Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Classic Poetry: "There Will Come Soft Rains," Sara Teasdale, 1884-1933

*
Sara Teasdale
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There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

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Terrible Beauty



glendale92
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And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
--1920



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"August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains" (Based on Ray Bradbury's short story, which includes Teasdale's poem)



Berserkrca

Monday, August 4, 2008

Classic Poetry: Meg Merrilies (John Keats, 1795-1821)


John Keats
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Old Meg she was a Gipsy,
----And liv'd upon the Moors:
Her bed it was the brown heath turf,
----And her house was out of doors.

Her apples were swart blackberries,
----Her currants pods o' broom;
Her wine was dew of the wild white rose,
----Her book a churchyard tomb.

Her Brothers were the craggy hills,
----Her Sisters larchen trees--
Alone with her great family
----She liv'd as she did please.

No breakfast had she many a morn,
----No dinner many a noon,
And 'stead of supper she would stare
----Full hard against the Moon.

But every morn of woodbine fresh
----She made her garlanding,
And every night the dark glen Yew
----She wove, and she would sing.

And with her fingers old and brown
----She plaited Mats o' Rushes,
And gave them to the Cottagers
----She met among the Bushes.

Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen
----And tall as Amazon:
An old red blanket cloak she wore;
----A chip hat had she on.
God rest her aged bones somewhere--
----She died full long agone!

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*

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Classic Poetry: "The Raven," by Edgar Allan Poe; performed by Vincent Price

*
Edgar Allan Poe
________________________________________________________

(First Published in 1845)


Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore,
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,
Nameless here forevermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me---filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
" 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door.
This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you." Here I opened wide the door;---
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word,
Lenore?, This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word,
"Lenore!" Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before,
"Surely," said I, "surely, that is something at my window lattice.
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore.
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore.
" 'Tis the wind, and nothing more."


1884 illustration by Gustave Dore.
________________________________________________________


Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven, of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door.
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door,
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore.
Tell me what the lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore."
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."


1858 Illustration by John Tennial
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Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door,
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."


But the raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered;
Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before;
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."


Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore,--
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never--nevermore."


But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore --
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl, whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er
She shall press, ah, nevermore!


Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee -- by these angels he hath
Sent thee respite---respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!"


"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore:
Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me I implore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."


"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil--prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore---
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore?
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."


"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! -- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."


And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming.
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted---nevermore!
_______________________________________________________

"The Raven" as Performance



MasterMagi, performed by Vincent Price, directed by Johnny Thompson
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Saturday, August 2, 2008

Poetry in Music: "Sounds of Slience" (Simon and Garfunkel) Concert in Central Park

*

The Concert in Central Park is a live album by Simon and Garfunkel. On September 19, 1981, the folk-rock duo reunited for a free concert on the Great Lawn of New York's Central Park attended by more than 750,000 people. They released a live album from the concert the following March (Warner Brothers LP 2BSK 3654; CD 3654). It was arranged by Paul Simon and Dave Grusin, and produced by Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, Phil Ramone and Roy Halee.

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"Sounds of Silence" in Central Park (1981)



trying4
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A video of the concert was also released. The video contains two songs that were omitted from the live album: "The Late Great Johnny Ace" and "Late in the Evening (Reprise)". The song about Johnny Ace had been disrupted by a fan rushing the stage. Both of these songs appear in the DVD release. The Late Great Johnny Ace is not listed in the track listing but appears between A Heart in New York and Kodachrome.

From Wikipedia. For more information and track listing, click here.

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Friday, August 1, 2008

Classic Poetry: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" Animated Reading by T.S. Eliot

*

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

__________________________________________________________

T. S. Eliot "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" Poem Movie


Poetryanimations
__________________________________________________________

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats 5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
--So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
--And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress 65
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
--And should I then presume?
--And how should I begin?

*****


Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

*****


And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
--Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
--That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
--“That is not it at all,
--That is not what I meant, at all.”

*****


No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
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Friday, July 11, 2008

Dmanister Responds to Poets.org's Invitation to "Take it Somewhere Else, Tom"

*
On May 23, 2008, TomWest posted an essay on poets.org, which was reposted on Poets.net forum: "Locking a thread affects all who had anything to do with that thread—readers, as well as posters. Locking deprives all rule-abiding posters from participating in a thread they intellectually own." More...


Evidently, Catherine (rogersc), a poets.org admin, was not happy about TomWest's discourse and promptly locked the thread, with this comment: "...I think I'll lock this thread right now, just because I can, so there."

On the Poets.net forum (July 10), dmanister responded with the following essay:


_____________________________________________


As a former mod at poets.org I can say that Catherine's attitude is not prompted by Tom West specifically, but by his expressed sense of his entitlement to criticize forum management ("picking fights" is the way management describes dissent.)

Tom was eloquent and precise in highlighting the injustices perpetrated by that forum's mods and admins. That makes him persona non grata.

"Take it somewhere else Tom" says it all; the poets.org management is unwilling to offer its members any say at all in how they are treated. I salute Tom for speaking truth to power, especially when his criticism is met with total dismissal and a suggestion that he go elsewhere.

I say that forums should run a slate yearly for mods. They should not be invited to join management by the site administrator, which is how it works now. That just produces tintypes of the admin. Anyone whose tendency to speak for members justice soon resigns or is drummed out. In my case on poets.org it was both.

Why is the membership not allowed to vote for mods? If that had been done at poets.org, kaltica would never have been made a mod and the entire Terreson injustice would not have occurred. I received many private emails during the wrangling over Tere from long-time poets.org members saying they were horrified when kaltica was made a mod.

In arguing for Terreson, I said (in the secret moderators' forum that is invisible to members) that if Tere were not treated justly I would resign. No one urged me to stay. One mod in fact posted a smiley face as his reply to my possible resignation. Now I see that my former colleagues are saying that "a good mod left" (they give my name) due to the flap over Tere, as if it were Tere who caused my resignation and not my disgust with their unjust and arbitrary treatment of him.

Mods at poets.org seem to be followers, not leaders. Any opinion the site admin has they back to the hilt. I call them suckups, but maybe they are just natural-born followers, otherwise known as sheep.

If Catherine reads this, I'd like to ask her to explain why the posting and of members Private Messages both in the public forum and in the mods/admins secret forum is not something about which the member should complain. If Catherine predictably expresses the poets.org ethos, she will describe complaints about that privacy-violating practice as just "someone wanting to pick a fight." Why not title the forum mailbox "Messages" instead of "Private Messages" if the mods and admin have no intention of keeping them private?

Why are private messages sent to mods and/or the admin used as a cause for banning? Catherine, if PMs can be a cause for banning, please cite the guidelines which say so.

A distinction needs to be made between private correspondence and posts in the public forum. They are treated the same, as if "private" means nothing.

The expression "pick a fight" needs to be unpacked. When all of its connotations are brought out it is obvious that it is used to smear dissenters by making them seem like schoolyard bullies who want altercations for their own sake, not because a principle of individual privacy or justice is being addressed.

The charge is laughable, because no member has any power at poets.org. Management can do whatever it wants. It is management which bullies the members, and yes, sometimes they "pick a fight" just to establish that they are in charge, as kaltica did with Terreson, deleting his posts almost as soon as kaltica received moderator privileges.

Tere's posts were not gratuitous nor off-topic. Those are other terms that management uses to dismiss member complaints.

Another loaded term is "tiresome." Recall that the poets.org site admin gave that as a reason for banning a member, as is quoted at the top of this thread.

"Tiresome" is not given in the guidelines as a cause for banning, it's another made-up reason for dismissing a dissenter.

Diana

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