Eratosphere Forums - Metrical Poetry, Free Verse, Fiction, Art, Critique, Discussions Able Muse - a review of poetry, prose and art

Forum Left Top

Notices

Reply
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #11  
Unread 11-28-2003, 11:15 AM
Steven Schroeder Steven Schroeder is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
Posts: 1,635
Post

Just as a note, I Googled the Ammons, and it looks like your memory was slightly off.

Their Sex Life

On failure on
Top of another



------------------
Steve Schroeder
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Unread 11-28-2003, 12:13 PM
Bruce McBirney Bruce McBirney is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: La Crescenta, California
Posts: 321
Post

Though I'm not a great fan of W.S. Merwin's Purgatorio translation, I very much like some of his own poems. In addition to writing one of my favorite very long poems (the novel-length The Folding Cliffs), he wrote one of the shortest:


ELEGY

Who would I show it to?


There are also many beautiful translations of short poems in Robert Payne's The White Pony, an anthology of Chinese poetry from the Shih Ching to Mao. It's a wonderful book I'd urge everyone to own, if you can find a copy. Here's a sample, written by Tu Fu and translated by Hsieh Wen Tung:


QUATRAIN

Before you praise spring's advent, note,
What capers the mad wind may cut:
To cast the flowers to the waves
And overturn the fishing boat.

Reply With Quote
  #13  
Unread 11-29-2003, 03:10 AM
Jim Hayes Jim Hayes is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: Kilkenny, Kilkenny, Ireland
Posts: 4,949
Post

And Gavin Ewart who surely wrote the shortest;

Love Poem

You!

I had one myself which went;

Brewer's Droop

Two failures
Back to Back


Which may, inadvertently, (I was unaware of its existence) owe something to the Ammons.

Jim



[This message has been edited by Jim Hayes (edited November 29, 2003).]
Reply With Quote
  #14  
Unread 11-29-2003, 06:10 AM
Terese Coe Terese Coe is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 7,489
Post

Merwin's "Elegy" is one of the funniest short poems I've ever seen. And Ewart's "Love Poem" is gorgeous.

Reply With Quote
  #15  
Unread 11-29-2003, 07:43 PM
Janet Kenny Janet Kenny is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Queensland, (was Sydney) Australia
Posts: 15,574
Post

Correction

Delete ‘Wax Effigy, some Pins, one Witch’.
Insert ‘One Lawyer, one Vindictive Bitch’.

ERIC MILLWARD
Reply With Quote
  #16  
Unread 11-29-2003, 11:55 PM
grasshopper grasshopper is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Poole,Dorset,U.K.
Posts: 1,589
Post

I think this is one of the most poignant love poems ever written (by Anon in the early 16th Century):


Western wind, when will thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!

Regards, Maz
Reply With Quote
  #17  
Unread 11-30-2003, 03:46 AM
A. E. Stallings A. E. Stallings is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Athens, Greece
Posts: 3,205
Post

John Ashbery:


The Cathedral Is

Slated for demolition
Reply With Quote
  #18  
Unread 11-30-2003, 03:53 AM
A. E. Stallings A. E. Stallings is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Athens, Greece
Posts: 3,205
Post

And one of the Great short poems:


At a Hasty Wedding

If hours be years the twain are blest,
For now they solace swift desire
By bonds of every bond the best,
If hours be years. The twain are blest
Do eastern stars slope never west,
Nor pallid ashes follow fire:
If hours be years the twain are blest,
For now they solace swift desire.


--Thomas Hardy
Reply With Quote
  #19  
Unread 11-30-2003, 03:17 PM
FOsen's Avatar
FOsen FOsen is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Pasadena, California
Posts: 2,378
Post

I was going to add this to my Cynic's Corner post, but that’s already too long and Cunningham was a modern master of the epigram. Frank

Memoir

Now that he’s famous fame will not elude me:
For 14.95 read how he screwed me.


[24]
Good Fortune, when I hailed her recently,
Passed by me with the intimacy of shame
As one that in the dark had handled me
And could no longer recollect my name.

J.V. Cunningham
Reply With Quote
  #20  
Unread 12-12-2003, 04:27 PM
Richard Wakefield Richard Wakefield is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Federal Way, Washington, USA
Posts: 1,664
Post

Here are several I came across recently when revisiting an anthology edited by Wendy Cope. The first may have been in the back of my mind when Tim Murphy and I started the recent versified jokes fad here at the 'sphere, a craze that culminated in a special issue of "Light."
RPW

A Joke Versified, by Thomas Moore

"Come, come," said Tom's father, "at your time of life,
There's no longer excuse for thus playing the rake --
It is time you should think, boy, of taking a wife."
"Why so it is father -- whose wife shall I take?"


Family Court, by Ogden Nash

One would be in less danger
From the wiles of the stranger
If one's own kin and kith
Were more fun to be with.


The Englishwoman, by Stevie Smith

The Englishwoman is so refined
She has no bosom and no behind.


Mrs. Hobson's Choice, by Alma Denny

What shall a woman
Do with her ego
Faced with the choice
That it go or he go?
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump



Forum Right Top
Forum Left Bottom Forum Right Bottom
 
Right Left
Member Login
Forgot password?
Forum LeftForum Right


Forum Statistics:
Forum Members: 8,528
Total Threads: 22,754
Total Posts: 280,235
There are 4601 users
currently browsing forums.
Forum LeftForum Right


Forum Sponsor:
Donate & Support Able Muse / Eratosphere
Forum LeftForum Right
Right Right
Right Bottom Left Right Bottom Right

Hosted by ApplauZ Online