luka

Well-known member
This is a bit like what we were talking about isn't it luka? Writing as a battleground for the self.

when i started talking about this you got scared and thought i was trying to indoctrinate you and immediately pretended you had a train to catch. ran off like a startled faun.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
THEY are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

BY T. S. ELIOT

I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

A cliche to say it, but Blake's poems are fascinating because they appear to be simple but always contain vexations and ambiguities. Here the one I fixed upon is the meaning of the culminating stanza. Is the Harlot's curse heard by the newborn Infant? Or is the Infant 'blighted', its innocence fatally compromised, merely by existing in the same world as Harlots (and poverty in general)?
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I was having one of my bi-monthly Lord of the Rings marathons this weekend and was half ashamed to be hipped to the power of prosody by the ring inscription (lit up ofc by Ian McKellen):

'One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them'

More beginner level stuff for me - recognising the power of the nasal 'find/bind' and 'darkness', the drone in 'rule - all', the forcefulness of that 'b' in 'bind'... Then I leafed through my prosody book and lay there for an hour making various noises with my mouth. 'th' with the teeth/tongue, 'n' with the nose and tongue, 'm' with the nose alone, and so on.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
And realising why some swear words are so potent

'FUCK'

a fricative 'f' (a consonant sound that is created by constricting the vocal tract, causing friction as the air passes through it) to open, which you can really extend by softly biting your bottom lip and then

can't really find out re: 'k' other than it being a 'voiceless velar stop' but obviously you can feel it coming from the tongue and the throat

and there's a similar thing going on with 'shit' - the extendable 'sh' through the teeth followed by the intensely articulated 't'
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I wonder if this is one reason why the word 'cunt' is so taboo - beginning more violently than 'shit' or 'fuck' with that 'k' sound (the 't' is less stressed)... OTOH, of course the word 'cock' is less taboo, so obviously there's something to do with it being about the female anatomy.
 

luka

Well-known member
mental/emotional/psychic manuveres and gymnastics that free up space and and energy and give rise to new found abilities


solutions to mental/emotional/psychic conundrums/sphinx-riddles/gordian knots


ways to increase the sphere of awareness

ways to become more open and engaged, to make inner and outer worlds brighter, more complex, more intense


new, better and more interesting ways to model reality. new ways to organise and interpret the data
 

luka

Well-known member
it's very clear. much clearer than all that fussing about with the exterior shell you insist on doing.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Talk to me about Cavafy, Luka.

I like him a lot, but the guy was just a tad depressed, at least during World War I (understandable). Maybe he got happier afterwards, maybe there's a happy ending? I'll read on to find out.
 

luka

Well-known member
i'm not an expert by any means. ive read him and enjoyed what ive read but 'waiting for the barbarians' is the only one that became part of my mental furniture. which book have you got?
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I've got a book of his collected poems (Oxford's World Classics) - he tends to write in easily digestible chunks, so good for reading a few a day.

One thing that interests me is the relative transparency of the initial meanings in his work, as compared to many other modernist-type poets. I don't mind that at all personally, but it really stands out. He's obsessed with nostalgia and memory - there's probably a glaring biographical reason

SINCE NINE O'CLOCK

Half past twelve. The hours have passed quickly
since nine o'clock when I lit the lamp
and sat down ,here. I've been sitting without reading,
without talking. To whom could I talk,
all alone within this house!

The image of my young body,
since nine o'clock when I lit the lamp,
came and found me and reminded me
of closed, perfumed rooms
and past sensual pleasure-what audacious pleasure!
And also brought before my eyes
streets that have since become unrecognizable;
night clubs full of life that now are closed,
and theatres and cafes that once used to be.

The image of my young body
came back and brought to mind also sad memories;
family mournings, separations,
feelings of my dear ones, feelings
of the dead, so little appreciated.

Half past twelve. How the hours have passed.
Half past twelve. How have the years gone by.
 
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luka

Well-known member
hes a good poet. good generation of greeks. ritsos, seferis and elytis worth checking out too.
 

jenks

thread death
I like him a lot - I like the way eh overlays the ancient and modern - makes the ancients modern to us - Antony, the countless satraps and tyrnats from the classical world. Also, more importantly probably is that they are often very beautiful.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Have to say that poem does little for me from either a formal or intellectual perspective - which isn't to say that it hasn't got these things to offer, I just am struggling to see it. I'm sure it's altogether too subtle.

To quote Foreigner, 'I want you to show me'.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Oh is it translated?

Makes a bit more sense now. Reminds me of the tone I encountered in Fagles translation of 'Oedipus Rex'.
 

luka

Well-known member
Have to say that poem does little for me from either a formal or intellectual perspective - which isn't to say that it hasn't got these things to offer, I just am struggling to see it. I'm sure it's altogether too subtle.

To quote Foreigner, 'I want you to show me'.

if i read it closely i might come back and disagree with myself but i dont think it is about form or intellect as much as it is about mood, atmosphere and emotion.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Never having had much access to perfurmed rooms and sensusal pleasures perhaps I just can't relate

compare Larkin's poem about wanking at ten past three
 
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