Morning thoughts

I've just this minute finished writing a lengthy article about poetry and enjoyed every minute of it. Not just the writing of the article - which made me think about how important poetry is to me - but reading or re-reading some of the poems mentioned in the article, by me and by other writers.

So this morning I'm going to share with you a little poetry. And yes, I write poetry, so I'll share ONE haiku with you of mine.

I saw Mars last night
bellied up against the moon
like a drunk in his favourite bar.

and then, to completely embarrass myself, there's Basho (17th century), the king of haiku:

Now I see her face,
the old woman, abandoned,
the moon her only companion.

One of the poems everyone remembers from their childhood was The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. And I'll bet you do too. Easy to memorize, great rhythm, great scary story, who could resist? One stanza only, though.

THE wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

Hmmm, because I'm addicted to poetry, I probably have more poetry in my head than most people, though I have to admit I don't memorize much of it. I actually try not to memorize it because I want it to be fresh when I read it again. My favorite poem? I'm not sure, but it's probably a Leonard Cohen poem I read and fell in love with as a teenager. Dramatic, tragic, absolutely sensual and frightening, The Lovers is an incredible poem. I can't put it on this blog because of copyright, but all the other poems here are in the public domain.

But a couple of other poems I love that I can share with you? W.B. Yeats. I love him to pieces and The Second Coming is one of my favorite poems of all times.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I'm writing about World War I and this was written right in the middle of it - September 25, 1916. What's frightening about this poem to me is that the emotions from 1916 are still with us almost 100 years later. I love many of the World War I poets - in some ways, their poetry was an elegy for a way of life that they were very conscious of losing.

And then there's T.S. Eliot. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I love the yellow fog, the obsession with growing older, the measuring out life with coffee spoons. I think I like this poem even better now that I did years ago and maybe that's natural. It's more true and real as I get older.

Dylan Thomas and Gwendolyn Books. Seamus Heaney (Digging) ... the squat pen rests, like a gun. If you're a writer, you'll love this poem. Shakespeare's sonnets - who doesn't? Neruda's love sonnets.

Canadian poets - Patrick Lane, Lorna Crozier, Al Purdy, Leonard Cohen (have I already mentioned him?). Kate Braid who is a carpenter as well as a poet.

Poets I've discovered through the New Yorker - Lucille Clifton, Virginia Adair.

I'm addicted to poetry. I buy poetry books all the time. I try and buy one every couple of months - and I try to buy them by living poets. Did you know that a bestselling poetry book MIGHT sell 500 copies? I try to do my part - even though it's not much and won't make any difference, really.

So that's my morning for you. Pretty darn satisfying I have to say, though I'm exhausted already as I've been up for almost five hours already. Now I'm off to work for a few hours, then probably home for a nap this afternoon.

Tell me, please, if there are poets you love, especially new ones I probably won't have read. And I hope you find some poets you want to read in this list.

Kate