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

I have the King Jamed version, but i prefer the modern International version - just for that one . I think the KJV is the classic however.

thanks Jabs: "When i was a boy" , i have three different translations of that now - and am eager to read, Michael Hamberger's translation.

When you find that book one day Jabs - please do remember us .

Jabs i will refrain from Googling this one-and re read again-i am stumped right now; someone else might know straight off: but i am going back to that flower filled meadow for a brief moment again.

Michael Hamburger - i meant

Won't forget, myk. Trouble is, since I have so many books in so many piles, and double rows of books on the shelves, it gets hard, like the old (true, believe me), story of Foyle's Bookshop in London - so disorganised that it was NOT the place to go if you knew which book you wanted..

Jab

Have you ever thought of liberating a few jabs

I have given away quite a few of my favourite books(except poetry books-well only one i parted with last year and i regret it already lol ), and i still have a fair few myself- but very managable , no piles.

Also i have liberated a few here :
http://www.bookcrossing.com/

No problem btw Jabs, i have 3 versions of that poem now, so i am happy ( wish i could read Greman - one day maybe ) - i will read The Hamburger translation one day - but ho rush: whatever translation - its still the same wildflower meadow - i dont need to count all the different flowers to enjoy it.

( quick look round this room who am i kidding lol "...no piles" i just have alot of shelf space .

I'm not particularly familiar with William Butler Yeats or his work, though people have referred me to one or two of his works. Not the one you posted, Jab. Was Yeats the Irish Airman in the poem? If so, he would have been in his fifties in 1919, when the poem was apparently written. I figured that the poem would have been about the First or Second World War, because of the reference to fate in the "clouds." Early wars had no aerial combat.

1. OK myk. But whenever I've got rid of a book (well it seems like it) I have to buy it again cos I need it.

2. Am I being pedantic asking you, Paul, for the title, esp. as you obviously know it? Others may not and want to know. Then it's your turn.


Jabs

Yeah Paul what is the word?? (or words??)

Jabs i only ever felt that way when i let someone have one of my poetry books, not that i have many actually-maybe thats why-but i miss it and itsan out of print one off-

I dont need the others

I'm a terrible tease!

Please forgive me. The title of the poem is
"An Irish Airman foresees his Death," by William Butler Yeats. I held back from looking it up on Google because I knew that others would not look it up, either. For all I knew, someone would really know the answer. That didn't happen, so I looked it up. I'm no smarter than anyone else on this thread.

I wish someone else could have answered it, because I'm running out of poems that I can offer for others to guess. As a composer, I've ransacked Tennyson, Omar Khayyam and Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson looking for poems to set to music. They are wonderful, resonant poets, but if I offer too many of their poems, I will feel like a Johnny one-note.

But, I will look for a poem. See ya! I'll be back this evening.

Here is a poem that was set to music by an English composer in the 20th century. My choral group will be singing the piece at its May concert. The poet was American:



O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.




Darest thou now O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?

No map there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.

I know it not O soul,
Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,
All waits undream'd of in that region, that inaccessible land.

Till when the ties loosen,
All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.

Then we burst forth, we float,
In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,
Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.

Sorry, two poems got copied over to this thread, when I only intended the second one, the one about the unknown region...

As far as I'm concerned, Paul, it's perfectly OK to google if you don't know the poem. We still get to enjoy new poems, and learn about and share wonderful poetry like the one you've posed for us. This thread could be called 'share the poem' - I really enjoyed sharing the Holderlin - or even 'google the poet'. I've been introduced to some marvellous poetry on this thread in this way.

The easier part of sharing out the poem by posing the question doesn't usually involve googling, except maybe to get it right, and the sharing's the main part for me.

I didn't know the poem you've posed but it's so very good I ought to have. Now I do. I'll refrain from googling it for the time being to give others a chance.

Jabs

Hi, Jab. I'm learning some great poems in this thread.

I have been running a book discussion group for a very long time, and I've tried to discuss poetry at least once a year. Still, I haven't made the acquaintance of a lot of English poets that you seem well-versed in. I think I've exhausted most of the well-known American poets of the 19th and 20th centuries--Frost, Whitman, Sandburg, Dickinson, Emerson, etc. T.S. Eliot and W. H. Auden and Archibald MacLeash (sp?) are worthy contenders that I haven't tried yet, and I would like to try Ferlinghetti and Ginsburg were it not for the probability that the ladies in my group would find them unappealing.

Seamus Heaney was that rarest of all poets: someone still alive who is accessible. We discussed his translation of "Beowulf" and had a good time with it. We also took a chance on Ted Hughes' "Birthday Letters," with considerable success. But what am I to do with so many of today's poets who only seem to be names to me? No one seems to have been able to stand out from the others and point the way, as Eliot and Frost *(and even Gisburg) did in decades past. There seems to be no trend anymore. 30 or 40 years ago, we had Rod McKuen, who was immensely popular with the general public, but he seems to have been a flash in the pan. Some well-known figures such James Stewart and James Morrison and even Brooke Astor publish poems or even books of poems, but these seem to be of interest only to cults or fans.

Hi Paul,

Billy Collins, (American), Peter Reading (so hard to look up because of the 'reading' part!),Paul Muldoon,Marina Tsvetaeva, (not so new), Anna Akhmatova (ditto), John Ashbery (extremely enigmatic but sharply perceptive - American), Liz Lockhead, Thomas Hardy, (old), Frank O'Hara (old, American), John Berryman (old, American, unfashionable), Adrian Mitchell (very approachable and good), and our poet laureates Philip Larkin (v. approachable) and currently Carol Ann Duffy, to name but a few...

Anyone else care to chip in with (possibly favourite) poets?

I agree wholeheartedly with your view that the new ones don't seem as good as the Greats (yet). There are a lot of new ones I really dislike (and they don't compare well with the best of our own Bad Poetry) and haven't included - I don't like Duffy myself either, although everyone else seems to. And of course many would dislike some or all of my list. It seems that Philip Larkin is rarely liked in the USA for instance - he's very British. You might not like the other British ones. See what you think.

Not showing off, jus' tryin' to be helpful

Jabs

Note - Peter Reading's a cinch to Google. It's on Amazon they get confused.

J.

I've heard of Larkin, Ashbery and Berryman.

Paul, I wasn't implying you didn't know the poets, they were just a list you might have forgotten or might consider again. I really was only trying to help. Sorry if it seemed patronising. Out of them I think Billy Collins is perhaps a good clear one for discussion in a group.Try him.

Best wishes

Jabs.

I would def. like to know anybody else's favourite poets

But don't forget Paul's one to guess folks!

You weren't patronising at all, Jab. I only know some of them from the poetry shelves in the library. I wonder why librarians in decades past thought they would be read by anybody. Our poetry collection gets very little use. Except for local notables like Anne Sexton (who gave a poetry reading in our library in the early 1970s) and Sylvia Plath. I think both of them lived in Wellesley, which is less than 10 miles away from us. Sexton interests me because she was probably a distant cousin. I would love it if lightning struck more than once in our family.

Paul - that's fantastic! Anne Sexton and her "confessional" poetry, as you know, isn't fashionable at the moment, but I think she's terrific. Even as a distant cousin I'm impressed.

As far as the poets I mentioned that you don't have, I'm sure you'll find bits and bobs of their stuff, (a lot of Billy Collins for example) on the web.

You know I love Sylvia Plath too - I think their poetry, (Plath and Sexton's) was far better than the stuff you get today (most of it).

Unfortunately, you're right generally though. There are more people writing poetry than reading it. Apparently 'twas always so. Perhaps a lot of current poetry is dumbing down to try to get an audience (?)

Jabs

OK - Paul's challenge - Post 110 -Darest thou now O soul. The title is the same as the first line and - I now have to eat humble pie - it's by a poet that I said I didn't see long before on this thread why Americans like him so much.

Once a sceptic I'm now an enthusiast - it's by Walt Whitman.And it's really, truly, great, IMO.

Now, try this: Poet and amusing Title please:


The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,


Jabs