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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jan 14, 2018 9:38:32 GMT
I only became interested in poetry after I became an English teacher. My own English teachers were all about finding hidden meanings in the poem, and especially in finding anti-Christian meanings (I had one English teacher whose stated objective for his class was “to show that Christians are hypocrites”). I liked Latin poetry when I was studying Classics, but I only really started liking English poetry when I started teaching it. I try to do a better job teaching it than my teachers did. I try to let my students discover the various aspects of it, rather than treating it as a code to which I and only I have the key. Studying English poetry in school was one of the best experiences in my life, I must admit. I'd already discovered poetry for myself, but I didn't realize it could have such depths. I agree that "hidden meanings" are obnoxious when they are invented rather than discovered, but I did like the revelation that there could be metaphors or allusions or tropes in a poem that I hadn't realized, that weren't explicit. (I also remember an Open University analysis of Tiger, Tiger by William Blake that delighted me in the same way.) I bet you're a great poetry teacher!
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Post by optatuscleary on Jan 14, 2018 9:44:28 GMT
I also grew up in the non-memorizing era of education. The first poem I remember memorizing is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. I was teaching it to a group of students, and found after a couple classes that I no longer needed the book. My students seem to think it’s a magical power: they’re never asked to memorize anything in prior classes, and in the classes I teach there is no time to prioritize it.
This inspired me to memorize “Lepanto” by G.K. Chesterton, which was a lot of fun but I was unable to retain it all. I could probably recite the first stanza, and some of the better lines from the rest of it.
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Post by optatuscleary on Jan 14, 2018 9:50:27 GMT
I only became interested in poetry after I became an English teacher. My own English teachers were all about finding hidden meanings in the poem, and especially in finding anti-Christian meanings (I had one English teacher whose stated objective for his class was “to show that Christians are hypocrites”). I liked Latin poetry when I was studying Classics, but I only really started liking English poetry when I started teaching it. I try to do a better job teaching it than my teachers did. I try to let my students discover the various aspects of it, rather than treating it as a code to which I and only I have the key. Studying English poetry in school was one of the best experiences in my life, I must admit. I'd already discovered poetry for myself, but I didn't realize it could have such depths. I agree that "hidden meanings" are obnoxious when they are invented rather than discovered, but I did like the revelation that there could be metaphors or allusions or tropes in a poem that I hadn't realized, that weren't explicit. (I also remember an Open University analysis of Tiger, Tiger by William Blake that delighted me in the same way.) I bet you're a great poetry teacher! I had some really terrible teachers. But English was always one of my favorite classes (after History). I liked reading novels and stories, but poetry always seemed like something teachers were trying to force. I was always suspicious of anything my teachers seemed too excited about.
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Post by irishconfederate on Jan 14, 2018 20:56:48 GMT
Here's a 'pome' I came across by Patrick Kavanagh, not one of his best in my opinion but one that I thought would be perfect to post on an Irish Conservative forum:
Hope
The fire goes out We sit with our palms over it Like the priest at the Consecration, We sit huddled, old forlorn folk Remembering, striving to hold against the dark-to-come Some of the ballad-liveliness When minds were supple And there were poems hidden under the black-oak couple. We shall have long cold days before again April will dance in our heart's ballroom We shall suffer as modern savages must Who have painted civilization brightness on the wheels of soul. Ah, we shall survive This is the hope will sustain When the fire is black in the hearth of Ireland And love is just a polished sophist on the last up-train.
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Post by irishconfederate on Feb 15, 2018 12:31:33 GMT
This poem had a powerful effect on my soul when I read it. I feel it describes the condition of myself and the conundrum of it all. Hope you enjoy!
Pegasus
by Patrick Kavanagh
My soul was an old horse
Offered for sale in twenty fairs.
I offered him to the Church--the buyers
Were little men who feared his unusual airs.
One said: 'Let him remain unbid
In the wind and rain and hunger
Of sin and we will get him--
With the winkers thrown in--for nothing.'
Then the men of State looked at
What I'd brought for sale.
One minister, wondering if
Another horse-body would fit the tail
That he'd kept for sentiment-
The relic of his own soul--
Said, 'I will graze him in lieu of his labour.'
I lent him for a week or more
And he came back a hurdle of bones,
Starved, overworked, in despair.
I nursed him on the roadside grass
To shape him for another fair.
I lowered my price. I stood him where
The broken-winded, spavined stand
And crooked shopkeepers said that he
Might do a season on the land--
But not for high-paid work in towns.
He'd do a tinker, possibly.
I begged, 'O make some offer now,
A soul is a poor man's tragedy.
He'll draw your dungiest cart,' I said,
'Show you short cuts to Mass,
Teach weather lore, at night collect
Bad debts from poor men's grass.'
And they would not.
Where the
Tinkers quarrel I went down
With my horse, my soul.
I cried, 'Who will bid me half a crown?'
From their rowdy bargaining
Not one turned. 'Soul,' I prayed,
'I have hawked you through the world
Of Church and State and meanest trade.
But this evening, halter off,
Never again will it go on.
On the south side of ditches
There is grazing of the sun.
No more haggling with the world....'
As I said these words he grew
Wings upon his back. Now I may ride him
Every land my imagination knew.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Feb 15, 2018 12:44:41 GMT
I'd never read it before-- it's a very fine poem. Compounded of Kavanagh's usual pride and honesty.
In what way do you identify with it?
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Post by cato on Jul 17, 2018 17:59:15 GMT
I have added Philip Larkin's Collected Poems to my summer reading list. His mixture of melancholia , disapointment and general all round grumpy old man attitude gives me great comfort and solace at this time of turmoil and decline.
Being denounced as a dead white sexist xenophobe only adds to his poetic stature.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2018 19:16:19 GMT
I have added Philip Larkin's Collected Poems to my summer reading list. His mixture of melancholia , disapointment and general all round grumpy old man attitude gives me great comfort and solace at this time of turmoil and decline. Being denounced as a dead white sexist xenophobe only adds to his poetic statute. He can hardly be blamed for being dead or white or playing an odd sounding instrument -- and why pass laws concerning poetry?
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jul 17, 2018 20:01:51 GMT
On the contrary, he can absolutely be blamed for being dead-- he drank like a fish, by his own account. He could be ninety-five today if he'd jogged and ate health foods, who knows? As for being white, I suppose he can't be BLAMED for it, but he showed absolutely no tendencies towards white guilt.
Larkin is great. If you are feeling depressed, read Larkin. Any hope you felt before picking up the book will be completely gone and you will be at peace.
Seriously, though, I LOVE Larkin. Church Going, Lines on a Young Lady's Photograph Album, MXMXIV (which I cannot read without breaking down in tears), "Going, Going", A Study of Reading Habits, and so many others-- a colossus. Hilarious, as well as profound. One of his poems features a future PhD candidate studying him (Larkin) and coming to the conclusion that he was weird:
Not out of kicks or something happening-- One of those old-time NATURAL fouled-up guys.
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Post by cato on Jul 17, 2018 22:04:02 GMT
I have added Philip Larkin's Collected Poems to my summer reading list. His mixture of melancholia , disapointment and general all round grumpy old man attitude gives me great comfort and solace at this time of turmoil and decline. Being denounced as a dead white sexist xenophobe only adds to his poetic statute. He can hardly be blamed for being dead or white or playing an odd sounding instrument -- and why pass laws concerning poetry? Whoops . I can't access spell check on my phone. Mea maxima culpa.
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Post by cato on Jul 19, 2018 12:21:49 GMT
On a spelling related note I noticed on another site, someone accusing someone else of being sexiest , which may have caused a little bit of misunderstanding. 🤔
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jul 19, 2018 13:17:10 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2018 16:26:25 GMT
Cato,
I have never been accused of being raciest myself.
f’Man
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Post by cato on Jul 19, 2018 19:03:27 GMT
Cato, I have never been accused of being raciest myself. f’Man We all live in hope.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 10, 2018 11:17:14 GMT
I love this poem by John Betjeman, and I think it's very appropriate to a conservative forum. I think lines six to eight are especially good.
The Planster's Vision
Cut down that timber! Bells, too many and strong, Pouring their music through the branches bare, From moon-white church-towers down the windy air Have pealed the centuries out with Evensong. Remove those cottages, a huddled throng! Too many babies have been born in there, Too many coffins, bumping down the stair, Carried the old their garden paths along.
I have a Vision of The Future, chum, The worker's flats in fields of soya beans Tower up like silver pencils, score on score: And Surging Millions hear the Challenge come From microphones in communal canteens "No Right! No wrong! All's perfect, evermore."
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