WHAT'S THE BEST POEM OUT OF THESE POEMS

Not really that big on poetry in general anymore but voted Shelley – “Ozymandias”. Why? Because it is awesome.

hrm.

Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

enhhh ... i give that one 5.8

MY PAPA'S WALTZ
Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

CHICAGO
Carl Sandburg

HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

that poem is like walt whitman and woody guthrie's butt baby, i give it 3.2

roethke one not half bad, maybe a 7.3

this morning
Lucille Clifton

this morning

this morning

i met myself

coming in

a bright

jungle girl

shining

quick as a snake

a tall

tree girl a

me girl

i met myself

this morning

coming in

and all day

i have been

a black bell

ringing

i survive

survive

survive

urgh

http://www.pastepotpete.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/250px-ozymandias1.png
Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

the sandburg and the clifton are both formatted slightly differently but what are you gonna do, i've never been able to do indents on this board

shelley is winning by a street so far, and i don't feel rockist in saying that

and use [code] tags for alternative formatting :)

The Fish
Elizabeth Bishop

  	I caught a tremendous fish

oh i see! it didn't really work that time but now i get it

i think the bishop is a strong contender. at least an 8.9

My Last Duchess
Robert Browning

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat”: such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
—E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

You're too mean to Sandburg but still I was only gonna vote Shelley or Browning here. Not sure which, mind.

The Bishop is nice tho I agree.

now i love that browning poem, y'see

will digest the bishop in a mo

i like most of these poems, except billy collins, who i usually think is pretty okay despite what haughty nerds have to say, but that poem basically just annoys me

im usually not a shelley stan but yall

TWO VAST AND TRUNKLESS LEGS OF STONE is such an ill phrase.

Oh, hang it all Robert Browning I love you you crazy misanthrope. Let's never break up.

robert browning is kind of the steely dan of poetry huh

(i think that one's fantastic; it's also the second one so far i encountered in the school system)

xx-post YES!

Rite of Passage
Sharon Olds

As the guests arrive at our son’s party
they gather in the living room—
short men, men in first grade
with smooth jaws and chins.
Hands in pockets, they stand around
jostling, jockeying for place, small fights
breaking out and calming. One says to another
How old are you? —Six. —I’m seven. —So?
They eye each other, seeing themselves
tiny in the other’s pupils. They clear their
throats a lot, a room of small bankers,
they fold their arms and frown. I could beat you
up, a seven says to a six,
the midnight cake, round and heavy as a
turret behind them on the table. My son,
freckles like specks of nutmeg on his cheeks,
chest narrow as the balsa keel of a
model boat, long hands
cool and thin as the day they guided him
out of me, speaks up as a host
for the sake of the group.
We could easily kill a two-year-old,
he says in his clear voice. The other
men agree, they clear their throats
like Generals, they relax and get down to
playing war, celebrating my son’s life.

Okay that was good too.

love roethke's but c'mon Ozymandias could go on forever and I'd still be reading it.

Emily Dickinson's Defunct
Marilyn Waniek

She used to
pack poems
in her hip pocket.
Under all the
gray old lady
clothes she was
dressed for action.
She had hair,
imagine,
in certain places, and
believe me
se smelled human
on a hot summer day.
Stalking snakes
or counting
the thousand motes
in sunlight
she walked just
like an indian.
She was New England's
favorite daughter,
she could pray
like the devil.
She was a
two-fisted woman
this babe.
All the flies
just stood around
and buzzed
when she died.

it's the classic but the drop from 'look on my works...' to 'nothing beside remains' is law

Sharon Olds the first newish poet here I'm reading and thinking 'okay I should look into her back catalogue'; apologies for missing out the italics on the speech but oh well it reads ok without

Alzheimer's
Kelly Cherry

He stands at the door, a crazy old man
Back from the hospital, his mind rattling
like the suitcase, swinging from his hand,
That contains shaving cream, a piggy bank,
A book he sometimes pretends to read,
His clothes. On the brick wall beside him
Roses and columbine slug it out for space, claw the mortar.
The sun is shining, as it does late in the afternoon
in England, after rain.
Sun hardens the house, reifies it,
Strikes the iron grillwork like a smithy
and sparks fly off, burning in the bushes--
the rosebushes--
While the white wood trim defines solidity in space.
This is his house. He remembers it as his,
Remembers the walkway he built between the front room
and the garage, the rhododendron he planted in back,
the car he used to drive. He remembers himself,
A younger man, in a tweed hat, a man who loved
Music. There is no time for that now. No time for music,
The peculiar screeching of strings, the luxurious
Fiddling with emotion.
Other things have become more urgent.
Other matters are now of greater import, have more
Consequence, must be attended to. The first
Thing he must do, now that he is home, is decide who
This woman is, this old, white-haired woman
Standing here in the doorway,
Welcoming him in.

"reifies it" - no. thanks.

A Death at the Office
Ted Kooser

The news goes desk to desk
like a memo: Initial
and pass it on. Each of us marks
Surprised or Sorry.

The management came early
and buried her nameplate
deep in her desk. They have boxed up
the Midol and Lip-Ice,

the snapshots from home,
wherever it was—nephews
and nieces, a strange, blurred cat
with fiery, flashbulb eyes

as if it grieved. But who grieves here?
We have her ballpoints back,
her bud vase. One of us tears
the scribbles from her calendar.

haha my eyes just passed right over "reifies it", which i don't even mind; that pome is kind of DO YOU SEE for my liking though

I have no problem with the word in a technical sense, but it clanks like hell on that line.

Okay I'm happy with my Browning vote, whilst obv acknowledging the glory that is "Ozymandias" and v. much enjoying "Rite of Passage". If I have to think about why I shaded Browning over Shelley it's cos "Duchess" has deeper ripples I think whereas "Ozymandias" is more the most finely honed 1 punchline gag in poetry.

The Bishop is magnificent, although I think the penultimate line should end with a comma, not an exclamation-mark. I'd prefer that ending. That aside, it's great, it's like some kind of treatise upon justice.

xpost - on the Cherry poem - I think it sort of suffers from the feeling that all the effects or clevernesses being strived for are kind of diversions from the thrust of the poem — "that peculiar screeching of strings" e.g.

I'm voting for 'Rite of Passage', though I could easily go for Bishop or Browning. 'Ozymandias' I kind of have issues with: "trunkless"? really?

btw what the hell is that clifton poem doing here - it is wretched

"Alzheimer's" fails on a whole bunch of levels, sadly.

I voted Shelley because "Ozymandia" is the only poem I ever memorised and it helped me to an A in Higher English. It was more that 20 years ago, and it is no longer as memorised as I thought it was :(

Ozymandia omg English fail.

shelley, bishop, browning, olds completely wreck everything else here - choosing one will be hard, erring towards bishop because it moved me, possessed my complete attention, albeit that i've already seen the olde englishe ones

and the kelly cherry is CRAP

Damn, was a straight fight between Bishop (way the best at looking here) & Browning, but Shelley – dismissed on grounds of 'short, know well, bored of' - pulling me back in, since it's just packed with weird little effects, from the framing trick to the way that boundless-bare-lone-level all pile up on sands at the end (and the sands stretch around the decay rather than the wreck, which is cool). But no, it's still Browning, by a nose.

The Olds is the thing I didn't know I like most. Been off Roethke for a while, but that was good to read.

NV, why misanthrope on Browning? He's more into people, more forgiving of and interested in them, than almost any poet I can think of.

fuck it, voting bishop

iirc there is a sequel of some kind to the browning poem, tho not by browning himself

wtf it's not called 'my penultimate duchess'

thank u wikipedia: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15737

xp to thomp

"Misanthrope" was a shade off the word I was looking for, but I couldn't find the word. I think because so much of his character verse is about defeat, or people being pushed down by the social structures they inhabit - even when they burn with some kind of rebellious flame, like "Fra Lippo Lippi", you feel that the flame is about to be swallowed by darkness. Agreed that Browning very much likes people, it feels like a kind of sadness to me, or continual disappointment. (Of course we could do some cod historical/biographical/psychological thinking here about the life Browning led and the society he kind of escaped from.)

In short I feel a lot of the time he is saying "the good get fucked by the strong".

between browning & bishop

i thought calling him steely dan was pretty accurate--i dont really think dan are misanthropes, just cynics.

Yeah I nearly put cynic but because I like to define a cynic as somebody who behaves cynically it didn't feel like the right word either.

To me a cynic being the kind of dude who talks positivity whilst keeping the sharp knife held behind his back at all times e.g. plenty of career politicians

i think i get what you mean but its hard to articulate--theres something odd about the poem b/c browning clearly thinks of the duke as a murderous buffoon, but on the other hand has a certain measure of sympathy for him as a, i dont know, foolish figure, or something. theres a part thats cynicism and a party thats sympathetic and maybe a part thats misanthropic too.

which is one of the things i get out of steely dan, anyhow--an odd sympathy for leches and murderers

Would have voted Bishop without thinking, then reread the Shelley and -- damn.

xpost

I get that in the Dan regularly, maybe sometimes in Browning, but not in this poem. Maybe Browning likes the Count's speech - there's a really graceful fluidity to it, like a Hitchcock scene where the innocuous stranger starts talking and then runs on and on and it's hypnotic but you realise soon enough that they're crazy. Except I don't really think the Count's crazy now, his annoyance with the last Duchess is more about his sense of value: her painting has value, his name has value, his next Duchess's dowry has value; his position in his society is all about appraising the worth of goods and chattels. He discards the last Duchess cos she's a flawed gem I guess.

i get it here--

"Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!"

which to me reads as this sort of childish "wait! wait for me! look at my cool stuff!" which i find sympathetic--tho re-reading i can see that i might be adding the sympathy myself

Ha! yes he is trying to impress the guy a bit, that's true. And if I read the politics right he doesn't need to impress the dude he's talking to really cos he's just an ambassador/messenger.

i mean i dont think he ever really sounds evil mostly because he never really sounds "in control"--like the whole thrust of his narrative is that he can control the portrait in a way he never could the actual woman, but despite his obsession w/ that kind of power he still cant keep his mouth from running. i find that characterization kind of sympathetic, you know? like heres this big, bad duke who cant even keep himself from trying to impress a messenger

xp exactly

acoleuthic: court order

(xp back at Noodle)
Right, makes sense, certainly about the sense of defeat at the back of things - always think he's aware of the possible meaninglessness of the world, the pointlessness of everything, but can see human action (even thinking and talking) as being worthwhile in itself - like the energy of the monologues redeems their speakers; but then that dissolves into this greyness of self-delusion and self-justification where good and evil get mixed up, and the emptiness comes back. Like he's incredibly humane, but he's haunted by total nihilism.

court order?

Supreme Court, in fact

this is about that clifton poem, isn't it

sorry for being a big racist in my practical criticism of a previously unseen, decontextualised, not particularly good poem

(yes i just wiki'd her)

Let's face facts, it blows chunks.

i dont know what you guys are talking about

not to be all ronaldinho bottle-opener about this but even in the name of emancipation that is a rubbish poem, i am sure much poetry was written for that cause that is miles superior than that simplistic, sentimentalist guff

hi does someone want to let me know what were talking about

this is about that clifton poem, isn't it

― a. cole, u thic (acoleuthic), Tuesday, 1 December 2009 16:02 (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah for rotational symmetry!
ilx user acoleuthic

the revolving signs are positive
tunes running through
cities wearing earphones

and all around the bridge
over the elapsing river
dances the music

files turning tunnels
tuning an immersion
to stave each other off

the city as subjective construct
telekinetic realisations
download each other

from the playlist
one song is chosen
facing north or south

the same story is told
in the eyes of passers-by
attuned to their song and yours

project horizontally
with a complacent fixity
of noting

and this is the symmetry of it:
nobody needs to acknowledge you
to be in your music video

they could shout or swivel
and only fall out of harmony
with unseen dials

citing answerphone damn
exciting here down
phone city areas

i’ll bring gold frankincense and myrrh
and you'll just take the donkey
haphaw spun into mayday

until once again
ensconced contently
within our orb

we look outwards
at the endless random
cycle home

*
*
*

yes im still more than a little confused about what your dislike of the clifton poem has to do with racism

or with the supreme court for that matter

or discrimination claims

alimosina is provocatively accusing me of being racist in my decontextualised criticism of the clifton; by ignoring the issue i am oppressing the poem's purpose; he is also agreeing with me about the poem

also thomp i have since edited that poem to disinclude the antepenultimate stanza so it does not belong here; it does not belong here anyway as it is not only by no means my best but i am not that good yet

unless alimosina is a she then in which case can you clone yourself and let me have a drink w/ the clone original

actually both the 10th and 11th stanzas have been ditched

citing answerphone damn
exciting here down
phone city areas

i’ll bring gold frankincense and myrrh
and you'll just take the donkey
haphaw spun into mayday

^^unnecessary, bad, dumped stanzas

i dont think thats what alimosina is or was doing

i think alimosina was implying that the reason that poem is here is because its author is black and benefiting from the most bizarre affirmative action program ive ever encountered

when in doubt go with Bishop. I like that Kooser one except "but who grieves here?" is pretty inhumane and simplistic.

if were bagging on sentimentalists, Ms. Olds needs to see the door too, and any poem called "my father's waltz" should be right behind her :P (j/k they are both good writers)

I like that Kooser one except "but who grieves here?" is pretty inhumane and simplistic.

actually it's funny

it's followed by the line "We have her ballpoints back"

that is some funny shit

also "my father's waltz" isn't really sentimental

it's about a drunk guy using his kid as a plaything

seems to be this aw shucks nostalgia but check out all the jarring/violent language choices

i thought my father's waltz was a child abuse metaphor, like, not even 'plaything'

roethke's sly enough to not err on one side or the other

one could argue the nurture vs. abuse angles forever without getting to the bottom

which is what makes the poem interesting

I think it's a pretty simple "I'm going to call it a 'dance' when what I'm talking about is getting my ass kicked" metaphor

it is perhaps more ambiguous than explicit, but it does hint strongly

dunno if it's that simple

there are a lot of affectionate cues there as well - papa, romp, being waltzed off to bed has some tenderness... could be read as innocent drunken roughhousing and plenty of folks do so

reading abuse into the poem goes a bit far, and does make the metaphor simple, which it's not

it's more about how wild male energy can be scary to women/children, confusing when combined with nurturing activities, also; fascinating

ok yeah i can see that! there is something faintly magical about it

this is some poetry 101 shit but this is my fav drunk guy poem

The heavy bear who goes with me,
A manifold honey to smear his face,
Clumsy and lumbering here and there,
The central ton of every place,
The hungry beating brutish one
In love with candy, anger, and sleep,
Crazy factotum, dishevelling all,
Climbs the building, kicks the football,
Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city.

Breathing at my side, that heavy animal,
That heavy bear who sleeps with me,
Howls in his sleep for a world of sugar,
A sweetness intimate as the water's clasp,
Howls in his sleep because the tight-rope
Trembles and shows the darkness beneath.
--The strutting show-off is terrified,
Dressed in his dress-suit, bulging his pants,
Trembles to think that his quivering meat
Must finally wince to nothing at all.

That inescapable animal walks with me,
Has followed me since the black womb held,
Moves where I move, distorting my gesture,
A caricature, a swollen shadow,
A stupid clown of the spirit's motive,
Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness,
The secret life of belly and bone,
Opaque, too near, my private, yet unknown,
Stretches to embrace the very dear
With whom I would walk without him near,
Touches her grossly, although a word
Would bare my heart and make me clear,
Stumbles, flounders, and strives to be fed
Dragging me with him in his mouthing care,
Amid the hundred million of his kind,
the scrimmage of appetite everywhere.

Delmore Schwartz

we should have a rolling poetry thread again, also.

how you interpret "my papa's waltz" might say more about you than it does about the poem

roethke gives you just enough to read it either way without showing his hand, a nice trick

that poem groans a cumbersome truth! the secret life of belly and bone indeed - he conveys weight very well

roethke gives you just enough to read it either way without showing his hand, a nice trick

― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Tuesday, December 1, 2009 12:07 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

you wrong, it shows its hand right across your face

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

lol jaymc found this thread then

;)

so who is user 'Q' and why was he doing this

He was just stirring the shit, I guess

Sorry I missed this; woulda voted for Bishop or Browning.

I like Robert Logan's line about Olds: "If you want to know what it’s like for Sharon Olds to menstruate, or squeeze her oil-filled pores, or discover her naked father shitting, Blood, Tin, Straw will tell you. If you want to know what her sex life is like (it’s wonderful, trust her!), she’ll tell you, and tell you in prurient, anatomical detail the Greek philosophers would have killed for"