http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/1011-Henry-Lawson-Ballad-Of-The-drover
Poems Read by Ted Hughes
I listened to that poem in the previous post, over and over. I got to like it. I had a tape, on my pre-ipod walkman. I must find it and put it on my phone.
By Heart: 101 Poems to Remember – Ted Hughes
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
That line would resonate well as I listened while walking deep in the New Zealand bush.
Picking up quite late in life what I imagine American kids learn at school.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening – Robert Frost
Poetry
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
Been posting more poetry. It may be not so much the poems as the way they are snapshots of my education.
Those lines remind me of a teacher at Port Hacking High who taught us that poem over weeks, explaining the theme, and also every confusing (to me then) line. I learnt what alliteration meant from that verse.
I was, like the wedding guest, grabbed by the poem. It was great to have that bit of deep work done as a teenager, later I enjoyed learning about the Romantics as a movement. But I needed that base. In fact I am sorry there was not more of a basis. My early education was so disrupted and really badly done, I am envious of people who are more fully steeped in the culture.
Perhaps there are positives. The nationalistic and sentimental enculturation I did get (see here) was not so deep that I can’t easily go beyond Australian art, and enjoy, say Robert Frost. (coming up).
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Kubla Khan
Leda And The Swan by William Butler Yeats
Yeats – The Second Coming
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Pied Beauty
13. Pied Beauty. Hopkins, Gerard Manley. 1918. Poems:
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.
Pied Beauty
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.
Poetry
You will notice that I have recently posted a swag of poems and have more brewing. This came about after listening to Joanna Harcourt Smith interviewing a writer Kim Rosen (the link). The writer impressed me on the power of poetry as a way into ones own psyche. Engaging with poetry seems like another royal road. My own sketching and journaling is ok too, and to be honest being a therapist is another.
I have no appetite for new poems. I want to catch up with the ones that have grabbed me in the past, via good teachers usually, but that have not been fully claimed and that I always thought I’d go back to one day. These are the poems appearing in the blog. And there are more to come.