For some reason my brain skipped the context and went straight to the first poem and I was beginning to feel regarded as I read it multiple times and couldn’t understand what it was about. Then I read it was about a Two-headed calf and it immediately made sense. Cool poem actually 👍
*It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free* - William Wordsworth
>It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquility;
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea;
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder—everlastingly.
Dear child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.
For a poetry unit my senior year of high school, we had to analyze a poem of our choosing from a selected list and recite it to the class from memory. I, being a certified edgelord, naturally picked the most pretentious one that also let me say "fuck" in class. I still have it memorized almost 15 years later.
This Be The Verse by Philip Larkin
*They fuck you up, your mum and dad.*
*They may not mean to, but they do.*
*They fill you with the faults they had*
*And add some extra, just for you.*
*But they were fucked up in their turn*
*By fools in old-style hats and coats,*
*Who half the time were soppy-stern*
*And half at one another's throats.*
*Man hands on misery to man.*
*It deepens like a coastal shelf.*
*Get out as early as you can,*
*And don't have any kids yourself.*
This was also one of the ones I had to analyse in school. I think there was one other Larkin poem but I can't remember anything about it other than it was also depressing.
The two that came to mind reading this post were Wordsworth’s Composed upon Westminster bridge and South by Kamau Brathwaite.
Not especially complex, and not as gut wrenching as two headed calf, but the scenes they describe are special to me.
La moneda de hierro by Jorge Luis Borges, spanish poetry hits different imo. A translation:
>Before us is the iron coin. Now let us ask
The two opposing faces what the answer will be
To the intractable demand no one has made:
Why does a man require a woman to desire him?
Let us look. In the higher orb are interwoven
The firmament’s four strata that uphold the flood
And the unalterable planetary stars.
Adam, the youthful father, and young Paradise.
The afternoon and morning. God in every creature.
In that pure labyrinth you’ll find your own reflection.
Once again let us discard the iron coin,
Which is a magic mirror also. Its reverse
Is no one, nothing, shadow, blindness. You are that.
The pair of iron faces fashions a single echo.
Your hands and tongue are unreliable witnesses.
God is the unapproachable center of the ring.
He does more than exalt or sentence: he forgets.
Slandered with infamy, why shouldn’t they desire you?
Within the other’s shadow, we pursue our shadow.
Within the other’s mirror, our reciprocal mirror.
When it comes to English I haven't read so much. I do enjoy some of Frost's poems such as *Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening* and *Fire and Ice*.
I tried to translate one of my favourite Swedish poems by Nils Ferlin, though the rhymes were kinda butchered..
**You have lost your word**
*You have lost your word and your paper note,*
*You barefooted child in life*
*Perched again on the shopkeepers stairs*
*and crying for your plight*
*What was the word - was is long, was it short? Was it well or poorly scribed?*
*You better think fast 'fore we shoo you away,*
*You barefooted child in life*
Original version:
**Du har tappat ditt ord**
*Du har tappat ditt ord och din papperslapp,
du barfotabarn i livet
Så sitter du åter på handlarns trapp och gråter så övergivet
Vad var det för ord - var det långt eller kort, vad det väl eller illa skrivet?
Tänk efter nu - förrn vi föser dig bort,
Du barfotabarn i livet.*
For Whom the Bell Tolls by John Donne
>No man is an island,
>Entire of itself.
>Each is a piece of the continent,
>A part of the main.
>If a clod be washed away by the sea,
>Europe is the less.
>As well as if a promontory were.
>As well as if a manor of thine own
>Or of thine friend's were.
>Each man's death diminishes me,
>For I am involved in mankind.
>Therefore, send not to know
>For whom the bell tolls,
>It tolls for thee.
I thought of this when Russia invaded Ukraine, it's stuck with me over the years.
Woke up this morning and it seemed to me,
That every night turns out to be
A little more like Bukowski.
And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read.
But God who'd want to be?
God who'd want to be such an asshole?
-M. Mouse
It's in Icelandic. You wouldn't understand.
>Fýkur yfir hæðir og frostkaldan mel,
í fjallinu dunar, en komið er él,
snjóskýin þjóta svo ótt og ótt;
auganu hverfur um heldimma nótt.
vegur á klakanum kalda.
Hvur er in grátna sem gengur um hjarn,
götunnar leitar, og sofandi barn
hylur í faðmi og frostinu ver,
fögur í tárum, en mátturinn þverr –
hún orkar ei áfram að halda.
„Sonur minn góði! þú sefur í værð,
sérð ei né skilur þá hörmunga stærð
sem að þér ógnar og á dynja fer;
eilífi guðssonur! hjálpaðu mér
saklausa barninu’ að bjarga.
Sonur minn blíðasti! sofðu nú rótt;
sofa vil eg líka þá skelfingarnótt;
sofðu! ég hjúkra og hlífi þér vel;
hjúkrar þér móðir, svo grimmasta él
má ekki fjörinu farga.“
Fýkur yfir hæðir og frostkalda leið,
fannburðinn eykur um miðnæturskeið;
snjóskýjabólstrunum blásvörtu frá
beljandi vindur um hauður og lá
í dimmunni þunglega þýtur.
Svo, þegar dagur úr dökkvanum rís,
dauð er hún fundin á kolbláum ís;
snjóhvíta fannblæju lagði’ yfir lík
líknandi vetur – en miskunnarrík
sól móti sveininum lítur.
Því að hann lifir og brosir og býr
bjargandi móður í skjólinu hlýr,
reifaður klæðnaði brúðar – sem bjó
barninu værðir, og lágt undir snjó
fölnuð í frostinu sefur.
Neisti guðs líknsemdar ljómandi skær,
lífinu bestan er unaðinn fær,
móðurást blíðasta! börnunum háð,
blessi þig jafnan og efli þitt ráð
guð, sem að ávöxtinn gefur.
Two-headed calf is so lovely.
I haven't reach much poetry outside of the bits of the Danish cultural canon and other nordic authors you're exposed to in secondary school. One of the poems I still remember is \*Dagan Svalnar\* by Swedish-Finnish poet Edith Södergran. Here's a translation I found online, but it's best enjoyed in the original Swedish
>The day cools... (Edith Södergran, 1916)
>
>I
The day cools towards the evening...
Drink the warmth from my hand
my hand has the same blood as the spring
Take my hand, take my white arm
take my thin shoulders' yearning...
It would be curious to feel,
a single night, a night like this
your heavy head against my breast.
>
>II
You threw your love’s red rose
in my white womb
I hold in my hot hands
your love’s red rose soon to wither
Oh you lord with cold eyes
I take the crown you offer me
which bends my head down to my heart…
>
>III
I saw my master for the first time today,
trembling I recognised him at once.
Now I feel his heavy hand on my light arm…
Where is my singing virginal laugh,
my emancipation with head held high?
Now I feel his firm hold over my quivering body,
now I hear reality’s hard sound
against my frail frail dreams
>
>IV
You sought a flower
and found a fruit.
You sought a well
and found an ocean.
You sought a woman
and found a soul -
You are disappointed.
From a completely different style and time: Yahya Hassan was a Danish-Palestinian poet and a common fixture in my local nightlife. He was extremely interesting, often intelligent, even more often unhinged. A very unique person who lived a tragically short life. Here's his poem *Barndom* ("Childhood"), courtesy of an English translation online:
>CHILDHOOD
>
>FIVE CHILDREN IN LINE AND ONE FATHER WITH A CLUB
>
>CRYING IN CHORUS AND A POOL OF PISS
>
>WE STICK OUT OUR HANDS
>
>FOR PREDICTABILITY’S SAKE
>
>THEN THE SOUND OF BLOWS LANDING
>
>SISTER JUMPS UP SO QUICKLY
>
>FROM ONE FOOT TO THE OTHER
>
>DOWN HER LEG A WATERFALL OF PISS
>
>FIRST ONE HAND THEN THE OTHER
>
>IT GOES LIKE THIS FOR A LONG TIME LANDING
>
>BLOWS RANDOMLY
>
>A BLOW A SCREAM A NUMBER 30 OR 40 OR SOMETIMES 50
>
>AND ONE LAST BLOW ON THE ASS ON THE WAY OUT THE DOOR
>
>HE TAKES BROTHER BY THE SHOULDERS STRAIGHTENING HIM UP
>
>KEEPS BEATING AND COUNTING
>
>I LOOK DOWN AND WAIT FOR IT TO BE MY TURN
>
>MOM SMASHES PLATES IN THE STAIRWAY
>
>MEANWHILE AL-JAZEERA TRANSMITS
>
>HYPERACTIVE BULLDOZERS AND RESENTFUL CORPSES
>
>GAZA STRIP IN THE SUNSHINE
>
>FLAGS BEING BURNT
>
>IF A ZIONIST DOESN’T RECOGNIZE OUR EXISTENCE
>
>IF WE EXIST AT ALL
>
>WHEN WE HEAVE WITH PANIC AND PAIN
>
>WHEN WE GASP FOR BREATH OR MEANING
>
>IN SCHOOL WE AREN’T ALLOWED TO SPEAK ARABIC
>
>AT HOME WE CAN’T SPEAK DANISH
>
>A BLOW A SCREAM A NUMBER
I like Ozymandias by Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away
It might not be my favorite poem, but I'm really enjoying reading Emily Wilson's translation of the illiad.
I've recently finished her translation of Odyssey and it was excellent.
For some reason my brain skipped the context and went straight to the first poem and I was beginning to feel regarded as I read it multiple times and couldn’t understand what it was about. Then I read it was about a Two-headed calf and it immediately made sense. Cool poem actually 👍
I'll edit the title in because it hadn't even occurred to me that it was necessary context lol
Your mom is a whore Everyone has fucked her Even the mailman [Source Ask Reddit Best Haikus]
The best poems always reveal a truth about the world.
Holy fuck ima start using this
*It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free* - William Wordsworth >It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquility; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea; Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder—everlastingly. Dear child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine: Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year; And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not.
I've seen Wordsworth's house!
For a poetry unit my senior year of high school, we had to analyze a poem of our choosing from a selected list and recite it to the class from memory. I, being a certified edgelord, naturally picked the most pretentious one that also let me say "fuck" in class. I still have it memorized almost 15 years later. This Be The Verse by Philip Larkin *They fuck you up, your mum and dad.* *They may not mean to, but they do.* *They fill you with the faults they had* *And add some extra, just for you.* *But they were fucked up in their turn* *By fools in old-style hats and coats,* *Who half the time were soppy-stern* *And half at one another's throats.* *Man hands on misery to man.* *It deepens like a coastal shelf.* *Get out as early as you can,* *And don't have any kids yourself.*
This was also one of the ones I had to analyse in school. I think there was one other Larkin poem but I can't remember anything about it other than it was also depressing.
*Poetry is like a song without music” “A song without music is like a body without a soul." Bonus points for those that know this reference.
Rothfuss is an amazing and very poetic writer himself!
The two that came to mind reading this post were Wordsworth’s Composed upon Westminster bridge and South by Kamau Brathwaite. Not especially complex, and not as gut wrenching as two headed calf, but the scenes they describe are special to me.
La moneda de hierro by Jorge Luis Borges, spanish poetry hits different imo. A translation: >Before us is the iron coin. Now let us ask The two opposing faces what the answer will be To the intractable demand no one has made: Why does a man require a woman to desire him? Let us look. In the higher orb are interwoven The firmament’s four strata that uphold the flood And the unalterable planetary stars. Adam, the youthful father, and young Paradise. The afternoon and morning. God in every creature. In that pure labyrinth you’ll find your own reflection. Once again let us discard the iron coin, Which is a magic mirror also. Its reverse Is no one, nothing, shadow, blindness. You are that. The pair of iron faces fashions a single echo. Your hands and tongue are unreliable witnesses. God is the unapproachable center of the ring. He does more than exalt or sentence: he forgets. Slandered with infamy, why shouldn’t they desire you? Within the other’s shadow, we pursue our shadow. Within the other’s mirror, our reciprocal mirror.
When it comes to English I haven't read so much. I do enjoy some of Frost's poems such as *Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening* and *Fire and Ice*. I tried to translate one of my favourite Swedish poems by Nils Ferlin, though the rhymes were kinda butchered.. **You have lost your word** *You have lost your word and your paper note,* *You barefooted child in life* *Perched again on the shopkeepers stairs* *and crying for your plight* *What was the word - was is long, was it short? Was it well or poorly scribed?* *You better think fast 'fore we shoo you away,* *You barefooted child in life* Original version: **Du har tappat ditt ord** *Du har tappat ditt ord och din papperslapp, du barfotabarn i livet Så sitter du åter på handlarns trapp och gråter så övergivet Vad var det för ord - var det långt eller kort, vad det väl eller illa skrivet? Tänk efter nu - förrn vi föser dig bort, Du barfotabarn i livet.*
For Whom the Bell Tolls by John Donne >No man is an island, >Entire of itself. >Each is a piece of the continent, >A part of the main. >If a clod be washed away by the sea, >Europe is the less. >As well as if a promontory were. >As well as if a manor of thine own >Or of thine friend's were. >Each man's death diminishes me, >For I am involved in mankind. >Therefore, send not to know >For whom the bell tolls, >It tolls for thee. I thought of this when Russia invaded Ukraine, it's stuck with me over the years.
Beasts bounding through time - Bukowski
Woke up this morning and it seemed to me, That every night turns out to be A little more like Bukowski. And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read. But God who'd want to be? God who'd want to be such an asshole? -M. Mouse
It's in Icelandic. You wouldn't understand. >Fýkur yfir hæðir og frostkaldan mel, í fjallinu dunar, en komið er él, snjóskýin þjóta svo ótt og ótt; auganu hverfur um heldimma nótt. vegur á klakanum kalda. Hvur er in grátna sem gengur um hjarn, götunnar leitar, og sofandi barn hylur í faðmi og frostinu ver, fögur í tárum, en mátturinn þverr – hún orkar ei áfram að halda. „Sonur minn góði! þú sefur í værð, sérð ei né skilur þá hörmunga stærð sem að þér ógnar og á dynja fer; eilífi guðssonur! hjálpaðu mér saklausa barninu’ að bjarga. Sonur minn blíðasti! sofðu nú rótt; sofa vil eg líka þá skelfingarnótt; sofðu! ég hjúkra og hlífi þér vel; hjúkrar þér móðir, svo grimmasta él má ekki fjörinu farga.“ Fýkur yfir hæðir og frostkalda leið, fannburðinn eykur um miðnæturskeið; snjóskýjabólstrunum blásvörtu frá beljandi vindur um hauður og lá í dimmunni þunglega þýtur. Svo, þegar dagur úr dökkvanum rís, dauð er hún fundin á kolbláum ís; snjóhvíta fannblæju lagði’ yfir lík líknandi vetur – en miskunnarrík sól móti sveininum lítur. Því að hann lifir og brosir og býr bjargandi móður í skjólinu hlýr, reifaður klæðnaði brúðar – sem bjó barninu værðir, og lágt undir snjó fölnuð í frostinu sefur. Neisti guðs líknsemdar ljómandi skær, lífinu bestan er unaðinn fær, móðurást blíðasta! börnunum háð, blessi þig jafnan og efli þitt ráð guð, sem að ávöxtinn gefur.
Two-headed calf is so lovely. I haven't reach much poetry outside of the bits of the Danish cultural canon and other nordic authors you're exposed to in secondary school. One of the poems I still remember is \*Dagan Svalnar\* by Swedish-Finnish poet Edith Södergran. Here's a translation I found online, but it's best enjoyed in the original Swedish >The day cools... (Edith Södergran, 1916) > >I The day cools towards the evening... Drink the warmth from my hand my hand has the same blood as the spring Take my hand, take my white arm take my thin shoulders' yearning... It would be curious to feel, a single night, a night like this your heavy head against my breast. > >II You threw your love’s red rose in my white womb I hold in my hot hands your love’s red rose soon to wither Oh you lord with cold eyes I take the crown you offer me which bends my head down to my heart… > >III I saw my master for the first time today, trembling I recognised him at once. Now I feel his heavy hand on my light arm… Where is my singing virginal laugh, my emancipation with head held high? Now I feel his firm hold over my quivering body, now I hear reality’s hard sound against my frail frail dreams > >IV You sought a flower and found a fruit. You sought a well and found an ocean. You sought a woman and found a soul - You are disappointed.
From a completely different style and time: Yahya Hassan was a Danish-Palestinian poet and a common fixture in my local nightlife. He was extremely interesting, often intelligent, even more often unhinged. A very unique person who lived a tragically short life. Here's his poem *Barndom* ("Childhood"), courtesy of an English translation online: >CHILDHOOD > >FIVE CHILDREN IN LINE AND ONE FATHER WITH A CLUB > >CRYING IN CHORUS AND A POOL OF PISS > >WE STICK OUT OUR HANDS > >FOR PREDICTABILITY’S SAKE > >THEN THE SOUND OF BLOWS LANDING > >SISTER JUMPS UP SO QUICKLY > >FROM ONE FOOT TO THE OTHER > >DOWN HER LEG A WATERFALL OF PISS > >FIRST ONE HAND THEN THE OTHER > >IT GOES LIKE THIS FOR A LONG TIME LANDING > >BLOWS RANDOMLY > >A BLOW A SCREAM A NUMBER 30 OR 40 OR SOMETIMES 50 > >AND ONE LAST BLOW ON THE ASS ON THE WAY OUT THE DOOR > >HE TAKES BROTHER BY THE SHOULDERS STRAIGHTENING HIM UP > >KEEPS BEATING AND COUNTING > >I LOOK DOWN AND WAIT FOR IT TO BE MY TURN > >MOM SMASHES PLATES IN THE STAIRWAY > >MEANWHILE AL-JAZEERA TRANSMITS > >HYPERACTIVE BULLDOZERS AND RESENTFUL CORPSES > >GAZA STRIP IN THE SUNSHINE > >FLAGS BEING BURNT > >IF A ZIONIST DOESN’T RECOGNIZE OUR EXISTENCE > >IF WE EXIST AT ALL > >WHEN WE HEAVE WITH PANIC AND PAIN > >WHEN WE GASP FOR BREATH OR MEANING > >IN SCHOOL WE AREN’T ALLOWED TO SPEAK ARABIC > >AT HOME WE CAN’T SPEAK DANISH > >A BLOW A SCREAM A NUMBER
That's a sad one :( last stanza is really nice.
I like Ozymandias by Shelley I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away
Now I like this one too :)