Poetry ...love it or hate it?

I used to read Wynken Blynken and Nod at bedtime to my elder DD.

Sigh!

My grandsons would be equally wide-eyed, but would love Matilda for the sensational image of her perishing while shouting for help, and the firemen ruining the house and its contents.

I will never forget reading Matilda by Hilaire Belloc to my wide eyed five year old youngest daughter. She is now one of the most honest and straight forward people I know! The power of poetry!

I used to read poetry to my DSs at bedtime, after the nightly story. They were from the Puffin book of verse for children and they loved them at the time, though I have a feeling that school may have changed all that.

Thank you, Mishap. I enjoy writing poetry but I need to be inspired and there is nothing more inspiring than motherhood.

I agree Hunt,I tink the Grans and Aunties amongst us have to put poetry in the paths of our GCs, my sister is buting book of poetry for my 6year old GD for Christmas. Itoo love "The Lady of Shallot"

One of my favourites is ''The Lady of Shallot'' By Tennyson. I used to declaim it while sailing along the canals in our narrow boat. 'On either side the the river lie long fields of barley and of rye that clothe the wold and reach the sky.....' I feel quite sad that my dgc won't have the pleasure of recalling a poem in its entirety for, as far as I know, there is no time for the learning of poems in today's curriculum. Another poem that I fequently say out loud is 'Slowly, silently now the moon walks the night in her silver shoon. This way and that she peers and sees silver fruit upon silver trees....' Poems for me fill in the gaps when I am lost for words-the poets always say it better!

Greatnan I love your poem Vigil - I have printed it our for my D who is relishing her time with her new baby son and it so accuratel depicts her situation - every night is a vigil - tiring, but moments to be treasured, as your poem so wonderfully captures.

Thank you * Elegran* ...I had come across it before ...but it still made me

seventimesfive - Try the thread Joys of Winter - a few of us have a dabble at writing our own.....

Woops! sorry, posted twice!!

Great thread! I have loved poetry all my life, favourites are Masefield, Yeats, Eliot and lots more, but this is one that I came across recently in 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem by Ruth Padel. It speaks to me of my life, but is also mysterious and I think can have a personal meaning for those who read it.

Swineherd

When all this is over, said the swineherd,
I mean to retire, where
Nobody will have heard of my special skills
And conversation is mainly about the weather.

I intend to learn how to make coffee, at least as well
As the Portuguese lay-sister in the kitchen
And polish the brass fenders every day.
I want to lie awake at night
Listening to the cream crawling to the top of the jug
And the water lying soft in the cistern.

I want to see an orchard where the trees grow in straight lines
And the yellow fox finds shelter between the navy-blue trunks,
Where it gets dark early in summer
And the apple-blossom is allowed to wither on the bough.

Eilean Ni Chuilleanain

Great thread! I have loved poetry all my life, favourites are Masefield, Yeats, Eliot and lots more, but this is one that I came across recently in 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem by Ruth Padel. It speaks to me of my life, but is also mysterious and I think can have a personal meaning for those who read it.

Swineherd

When all this is over, said the swineherd,
I mean to retire, where
Nobody will have heard of my special skills
And conversation is mainly about the weather.

I intend to learn how to make coffee, at least as well
As the Portuguese lay-sister in the kitchen
And polish the brass fenders every day.
I want to lie awake at night
Listening to the cream crawling to the top of the jug
And the water lying soft in the cistern.

I want to see an orchard where the trees grow in straight lines
And the yellow fox finds shelter between the navy-blue trunks,
Where it gets dark early in summer
And the apple-blossom is allowed to wither on the bough.

Eilean Ni Chuilleanain

I have passed 'The journey' to many friends too - usually mums and grans who are responsibilityholics like myself. I think there are a lot of us around!

Thanks, wisewoman. 'The Journey' is certainly one of my favourites too and I re-read it when I feel I need to - that's quite often at the moment. I've passed it on to quite a few friends but you're the first person who's said they already knew it!

Just sung it through, it`s brilliant!

Julie Andrews is supposed to have sung this when for her 70th birthday she made a special appearance at Manhattan bsp;'s Radio City Music Hall for the benefit of the AARP, and received a standing ovation from the crowd
that lasted over four minutes and repeated encores.

Don't know how true that is, as she lost the power to sing a lot time ago. However, that was the claim when it was forwarded to me.

Botox and nose drops and needles for knitting,
Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings,
Bundles of magazines tied up in string,
These are a few of my favourite things.

Cadillacs and cataracts, hearing aids and glasses,
Polident and Fixodent and false teeth in glasses,
Pacemakers, golf carts and porches with swings,
These are a few of my favourite things.

When the pipes leak, When the bones creak,
When the knees go bad,
I simply remember my favourite things,
And then I don’t feel so bad.

Hot tea and crumpets and corn pads for bunions,
No spicy hot food or food cooked with onions,
Bathrobes and heating pads and hot meals they bring,
These are a few of my favourite things..

Back pain, confused brains and no need for sinnin’,
Thin bones and fractures and hair that is thinnin’,
And we won’t mention our short shrunken frames,
When we remember our favourite things.

When the joints ache, When the hips break,
When the eyes grow dim,
Then I remember the great life I’ve had,
And then I don’t feel so bad.

I am new to this so realise I should probably have said I was talking about The Journey by Mary Oliver.

Oh Quiltinggran, this is one of my favourite poems. I have it pinned up on my kitchen wall and when I think I can solve the problems of the world (or even the problems of my own family) I read it and remember that there is only one person I can save!

Hopkins was a Jesuit priest who struggled with his religion and his poetry - I don't know why he thought the god in which he believed would give him that wonderful gift and not want him to use it. In many of his sonnets, the first eight lines are full of the wonder of nature but the last six lines revert to religion.

I am an atheist, but I find much of the language of the bible very beautful especially the Song of Solomon.

Greatnan, I love your poem. So tender and intimate. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Of Hopkins's poetry, I like Pied Beauty best:

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spáre, strange;
Whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)
With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:

Práise hím.

This is the one I like. God's Grandeur.

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; 5
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; 10
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings

Oh yes, it's Gerard isn't it. (just found me book)

But you can keep Gerald Manley Hopkins.

Actually, there was just one of his I liked. Perhaps I'll look it up.

That is just so beautiful.