First Poetry night at Paltalk

[Luciana]

Upon Renata’s request, I’m starting a thread on the poetry that some of us recited at Paltalk on April 2nd.

I recited two poems by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, considered to be one of the best Brazilian poets of all time. It’s a household name, and despite everybody liking him (from the general public to scholars) he’s really good. I found out that, quick, I must reread his works. So far, I’ve picked his poems here and there, but never read them in chronological order and therefore not in their proper context. To my amazement, the poems I’ve been reading all show a disillusionment with religion that I never came to associate with Drummond. He had a Catholic upbringing, he was regarded as the best poet, while alive, in a Christian country. The poem below was written during the XXII, in a time where he was analyzing his process of poetry.


Your Shoulders Hold Up The World

A time comes when we no longer can say:
my God.
A time of total cleaning up.
A time when we no longer can say: my love.
Because love proved useless.
And the eyes don't cry.
And the hands do only rough work.
And the heart is dry.
They knock at our door in vain, we won't open.
We remain alone, the light turned off,
and our enormous eyes shine in the dark.
It is obvious we no longer know how to suffer.
And we want nothing from our friends.

Who cares if old age comes, what is old age?
Our shoulders are holding up the world
and it's lighter than a child's hand.
Wars, famine, family fights inside buildings
prove only that life goes on
and not everybody has freed themselves yet.
Some (the delicate ones) judging the spectacle cruel
will prefer to die.
A time comes when death doesn't help.
A time comes when life is an order.
Just life, without any escapes.


- Carlos Drummond de Andrade


The second I read was “In the Middle of the road”, which must be understood as being a reference to the first stanza of Dante’s Divine Comedy. There, the poet says that, his way through life there was a mountain. Drummond, in a road, finds a stone. The free form of the poem, and its constant repetitions, bringing it close to a song, received ferocious criticism from the most conservative poets. Others hailed it as pure genius.

Elizabeth Bishop, a long time fan of Drummond, translated the poem below:

In the Middle of the Road

In the middle of the road there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the road
there was a stone
in the middle of the road there was a stone.

Never should I forget this event
in the life of my fatigued retinas.
Never should I forget that in the middle of the road
there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the road
in the middle of the road there was a stone.

- Carlos Drummond de Andrade


Some like to recite it loudly, with abrupt stops, as if the stone above was a whole mudslide. I prefer the quieter renditions, the stone being the difficulties of everyday life.

Now, Renata, Cleo and everybody else: please post here the poems you read, and let's discuss them.

I also read one by “Fernando Pessoa”, Portugal’s greatest poet, but that’s for another message, because this is Sunday and I want to enjoy the beautiful autumn day.

 

[Cleopatra]

As I posted yesterday I read some verses from the Moonlight Sonata of Yannis Ritsos.

Ritsos is a well known poet in Greece not one of my favorites because he was a member of the Greek Communist Party and wrote political poems and this sort of poetry is not very much of my taste but this particular poem is beautifil.

One of the things that popped up while reading and discussing those poems is if when it comes to poetry we are conditioned to consider it beautiful. I mean I do not understand Portugese but I found Luciana's poems beautiful I wouldn't feel that way if I knew that she was reading the Old Testament in Portuguese. Are we prejudiced pro-poetry? Why anything in verses receives such a warm welcome?Why do we appreciate poetry that much?

Also Renata made a question regarding biology and poetry but it's better that she post it herself.

 

[renata]

I read some poems by my favorite Russian poets. I am afraid I got carried away and read quite a few. Here are the English translations, rather awful of course, but all I can provide. Most of the poetry I read was written during great changes in Russia, a period that is commonly referred to as Silver Age of Russian poetry.

Alexander Blok
Unknown Woman

Above the restaurants in the evenings
The sultry air is wild and still,
And the decaying breath of spring
Drives drunken shouting.

Above the dusty distant lanes
The boredom of summer homes,
The baker's gold sign barely shines
And a child's crying rings out.

Each night, beyond the crossing gates,
With bowler hats tipped rakishly,
The practiced wits stroll with the ladies
Among the drainage ditches.

Out on the lake, oarlocks creak
And a woman starts to squeal,
While up in the sky, inured to it all,
The moon's disk senselessly leers.

Each night my solitary friend
Is reflected in my glass,
Made meek and reeling, like myself,
By the mysterious, astringent liquid.

And drowsy lackeys lounge about
Beside the adjacent tables
While drunks with rabbit eyes cry out
"In vino veritas!"

And each night at a certain hour
(Or am I only dreaming it?),
A girl's figure, swathed in silk,
Moves across the misty window.

And slowly passing among the drunks,
Always alone and unescorted,
Wafting a breath of perfume and mist,
She takes a table by the window.

And an air of ancient legend
Wreaths her resilient silks,
Her hat with its funereal plumes,
And her slender ringed hand.

And entranced by this strange nearness,
I look through her dark veil,
And see an enchanted shore
And a horizon enchanted.

Deep secrets are entrusted to me,
Someone's sun is in my care,
And at every turn, astringent wine
Pierces my soul.

And drooping ostrich plumes
Waver in my brain,
And fathomless blue eyes
Bloom on the distant shore.

A treasure lies in my soul,
And the key belongs to me alone!
You are correct, you drunken fiend!
I know it: wine brings truth.


Anna Akhmatova
To Alexander Blok

When I came to see the poet
It was noon. The day was Sunday.
Large the room was, large and quiet;
In the street reigned frost... The sun
Was a crimson ball. Beneath it
Shaggy, dove-grey smoke went drifting..
Silent stood my host before me:
How serene, how clear his gaze!
Such his eyes that they who see them
Even once cannot forget them.
As for me, I would be safer
Had I met them not at all.
But I will remember always
What we talked about that Sunday
In the tall grey house that towered
By the gateway to the sea.



Sergei Esenin
No regret I feel, no pain, no sorrow,
Blossom blows away, a song is sung.
Overcome by autumn gold, tomorrow
I myself shall be no longer young.

You'll not throb, heart, as before, but tremble,
Feeling chills that you have not yet known.
In bare feet you shall no more be tempted
Through the birch-print countryside to roam.

Roving spirit, ever now less often
Do you rouse a flame upon my lips.
Freshness I have lost, keen looks forgotten,
Feelings running at full flood I miss.

I'm austerer now in my desiring.
Life, were you real, or of fancy born?
It's as if in spring I've been out riding
On a pink horse in the vibrant dawn.

In this world of ours we all are mortal,
Copper leaves from maples gently slide…
Ever blest was I to be accorded
Time for blossoming before I died.

Sergei Esenin
To Kachalov's Dog

Come, Jim, give me your paw for luck,
I swear i've never seen one like it.
Let's go, the two of us, and bark
Up the moon when Nature's silent.
Come, Jim, give me your pow for luck.
Stop licking me, pet, and please do
At least heed this advice i'm giving.
Of life you havent got a clue,
You do non realise life is worse living.
You master's kind a man of note,
And visitors his home are thronging,
They all admire your velvet coat
Which smilingly they love to fondle.
You're devilish handsome for a dog,
So charming, trusting, unsuspicious,
Not asking if you may or not,
Like a drunken pal, you plaster kises.
Dear Jim, I know a great warety
Of visions of all shorts call,
But have you seen her here, the saddest
And the least talkative of all?
I'm sure she'll come here. In my absence
Please catch her eye. Go kiss her hand for me,
For all my real or fancied errors asking
Forgiveeness of her in humility.



Boris Pasternak
There'll be no one in the house
Save for twilight. All alone,
Winter's day seen in the space that's
Made by curtains left undrawn.

Only flash-past of the wet white
Snowflake clusters, glimpsed and gone.
Only roofs and snows, and save for
Roofs and snow - no one at home.

Once more, frost will trace its patterns,
I'll be haunted once again
By my last-year's melancholy,
By that other wintertime.

Once more I'll be troubled by an
Old, un-expiated shame,
And the icy firewood famine
Will press on the window-pane.

But the quiver of intrusion
Through those curtain folds will run
Measuring silence with your footsteps,
Like the future, in you'll come.

You'll appear there in the doorway
Wearing something white and plain,
Something in the very stuff from
Which the snowflakes too are sewn.


Marina Tzvetayeva
I like it that you're burning not for me,
I like it that it's not for you I'm burning
And that the heavy sphere of Planet Earth
Will underneath our feet no more be turning
I like it that I can be unabashed
And humorous and not to play with words
And not to redden with a smothering wave
When with my sleeves I'm lightly touching yours.
I like it, that before my very eyes
You calmly hug another; it is well
That for me also kissing someone else
You will not threaten me with flames of hell.
That this my tender name, not day nor night,
You will recall again, my tender love;
That never in the silence of the church
They will sing "halleluiah" us above.
With this my heart and this my hand I thank
You that - although you don't know it -
You love me thus; and for my peaceful nights
And for rare meetings in the hour of sunset,
That we aren't walking underneath the moon,
That sun is not above our heads this morning,
That you - alas - are burning not for me
And that - alas - it's not for you I'm burning.

My question, Cleopatra was not well developed. I have a grasp of a tail of an idea, and want to read up and think about it before I am ready to discuss it. In short, I wondered if humans are hardwired to reckognize poetry rhythm in any language, and that is why we appreciated poetry read Friday night even if we did not know the meaning of it. Some poetry evokes immense and immediate emotions, more powerful than prose. I will have to read more about its history to present any firm and fully formed thoughts on this.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

There was a young man from Nantucket...

 

[Chanileslie]

I read what is referred to a Cowboy Poem. This is a very big genre here in Nevada - we have several Cowboy Poetry Festivals. I think it is valuable because yes, poetry can be expressive and beautiful and wonderful, but it can also be fun and entertaining. The poem I read is by Wallace McRae entitled Reincarnation:

"What does reincarnation mean?
A cowpoke ast his friend.
His pal replied, "It happens when
Yer life has reached its end.
They comb yer hair, and warsh yer neck,
And clean yer fingernails,
And lay you in a padded box
Away from life's travails.

"The box and you goes in a hole,
That's been dug into the ground.
Reincarnation starts in when
Yore planted 'neath a mound.
Them clods melt down, just like yer box,
And you who is inside.
And then yore just beginnin' on
Yer transformation ride.

"In a while the grass'll grow
Upon yer rendered mound.
till some day on yer moldered grave
A lonely flower is found.
And say a hoss should wander by
And graze upon this flower
That once wuz you, but now's become
Yer vegetative bower.

"The posey that the hoss done ate
Up, with his other feed,
Makes bone, and fat, and muscle
essential to the steed.
But some is left that he can't use
And so it passes through,
And finally lays upon the ground.
This thing, that once wuz you.

"Then say, by chance, I wanders by
And sees this upon the ground,
And I ponders, and I wonders at,
This object that I found.
I think of reincarnation,
Of life, and death, and such,
And come away concludin': Slim,
You ain't changed, all that much.

Also, it pretty much sums up my opinion of reincarnation and an afterlife in a very humorous manner.