Poetry Corner

THE SATURDAY POEM

By Michael Rosen

 

MIND

 

I don't mind waiting

I do mind being told I'm waiting

I don't mind good news

I do mind being told which news is good

I don't mind being told that people are happy

I do mind being told that I'm happy

I don't mind that people like a newborn baby

I do mind being told that I like a newborn baby

I don't mind that people like doing their family tree

I do mind being told that I like their family tree

I don't mind being rained over

I do mind being reigned over.

 

(Source Review Saturday Guardian 27.07,13)

Now what do you make of this?

 

 

POEM FOR A VERY HOT DAY

THE  ICE  CART

 

Perched on my city office stool,

I watched with envy, while a cool

And lucky carter handled ice . . .

And I was wandering in a trice,

Far from the grey and grimy heat

Of that intolerable street,

O'er a sapphire berg and emerald floe,

Beneath the still, cold ruby glow

Of everlasting Polar night,

Bewildered by the queer half-light,

Until I stumbled, unawares,

Upon a creek where big white bears

Plunged headlong down with flourished heels

And floundered after shining seals

Through shivering seas of blinding blue.

And as I watched them, ere I knew,

I'd stripped, and I was swimming too,

Among the seal-packs, young and hale,

And thrusting on with threshing tail,

With twist and twirl and sudden leap

Through crackling ice and salty deep - -

Diving and doubling with my kind,

Until, at last, we left behind

Those big, white, blundering bulks of death,.

And lay, at length, with panting breath

Upon  a far untraveled floe,

Beneath a gentle drift of snow - -

Snow drifting gently, fine and white,

Out of the endless Polar night,

Falling and falling evermore

Upon that far untraveled shore,

Til I was buried fathoms deep

Beneath the cold white drifting sleep - -

Sleep drifting deep,

Deep drifting sleep . . . . .

The carter cracked a sudden whip:

I clutched my stool with startled grip.

Awakening to the grimy heat

Of that intolerable street.

 

                  -Wilfred Gibson

 

 Read it out loud and feel the beauty or listen to it here

 

 

 

RUPERT BROOK

THE OLD VICARAGE GRANTCHESTER

 

Ah God! to see the branches stir

Across the moon at Grantchester!

To smell the thrilling - sweet and rotten,

Unforgettable, unforgotten

River-smell, and hear the breeze

Sobbing in the little trees.

Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand,

Still guardians of that holy land?

The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream,

The yet unacademic stream?

Is dawn a secret shy and cold

Anadyomene, silver gold?

An sunset still a golden sea

From Haslingfield to Madingley?

And after, ere the night is born.

Do hares come out about the corn?

Oh, is the water sweet and cool,

Gentle and brown, above the pool?

And laughs the immortal river still

Under the mill, under the mill?

Say, is there beauty yet to find?

And Certainty? and Quiet kind?

Deep meadows yet, for to forget

The lies, and truths, and pain/ ... oh! yet

Stands the Church clock at ten to three?

And is there honey still for tea?

 

(An extract of a wonderful poem which I am sure you will agree)

 

Note: That images can classified according to the sense to which they are directed;

 

sound; sight;  (colour or shape images); taste; smell; touch (colour or shape images); movement (kinaesthetic images). This poem provides examples of each of these.

I hope you will spot them.

 

(Source: The Criticism of Poetry Second Edition. S.H. Burton

Publ Longman p99 

 

 

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Old Man Travelling; Animal Tranquility and Decay

A Sketch c. 1795

 

In Lyrical Ballads   1798

 

The little hedge-row birds,

That peck along the road, regard him not,

He travels on, and in his face, his step,

His gait, is one expression; every limb,

His look and bending figure, all bespeak

A man who does not move with pain, but moves

With thought - He is insensibly subdued

To settled quiet: he is one by whom

All effort forgotten, one to whom

Long patience has such mild composure given,

That patience now doth seem a thing, of which

He hath no need. He is by nature led

To peace so perfect, that the young behold

With envy, what the old man hardly feels.

--I ask him whither he was bound, and what

The object of his journey; he replied

"Sir! I am going many miles to take

A last leave of my son, a mariner,

Who from a sea-fight has been brought to Falmouth,

And there is dying in an hospital.'

 

To listen to this poem click here

 

(Source: 1775-1830 REVOLUTIONS

Edited by Merryn Williams - The Open University  Press p 267