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

Jab, the material I was wondering about was:

"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."

It doesn't have the format we're used to with poems, but almost anything goes these days. I thought I would run the risk of asking a stupid question for the sake of figuring out what was happening.

As for the Tiddly-pom poem, it's from one of A.A. Milne's books, but I don't remember which character delivered the lines.

Winnie the Pooh delivers the lines.

I think it might actually be the House at Pooh Corner, but I could be wrong (it wouldn't be the first time) and not going upstairs to check (I'm lazy)

OK Paul. Well done over the poet (quite a hard one for people, unless they knew it, as it wasn't by a poet). Yes, Magwitch, it was from The House at Pooh corner, and it was Piglet's song, by Winnie the Pooh.

This poet's been on here before:



You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

That is by Sylvia Plath. A bundle of emotions which i shall not try to unravel, i dont really know much about Sylvia Plath;
but it all seems very tragic when people leave this world, seemingly before thier time.


Now a very famous one

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

Saint Paul wrote that one in "1st Corinthians" in the New testament of the Bible.

Here's a poem to guess the author and title of:

Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter, he
That frightened thee so oft, is fled or dead:
Save only me
(Nor is it sad to thee!)
Save only me
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields.

Is it part of a larger poem?

Robert Frost, bur hardly his finest. could be a candidate for the Bad Poetry thread. IMO of course, Paul.

The passage from St. Paul is one of my all-time favourites myk.

Here's a load of fetid dingo's kidneys (excerpt) from a famous writer. It's difficile, so here are two clues His initials are S.B., and he translated most of his work from his own French originals, although he wasn't French, and I think this was probably written in English (dunno, basically):

What's that?
An egg?
By the brother Boot it stinks fresh.
Give it to Gillot

Galileo how are you
and his consecutive thirds!
The vile old Copernican lead-swinging son of a sutler!
We're moving he said we're off - Porca Madonna!
the way a boatswain would be, or a sack-of-potatoey charging Pretender
That's not moving, that's moving.


Poet mainly please. Title too if possible. ta.

S.B. probably stabds for Samuel Becket, who seems to have written in both French and English. Parts of the poem make me think of "Waiting for Godot."

It is indeed Mr Becket the poem is called Whoroscope. He was an odd chappie.

Think it's your turn, paul.

Here's a poem from a poem with a strong social conscience:

"MRS. GABRIELLE GIOVANNITTI comes along Peoria Street
every morning at nine o'clock
With kindling wood piled on top of her head, her eyes
looking straight ahead to find the way for her old feet.
Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti, whose
husband was killed in a tunnel explosion through
the negligence of a fellow-servant,
Works ten hours a day, sometimes twelve, picking onions
for Jasper on the Bowmanville road.
She takes a street car at half-past five in the morning,
Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti does,
And gets back from Jasper's with cash for her day's
work, between nine and ten o'clock at night.
Last week she got eight cents a box, Mrs. Pietro
Giovannitti, picking onions for Jasper,
But this week Jasper dropped the pay to six cents a
box because so many women and girls were answering
the ads in the Daily News."

Brilliant, you two!


The following one was Onion Days by carl Sandburg.

This is from my favourite poem -very difficult, so I'll tell you it's by the German visionary poet Friedrich Holderlin. This is far from my favourite translation, ('but the words of men I could never understand' is better) but it's the one that can be found on Google.I urge you to read the whole thing, bad translations or not, esp. if you want to know where I'm coming from half the time:

I understood the stillness above the sky
But never the words of men.


Title only is needed.


Jab

If you happen to have the same book of his complete Poems, then you'll have what I think is the better translation (by Michael Hamburger).

Interesting choice, Jab. One translation gives the first line as "I knew the stillness of the aether." The poet is a man after my own heart in his talk of "melodious trees." When I was a boy, I loved to climb trees. Now all that is forever behind me. Should I become a poet, since I can't do so many of the things I used to do?

One summer day, some years ago, I stood for some time beneath a tree. I must have been still indeed, for a little bird landed on a branch beside me, and for a precious time (birds have little time to spare) I shared livingness with that wee bird. Whenever I remember the lines,
"For what is man if, full of care, he has no time to stand and stare,"
It is that little bird that comes to my mind.

Peace...be still!

I'm so glad you got so much from the poem. Such intelligent responses. As I say, it's one of my favourites. I saw the 'aether' trans. but thought 'above the sky' was clearer - both are good. [I don't know German for the original].

One day I might find my book with the full Michael Hamburger translation and post it on the thread for the sake of it. I'm afraid I can't find it at the moment.

Jabs.

This isn't bad. Translation by David constantine (Google Michael Hamburger Holderlin)
I don't mind giving you the title too. There's so much depth, somehow, in his poetry. For instance:
Never named me as people do
As though they knew one another




'When I was a boy'

When I was a boy
A god often rescued me
From the shouts and the rods of men
And I played among trees and flowers
Secure in their kindness
And the breezes of heaven
Were playing there too.

And as you delight
The hearts of plants
When they stretch towards you
With little strength

So you delighted the heart in me
Father Helios, and like Endymion
I was your favourite,
Moon. 0 all

You friendly
And faithful gods
I wish you could know
How my soul has loved you.

Even though when I called to you then
It was not yet with names, and you
Never named me as people do
As though they knew one another

I knew you better
Than I have ever known them.
I understood the stillness above the sky
But never the words of men.

Trees were my teachers
Melodious trees
And I learned to love
Among flowers.

I grew up in the arms of the gods.




It's Paul or Lew's turn.

SORRY - Google 'when I was a boy Holderlin.'

Okay, here is something that's not technically a poem, but it is poetic in so many ways that I'm including it anyway. It's part of a letter that a soldier wrote to his wife on the eve of a battle in which he turned out dying:

"I have, I know, but few and smalclaims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me—perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often times been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness . . .

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights . . . always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again . . "

The letter's author was not a well-known man, but the letter was read in a television series about a major war in the hsitory of the U.S. What was the war, and who spearheaded the TV series?

American ivil War. No idea about the television.

Wonderful stuff though.

That letter puts a lump in my throat, Jab. It was written long before the Henry Fonda/Tom Joad "Wherever there is injustice, I'll be there" speech in the film "Grapes of Wrath."

The author's name was Sullivan Ballou. The letter was written at Camp Clark, Washington, D.C. on July 14, 1861. He was mortally wounded in the First Battle of Bull Run. He was 32 years old. He attended Brown University and National Law School, and served in the Rhode Island House of representatives. He was a fervent supporter of Abraham Lincoln, and put his life on the line by serving in the Civil War. His letter to Sarah is the only thing he is remembered for, but I can't think of a better love letter in honor of Valentine's Day.

The TV series that featured Ballou's letter was based on historian Shelby Foote's three-volume series on the Civil War. The filmmaker was Ken Burns.

You may offer the next poem, Jab.

How to follow such truly wonderful stuff?

St. Paul to the corinthians 1:13
(-can I say myk that for me the King James version is fantastic. It begins thus)

1.Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2.And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

Then Holderlin, then the Ballou letter. All 3 a hard act to follow. And any praise of any of them seems insufficient. Nevertheless:

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

Quite well known, and typical of the (famous) poet.