Poetry ...love it or hate it?

Hopkins is my favourite poet - not only 'Inversnaid' but also 'Binsey Poplars' and 'The windhover'. I don't think it matters if you don't understand every line - just say them aloud and listen to the cadences. Luckily for me, his collected works were part of the syllabus for my Eng. Lit. degree.
I used to receite poems to my grandchildren when they were far to young to understand the meaning - just to give them a feel for the flow of the words.

Here is one of my own that won the annual prize in the Civil Service Authors' competition, written after sitting up all night with a measly toddler!

Vigil.

I hold you in my arms and stroke your hair
Your head is on my shoulder, heavy with slumber.
Lightly with my lips I touch your cheek
And the shadow of your lashes as you dream.
When you sleep at last I will not stir,
Lest you should wake before the dawn.

No poem that I know, or symphony,
Could hold me so, my little one.
The years will fly away, you will be gone,
But I have held you here, all night long.

That was written over 40 years ago, and since then I have dropped the affectation of using words in 'poetic' order, so I would say 'I touch your cheek gently with my lips'.

I used to be able to write a poem at will and often belted out something for a friend to use as part of a wedding speech or even to put on a Valentine Card.

If I had to choose one book for Desert Island Discs, it would be the Complete Oxford Book of English Verse.

This is a lovely thread, how did I miss it?
Apart from "If" and "Desiderata", the only poetry that`s ever really registered with me is the stuff that John Masefield wrote, all of it. But I must also admit to liking Pam Ayres little ditties, especially "I Wish I`d Looked After Me Teeth"!

nanaval - .

...the trigger for me was the tiger ...a creature that I would love to see in the wild ...after all ...dreams are what keep us all going!!

Charlotte Mitchell, jacey. From her book "I want to go home. Poems through a day".

I heard about her on Woman's Hour some time ago now. She was a well-known actress, and wrote poems in later life.

Do you know the poet jingle?

This is a line from one of my favourite poems. (It's not online so I can't copy and paste. So you are not getting all of it)

"Between the things I do I like to pause,
I like the tiger to relax his claws."

Good philosophy that.

Think this is the poet nanaval

Valerie Waite


joyofsix.typepad.com/joyofsix/2006/07/the_computer_sw.html

It comes with a lovely cartoon!

nanaval ...that made me on what has been a day

Thank you nanaval. Not only have I e-mailed this to my elder grandson who I think will laugh his socks off, but because I have recently been writing about the value of grandmothers, I have sent it to my editor – who will also laugh but be rather worried that my copy won't arrive.

I've loved reading all the poems. Wendy Cope is my favourite and I have all her books.

I thought you might enjoy this poem. My Grandchildren love it but I have no idea who wrote it.

The computer swallowed Grandma.
Yes, honestly it's true!
She pressed 'controle' and 'enter'
And disappeared from view.

It devoured her completely,
The thought just made me squirm.
She must have caught a virus
Or been eaten by a worm.

I've searched through the recycle bin
And files of every kind;
I've even searched the Internet,
But nothing could I find.

In desperation I asked Jeeves
My searches to refine.
The reply from him was negative,
Not a thing was found 'online.'

So if inside your 'Inbox'
My Grandma you should see,
Please 'copy,' 'Scan'and 'Post' her
And send her back to me.

This is for tomorrow and for all those like Grannyactivist and her daughter who will remember .

So many different lengths of time by Brian Patten

How long does a man live after all?
A thousand days or only one?
One week or a few centuries?
How long does a man spend living or dying
and what do we mean when we say gone forever?

Adrift in such preoccupations, we seek clarification.
We can go to the philosophers
but they will weary of our questions.
We can go to the priests and rabbis
but they might be busy with administrations.

So, how long does a man live after all?
And how much does he live while he lives?
We fret and ask so many questions -
then when it comes to us
the answer is so simple after all.

A man lives for as long as we carry him inside us,
for as long as we carry the harvest of his dreams,
for as long as we ourselves live,
holding memories in common, a man lives.

His lover will carry his man's scent, his touch:
his children will carry the weight of his love.
One friend will carry his arguments,
another will hum his favourite tunes,
another will still share his terrors.

And the days will pass with baffled faces,
then the weeks, then the months,
then there will be a day when no question is asked,
and the knots of grief will loosen in the stomach
and the puffed faces will calm.
And on that day he will not have ceased
but will have ceased to be separated by death.

How long does a man live after all?
A man lives so many different lengths of tim

Autumns Doorway

Splinters of warmth
Pierce misty mornings.
Dew adorned hedges
Patterned with lace.
Through Autumns doorway
Into October chill;
The long summer days
A hazy memory.

Last Post by Carol Ann Duffy

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud...
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home -
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce - No - Decorum - No - Pro Patria Mori.
You walk away.
You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too -
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert -
and light a cigasrette.
There's coffee in the square,
warm French bread
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.
You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket book and smile.
If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.

I thought I saw you in a moment out of time,
Straight-backed and walking briskly,
Your dark curls bouncing in rhythm with the swirl of your skirt
As the heels of your best court shoes clicked along the pavement.

I thought I saw you in a moment out of time,
Your green eyes sparkling brightly
And sweet face eager with the joy of anticipation
As rapid steps bore you on to your unwritten future.

I thought I saw you in a moment out of time,
Your skin smooth, no tell-tale lines,
Your waist trim and shoulders squared, pink-tipped nails shining
On the long slim fingers of your unblemished hands.

I thought I saw you in a moment out of time,
Break into a girlish run
Until you were enveloped in an infinite embrace,
As if death itself would fail to divide the two of you.

I thought I saw you in a moment out of time,
My viewpoint strangely shortened
And perspective skewed. When my blurred vision cleared again
All was silent and I saw you both were gone – again.

One to share for tomorrow ... with

Forgotten Dead, I Salute You

Dawn has flashed up the startled skies,
Night has gone out beneath the hill
Many sweet times; before our eyes
Dawn makes and unmakes about us still
The magic that we call the rose.
The gentle history of the rain
Has been unfolded, traced and lost
By the sharp finger-tips of frost;
Birds in the hawthorn build again;
The hare makes soft her secret house;
The wind at tourney comes and goes,
Spurring the green, unharnessed boughs;
The moon has waxed fierce and waned dim:
He knew the beauty of all those
Last year, and who remembers him?

Love sometimes walks the waters still,
Laughter throws back her radiant head;
Utterly beauty is not gone,
And wonder is not wholly dead.
The starry, mortal world rolls on;
Between sweet sounds and silences,
With new, strange wines her beakers brim:
He lost his heritage with these
Last year, and who remembers him?

None remember him: he lies
In earth of some strange-sounding place,
Nameless beneath the nameless skies,
The wind his only chant, the rain
The only tears upon his face;
Far and forgotten utterly
By living man. Yet such as he
Have made it possible and sure
For other lives to have, to be;
For men to sleep content, secure.
Lip touches lip and eyes meet eyes
Because his heart beats not again:
His rotting, fruitless body lies
That sons may grow from other men.

He gave, as Christ, the life he had
The only life desired or known;
The great, sad sacrifice was made
For strangers; this forgotten dead
Went out into the night alone.
There was his body broken for you,
There was his blood divinely shed
That in the earth lie lost and dim.
Eat, drink, and often as you do,
For whom he died, remember him.

Muriel Stuart

Yes, kittylester, that's definitely one of my favourites too,

I thought I didn't like poetry (legacy of really strict English teacher, I suspect) but I'm loving this thread. One of my favourites is Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 "Let me not to the marriage of true minds".

I wondered.

Thank you, Butternut. One of my own-I rarely share them but felt I could, here.

It would be better if I hadn't left a line out! Line six should read "Around us, on a rocky ridge, at every pace". Excuse one daft old bird!

Ariadne - a very gently poem for this grey and soggy Sunday morning.

I like this, and hope someone will read it when we're gone and think of me and my old man!

Walking with Jaci by David Churchill.

I know it is the best thing that we do
Festooned with map and compass, just the two
Of us, in muddy boots, food in the pack,
With walking poles and whistles, following a track
Through boulders grass and trees, or best, with space
Surprised by the joys familiar; a primrose, deer
Leaping for cover, the landscape near
With stile and gate and hedge and stream,
Or far, where mountains merge into the sky, a dream
Of mist and blueness and the fantasies of cloud.

So, if a final peaceful sleep I am allowed,
Such as I have seen while others gently pass,
Then let me dream of walking on soft grass,
One step and then another, towards a beckoning bend,
And let the dream go on and on, without an end.

And since you never dream, share this with me
And we'll go hand in hand, into eternity.

I feel September coming, subtle, slow;
The promise of the springtime now is mine.
I wonder, though, if ever Autumn's glow
Can equal the clear brightness of springtime?
I think not; but the difference is all.
Both gold and green are beautiful to see,
And all the golden leaves that softly fall
Once young, gave life back to the tree.
Fall softly then, and let the summer go;
Let the old leaves fall, let new ones grow.

Me too Mishap, I can't remember where I originally found the Mary Oliver poem - she's American and after sending the poem onto a friend she bought me two of her books! I love some of the other poems people have posted too so thank you everyone for those, especially you Jacey for reminding me of Desiderata.
Thank you also to all who said nice things both about my mother and her poetry.
Here's another of her poems.

One Life

We have but this one life to live
And each day as we live it,
Greedy Time will not return to us
One unrelenting minute.
And every hour of every day,
Bringing happiness or sorrow,
Must just as surely pass away.
Tomorrow is tomorrow!

And so I write my verse today
That I may, in later years,
Recall in them this present time,
Its joys, its hopes, its fears.
And should I strike
Just one sweet chord,
Within the written line,
Let the tune live in the memory,
And beat the enemy, Time.