Poems and Verse you know by heart

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

What about the poetry of the indigenous people there?

I don't know what poetry of the Maori that you are talking about . The pre-European Maori had no concept of rhyme nor, really, other techniques usually associated with the term "poetry".

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Did they come up with nothing in the 5 centuries or so they lived there before English speakers arrived? Or does your definition of "cultural poetry" simply not include them?

Putting aside the wokeish tone that could be associated with your post I'll comment.

They did have chants and incantations (which varied by tribe and because there was no written language), most of the chants are called karakia and while most of these were to do with war and weapons, superstition associated with the likes difficult situations and wellness, etc. some were of topics that poems use; for example karakia atahu are love charms. Most are directed at the gods and supernatural. Some chants are associated with posture dances such as the haka, a couple of which rugby fans will be familiar with, but one has to keep in mind that many of these are modified to suit the modern ear (e.g. both the rugby haka currently used are post European, as is the choreography of the postures they use).

There are, of course, modern poems and songs in Maori but the poetry has very limited exposure due to the small number of fluent Maori speakers, that number lessened further by the small number of such speakers with any deep attraction to poetry (as is the also case in English, for example, where only a small proportion of native English speakers have any deep attraction to poetry).

But, for myself, I would here rather see other posters poems, if you have a genuine interest in what cultures did or did not have poetry perhaps you could start a new thread? I would try to contribute with the help of my wife - she is a fluent speaker of modern Maori and the Polynesian languages that it sprung from.

[issybird]

From Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One:

They told me, Francis Hinsley, they told me you were hung
With red protruding eye-balls and black protruding tongue;
I wept as I remembered how often you and I
Had laughed about Los Angeles and now ’tis here you’ll lie;
Here pickled in formaldehyde and painted like a whore,
Shrimp-pink incorruptible, not lost nor gone before.

A parody, of course, of Heraclitus by William Johnson Cory.

I remember my first visit to Forest Lawn Cemetery with a college friend, also a huge fan of The Loved One, and how much fun we had quoting all of Dennis Barlow’s poetical squibs to each other.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row

I've read countless analyses of the Sad Eyes lyrics, it maybe most written about song he wrote. But I still don't know if the 'sheet-metal memory' phrase could be applied to anything other than Cannery Row.

Any thoughts?

@pdurrant : maybe we need a 'Poems and Verse you know by heart' discussion thread

BR

[Uncle Robin]

According to a Chinese actor I follow on Weibo, today is apparently some sort of International Poetry Appreciation Day. So this thread seems an apt place to share a poem that I am beginning to know more and more of by heart, thanks to hearing it recited and/or sung more often:
Hum dekhenge - the article features the poet reading his composition, and to be honest I found it a little underwhelming, as I did hearing Dylan Thomas reading Do Not Go Gentle

[doubleshuffle]

Candy is dandy,
but liquor is quicker.

(Ogden Nash)

[doubleshuffle]

A decrepit old gasman named Peter
While hunting around for the meter
Near a leak struck a light.
He rose out of sight,
And as anyone who knows just a bit about poetry understands, he also ruined the meter.

[pdurrant]

This verse is often given as Anonymous, but is actually an early work by Christopher Isherwood.

This is how I remember it. There have been a couple of versions in print, and I doubt that my memory matches either exactly.

The Common Cormorant, or Shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag
The reason you will see, no doubt
It is to keep the lightning out.

But what these unobservant birds
Have never noticed is that herds
Of wandering Bears come by, with buns
And steal the bags to keep their crumbs

[Edit: I got it all right, except the last couplet, which as originally published went

Of wandering bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs

I prefer my mis-remembered version.
It seems he also revised it for a later publication, but the first version is better.]

[AnotherCat]

As a kid brought up associated with boats and the sea I used to enjoy John Masefield's Sea-Fever; the man himself reciting it is at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCYsLqV2CyU

I can really only remember the first verse now - as time went by I, conditioned by some tense experiences, came to regard it as being overly romantic; but it does bring back pleasant childhood memories.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I've read countless analyses of the Sad Eyes lyrics, it maybe most written about song he wrote. But I still don't know if the 'sheet-metal memory' phrase could be applied to anything other than Cannery Row.

Any thoughts?...

I don't know, but one idea I have seen mentioned and like is that Sara Dylan's father was apparently a scrap metal dealer. So, for example, in From a Buick 6 which like Sad Eyes... seems be associated with Sara the first lines are

I got this graveyard woman, you know she keeps my kids
But my soulful mama, you know she keeps me hid
She's a junkyard angel and she always gives me bread

maybe the idea of "graveyard woman" and "junkyard angel" is seeded from her background. And then in Sad Eyes... there are a number of references to metals including the Sheet metal memories of Cannery Row. Maybe Cannery Row is an indirect reference to her father's metal scrapyard?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

As a kid brought up associated with boats and the sea I used to enjoy John Masefield's Sea-Fever

I find it impossible to read that poem without thinking of Spike Milligan's version:

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky.
I left my shoes and socks there — I wonder if they're dry?

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I find it impossible to read that poem without thinking of Spike Milligan's version:

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky.
I left my shoes and socks there — I wonder if they're dry?

Thanks, I like Spike Milligan but I had not seen that before.

EDIT, a little later: now you've got me going, I can't shepherds washing their socks by night out of my head.

[issybird]

This one seems particularly apropos in these times:

Spring and Fall by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

[pdurrant]

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the Road has gone
And I must follow if I can

Pursuing it with eager feet
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet
And whither then? I cannot say.

— J R R Tolkien

[doubleshuffle]

(With a little bit of cheating, because I couldn't remember the bit with the white moths...)

The Song of Wandering Aengus
W.B. Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

[doubleshuffle]

Sometimes it's the very simple, charming songs that just stick with you for a lifetime...

Blue, Red and Grey
Pete Townshend

Some people seem so obsessed with the morning,
get up early just to watch the sun rise.
Some people like it more when there's fire in the sky,
worship the sun when it's high.
Some people go for those sultry evenings,
sipping cocktails in the blue, red and grey --
But I like every minute of the day.

I like every second
so long as you are on my mind,
every moment has its special charm,
it's all right when you're around, rain or shine.

I know a crowd who only live after midnight,
their faces always seem so pale.
And then there's friends of mine who must have sunlight,
they say a suntan never fails.
I know a man who works the nightshift,
he's lucky to get a job and some pay --
And I like every minute of the day.

I dig every second,
I can laugh in the snow and rain,
I get a buzz from being cold and wet,
the pleasure seems to balance out the pain.

And so you see that I'm completely crazy,
I even shun the south of France.
The people on the hill, they say I'm lazy,
but when they sleep I sing and dance.
Some people have to have those sultry evenings,
cocktails in the blue, red and grey --
But I like every minute of the day.

(Also half-cheated: I needed a quick listen before I remembered all the lines again.)

Here's the song: