Poetry
- Thread starter jenks
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- austere paul auster living austerely baggy bumhole due to heroin each bush of memory conceals a sniper heraldic pigeon like a bat outta hell mess of pottage mixed biscuits is a version but he has clamydia mixed biscuits is a virgin but he has clamydia oaten cakes plain home-made cheese reality being too prickly for my lofty character someone put me on to a frenchman
Benny Bunter
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They both kind verge on the ridiculous at times, but get away with it. I suppose it mostly comes from the king james, really odd turns of phrase and archaic word choices mixed up with colloquial speech. There's still a lot of learning and knowledge behind it, but it's not refined in the way English lit had become by then - I think that's what Luka meant by 'artless'. Reading them side by side is really interesting.
Just flicking through song of myself again and there's examples on every page, stuff like
Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?
Just flicking through song of myself again and there's examples on every page, stuff like
Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?
Benny Bunter
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the artlessness is spelled out right at the beginning of song of myself:
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
Benny Bunter
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I must admit, when I first read Whitman I found it a bit stupid and embarrassing, but going back to it sometime later in the right mood I was blown away.
Benny Bunter
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I'll post some things up for you in a bit, but really it's not the kind of thing where you can pick out standouts, theres 3 or 4000 poems, and they're mostly really short.
It's funny with him, sometimes I'll read it and get absolutely nothing out of it, (it's like "Bird/tree/air/sky/cloud") and other times it catches me in the right mood and it produces an effect on me unlike anything else. You have to bring quite a lot of yourself to it cos it's so sparse, there are huge gaps your imagination has to fill in.
The selected poems I've got is called Calligraphy Typewriters, which is as good a description of what he did as you could get. You'll think Haiku, which isn't wrong, but it's not just that. It's colloquial and mundane and very American, but when it hits it's cosmic.
Benny Bunter
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Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, Lilacs elegy, As I ebbed with the ocean of life and Brooklyn ferry are all great too.
But i know what you mean, it's all there in song of myself. I haven't even bothered getting a copy of leaves of grass cos I've got those 5 in anthologies, and apparently he fell off really badly after those few early long poems?
Benny Bunter
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Benny Bunter
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Benny Bunter
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'from the sustaining air' is a beautiful line.
My favourite Spanish poet Jorge Guillen does this sort of thing a lot too.
Benny Bunter
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'The billow of august, i love it.
That last line is great though, an incompetent after all, especially considering his own particular condition. I think he's being ironic though cos he's fully aware he's a good poet and just written something awesome