h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry if it wasn't clear about my entry at 53, Paul and presumably myk. Do have a go at my latest one.

Jabs

"Lady Lazarus," by Sylvia Plath.

Who can follow Sylvia Plath? Well, let's try this:

Your poems are like a dark city centre.
Your novel, your stories, your journals, your letters, are suburbs
Of this big city.
The hotels are lit like office blocks all night
With scholars, priests, pilgrims. It's at night
Sometimes I drive through. I just find
Myself driving through, going slow, simply
Roaming in my own darkness, pondering
What you did. Nearly always
I glimpse you - at some crossing,
Staring upwards, lost, sixty year old

That's by GK Chesterton, methinks.....

Who's this?

Let Me Die a Youngman's Death

Let me die a youngman's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death

When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party

Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death

If my poem was by G K Chesterton, then why was Chesterton living with Sylvia Plath?

Paul - yours was by Ted Hughes, erstwhile husband of Sylvia Plath - that's one reason they slept together.

Jamoza's has Liverpool Poets all over it, and in fact was by Roger McGough, sadly no longer as young as he'd like to be.

NOW: Poet and name of Poem please, not forgetting the hyphen.

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Jabs

Up-hill

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Here's the next poem:

The love of the Body of man or woman balks account—the body itself balks account;
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect. 10

The expression of the face balks account;
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face;
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists;
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees—dress does not hide him;
The strong, sweet, supple quality he has, strikes through the cotton and flannel; 15
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more;
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side

I Sing the Body Electric - Walt Whitman

Most English people don't seem to get him. I certainly don't, I'm afraid. Does he represent a well-loved American archetype or something? He was a favourite of this poet though:


Wild Men
Who Kill
Have Karmas
Of ill

Good Men
Who Love
Have Karmas
Of dove

Snakes are Poor Denizens of Hell
Have come surreptitioning
Through the tall grass
To face the pool of clear frogs

That would be Jack Kerouac

A favourite of mine:

When getting my nose in a book
Cured most things short of school,
It was worth ruining my eyes
To know I could still keep cool,
And deal out the old right hook
To dirty dogs twice my size.

It ends with one of my favourite lines (sort of);

Get stewed:
Books are a load of crap.

Larkin, a favourite, in nihilistic mood - from A Study of Reading Habits, from The Whitsun Weddings.




Childlike, I danced in a dream;
Blessings emblazoned that day;
Everything glowed with a gleam;
Yet we were looking away!

Jabs

[I'll try to ansdwer that shortly, Jab, unless someone else does. I just want to explain Walt Whitman's appeal, if that be possible. I think that Americans look to Whitman the way the British look to William Blake: for that exuberant dreamlike state where inspirations come bubbling up and we see the world in ways that cold logic cannot see it. This isn't to say there's no logic in Whitman's and Blake's images, only that it's a different logic. I hope that made at least a little sense. It's the logic of images, not of words]

Paul! I'll make it short too in case someone wants to carry on the game. I love Blake, even though I think he was half-mad. He saw hallucinations every day of his life - you can see them in the poetry - but it was more common to see hallucinations in those days than it is now anyway. (Source : Biography by Peter Ackroyd).

Jabs

I understand about the exuberant dream-like state - I thought it was well put.

Jabs

Thanks. I hope to set some of my dreams to poetry someday....

Back to the game. No 69, the next poet after Larkin?

Jabs

"The self unseeing" by Thomas Hardy

Next Poem:

As ancient is this hostelry
As any in the land may be,
Built in the old Colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality;
A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall

Another from the corners (or should it be 'windmills'?) of Paul's mind. Some of these American poems are very obscure to me/most English people. But I found this immensely powerful. Gothic images - crazy doors, hobgoblin halls, can work both ways: In a bad poem they're tragic, in a good one they're magic (sorry for that). They work brilliantly in this one. It's from The Wayside Inn, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


Now, an anti-capitalism poem::


The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

[I see great power in both Longfellow and Tennyson, Jab. I'm not sure that "Hiawatha" has stood up very well over the years ]

It's that accurate Ameroindian (or 'Native American' or whatever is Pc now) insistent repetitive rhythm, perhaps. I can see it being popular as a genuine 'American Masterpiece' at first, then palling quickly.

=Whilst I happened to be in Seattle (as you do), I attended a folk festival. One act was a local North-Western tribe doing their thing. Much stamping and grunting in unison and no melody whatsoever. From off-site came the sounds of cries of pain and gunshots and when I left people were hanging from the trees.


Jabs

Is that a poem to be identified, Jab? If so, I can't find anything about it.

Do you mean "The world is too much with us"?

The title is from the first line:


THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

Getting and spending - that's life's purpose under capitalism. We have given our hearts away, sordidly, ruining our hearts and minds.Librarians may be exempt from this

Actually, describing this sonnet as 'anti-capitalist' is accurate but intentionally misleading. It's Romantic, and thereby anti-capitalist. The Romantics were Marxists, but unknowingly, (if that's pedantically possible), avant-la-lettre, or to be more precise, Marx was a Romantic.Hence Byron fighting and dying for the Greek revolution, and so on. This poet joined in/observed the French Revolution at first hand when he was younger.

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven!"
refers to it. The title of this second one actually is "The French Revolution".

Both are by William Wordsworth.

Hope you meant that. Here's another one:

The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
On snowing.

And nobody knows
(Tiddly Pom)
How cold my toes
(Tiddly Pom)
How cold my toes
(Tiddly Pom)
Are growing.

Be careful with the poet - there's a true poet and a fictional one. Both if possible please. If not, the true one.



cheers,

Jab