Who is your favourite poet/poem?
Display thy breasts, my Julia, there let me
Behold that circummortal purity;
Between whose glories, there my lips I’ll lay,
Ravished in that fairVia Lactea.
the Great Improvisation part of Mickiewicz's Forefather's Eve III
Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174659
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_song
The boy stood on the burning deck
Playing a game of cricket
The ball went up his trouser leg
And stumped his middle wicket
I like this part from one of Bataille's
"Je bois dans ta déchirure
Et j'étale tes jambes nues
Je les ouvre comme un livre
Où je lis ce qui me tue."
One of my favorites:
The Idea of Order at Key West
Wallace Stevens
She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.
The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.
For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.
If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.
Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.
Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker’s rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.
>>7596339
Ooh aren't u clever. Prick
>>7596350
:^)
>>7596350
lmao what a dumbass
Here I sit, all broken hearted:
tried to shit but only farted.
>>7596344
Holy fuck, I finished that with tears in my eyes. Reminds me of Hart Crane.
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.
Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our mariage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou
Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;
’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.
This is my favourite poem: The Flea by John Donne.
>>7596344
this poem is my life.
>>7596358
Did you ever read his sermons? Worth a look.
another wallace stevens gem:
"Gubbinal"
That strange flower, the sun,
Is just what you say.
Have it your way.
The world is ugly,
And the people are sad.
That tuft of jungle feathers,
That animal eye,
Is just what you say.
That savage of fire,
That seed,
Have it your way.
The world is ugly,
And the people are sad.
>>7596363
Are they available online? I would like to read them if they are anything like his poetry.
The Waste Land
Ode To The West Wind
Ozymandias
As I Walked Out One Evening
jon wilkmont
The River Merchants Wife - Ezra Pound
>>7596311
The Character of Love Seen as a Search for the Lost
You, the woman; I, the man; this, the world:
And each is the work of all.
There is the muffled step in the snow; the stranger;
The crippled wren; the nun; the dancer; the Jesus-wing
Over the walkers in the village; and there are
Many beautiful arms about us and the things we know.
See how those stars tramp over heaven on their sticks
Of ancient light: with what simplicity that blue
Takes eternity into the quiet cave of God, where Caesar
And Socrates, like primitive paintings on a wall,
Look, with idiot eyes, on the world where we two are.
You, the sought for; I, the seeker; this, the search:
And each is the mission of all.
For greatness is only the drayhorse that coaxes
The built cart out; and where we go is reason.
But genius is an enormous littleness, a trickling
Of heart that covers alike the hare and the hunter.
How smoothly, like the sleep of a flower, love,
The grassy wind moves over night’s tense meadow:
See how the great wooden eyes of the forest
Stare upon the architecture of our innocence.
You, the village; I, the stranger; this, the road:
And each is the work of all.
Then, not that man do more, or stop pity; but that he be
Wider in living; that all his cities fly a clean flag…
We have been alone too long, love; it is terribly late
For the pierced feet on the water and we must not die now.
Have you wondered why all the windows in heaven were broken?
Have you seen the homeless in the open grave of God’s hand?
Do you want to acquaint the larks with the fatuous music of war?
There is the muffled step in the snow; the stranger;
The crippled wren; the nun; the dancer; the Jesus-wing
Over the walkers in the village; and there are
Many desperate arms about us and the things we know.
>>7596387
>Ode To The West Wind
my niqqa
>>7596374
I don't know, I have them in a book. Let's just say, I would've attended more church if he'd been the preacher.
Ode on Melancholy
>>7596311
Cunt Demolition in Progress
>>7596464
I hate the fact that it's too long to post. Was also going to add John Clare's work to that list, read 'I Am'
>>7596479
>for shade to shade will come too easily and drown the wakeful anguish of the soul
>but when the melancholy fit shall fall sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud
hnnnng
Wilfred Owen
Leonard Cohen's first album has some of the most beautiful poetry I've ever read. Especially Stranger Song, and Suzanne, his masterpiece.
Cohen is absolutely mesmerizing, ever since I discovered him I've been obsessed with finding out what gives his work that quality because I've never seen it anywhere else but in his writing.
>>7596572
Dude, SHUT THE FUCK UP.
John Milton even though I'm not crazy about the religious themes
Rimbaud's style/subjects are my favorite though.
>>7596590
Go fuck yourself you knuckle draggging faggot this is a poetry thread
>>7596653
DIE FAGGOT DIE
>>7596653
clever adjective, faggot.
we'll see who's smarter when i'm done beating your bloody face to a pulp with a fucking brick bitch.
Kipling, especially for his The Thousandth Man, and The Grave of the Hundred Head
The men of the First Shikaris
Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning the grinning jingal
On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar's flanking-party
Butchered the folk who flew.
Long was the morn of slaughter,
Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shickaris
Went back to their grave again,
Simply superb.
>>7596666
Satanic quads, someone sure is salty.
>>7596671
>Beating your bloody face to a pulp
>>7596311
carolyn forche's THE COLONEL
i like it
Of war and peace the truth just twists
Its curfew gull just glides
Upon four-legged forest clouds
The cowboy angel rides
With his candle lit into the sun
Though its glow is waxed in black
All except when ’neath the trees of Eden
The lamppost stands with folded arms
Its iron claws attached
To curbs ’neath holes where babies wail
Though it shadows metal badge
All and all can only fall
With a crashing but meaningless blow
No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden
The savage soldier sticks his head in sand
And then complains
Unto the shoeless hunter who’s gone deaf
But still remains
Upon the beach where hound dogs bay
At ships with tattooed sails
Heading for the Gates of Eden
With a time-rusted compass blade
Aladdin and his lamp
Sits with Utopian hermit monks
Sidesaddle on the Golden Calf
And on their promises of paradise
You will not hear a laugh
All except inside the Gates of Eden
Relationships of ownership
They whisper in the wings
To those condemned to act accordingly
And wait for succeeding kings
And I try to harmonize with songs
The lonesome sparrow sings
There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden
The motorcycle black madonna
Two-wheeled gypsy queen
And her silver-studded phantom cause
The gray flannel dwarf to scream
As he weeps to wicked birds of prey
Who pick up on his bread crumb sins
And there are no sins inside the Gates of Eden
The kingdoms of Experience
In the precious wind they rot
While paupers change possessions
Each one wishing for what the other has got
And the princess and the prince
Discuss what’s real and what is not
It doesn’t matter inside the Gates of Eden
The foreign sun, it squints upon
A bed that is never mine
As friends and other strangers
From their fates try to resign
Leaving men wholly, totally free
To do anything they wish to do but die
And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden
At dawn my lover comes to me
And tells me of her dreams
With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means
At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what’s true
And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden
>>7596720
One of his best along with It's Alright, Ma
the poem from pale fire is amazing, here's one of my favourite excerpts
And there's the wall of sound: the nightly wall
Raised by a trillion crickets in the fall.
Impenetrable! Halfway up the hill
I'd pause in thrall of their delirious trill.
That's Dr. Sutton's light. That's the Great Bear.
A thousand years ago five minutes were
Equal to forty ounces of fine sand.
Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and
Infinite aftertime: above your head
They close like giant wings, and you are dead.
>>7596737
my favorite is
Life Everlasting--based on a misprint!
I mused as I drove homeward: take the hint
And stop investigating my abyss?
But all at once it dawned on me that this
Was the real point, the contrapuntal theme;
Just this: not text, but texture; not the dream
But topsy-turvical coincidence,
Not flimsy nonsense, but a web of sense.
Yes! It sufficed that I in life could find
Some kind of link and bobolink, some kind
Or correlated pattern in the game,
Plexed artistry, and something of the same
Pleasure in it as they who played it found.
>>7596311
Mexican poets desu
>>7596311
I have a .txt file I'm working on that has 400+ poets and many poems each. I'll post it on here eventually once I hit 1000. I also ignore all the bad non-poets (Ginsberg, Dylan Thomas, Charles Olson, WC Williams, etc.) and add a bunch of poets that have only like 3 ratings on Goodreads from the 19th and earlier centuries that have been mostly forgotten. It's a quality list
Though I think most people will hate it because for a lot of poets I pick my favorite poems which may not be, in academic consensus, their "best works" i.e. I don't include Paradise Lost by milton but I do include his sonnets and Lycidas and Comus
Honestly Homer's The Odyssey
I've learned something new from it every time
I also am very fond of Keats abandoned Hyperion
and the Amores of Ovid
>>7597273
Are you a Fitzgerald bro?
>>7597218
Wich ones anon?
>>7596311
why do you ask
>>7597312
Robert or Edward
>>7597232
>Charles Olsen
>non-poet
Kill yourself, you massive pleb. I'm sure your list is shit.
I've always loved the way Mark Strand writes. Hard to put my finger on why.
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.
By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.
My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.
The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.
I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.
>William Stafford - Travelling through the Dark
>>7597380
Charles Olson basically wrote garbage under the auspices of a "newfound poetics" -- which weren't new, they were basically what WC Williams and (more truthfully) Ezra Pound put forward half a century earlier. Charles Olson was a complete fraud, a hack, etc.
The Black Mountainers were trash too but I'm considering adding a poem by either Ed Dorn or Creeley to keep the list from too much fire.
No, Olson is about as "academic" as verse gets. And don't fire on me that "Olson was laid back and hated academics!" No, he was a lazy fuck who didn't read poetry and hadn't any talent and so he wrote garbage and pretended it was new. The sooner forgotten the better.
>>7597491
You don't know shit about poetics
Favorite poet?
>Karl Pilkington
Favorite poem?
Hard to choose, Heres my top 3
Thousands of sheep fed up,
So they jumped off cliff into bay.
They shouldn't survive,
But it just goes to show,
Where there's wool there's a way
-
“Cavemen were stupid” is what some say
But they created the wheel and fire
I’ve just paid 49 pounds for heating this month
And 38 quid for a new tyre!
Who’s stupid again?
-
and of course, his first masterpiece...
If moths had eyes, would they be happier?
How do they know they're not dead?
Cavemen hunting for food
But not before they style the hair on their head
What would last longer in dinosaur times?
A blind man didn't stand a chance
Not with all them rocks about
I'd rather be a blind moth
>>7597537
Jellyfish, Part 2
It would be spiteful
To put jellyfish in a trifle
There is no end to his genius
>>7597232
>not gonna include paradise lost
>i'm a special snowflake
>r/iamverysmart
kill yourself ty
>>7597639
Embarrassing.
>>7597639
>Paradise Lost worse than Comus
>"The language just isn't there"
Lmao kid you obviously aren't as smart as you think you are. Let me guess. 19? 20?
>>7597639
Only on /lit/ will you find someone who will say Paradise Lost is mediocre.
>>7596311
My favourite poem? I can't really choose. Tintern Abbey?
>>7597639
ok let's be real i probably defend milton's "lesser" poems harder than 99.9 pct of this board but my god you're saying some dumb shit right now
>>7597639
> PL is far worse than any of the other efforts I listed. The language just isn't there.
Hahahahhahaha fucking retard. I bet you actually believe this as well.
If thou beest he; But O how fall'n! how chang'd
From him who, in the happy Realms of Light
Cloth'd with transcendent brightness, didst outshine
Myriads though bright: If he whom mutual league,
United thoughts and counsels, equal hope,
And hazard in the Glorious Enterprise
Joynd with me once, now misery hath joined
In equal ruin: into what Pit thou seest
From what height fall'n, so much the stronger provd
He with his Thunder: and till then who knew
The force of those dire arms? yet not for those
Nor what the Potent Victor in his rage
Can else inflict do I repent or change,
Though chang'd in outward lustre, that fixt mind
And high disdain, from sense of injur'd merit,
That with the mightiest rais'd me to contend,
And to the fierce contentions brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits arm'd
That durst dislike his reign, and me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power oppos'd
In dubious Battel on the Plains of Heav'n,
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
That Glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power
Who, from the terror of this arm, so late
Doubted his empire, that were low indeed,
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall; since by Fate the strength of Gods
And this empyreal sybstance, cannot fail;,
Since through experience of this great event
In Arms not worse, in foresight much advanc't,
We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal War
Irreconcilable, to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs, and in th' excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the Tyranny of Heav'n.
"Mediocre language", fuck me.
>>7597645
>>7597675
>>7597679
>>7597701
>>7597704
no, alright, I actually am going to defend myself, and go even harder than before.
First I'll point you to Eliot's essay on Milton. I'm not a huge fan of Eliot, but he's entirely correct.
Next, I'll summarize Ezra Pound's opinion on Milton's capabilities, that unlike Eliot, aren't so nice. I agree very much with him, though I think he goes too far to call the content of the poem lacking (that is, the narrative itself.)
1. He reuses adjectives so incessantly that they become useless and describe absolutely nothing. Essentially, everything is called "luminious" -- but if everything is luminous, what's the point? Everything is bright, so nothing is dark, so everything's the same, so the word "luminous" just becomes a tag of something being "of God". But this is superfluous to me:
> Cloth'd with transcendent brightness
> Glorious Enterprise
It is a bit harder to point these things out in a spoken monologue of the poem, because the speaker isn't describing THINGS so much as he's narrating IDEAS that will come to pass. But this leads to more criticisms:
2. The language is entirely stilted, and completely unvaried. Whereas Chaucer worked into his verse the collective poetical vocabularies of the French, the Provencals, the Italians, the Romans, and the Anglo-Saxon tradition (not so much the Greeks except through the Romans, though I personally can't even argue for that, it just isn't there), and Shakespeare -- while stilted himself from average speech, brought us a wealth of metaphor that remains relatively unrivaled in any poetic tradition -- Milton falls back on neoclassical models of poetics (whereas Chaucer experimented with various forms even throughout discrete poems, and Shakespeare by the time of the late plays was bending the fabric of Iambic pentameter so strongly for effect, bringing about some of the greatest genius of his poetic output) and provides no new ideas in form, in musical capabilities of verse, etc. to the language.
3. To build upon my praise of Shakespeare in the former, I'll add that Milton himself was almost entirely devoid of metaphorical capability in Paradise Lost. In the other poems I listed, he is more natural, more interested in the capabilities of language. In Paradise Lost we instead get:
> transcendent brightness
> happy Realms of Light
> though bright
> Glorious Enterprise
> outward lustre
it's just bankrupt of any insight from the Muse. We get a tremendously sublime narrative, but about the worst "canonical" poetry in the English language.
I'll leave you with the bright, varied, intellectually inspired verse of Shakespeare, even during a common bout of speech:
(cont.)
>>7598103
Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master,
But for these instances.
The specialty of rule hath been neglected:
And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive
To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre
Observe degree, priority and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans cheque to good and bad: but when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!
Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides,
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.
And this neglection of degree it is
That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd
By him one step below, he by the next,
That next by him beneath; so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation:
And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.
No, I think it's fair to say that the books have it wrong, saying that Shakespeare was a dramatist, and Milton a poet.
Milton, in PL, is a dramatist with a shallow poetic reserve. Shakespeare is in most cases a transcendent poet with a shallow dramatic reserve, other than in the best plays (in terms of their being PLAYS)
was RImbaud a fuccboi?
>>7598115
oh, and I'll add another thought.
Read both of these monologues out loud.
The shitty St. Milton one, and the Shakespeare one.
Shakespeare's reads, despite it's flowers, so incredibly human -- breaks and pauses like speech, the character (Ulysses here) weighing options (and it shows by the syntax, the reversals, etc.) Shakespeare has just captured a personality on the page.
Read the Milton one. HAPPY REALMS OF LIGHT... GOD IS BAD! blah blah blah. It never ends! And all of the characters speak like this! Even in the Old Testament the characters speak with more personality. You don't get the (buried) emotion of "But what if there's only 20 good people in the city? Will you burn it down then, YHWH?" No, it's Milton basically talking at us, saying "this is what the character is thinking!" And then not even having the nerve to do anything interesting with the form, the language, etc.
I call Lycidas his best achievement, because it is incredibly charged with Milton's own personality, and while it's not as wealthy as Shakespeare (who is?) it's a fine poem. Milton tried to make PL decadent by hammering it in with a fine layer of gold gilding. Of course he was blind by the time of PL, and must've grabbed the rusty iron sheets instead.
This is why Shakespeare is relevant on the world stage as one of the best cross-language writers to have ever existed. Milton isn't important to anybody but the English. And by that I mean England. And it's stifling. St. Milton, hurrah!
A season in hell is perfect and inspiring. Truly, the epitome of writing from within.
>PL is mediocre because Pound and Pounded didn't like it
Good thread lads.
>>7598103
>>7598150
ok i appreciate the effort but most of this simply boils down to subjective preference on some very vague notions.
and boy talk about moving goalposts - first it was "PL is worse than lycidas/comus/whatever" and suddenly it turned into milton vs. shakespeare. stop knocking down your own strawmen literally no one was interested in starting a milton vs shakespeare shitfest, we were calling out your ridiculous assertion that PL is a "minor" milton work, which you didn't address at all.
>>7598322
>pound and pounded
had a hearty kek on this one thanks senpai.
Poe? Anyone?
Ode to a Nightingale
>That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim
>>7598103
Holy shit please stop
Poets: Blake, Wordsworth, Yeats, Pound, Larkin.
Poem: 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard' by Thomas Grey
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
>>7598777
> retards who don't read poetry don't have a counterargument
>>7598976
>all this buttmad
O I am lauffin
>>7598991
> my favorite poems are Paradise Lost, Howl, Ozymandias, She Walks in Beauty... I can go on you know :)
>>7599152
Pathetic.
>>7599186
>> my favorite poems are Paradise Lost, Howl, Ozymandias, She Walks in Beauty... I can go on you know :)
Eliot always does it for me. Especially The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
>>7598103
Embarrassing yourself on /lit/. No trip?
>>7599243
> has no argument because St. Milton is the only poet he's read from the 17th century
>>7599249
Argument? I see you're in the pre-coherence stage of your education. You'll look back one day and laugh as we are now.
Shedding selves is such a strange experience.
>>7599261
>my favorite poems are Paradise Lost, Howl, Ozymandias, She Walks in Beauty... I can go on you know :)
>>7599425
Way to try to communicate with a dense dolt.
>>7596311
My favorite ODWG poet is Yeats. My favorite contemporary poets are Matt Hart, Emilia Philips, David Bottoms, and Clay Matthews.
>>7599425
>>7598355
But he didn't BTFO anything, he doesn't even respond to any of the points I put forward. His is as much a shitpost as any other.
I put forward an unmemorable piece from an unmemorable (and generally hated) Shakespeare play. This is just to show, NOT to make it Shakes v. Milton, how bankrupt Milton's vocabulary is. I was essentially arguing that Milton isn't an important English poet to anyone after the 18th/early 19th centuries. He verges on a being a minor English-language poet for the actual accomplishment of his verse. In terms of influence he's a major influence, though that's more a tragedy than anything.
"Subjective" blah blah blah. I put forward some concrete examples. "Happy lands of light" is just mediocre verse. Sure it's subjective, but the more you read, the more likely anyone with a sensible brain will have to roll their eyes at this one. There's something this bad every 7 or so lines. That's just bad verse.
I moved the goalposts because poetry doesn't exist in a vacuum. Milton is just incredibly inferior to his predecessors, and just as inferior to his successors. I'd even say that Shelley was a better "poet", in the sense of his metaphorical range, his variance of language, etc. In PL, Milton has little poetic capability and in Comus and Lycidas, he's a braver poet. Really all you have to do is read them with some knowledge of the history of poetry. It's subjective, but only in the sense of how much you've read before you read him.
There's a reason Harold Bloom and other critics who praise him even today won't dare to talk about his language. Milton basically wrote a novel. Nobody cares about the individual words in his poetic texture, because it's all the same, and nothing stands out. There's a reason why almost anyone who reads mLost reads it as if it might as well be a novel. It's a dramatic novel set in iambic pentameter. It's not poetry that happens to be epic, it's an epic that happens to be in verse.
So back to "moving the goalposts", no, the more goalposts you add the field of the argument, the worse Milton looks. Feel free to add more poets to the argument. Milton will decay further.
>>7599489
And I'll clear things up: Milton wrote one of the best novels in history. Milton WAS a genius. Absolutely.
But Paradise Lost, while a great achievement of narrative imagination, is a failure as poetry. Even the greats like Virgil, Dante, Homer, etc. were genius as "poets" in the sense I'm trying to argue. Dante shifts his vocabulary frequently between low and high verse, and his visual imagination is off the walls. Virgil was an expert of Latin-language literary devices, even though the narrative itself in the Aeneid is a bit poor. Homer has the strengths of all of the above. Milton's narrative is on par with that of Homer's, but he fails in all other regards.
>>7599459
>Clay Matthews
The GB Packers lineman?
>>7599489
>>7599541
your original point was literally PL was worse than other Milton, it had absolutely NOTHING with any other poet or how important Milton is compared to other poets. Like literally nothing.
And then when you were asked to back up your absurd assertion that PL is a "minor" Milton work you went first to memes and then to Milton vs. any other poet you could think of and then back to memes again.
Just stop this is embarrassing,
Images by Richard Aldington:
I
Like a gondola of green scented fruits
Drifting along the dank canals of Venice,
You, O exquisite one,
Have entered into my desolate city.
II
The blue smoke leaps
Like swirling clouds of birds vanishing.
So my love leaps forth toward you,
Vanishes and is renewed.
III
A rose-yellow moon in a pale sky
When the sunset is faint vermilion
In the mist among the tree-boughs
Art thou to me, my beloved.
IV
A young beech tree on the edge of the forest
Stands still in the evening,
Yet shudders through all its leaves in the light air
And seems to fear the stars—
So are you still and so tremble.
V
The red deer are high on the mountain,
They are beyond the last pine trees.
And my desires have run with them.
VI
The flower which the wind has shaken
Is soon filled again with rain;
So does my heart fill slowly with tears,
O Foam-Driver, Wind-of-the-Vineyards,
Until you return.
>>7599548
>And then when you were asked to back up your absurd assertion that PL is a "minor" Milton work
I never said it was a "minor Milton work"
I said it was a POOR Milton work. It's his "magnum opus", if you will. The great 17th century novel. But it's shitty poetry.
> Like literally nothing.
Well now it does. Milton is in the bottom ranks of the poetic canon if we're only considering Paradise Lost. His verbal genius comes out only in the Sonnets and Lycidas, and some of Comus.
I have spread you a table of many points to refute. You're saying I'm spreading memes.
If this was about some other poet that wasn't a populist favorite -- say, Ben Jonson, or George Herbert, or I'm sure if I picked a minor Modernist -- then there would be no opposition.
Refute anything I said by actually referring to what I wrote, rather than saying I haven't argued the way you want me to. Too bad, we're either going to argue my way, or not at all. I don't care if you say I'm a retard, I'm anonymous and the only thing I care about is seeing whether it's true that St. Milton is untouchable. So far I'm kinda seeing that Milton is probably less touchable than Shakespeare or Homer or Dante. In fact, I have never seen a post here picking on Milton, but many on Dante. Dante is the good poet, too. Oh, and a better NARRATIVE writer. But I won't go into that.
You can't argue, and if you can, you're just a bit lazy. Feel free to post a non-monologue section of PL and I'll readily pick it apart for the boring mess it is.
>>7599560
>we're either going to argue my way, or not at all.
a-are you 18 or something?
Harsh winds flay mine flesh to bone
In splintered skeleton I roam
Wastelands with not to call my own
But the path I walk alone
The hunger burns, within my gut
As my bones turn into dust
-Stefan Burnett
>>7599568
no, I've just actually got something to argue with. The argument has changed. I've moved the goalposts. Shakespeare is on the field now. the entire canon is on the field now. Otherwise we have no way of seeing whether PL holds up as "good poetry". It's common sense.
I refuse to argue about how good Milton's Paradise Lost is as poetry if it's to be argued in a vacuum. We either argue with the canon on the table or not. There is no possibility for argument either way otherwise.
>>7599574
>I wonder who's behind this post
>>7599576
You're retarded.
>>7599576
wow you really are delusional lol
you said pl is worse than lycidas and comus.
people call you out.
you now say pl is worse than shakespeare
allowing that, it has zero bearing on pl versus lycidas and comus
and then you sperg out
>>7599591
>you said pl is worse than lycidas and comus.
As poetry, yes.
> people call you out.
as expected with St. Milton's populist army.
> you now say pl is worse than shakespeare
And more than just Shakes!
> allowing that, it has zero bearing on pl versus lycidas and comus
Of course not. I'm starting by eliminating PL so that I can actually focus on his good poetry. I was asked why I didn't include PL but did include the others. So far I've only had the chance to talk about why I DIDN'T include PL.
But there's no argument so far, hence I haven't had the chance to argue (with textual examples) why the Sonnets or Lycidas are significantly better. And at this point I'm not sure I'm willing to, given that all of my responses have been: >>7599590 by the largely unread army of St. Milton.
>>7598313
This a rather extraordinary reading of a season in hell. It blew me away.
https://youtu.be/OdahSTbhU7g
>>7598452
an overrated (but not poor) poet who doesn't age well
>>7599606
Don't be delusional, there is no "unread army of St. Milton." People are calling you out to back such a large claim as "PL is far worse than [his sonnets and Lycidas and Comus]." I suppose part of the desire to attack you comes from the desire to prove you wrong since you are dismissing important poems/poets. So far, I don't buy your arguments, which come down to: "It's trash, anyone 'with a sensible brain' who's read poetry can see it's trash." That's a non-argument, and an excuse for subjectivity.
Other things. Why do you equate "metaphorical range, variance of language, etc." (I can only assume your et cetera is "shifts of vocabulary" and "visual imagination"; "literary devices" is incredibly broad) with being a "poet"? If you have all these things in poetry, do they make great poetry? Specifically, I take issue with metaphorical range and variance of language. I could equally argue for metaphorical depth and a sustain of one level or register of language as elements of great poetry.
The last man on earth sat in a chair. There was a knock on the door.
Kaden Moeller's "To Cull The Living Flower" is one of my favorites.
I’ve made a necklace for you
From the flowers of life’s garden
Twas to consol your heart, so blue
And lift your spirit, fallen
Oh you did love this gift
But before your shoulders settled
Life’s fingers, they did lift
And pluck away the petals
Oh this twas to your horror
This gift, so beautiful
You scream “Please take no more!”
As time rips them in handfuls
Each petal, for you, lost
It rends and breaks your heart
It seems too high a cost
To watch beauty depart
So now you stand there helpless
Chain round your neck, now bare
You think that life is callus
And only wants despair
But life, it isn’t cruel
Nor is it full of dread
For the necklace, though twas beautiful
The flowers, they were dead
Let not this loss of consolation
Cause now your heart to harden
Come, break the chain in celebration
And join me in the garden
Thought it was a beautiful atheist cry to reason. That's just me.
Poe / Sasha Grey
I don't read Buk but this one:
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?
>>7596311
I wish I was born in his era so I could marry him and give him children...
The Bells, by Poe. It paints fantastic imagery, and takes quite a turn at the end.
>>7596311
Once upon a time
God made this Elephant.
Then it was delicate and small
It was not freakish at all
Or melancholy
The Hyenas sang in the scrub You are beautiful--
They showed their scorched heads and grinning expressions
Like the half-rotted stumps of amputations--
We envy your grace
Waltzing through the thorny growth
O take us with you to the Land of Peaceful
O ageless eyes, of innocence and kindliness
Lift us from the furnaces
And furies of our blackened faces
Within these hells we writhe
Shut in behind the bars of our teeth
In hourly battle with death
The size of the earth
Having the strength of the earth
So the Hyenas ran under the Elephant's tail
As like a lithe and rubber oval
He strolled gladly around inside his ease
But he was not God no it was not his
To correct the damned
In rage in madness then they lit their mouths
They tore out his entrails
They divided him among their several hells
To cry all his separate pieces
Swallowed and inflamed
Amidst paradings of infernal laughter.
At the Resurrection
The Elephant got himself together with correction
Deadfall feet and toothproof body and bulldozing bones
And completely altered brains
Behind aged eyes, that were wicked and wise.
So through the orange blaze and blue shadow
Of the afterlife, effortless and immense,
The Elephant goes his own way, a walking sixth sense,
And opposite and parallel
The sleepless Hyenas go
Along a leafless skyline trembling like an oven roof
With a whipped run
Their shame-flags tucked hard down
Over the gutsacks
Crammed with putrefying laughter
Soaked black with the leakage and seepings
And they sing: "Ours is the land
Of loveliness and beautiful
Is the putrid mouth of the leopard
And the graves of fever
Because it is all we have--"
And they vomit their laughter.
And the Elephant sings deep in the forest-maze
About a star of deathless and painless peace
But no astronomer can find where it is.
Ted Hughes
A tap of your finger on the drum releases all sounds and initiates the new harmony.
A step of yours is the conscription of the new men and their marching orders.
You look away: the new love!
You look back,—the new love!
“Change our fates, shoot down the plagues, beginning with time,” the children sing to you. “Build wherever you can the substance of our fortunes and our wishes,” they beg you.
Arriving from always, you’ll go away everywhere.
