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Post by Bara on Sept 8, 2008 7:40:47 GMT -5
This is for my mum - and a certain rainy day in London in 1969 .. Picture us arm in arm, chanting this and ... LOST!
'James, James, Morrison, Morrison, Weatherby George Dupree
Took good care of his mother, though he was only three.
James, James, said to his mother -
'Mother,' he said - said he.
'You must NEVER go down to the end of the town
'Unless you go down with me!'
'King John put up a NOTICE
'LOST, STOLEN OR STRAYED!'
James, James Weatherby's mother
seems to have been mislaid.
'Last seen wandering vaguely
QUITE of her own accord ...
James, James, Weatherby's mother -
FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!
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Post by Goalie on Sept 9, 2008 7:40:17 GMT -5
My mom and I loved this one Bara.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever-come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
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Post by Bara on Sept 10, 2008 16:01:41 GMT -5
Ah, Terrie! See. It's about the associations, isn't it! That's beautiful.
Now where's Niaru with a Fremch poem?
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Post by Goalie on Sept 10, 2008 18:31:09 GMT -5
That was the same word that mom would use Bara. How cool is that?
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Post by adcooper on Sept 11, 2008 13:18:49 GMT -5
Been carrying this around with me for nearly 30 years. I think it's by a poet named Chris Howell.
The Man Who Hoped
He formed his rose
against a stone
and spoke to the god.
The god said paint it
the color a stone weaves
at dawn, paint it
rose. But it was
not that sort of day.
He took willows from a box
in his soul. They were green
like snow is green, like blind men
in a spring wind.
What could he hope for,
pearls? He spoke to the god.
And the god said yes
hope for pearls.
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Post by Bara on Sept 11, 2008 15:37:01 GMT -5
Wow. I started off flippantly (but that's just Mother!) But I know what you mean, Ann.There's baggage you 'carry' willingly, and gratefully, all your life.
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Post by niaru on Sept 11, 2008 18:53:56 GMT -5
LOL! You asked for it! My favourite poet is Charles Baudelaire (Les Fleurs du Mal's Correspondances, among others): La nature est un temple où de vivants piliers Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers. Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité, Vaste comme une nuit et comme la clarté, Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent. Il est des parfums frais comme de chairs d'enfants, Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies, —Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants, Ayant l'expansion des choses infinies, Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens, Qui chantent les transports de l'esprit et des sens. Translation at www.doctorhugo.org/synaesthesia/baudelaire.html, for those interested! How'bout German. I know a great one from Heinrich Heine, die Lorelei. I still know it by heart after all these years! Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten, Daß ich so traurig bin; Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten, Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn. Die Luft ist kühl, und es dunkelt, Und ruhig fließt der Rhein; Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt Im Abendsonnenschein. Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet Dort oben wunderbar, Ihr goldenes Geschmeide blitzet, Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar. Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme Und singt ein Lied dabei; Das hat eine wundersame, Gewaltige Melodei. Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe Ergreift es mit wildem Weh; Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe, Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh'. Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn; Und das hat mit ihrem Singen Die Lorelei getan. Translation at www.business.uiuc.edu/vock/poetry/lorelei.htmlI forgot to say why...Baudelaire's poems are usually dark and sooo rich in meanings, like I like them, lol! Although Correspondances is rather upbeat and speaks to me about being one with Nature. I've always loved that one, and by sheer luck I drew it for my BAC (end-of-highschool exam) and nailed it, lol! It's so hard to choose just one tho, I also love Rimbaud and Lautréamont and Prévert and so many more! As for the Lorelei, I'm not sure why I like it so much...I sing it, too, I just love the rythm of it, not to mention that I wasn't born too far from the Rhein river... |
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Post by filly on Sept 11, 2008 23:56:14 GMT -5
Oooo, I love that poem, GM! One of my top ten. You guys have great poems. Here is one of my favorites!
Henry Wadsworth The Daffodils
I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
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Post by Bara on Sept 13, 2008 9:28:31 GMT -5
THANK you, Claire! I'm struggling with the Baudelaire translation, bear with me! I think it's about ... NO bear with me.
The Lorelei, though. Yes. I was obsessed, as a child with the Iliad and the Oddyssey.
In fact, I recall having a dog called 'Jason of the Golden Fleas'...
Mind you, that WAS about the time we had a cat called Copernicus (Ann knows ...)
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Post by adcooper on Sept 19, 2008 19:59:23 GMT -5
Bara, for you who can remember so many things like poems and cats with funny names, here's one that gives you a glimpse into my world!
Forgetfulness
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
Billy Collins
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Post by Bara on Sept 22, 2008 16:05:14 GMT -5
Omiword, that is so true, Ann.
No, my memory becomes more atrocious by the day - or should I say, by the year. Wait until you reach my great age, it just gets worse and worse. But yes, it's minutiae which stays with you.
They say that, don't they? You can't remember what happened yesterday, but you can remember 1066 (or in your case, errr ... whenever the Declaration of Independence was signed...)
See? I have been known to buy a book I've just read. Such disappointment! Oh, that I were a librarian.
And no, Claire, still struggling with the French. Please would you give a translation? (I'm getting web page expired..)
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Post by pedrodeshyburro on Sept 22, 2008 19:51:13 GMT -5
I just all your poems. I really relate to Ann's  |
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Post by Bara on Sept 24, 2008 7:12:19 GMT -5
LOL! Brooks! I can see that by your post ....  |
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Post by niaru on Sept 24, 2008 16:04:38 GMT -5
LOL, Ad! So true! Bara, here's one translation (tough tough to translate poems! The site fleursdumal.org/poem/103 gives others, but I think this one is the better of the bunch Correspondences Nature is a temple in which living pillars Sometimes give voice to confused words; Man passes there through forests of symbols Which look at him with understanding eyes. Like prolonged echoes mingling in the distance In a deep and tenebrous unity, Vast as the dark of night and as the light of day, Perfumes, sounds, and colors correspond. There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children, Sweet as oboes, green as meadows — And others are corrupt, and rich, triumphant, With power to expand into infinity, Like amber and incense, musk, benzoin, That sing the ecstasy of the soul and senses. — William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954) |
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Post by Bara on Sept 26, 2008 14:59:22 GMT -5
That is so beautiful and RICH.
You're right, translating poetry must be almost impossible to ensure that you achieve the timbre, the metre and the sense of language. But that site helps.
I wish I had your gift of languages. But I don't. Bother.
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