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an

unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an

unseen power;


For my people lending their strength to the years, to the

gone years and the now years and the maybe years,

washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending

hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching

dragging along never gaining never reaping never

knowing and never understanding;


For my playmates in the clay and dust and sand of Alabama

backyards playing baptizing and preaching and doctor

and jail and soldier and school and mama and cooking

and playhouse and concert and store and hair and

Miss Choomby and company;


For the cramped bewildered years we went to school to learn

to know the reasons why and the answers to and the

people who and the places where and the days when, in

memory of the bitter hours when we discovered we

were black and poor and small and different and nobody

cared and nobody wondered and nobody understood;


For the boys and girls who grew in spite of these things to

be man and woman, to laugh and dance and sing and

play and drink their wine and religion and success, to

marry their playmates and bear children and then die

of consumption and anemia and lynching;


For my people thronging 47th Street in Chicago and Lenox

Avenue in New York and Rampart Street in New

Orleans, lost disinherited dispossessed and happy

people filling the cabarets and taverns and other

people’s pockets and needing bread and shoes and milk and

land and money and something—something all our own;


For my people walking blindly spreading joy, losing time

being lazy, sleeping when hungry, shouting when

burdened, drinking when hopeless, tied, and shackled

and tangled among ourselves by the unseen creatures

who tower over us omnisciently and laugh;


For my people blundering and groping and floundering in

the dark of churches and schools and clubs

and societies, associations and councils and committees and

conventions, distressed and disturbed and deceived and

devoured by money-hungry glory-craving leeches,

preyed on by facile force of state and fad and novelty, by

false prophet and holy believer;


For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way

from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding,

trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people,

all the faces, all the adams and eves and their countless generations;


Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a

bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second

generation full of courage issue forth; let a people

loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of

healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing

in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs

be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now

rise and take control.

Here is a bio for Margaret Walker

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/...

She Walks in Beauty

1
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
2
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
3
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

- Lord Byron


Absolutely love the 1st stanza

Yes ! A beautiful classic.

Thank you for the poems shared here, Book Nook Friends.

Wishing Langston Hughes a very happy birthday! Today would have been his 113th.

In his honor, here is a poem from "The Weary Blues":

THE DREAM KEEPER
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers.
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies.
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too rough fingers
Of the world.


~~~~Alfred A. Knopf

-------------
8 quotes to celebrate Langston Hughes on his 113th birthday

1. “Books -where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas”
- I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey, 1956

2. “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”
-The Negro Speaks of Rivers, 1920

3. “Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.”
-”April Rain Song”

4. “Hold fast to your dreams, for without them life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.”
- Montage of a Dream Deferred, 1951

5. “Ever’thing there is but lovin’ leaves a rust on yo’ soul. An’ to love sho ‘nough, you got to have a spot in yo’ heart fo’ ever’body – great an’ small, white an’ black, an’ them what’s good an’ them what’s evil – ‘cause love ain’t got no crowded-out places where de good ones stay an’ de bad ones can’t come in. When it gets that way, then it ain’t love.”
- Not Without Laughter, 1930

6. “7 x 7 + love = An amount Infinitely above: 7 x 7 – love.”
- The Collected Poems, 1995

7. “…the only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you’ll finish it,….”
- The Big Sea, 1940

8. “Frosting
Freedom
Is just frosting
On somebody else’s
Cake–
And so must be
Till we
Learn how to
Bake.”
- The Panther & the Lash, 1926


~~~~PBS NEWSHOUR

Great quotes. Thanks for sharing his wonderful words.

It's the birthday of the poet Gavin Ewart born in London, England (1916). He's the author of many books of poetry, including Pleasures of the Flesh (1966) and The Learned Hippopotamus (1987). He started his poetic career early, when he was just 17 years old, with a poem in the prestigious British literary journal New Verse. He published his first book of poems when he was 23, and his work was compared to T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. But when World War II broke out, he stopped writing poetry, and he became an advertising copywriter and didn't publish another book until 1964, when his collection Londoners came out. His poetry is often described as light verse:

"For nursery days are gone, nightmare is
real and there are no good Fairies.
The fox's teeth are in the bunny
and nothing can remove them, honey."


----National broadcasts of The Writer's Almanac are supported by The Poetry Foundation.

Gavin Ewart Show: Selected Poems, 1939-1985

All My Little Ones: The Shortest Poems Of Gavin Ewart

Penguin Modern Poets 25: Gavin Ewart, Zulfikar Ghose, B. S Johnson

Collected Ewart, 1933-80

Gavin Ewart

New-to-me poet. Interesting to seethe years between his publications.

Happy Birthday, Robert Frost !

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.

1. The Road Not Taken


TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20

A good and honest poet. Often his works seem too simple and we tend to dismiss him. However, there is much in his work. Good selection, Alias.

Well done :)

Moonwarriors: Guardians of the Night
Dark Fantasy

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Two-Moonwa...

http://authorrustynugent.freeforums.net/
@theparanormal72
http://www.facebook.com/rusty.nugent.5
http://rustynugent5.booklikes.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/authorrus...
https://youtu.be/yVxE2NjKx2I

Full Moon Bloodlust Poem

When the moonlight strikes me, I am filled with power. In an evil age, in my darkest hour. Death and Destruction are the pleasures of my life. A lonely life filled with agony. Here I stand upon this Ledge with sword in hand I hereby pledge. That in the full moon's waning light. I shall make my Sacrifice. The Fog drifts down the hills into my dark domain. My senses sharp and I Insane. Into the woods I go with the moonlight as my guide. I now creep like the mist and from my wrath you can not hide. I shall avenge all I have lost. Behold the coming of death with your now ending immortal life. I shall make my sacrifice. Unto the goddess of the night. I shall make my sacrifice.

I'm sure this poem enhances your books, Rusty. Continued good luck.

Thanks Madrano

Edwina Trentham's Stumbling Into The Light

MY FATHER'S HEART

I was seven, I think, when the carving knife's thin blade sliced my finger through the dishtowel, sliced right to the bone it seemed, as I watched the white cloth turn crimson, tasted a rush of bile, choked on my breath at the sweet, sticky smell of blood, then whimpered once, like a scampering puppy who skids and catches

its foot in a slammed door. I raised my hand to catch my mother's eye, but I was not surprised the thin knife had found my finger. I knew better, or once I saw that eager glad I did, so she was right to be furious, to glare and suck in her breath, to twist the rowel tight to staunch the blood, then turn

me roughly, hustle me, with one impatience turn back to snap the light off, rush me outside to catch a cab, whistle it down, stare ahead, me breathing hard against tears, she smoking, lecturing, voice thin with anger. But all that vanished the next day, right after breakfast, when my father, home just this once

because of a snowstorm, took me sledding -- the one and only time he did--and when I tried to turn the sled, held the rope too hard, cried out, he was right there, saw my blue mitten leaking red, and caught me in his arms, to run me home. Oh, his long, thin legs plowing us through the heavy snow, his quick breath

coming in smoky puffs in the clear air, his breath echoing the sound of his strong heart thumping, once he hit his stride, and oh my head against his thin chest, bumping in time to his footsteps. When I turn to this memory, that's where I chose to stay, caught up in those few moments, the way my ear was right

against his beating heart, how he carried me right hime through the snow, in his arms. I catch my breadth at this point. The truth is, details have never caught up with longing in this story. I thought, just once I'd like to see what happened next, see how it turned out, but I won't shape memory to fit some thin

version of truth, wrest one right story from scatters of desire--thin stuff when I can just turn back, find myself caught up, held still in love's sweet breath.


-- This poem brought back memories when my older cousin took his boy scout knife, and threw the knife across the room (where the blade was opened) and on it's descent, the blade cut open my entire thumb. My uncle kept my thumb under running water in the sink (which just allowed me to bleed more). They phoned my oldest cousin, a nurse, who applied pressure, and sutured the big cut. Her friend (another intern) kept my attention away from the cut, by teaching me spanish, which stayed with me all my life.

Edwina Trentham biography -- http://www.edwinatrentham.com/bio.html

Carol wrote- This poem brought back memories when my older cousin took his boy scout knife, and threw the knife across the room (where the blade was opened) and on it's descent, the blade cut open my entire thumb. My uncle kept my thumb under running water in the sink (which just allowed me to bleed more). They phoned my oldest cousin, a nurse, who applied pressure, and sutured the big cut. Her friend (another intern) kept my attention away from the cut, by teaching me spanish, which stayed with me all my life.."

Lucky it was your thumb and didn't hit you in the face.

Nation’s first Latino poet laureate announced: Juan Felipe Herrera

By NBC News

A son of California migrant farm workers who spoke Spanish in his early years said he is humbled to be named the first Latino and the nation’s 21st poet laureate.

“My voice is made by everyone’s voices,” said Juan Felipe Herrera, 66, who begins his appointment as the nation’s “poet” in September. The author of several highly acclaimed poetry collections, Herrera said he wants to urge more young Latino students to write, read and benefit from the Library of Congress’ resources, as well as help “close the gap of knowing about and hearing about our Latino communities in terms of literature, in terms of writing.”

“And I want our young Latinos and Latinas to write their hearts out and express their hearts out and let us all listen to each other,” said Herrera, who was California’s poet laureate from 2012 to 2015.

The Library of Congress made the announcement Wednesday, and Librarian of Congress James Billington said Herrera’s poems are the work of an American “original.”

“I see how they champion voices, traditions and histories, as well as a cultural perspective, which is a vital part of our larger American identity.”

In a 2012 interview with NBC Latino, Herrera said, “I feel all our generations of California have brought me here, and I can speak for them and with them - tell their stories and histories and promote all the millions of Hispanics in California and 40 million plus in the U.S.”

Herrera, who is Mexican-American, was born in Fowler, California, and moved often as the son of migrant workers, living in tents and trailers. His father learned English by paying fellow workers pennies to teach him each new word.

In his role as poet laureate, Herrera will create projects to broaden the audience for poetry in the U.S. One of his ideas is a program with the Library of Congress that he calls Casa de Colores – House of Colors – to include people of every color and cultural background.

Herrera told NBC Latino in 2012 that even though he now declaims and speaks publicly all the time, this was not the case when he was growing up. “I really didn’t say much … I just listened. I was very quiet. By middle school, I said to myself that it’s time I begin to speak. I joined the choir, not because I wanted to. I forced myself.”

Herrera graduated from UCLA and earned graduate degrees at Stanford and the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop. He is currently a visiting professor in ethnic studies at the University of Washington after recently retiring from the University of California, Riverside, where he taught creative writing.



Juan Felipe Herrera

Thanks for this info, Alias. I missed learning about his appointment. Unfamiliar with his work, i sought one out to share here. His is a different voice, as this poem illustrates, with it's breaks and lack of punctuation. I hope you enjoy.

In Search of an Umbrella in NYC
by Juan Felipe Herrera, 1948

You were having a stroke - i
did not grasp what was going on you
standing almost half ways up half
ways down the colors what were they
i was frozen both us us staring
woman with parasol behind me
are you drunk she said facing
you and the deli behind you you
leaned shivered dropped your coat
parasol
white
reddish flowers
brain sweat eyes your eyes moving
seeing me behind me what
black man brown man no man no
colors you
pushed something away i was
in a rush en route to big time
poetry Biz duded up ironed shirt
the rain was in my way i was not
breathing you were losing yourself i
was gaining something you
stumbled out of your coat unrolled
a stranger’s language from your lips
pushed your feet down to
the depths of the tiny sidewalk even
though it was infinite burning
ahead of me to
the food truck at the corner yellow chips
corn violet green sugar drops
fiery torn packs flaring down and
across the street under the cement i
was moving silent alone a crooked line
going nowhere a woman
touched your hand you were lying
on the dirty shoe ground swimming
up to her i wanted you
i was a man
running for cover from the waters
i could not lift your suffering
it was too late the current pulled
i was floating away (i noticed it)
you
were rising

Oops. I see the numerous breaks in lines didn't show up in this copy & print. It might make reading it easier. Here is a link to another link offering a number of his poems.
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poems/4...

Thanks, deb, for sharing that poem and website.

I like that at the link I can listen to Mr. Herrera read the poems.

For me, a person not well versed in poetry, it makes all the difference.

True. It can make such a difference to hear the poet's phrasing and emphasis. Some older ones, however, have ended up changing my thoughts on the original poem. Their interpretation must be right, i suppose, but, like all art, i beg the right to differ. :-)