martle
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« Reply #780 on: 18:11:34, 06-09-2008 » |
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Seeing several references to Ezra Pound in other threads, I was reminded of this weird poem. I've never been sure whether I liked it (or him), but I was sufficiently taken by it to write a piece of music about it, years ago.
The Alchemist Chant for the transmutation of metals
Saîl of Claustra, Aelis, Azalais, As you move among the bright trees; As your voices, under the larches of Paradise Make a clear sound, Saîl of Claustra, Aelis, Azalais, Raimona, Tibors, Berangèrë, 'Neath the dark gleam of the sky; Under night, the peacock-throated, Bring the saffron-coloured shell, Bring the red gold of the maple, Bring the light of the birch tree in autumn Mirals, Cembelins, Audiarda, Remember this fire.
Elain, Tireis, Alcmena 'Mid the silver rustling of wheat, Agradiva, Anhes, Ardenca, From the plum-coloured lake, in stillness, From the molten dyes of the water Bring the burnished nature of fire; Briseis, Lianor, Loica, From the wide earth and the olive, From the poplars weeping their amber, By the bright flame of the fishing torch Remember this fire.
Midonz, with the gold of the sun, the leaf of the popIar, by the light of the amber, Midonz, daughter of the sun, shaft of the tree, silver of the leaf, light of the yellow of the amber, Midonz, gift of the God, gift of the light, gift of the amber of the sun, Give light to the metal.
Anhes of Rocacoart, Ardenca, Aemelis, From the power of grass, From the white, alive in the seed, From the heat of the bud, From the copper of the leaf in autumn, From the bronze of the maple, from the sap in the bough; Lianor, Ioanna, Loica, By the stir of the fin, By the trout asleep in the grey green of water; Vanna, Mandetta, Viera, Alodetta, Picarda, Manuela From the red gleam of copper, Ysaut, Ydone, slight rustling of leaves, Vierna, Jocelynn, daring of spirits, By the mirror of burnished copper, O Queen of Cypress, Out of Erebus, the flat-lying breadth, Breath that is stretched out beneath the world: Out of Erebus, out of the flat waste of air, lying beneath the world; Out of the brown leaf-brown colourless Bring the imperceptible cool.
Elain, Tireis, Alcmena, Quiet this metal! Let the manes put off their terror, let them put off their aqueous bodies with fire. Let them assume the milk-white bodies of agate. Let them draw together the bones of the metal.
Selvaggia, Guiscarda, Mandetta, Rain flakes of gold on the water, Azure and flaking silver of water, Alcyon, Phaetona, Alcmena, Pallor of silver, pale lustre of Latona, By these, from the malevolence of the dew Guard this alembic. Elain, Tireis, Alodetta Quiet this metal.
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Green. Always green.
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #781 on: 19:17:40, 06-09-2008 » |
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This is such a beautiful poem. There are many Russian poets that wrote their poems and even short stories based on Egyptian and Greek mythology. There is a unfinished story by Pushkin “Egyptian Nights”. I can hardly remember the story. http://www.vor.ru/English/MTales/tales_082.htmlAlso Achmatova has Cleopatra poem: And tomorrow they'll put the children in chains. Oh, how little she still has to do on earth Joke with the boy, and place the black snake, Like a final gesture of pity on her dark breast With an indifferent hand. http://books.google.ie/books?id=0feDqWiDjpEC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=Pushkin,+Cleopatra&source=web&ots=0gMIf9qpK7&sig=r1KuJaBywJoBGBTErBAr6oZvEoY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PPA82,M1Achmatov's view derived principally from Shakespear's Antony and Cleopatra. Mandelstam has "Egyptian Stamp" (prose). Gumilev has poems on the subject, but I can not find it. Gumilev has a book of poems connected with this subject, but I can not find poems in English. Balmont probably had something written on the subject. This is a poem by Esenin that is very well known, but I am changing the subject. THE BIRCH-TREE Just below my window Stands a birch-tree white, Under snow in winter Gleaming silver bright. On the fluffy branches Sparkling in a row Dangle pretty tassels Of the purest snow. There the birch in silence Slumbers all day long And the snow gleams brightly In the golden sun. And the dawn demurely Going on its rounds With a silver mantle Decks again the boughs. 1913 All of poems on this site are very popular. May be they are also known all over the world. http://www.russianlegacy.com/en/go_to/culture/poetry/esenin.htmMaple bare of foliage, freezing in the snowstorm, Why are you bent over as the wind is blowing? Have you witnessed something? Have you heard some tidings? It's as if beyond the village you've gone striding. Like a drunken watchman, straying off the roadway, In a drift you tumbled, now your leg is frozen. I too am unsteady on my feet, I'm thinking, And I can't get home when I have been out drinking. Here I met a willow, there a pine I greeted, To a song of summer both of them I treated. I'd a feeling I too was a maple like you, Not a bare and bald one, but bright green and thriving. By both common sense and modesty deserted, In a lustful frenzy I embraced a birch-tree. 1925 I find that I play Chopin much better after I read poetry like that. (I know that Chopin was nationalist and did not like zarist Russia.) http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=UYfgNJK1HFw
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #782 on: 11:26:55, 07-09-2008 » |
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The Alchemist Chant for the transmutation of metals
What worries me is that having been listening to Pound reciting the Cantos, I now hear this poem with the same sort of rhythm. It's not my favourite flavour of Pound and I prefer what I see as his more conversational style, but it's very striking. I see that it's an early work from Ripostes in the Imagist/Vorticist period.
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #783 on: 11:45:07, 07-09-2008 » |
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Yesterday I was confused between Nickolai Gumilev and Lev Gumilev.
I decided that Lev Gumilev was Nickolai's father.
Today a friend told me that Lev Gumilev is the son of Gumilev and Achmatova. He taught history and Egyptology. The same friend used to attend his lectures in St. Petersburg many years ago. He liked his lectures very much.
Nicholai Gumilev A queer and fearful question is tight, Oppresses my soul and tosses: Can one be alive if Atreus has died -- Has died on a bed of roses.
All that we dreamed of and everywhere praised, All our longing and fear -- Were fully reflected in those calm eyes, As were in a glass of a tear.
Ineffable power dwelt in his hands, A saga of feet was retold; A beautiful cloud he was for his land Mycenae -- the country of gold.
What am I? A fragment of ancient dread, A javelin, fallen on earth -- Atreus, the leader of nations, is dead, -- But I have been spared by death.
The down is full with reproachful flame, The waters enticingly sing, It’s hard to exist with the horrible shame, If one had forfeited one's king.
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« Last Edit: 11:57:32, 07-09-2008 by trained-pianist »
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Ruby2
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« Reply #784 on: 13:45:30, 15-09-2008 » |
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I'm fully aware that I'll be preaching to several of the converted here but I'll press on in any case. Prompted recently by a discussion on here, I finally ordered a full copy of Tom Phillips' A Humument, which arrived this morning and I took it for lunch with me to enjoy with a bowl of soup (I found the bread more absorbent, incidentally.)
I'm already impressed with the poetry of some of it, and I don't know why that surprised me but never having seen very much of it close up, always as reproduced images on the net, I had always considered it to be art above poetry. Now I'm veering in the opposite direction. Take this for example:
for j--- and you , if you care England ;
here is art
reason under a ruined hat
and a little white opening out of thought
I think it reminds me of a couple of things. One is e e cummings, whose work I'm very fond of. Another is a little scrap of interest that I found a year or two ago, skimming through a rough book from school (I've no idea why). I had torn the corner off the page after some notes I'd make for an Art History essay and at a later date copied out what I could read through the torn corner. It read:
He is nothing but a bright library, a shelf of brick, his look arduous devotion.
...and it struck me as nicely poetic. I hadn't heard of A Humument at the time, although it had already been in print for about 10 years.
There's something comforting in the method I think. It's a way around the agonisingly vast options that face anyone trying to create anything vaguely artistic - by limiting yourself sometimes, you free yourself up - like evading writer's block. Does that make sense?
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"Two wrongs don't make a right. But three rights do make a left." - Rohan Candappa
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time_is_now
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« Reply #785 on: 01:59:33, 17-09-2008 » |
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Ode to the Spell Checker
Eye halve a spelling chequer It came with my pea sea It plainly marques four my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long And eye can put the error rite Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it I am shore your pleased two no Its letter perfect awl the weigh My chequer tolled me sew.
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #786 on: 02:20:27, 17-09-2008 » |
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My Poems...
My poems, written early, when I doubted that I could ever play the poet’s part, erupting, as though water from a fountain or sparks from a petard,
and rushing as though little demons, senseless, into a sanctuary, where incense spreads, my poems about death and adolescence, --that still remain unread! --
collecting dust in bookstores all this time, where no one comes to carry them away, my poems, like exquisite, precious wines, will have their day!
Marina Tsvetaeva
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« Last Edit: 07:38:06, 17-09-2008 by trained-pianist »
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Sydney Grew
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« Reply #787 on: 02:39:48, 17-09-2008 » |
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It seems to be rather a modern poem Madame Pianiste; its lines are so irregular! Can you tell us something about Mrs. Eldon?
Here is another one by the Reverend E. E. Bradford.
THE CHOICE
A fair young face, and a clean young heart-- Thank God, they are neither rare. You could see that lad was in every part As pure as he was fair.
Yet the only boy in the billiard room Where one was one too many, He wore no air of godly gloom, But laughed as loud as any.
But when alone, his lips uncurled And brushing away a tear, He cried, "If these are the ways of the world I'll take to your ways--dear."
The "dear" came slyly at the end, And made my heart rejoice: It seemed to sign him as my friend, And seal his final choice.
"If these," said he, "are the ways of the world"-- And his tones rang sharp and clear, "If these are the ways of men of the world I'll take to your ways, dear."
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #788 on: 08:26:59, 17-09-2008 » |
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You are absolutely correct, Mr. Sydney Grew. I know nothing about Mrs. Eldon and I did not really understand the poem I posted. I withdrew the poem and substituted it to a poem by M. Tsvetaeve. I know much more about this poet, than I will ever know about Mrs. Eldon. Tsvetaeva is one of my favourite Russian poets. I read number of books about her poetry and about her life. I have at least three books here with her poetry. Thank you for pointing it out to me.
While I was reading your beuatiful poem by Bradford I noticed that you have the following words at the end of your posts: "We are absolutely, i.e., we are absolutely BECAUSE we are; and are absolutely WHAT we are; both FOR THE SELF." (Fichte, 1795)
I know nothing about Fichte, but I was thinking a lot on the subject of this message. Also I remember reading a book about Kant where the subject was discussed. I like the quote very much. I disagree with the statement of the quote somewhat. Yes we are absolutely for the self, but we also have altruistic tendencies, we need companionship and stimulating friends, we need interactions with others, we learn from others and we teach them too.
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pim_derks
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« Reply #789 on: 20:45:24, 18-09-2008 » |
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We (!) wish to thank Mr Grew for remembering us of Edwin Emmanuel Bradford and Johann Gottlieb Fichte. "The Revd E. E. Bradford (1860-1944) wrote very funny poetry about young boys. John Betjeman used to read the risqué poems out loud, and make everybody laugh. He visited him in Norfolk. Bradford had been forced to move out of his vicarage when its foundations collapsed after he had attempted to dig a swimming pool too close to in in order that he might watch the village boys swimming from his dining room window. He had the appearance of an innocent old man with eyes like a little squirrel. He wore a frock coat and a top hat. Bradford's books were nearly all novels in verse centring around sentimental friendships between older men and boys. His name appeared in Auden's and MacNeice's Letters from Iceland, casually dropped in along with those of the greatest writers."John Betjeman, Letters, Volume One: 1926 to 1951, Edited and introduced by Candida Lycett Green (1994). I recently bought the 1927 yearbook of the Freien Deutschen Hochstifts (Frankfurt am Main) and in it I found an interesting essay by a Dr Friedrich Gundolf about the romantic works of Friedrich Schlegel. Dr Gundolf writes quite extensively about the relationship between the works of Schlegel and those of Fichte. According to the bookplate, this yearbook was once owned by Mr D. Giltay Veth, a well known judge in the Netherlands. He published a book on bookplates in 1950 and was co-author of the notorious Weinreb-report (I hope to publish a paper on this subject in the near future). Mr Giltay Veth's bookplate has a line from Goethe on it that I would like to quote: "Selbst erfinden ist schön, doch glücklich von andern Gefundnes fröhlich erkannt und geschätzt, nennst du das weniger dein?"I feel so happy now!
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #790 on: 07:32:10, 19-09-2008 » |
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Vysotsky is the most loved Russian bard. Here is his song from a movie. Everyone knows this song. People put words from it in their conversations.
A song about a friend
If your friend just became a man, Not a friend, not a foe,- just so, If you really can't tell from the start, If he's strong in his heart, - To the peaks take this man - don't fret! Do not leave him alone, on his own, Let him share the same view with you- Then you'll know if he's true. If the guy on the peak got weak, If he lost all his care - got scared, Took a step on the frost - got lost, Tripped and screamed in exhaust, - Then the one you held close is false, Do not bother to yell- expel, - We can't take such aboard, and in short We don't sing of his sort. If the guy didn't whine nor pine, He was dull and upset, but went, When you slipped from the cliff, He heaved, holding you in his grip; If he walked right along, seemed strong, On the top stood like he belonged, - Then, whenever the chances are slim You can count on him!
Translated by Andrey Kneller
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Turfan Fragment
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« Reply #791 on: 09:08:35, 19-09-2008 » |
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ottos mops trotzt otto fort mops fort ottos mops hopst fort otto soso
otto holt koks otto holt obst otto horcht otto mops mops otto hofft
ottos mops klopft otto komm mops komm ottos mops kommt ottos mops kotzt otto ogottogott
-Ernst Jandl
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #792 on: 09:22:46, 19-09-2008 » |
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Mayakovsky
I'd root out bureaucracy once and for ever. I have no respect for formalities. May every paper go to the devil But for this... A courteous official passes through The maze of compartments and halls. They hand in passports, And I, too, Hand in my red-skinned pass. Some passports arouse an obliging smile While others are treated as mud. Say, passports picturing the British Lion Are taken with special regard. A burly guy from the USA Is met with an exorbitant honor, They take his passport as if they Were taking a gift of money. The Polish passport makes them stare Like a sheep might stare at a Christmas tree: Where does it come from, this silly and queer Geographical discovery? Without trying to use their brains, Entirely dead to all feelings, They take quite coldly passports from Danes And other sorts of aliens. Suddenly, as if he had burnt his mouth, The official stood stock-still: It's my red passport fall this bound Into the hands of his majesty. He takes my pass, as if it were A bomb, a blade or those sorts of things, He takes it with extraordinary caution and scare As if it were a snake with dozens of stings. The porter meaningly bats his eyes Ready to serve me for free. The detective looks at the cop in surprise, The cop looks at him inquiringly. I know I'd be fiercely slashed and hanged By this gendarmerie caste Only because I have got in my hand This hammer-and-sickle pass. I'd root out bureaucracy once and for ever. I have no respect for formalities. May every paper go to the devil But for this... This little thing, so dear to me, I withdraw from my loose pantaloons, Read it and envy me: I happen to be A citizen of the Soviet Union. 1929
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #793 on: 23:55:59, 19-09-2008 » |
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Some Mina Loy to herald in the weekend.
Joyce's Ulysses
The Normal Monster sings in the Green Sahara
The voice and offal of the image of God
make Celtic noises in these lyrical hells
Hurricanes of reasoned musics reap the uncensored earth
The loquent consciousness of living things pours in torrential languages
The elderly colloquists the Spirit and the Flesh are out of tongue
The Spirit is impaled upon the phallus
Phoenix of Irish fires lighten the Occident
with Ireland's wings flap pandemoniums of Olympian prose
and satinize the imperial Rose of Gaelic perfumes - England the sadistic mother embraces Erin
Master of meteoric idiom present
The word made flesh and feeding upon itself with erudite fangs The sanguine introspection of the womb
Don Juan of Judea upon a pilgrimage to the Libido
The press purring its lullabies to sanity
Christ capitalized scourging incontrite usurers of destiny in hole and corner temples
And hang The soul's advertisements outside the ecclesiast's Zoo
A gravid day spawns gutteral gargoyles upon the Tower of Babel
Empyrean emporium where the rejector-recreator Joyce flashes the giant reflector on the sub rosa
Mina Loy
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #794 on: 04:59:35, 20-09-2008 » |
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SAYING GOOD-BYE TO THE MOUNTAINS To the bustle of streets, flow of cars, traffic blocks To city life we return, we come back, as it happens. We descend from the conquered high mountaintops And we leave our hearts, and we leave our hearts in the mountains. There is no use to argue about it, I have known for a very long time: There is one thing that's better than mountains, And it's mountains that we haven't climbed. Who would want to be left in the lurch, with no hopes? Who would want to give in, his heart disobeyin'? We descend from the conquered high mountaintops... Nothing doing: gods, too, used to come down from heaven. There is no use to argue about it, I have known for a very long time: There is one thing that's better than mountains, And it's mountains that we haven't climbed. Many beautiful songs, many hopes, words of love Are inspired by mountains, they eternally call us. Yet we have to descend, for a year or for life For we have to return from the mountains... always. There is no use to argue about it, I have known for a very long time: There is one thing that's better than mountains And it's mountains that we haven't climbed.
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« Last Edit: 14:23:52, 20-09-2008 by trained-pianist »
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