Saturday 9 October 2010

Poetry is.....

Did you remember national poetry day last week?

Poetry is personal, what does it for you will not do it for me.You can be lonely as a cloud, amused by Pam Ayres ( I am) or depressed by TS Eliot. I read  his Wasteland in my summer holidays, it went beyond depression, it was scary. So this brings us closer to the definition of poetry, it has to move us in some way, so it doesn't matter if it rhymes ( unless it does matter to you), or sometimes it doesn't even matter if you can't understand it, it can still move you, try this one by Medbh McGuckian:


AN EARLY APOCALYPSE


I see the skeleton of the year poised in the cool moonspray,
Trying to catch at the blemished calendar of the next.

Embraced most of the day by the low and slender rainbow,
The world-jewel sweeps on with its morning noon and night.


The nowhereness of the fifth-month stayed for a moment only,
Before the earthless mountain light anointed without mountains.

or some comedy/philosophy:

CAKE

i wanted one life
you wanted another
we couldn't have our cake
so we ate each other.

Roger McGough.

My contribution for National Poetry Day 9th October 2010.

2 comments:

  1. Those are great poems! I didn't know it was national poetry day, but I should since I write poetry here and there. My bad!
    I'm a new follower, hiya!

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  2. Poems are definitely personal. The McGuckian consists of what I call slips of the brain: where someone makes mistaken connections. It must feel great when other people understand, and are moved by, a poets mistakes. Me? I prefer the McGough.

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