List poems
 

In an essay in The Dyer’s Hand, Auden says that, like Matthew Arnold, he has his Touchstones, “but they are for testing critics, not poets.” He then gives a list of four questions he would ask a critic in order to see whether he can trust his judgement or not.

It’s the first of these that I’d like to make the subject of this thread: the lists. I’d be interested to see what examples people can offer of great list-poems.

Of course, the list of names is a standard set-piece in epic poetry – as in the example Auden gives from the Iliad. There’s the list of the inhabitants of hell in Paradise Lost, for example, which begins:

First Moloch, horrid King besmear'd with blood

Of human sacrifice, and parents tears,

Though for the noyse of Drums and Timbrels loud

Thir childrens cries unheard, that past through fire
To his grim Idol. Him the Ammonite

Worshipt in Rabba and her watry Plain,

In Argob and in Basan, to the stream

Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such

Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build

His Temple right against the Temple of God

On that opprobrious Hill, and made his Grove

The pleasant Vally of Hinnom, Tophet thence

And black Gehenna call'd, the Type of Hell.
Next Chemos, th' obscene dread of Moabs Sons,

From Aroar to Nebo, and the wild

Of Southmost Abarim; in Hesebon

And Horonaim, Seons Realm, beyond

The flowry Dale of Sibma clad with Vines,
And Eleale to th' Asphaltick Pool.

However, it’s not only epic poets who get great effects from names. We can leap forward a few centuries and come to our very own John Whitworth, who has a number of poems that consist almost entirely of lists of beautifully selected names: Landscape with Small Humans, for example, has one recalling medicines from the 1950s. Here are the last seven lines:

Then there’s bags more stuff to keep you regular.
EX-LAX, ENO’S, ANDREW’S, MILK OF MAGNESIA.
Got the trots? CREAMOLA JUNKET’s what you eat.
ZAM-BUK OINTMENT soothes your Granny’s aching feet.
COD-LIVER OIL sets kiddies up a treat.

There’s a jar, a tube, a bottle or a tin
For a thousand ills. And there’s ASPIRIN.

He has another one in the same volume listing makes of cars (again in the 1950s), all in the yearning tones of one of the few kids whose Dad hasn’t got a car yet. After lines savouring such names as “Rolls Royce Silver Wraith Grand Touring Limousine, / Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire, Bentley Continental” the poem ends with the pleading couplet:

What about a little one to make a start in?
M. G. Midget, Austin Healey, Aston Martin.

And, to leap back in time again, to the heroic style, here’s an Italian example, from Ariosto’s Orlando furioso:

Duca di Bocchingamia è quel dinante;

Enrigo ha la contea di Sarisberia;

signoreggia Burgenia il vecchio Ermante;

quello Odoardo è conte di Croisberia.


These lines come in the middle of a long list of knights who have come all the way from Scotland and England to join the fight against the paynims. There are three well-known English toponyms in that stanza; perhaps some help might be needed for the last one: Shrewsbury. Elsewhere in the same canto he refers to Varvecia (Warwick), Glocestra, Nortfozia, Pembrozia, Sufolcia, Esenia (Essex), Norbelanda (Northumberland), Dorsezia, Devonia and Sormosedia. It’s wonderful how exotic even Essex can be made to sound.

Anyway, the list-thread is now officially open. Please join in.

Like A Fiery Elephant.
 

List poems always bring to my mind this second stanza of "Rejectamenta" by B.S.Johnson. Common names, of course, rather than proper.

Clinker, ashes, leaves and branches mostly:
and batteries, bolts, oyster shells and cables,
rainpipe, a pair of scissors, a zip fastener,
grinding wheels, a marble washstand top,
springs, fuse insulators, a metal drug
phial, some rubber hose, odd socks, a pair
of army boots laced together, a rusted
toy train, umbrella stays, and inner tubes;
a gas-mask filter, car parts, a soapdish,
torn coalsacks, slate, part of a tiled
surround, a teapot, switches and contacts,
a woman's shoe, the twisted spring of a
lever-arch file, film spools, a spatula,
and tins; for polish, cigarettes, sardines,
milk, talc, oil - these alone recognisable
by their shapes, the myriad other types
rusted into nonentity, the edge
corroding last of all; who was it said
the path of civilisation is paved with tins?

From Poems (1964) Constable.

Forgive me, Gregory, but I have to ask--does Auden approve or disapprove of the critic who likes these things? :)

Off to hunt for a list poem....

The root of all riches
 

I really, really like this one:

Money

Money is a kind of poetry.
- Wallace Stevens

Money, the long green,
cash, stash, rhino, jack
or just plain dough.

Chock it up, fork it over,
shell it out. Watch it
burn holes through pockets.

To be made of it! To have it
to burn! Greenbacks, double eagles,
megabucks and Ginnie Maes.

It greases the palm, feathers a nest,
holds heads above water,
makes both ends meet.

Money breeds money.
Gathering interest, compounding daily.
Always in circulation.

Money. You don't know where it's been,
but you put it where your mouth is.
And it talks.

Dana Gioia

Cargoes

by John Masefield

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amythysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

Sorry not to have been clear on this, Maryann. Auden says "If a critic could truthfully answer "yes" to all four, then I should trust his judgment implicitly on all literary matters."

Thanks, everyone, for contributing here. Some great poems. Allen, I've always loved that Masefield one.

Carl Sandburg could do this by the hour together and in "The People, Yes" he virtually turned lists into a book.

Here's a section he stole from the Irish:

Three things you can't nurse: an old woman, a hen, and a sheep.
Three who have their own way: a mule, a pig, and a miser.
Three to stay away from: a snake, a man with an oily tongue, and a loose woman.
Three things dear to have: fresh eggs, hickory smoked ham, and old women's praise.
Three things always pleasing: a cat's kittens, a goat's kid, and a young woman.
The three prettiest dead: a little child, a salmon, a black cock.
Three of the coldest things: a man's knee, a cow's horn, and a dog's nose.
Three who come unbidden: love, jealousy, fear.
Three soon passing away: the beauty of a woman, the rainbow, the echo of the woods.
Three worth wishing: knowledge, grain, and friendship.

Sorry, I just can't help myself! From Song of the Open Road:


Committers of crimes, committers of many beautiful virtues,
Enjoyers of calms of seas, and storms of seas,
Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,
Habitués of many distant countries, habitués of far-distant dwellings,
Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers,
Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore,
Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of children,
Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers down of coffins,
Journeyers over consecutive seasons,

That crafty hermit-poet Robert Francis has a minimalist-list poem:


Coming and Going

The crows are cawing,
The cocks are crowing,
The roads are thawing,
The boys are bumming,
The winds are blowing,
The year is coming.

The jays are jawing,
The cows are lowing,
The trees are turning,
The saws are sawing,
The fires are burning,
The year is going.

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 trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.


Hopkins

Wendy, blessings for reminding me of the Hopkins. Of course, having been reminded, now I think of this one too:

Fried Beauty by R. S. Gwynn


Glory be to God for breaded things—
Catfish, steak finger, pork chop, chicken thigh,
Sliced green tomatoes, pots full to the brim
With french fries, fritters, life-float onion rings,
Hushpuppies, okra golden to the eye,
That in all oils, corn or canola, swim


Toward mastication’s maw (O molared mouth!);
Whatever browns, is dumped to drain and dry
On paper towels’ sleek translucent scrim,
These greasy, battered bounties of the South:
Eat them.

(This one's already online in many other places, so I think it's okay to copy here).

I love Catherine Tufariello's "Florida Flowers" poem. I can't find it online, but most of you have her book, I'm sure, and the rest of you should. (I mean, really. Unless you don't buy any poetry books at all, I can't imagine your not buying this one).

Meadows sweet where flames are under,
And a giggle at a wonder;
Visage sage at pantomine;
Funeral, and steeple-chime;
Infant playing with a skull;
Morning fair, and shipwreck'd hull;
Nightshade with the woodbine kissing;
Serpents in red roses hissing;
Cleopatra regal-dress'd
With the aspic at her breast;
Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad;
Muses bright and muses pale;
Sombre Saturn, Momus hale; -



- Keats

---



I love lists, though I wish there was a better word than List. They're more like verbal storms, or little ven (n?) diagrams spinning round, building pitch. Where has poetic pitch gone... Mother of god, I'm sounding old. Love Auden's touchstones.
Here's Yeats



...The living men that I hate,
The dead man that I loved,
The craven man in his seat,
The insolent unreproved,
And no knave brought to book
Who has won a drunken cheer,
The witty man and his joke
Aimed at the commonest ear,
The clever man who cries
The catch-cries of the clown,
the beating down of the wise
and great Art beaten down.

This one is also available online, so I assume it is okay to post it here. A colleague of mine in the music department of my university set it to music.

Susan


Buffalo Commons
by Timothy Murphy

In Antler, Reeder,
Ryder and Streeter,
stray dogs bristle
when strangers pass.

In Brocket, Braddock,
Maddock and Wheelock
dry winds whistle
through broken glass.

The steeples are toppled
and the land unpeopled,
reclaimed by thistle
and buffalo grass.

I like this one, from the Don Paterson-edited 101 Sonnets

from Notes on the Use of the Library
(Basement Annex)

The Principal's other edition of Q,
Scott by the truckload and Fredegond Shove,
Manuals instructing the dead how to do
What they no longer can with the Torments of Love,
Mistaken assumptions concerning The Race,
Twelve-volume memoirs of footling campaigns,
Discredited physics, the Criminal Face,
Confessions of clerics who blew out their brains,
Laws and Geographies (utterly changed),
Travellers journals that led up the creek,
The verbose, the inept, and the clearly deranged,
The languages no one has bothered to speak,
And journals of subjects that do not exist,
What better excuse to go out and get pissed?

Sean O’Brien

The king of the list poem is surely Jacques Prevert, translated by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and by Sarah Lawson. Lawson is better but Ferlinghetti has the French on the opposite page. Prevert's masterpiece is his 'Inventaire' (Inventory). I wonder if it can be googled. I'll try. I did. It can. The only raccoons in poetry that I know of.

Just to return to the proper-name lists, here's a stanza (and a bit) from a poem in Spenserian stanzas by Andrew Waterman, entitled Shore Lines:

Interestingly, the poem was published in 1994, just a year after Carol Ann Duffy's fine poem "Prayer" was published, though Andrew Waterman has said that he didn't know her poem at the time. That poem concludes with the lines:

Here's a beauty by Dorianne Laux.

http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/g....php?item=6797



Ode to Gray

Mourning dove. Goose. Cat bird. Butcher bird. Heron.
A child’s plush stuffed rabbit. Buckets. Chains.

Silver. Slate. Steel. Thistle. Tin.
Old man. Old woman.
The new screen door.

A squadron of Mirage F-1’s dog fighting
above ground-fog. Sprites. Smoke.
“Snapshot gray” circa 1952.

Foxes. Rats. Nails. Wolves. River stones. Whales.
Brains. Newspapers. The backs of dead hands.

The sky over the ocean just before the clouds
let down their rain.

Rain.

The sea just before the clouds
let down their nets of rain.

Angel fish. Hooks. Hummingbird nests. Battleships.
Teak wood. Seal whiskers. Silos. Railroad ties.

Mushrooms. Dray horses. Sage. Clay. Driftwood.
Crayfish in a stainless steel bowl.

The eyes of a certain girl.

Grain.

Nice Laux poem...

And another example, a quantitative sort of list:

A CONTRIBUTION TO STATISTICS


Out of a hundred people

those who always know better
-fifty-two

doubting every step
-nearly all the rest,

glad to lend a hand
if it doesn't take too long
-as high as forty-nine,

always good
because they can't be otherwise
-four, well maybe five,

able to admire without envy
-eighteen,

suffering illusions
induced by fleeting youth
-sixty, give or take a few,

not to be taken lightly
-forty and four,

living in constant fear
of someone or something
-seventy-seven,

capable of happiness
-twenty-something tops,

harmless singly, savage in crowds
-half at least,

cruel
when forced by circumstances
-better not to know
even ballpark figures,

wise after the fact
-just a couple more
than wise before it,

taking only things from life
-thirty
(I wish I were wrong),

hunched in pain,
no flashlight in the dark
-eighty-three
sooner or later,

righteous
-thirty-five, which is a lot,

righteous
and understanding
-three,

worthy of compassion
-ninety-nine,

mortal
-a hundred out of a hundred.
thus far this figure still remains unchanged.

-- Wislawa Szymborska

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minst...oems/1267.html

Loved that poem, Rose. Thanks for posting it.

Susan

Here's one that some here might have seen in a past Best American Poetry --

A Good List by Brad Leithauser
(Homage to Lorenz Hart)

Some nights, can’t sleep, I draw up a list,
Of everything I’ve never done wrong.
To look at me now, you might insist

My list could hardly be long,
But I’ve stolen no gnomes from my neighbor’s yard,
Nor struck his dog, backing out my car.
Never ate my way up and down the Loire
On a stranger’s credit card.

I’ve never given a cop the slip,
Stuffed stiffs in a gravel quarry,
Or silenced Cub Scouts on a first camping trip
With an unspeakable ghost story.
Never lifted a vase from a museum foyer,
Or rifled a Turkish tourist’s backpack.
Never cheated at golf. Or slipped out a blackjack
And flattened a patent lawyer.

I never forged a lottery ticket,
Took three on a two-for-one pass,
Or, as a child, toasted a cricket
With a magnifying glass.
I never said “air” to mean “err,” or obstructed
Justice, or defrauded a securities firm.
Never mulcted—so far as I understand the term.
Or unjustly usufructed.

I never swindled a widow of all her stuff
By means of a false deed and title
Or stood up and shouted, My God, that’s enough!
At a nephew’s piano recital.
Never practiced arson, even as a prank,
Brightened church-suppers with off-color jokes,
Concocted an archeological hoax—
Or dumped bleach in a goldfish tank.

Never smoked opium. Or smuggled gold
Across the Panamanian Isthmus.
Never hauled back and knocked a rival out cold,
Or missed a family Christmas.
Never borrowed a book I intended to keep.
. . . My list, once started, continues to grow,
Which is all for the good, but just goes to show
It’s the good who do not sleep.

I was raised on musicals, not poetry:


Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens;
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens;
Brown paper packages tied up with strings;
These are a few of my favorite things.

Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels;
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles;
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings;
These are a few of my favorite things.

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes;
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes;
Silver-white winters that melt into springs;
These are a few of my favorite things.

When the dog bites,
When the bee stings,
When I'm feeling sad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.

****
Rodgers & Hammerstein, "My Favorite Things"

Here's a great list song as sung by Johnny Cash. You should be able to hear it by clicking on the play arrow up top:

http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=tra.2893318

Or if that doesn't work, get it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmFN9C9PVpg

Don't skip the original version by Hank Snow.

While we're at it here's a goofy list song from Adam Sandler (wait out the annoying 30 second intro), which is a good companion to this spoof by Alan Sherman (one of my all-time favorites, and a genius at list songs).

David R.

Since we've got into songs, here's the British answer to Johnny Cash, "Slow Train" by Flanders and Swann. Rather different tempo and mood, but same essential format.

Here's Tom Lehrer's "Elements"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmwlzwGMMwc

I love this poem, Alex. It reminds me of a poem by Simon Armitage, entitled "The Back Man". It begins with a Walter-Mitty-like fantasy dream of strange jungle-adventures but then retreats into the “ordinary”. The second part of the poem consists of a long passage in which the speaker declares himself repeatedly not to be the type of person involved in outlandish exploits but rather an average inhabitant of suburban England. Here's a section:

It goes on for another 40 lines or so. The overall effect is not just one of anticlimactic comedy, as in Walter Mitty; it somehow ends up making the ordinary sound extraordinary.

Late to the fray, admittedly, but I submit this...


VERBAL INTOXICATION

I am drunk, but not with wine
In my head wild words entwine,
Callisthenics, dragon-fly,
Lanthorne, lapis lazuli,
Threnody of three times three
And sycamore, sycamore, sycamore tree.

Come for me, the Black Maria,
In some drunk-house I'll expire —
Sophocles, and Northern Fire,
Timbrel, tumbrill, lute and lyre,
I am mad, though not in wits,
Horoscope and Horowitz,
Dungeons, danger, Dungeness,
Fortunatus and largesse,
Hail, horizons, honey-bee,
And sycamore, sycamore, sycamore tree.

My mouth's full, but not with brandy,
Riotous and rope and randy
And the lane to Tonypandy,
Lullabies and macaroons,
Nincompoops and nightmare noons,
Neptune, Noah, and old Tom Noddy
Rive the heart from out the body
Swim the sense in hyssop Tea,
And blackamoor, sycamore, syllabub Sea.

1948

By Priscilla Napier, from “Coming Home from Sea”

It's in Italian but this by Da Ponte from Don Giovanni is a beauty. Giovanni's servant describes the amorous life of Don Giovanni to an outraged victim. NB you can hear and see it performed if you open the link at the bottom of this post:

Aria text and English translation

Italian English translation


Madamina, il catalogo è questo
Delle belle che amò il padron mio;
un catalogo egli è che ho fatt'io;
Osservate, leggete con me.

In Italia seicento e quaranta;
In Alemagna duecento e trentuna;
Cento in Francia, in Turchia novantuna;
Ma in Ispagna son già mille e tre.

V'han fra queste contadine,
Cameriere, cittadine,
V'han contesse, baronesse,
Marchesine, principesse.
E v'han donne d'ogni grado,
D'ogni forma, d'ogni età.

Nella bionda egli ha l'usanza
Di lodar la gentilezza,
Nella bruna la costanza,
Nella bianca la dolcezza.

Vuol d'inverno la grassotta,
Vuol d'estate la magrotta;
È la grande maestosa,
La piccina è ognor vezzosa.

Delle vecchie fa conquista
Pel piacer di porle in lista;
Sua passion predominante
È la giovin principiante.

Non si picca — se sia ricca,
Se sia brutta, se sia bella;
Purché porti la gonnella,
Voi sapete quel che fa.



My dear lady, this is a list
Of the beauties my master has loved,
A list which I have compiled.
Observe, read along with me.

In Italy, six hundred and forty;
In Germany, two hundred and thirty-one;
A hundred in France; in Turkey, ninety-one;
But in Spain already one thousand and three.

Among these are peasant girls,
Maidservants, city girls,
Countesses, baronesses,
Marchionesses, princesses,
Women of every rank,
Every shape, every age.

With blondes it is his habit
To praise their kindness;
In brunettes, their faithfulness;
In the white-haired, their sweetness.

In winter he likes fat ones.
In summer he likes thin ones.
He calls the tall ones majestic.
The little ones are always charming.

He seduces the old ones
For the pleasure of adding to the list.
His greatest favourite
Is the young beginner.

It doesn't matter if she's rich,
Ugly or beautiful;
If she wears a skirt,
You know what he does.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo60m...eature=related

I meant to comment on this earlier. Thanks for posting it, Janet. The perfect catalogue to close the thread. Maybe all threads should close with music - with Mozart if possible.

And Philip, that's a strange but wonderful poem, by an author I had never heard of. I will Google her at once.

Ditto, Philip. Thank you.

John, your train-spotting poem should be included.

Gregory, I'm sorry I arrived so late. What a lot of original and interesting poems.