Who is Anne Gregory? Someone Yeats cares for. He speaks to her and there is a conversation about love and its conditions. — Amity
The Englishness of a fair maiden. — Amity
'Ramparts' suggest an external barrier, defence or gateway.
'At your ear' - a veil hanging down or styled as Princess Leia in 'Star Wars'? — Amity
Next up, the view of traditional religion. Only God loves you for who you are. The Bible tells us so. — Amity
Turns out she is the granddaughter of a good friend of Yeat's, so I think it's likely he does care for her and knows her fairly well. — T Clark
As Nanno brought in the china cups and cream cakes, I recited a verse of Yeats's poem to her:
Never shall a young man
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts of your ear . . .
But she interrupted me. "I thought it was doggerel at first and was not impressed. It was not as romantic as I would have liked it." But when Yeats publicly announced the publication of the poem and described the young Anne as "having hair like a cornfield in the sun", she warmed to it. As Nanno served the tea, de Winton recited the rest of it in a soft, still discernibly Irish voice.
"It all started," she said, "when Yeats sent a message at Coole for me to go down to his sitting room as he had just written a poem called 'Yellow Hair' which he had dedicated to me. He then proceeded to read it aloud in his humming voice.
"We would hear him humming away for hours while he wrote his verses. He used to hum the rhythm of the verse before he wrote the words. Grandma told us that was why his poems were so good to read aloud.
"But on this occasion, I was petrified. I had no idea that he was going to write a poem for me. It was agony. I was nearly in tears for fear of doing something silly."
[...]
Then, somewhat wistfully, she said, "I often think now of those years at Coole. They were the happiest years of my life. I can always see that wonderful clear light of Galway."
Anne de Winton has known tragedy as well as happiness in her 85 years - the loss of her father, then the loss of her husband in the second World War.
And one suspects another, more tenuous loss - that of her Anglo-Irish identity.
Her house, with its books and letters, is her only link now to a vanished past. Few people in the area know who she is. — The Irish Times - Yeats's girl with the yellow hair
POETS’ CORNER
there’s lots of poets
round our way,
can’t move for ’em
(though I should like to).
not so handy
should there be a fire,
a traffic accident,
or an unexpected
celery stick-up job
at the wholefood store,
but should your
iambic pentameter
get broke
and need mendin’
these folk
are the ones
to send in.
I'm not sure I like this one. It's almost saying that poets are useless and can't do anything else other than write and theorise about poetry...or that firemen would rather pick up a hose and have no nose for anything else. — Amity
This Be The Verse
By Philip Larkin
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself. — Tom Storm
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf. — Tom Storm
I don't intend any of this as a criticism of you. — T Clark
Billy Collins, Poet Laureate, says this about poetry and meaning:
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. — Bitter Crank
I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business
Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.
Day in Autum
BY RAINER MARIA RILKE
TRANSLATED BY MARY KINZIE
After the summer's yield, Lord, it is time
to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials
and in the pastures let the rough winds fly.
As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness.
Direct on them two days of warmer light
to hale them golden toward their term, and harry
the last few drops of sweetness through the wine.
Whoever's homeless now, will build no shelter;
who lives alone will live indefinitely so,
waking up to read a little, draft long letters,
and, along the city's avenues,
fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen. — Tom Storm
Talking of poems about poems--and apologies to Moliere if this is off-topic--I recently read the "The Thought Fox" by Ted Hughes. It's a poem about writing poems, or about creativity, and foxes: — Jamal
And this blank page where my fingers move.
Sets neat prints into the snow
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business
Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.
BY RAINER MARIA RILKE
TRANSLATED BY MARY KINZIE
After the summer's yield, Lord, it is time
to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials
and in the pastures let the rough winds fly.
As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness.
Direct on them two days of warmer light
to hale them golden toward their term, and harry
the last few drops of sweetness through the wine.
Whoever's homeless now, will build no shelter;
who lives alone will live indefinitely so,
waking up to read a little, draft long letters,
and, along the city's avenues,
fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen. — Tom Storm
The translation is quite a nice poem in its own right, and I'd recognise the original in it, but I get different things out of both of them. — Dawnstorm
The translation is quite a nice poem in its own right, and I'd recognise the original in it, but I get different things out of both of them. — Dawnstorm
Interestingly, the language felt... wrong? — Dawnstorm
It has always struck me that when I read a translation, I'm reading something new, not the original. It seems like translating a novel, story, or poem would be harder than writing it in the first place. — T Clark
I never expect translations to be the same as an original. They are their own thing. — Tom Storm
I tend to agree when reading. Interestingly, when translating, I feel a sort of responsibility to get as close to the poem as I possibly can — Dawnstorm
How does this play out in your appreciation of the Tao Te Ching? — Tom Storm
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