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YouLookFab Forum » Topic: OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by? https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by Style Advice for Fashion Lovers en-US Fri, 24 Apr 2026 08:04:07 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 <![CDATA[Search]]> q https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/search.php Michelle on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by/page/2#post-575954 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:56:57 +0000 Michelle 575954@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Oh Bella, I love "If," even though there's so mucha bout Kipling that doesn't sit right with me. That poem is a very notable exception. Thanks for posting it! Manadipa, I bow before your intellect. christieanne on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by/page/2#post-575770 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:05:10 +0000 christieanne 575770@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ My reading list just grew exponentially through this post! I was a poetry major in college (before switching to history and public health - none useful for actual post graduate employment but very useful for lifelong diversion or Trivia Pursuit) and keep some books by my bed for late night/fitful sleep times. I like to read published journals of favorite poets actually. To see their process and how they shuffle poetry and the "real world". May Sarton (who through her journal turned me on to Auden - amazing) and Wallace Stevens have incredible letters and journals. Been reading and watching some Civil War period topics and writers lately - Alcott, Whitman, Ken Burns documentary so Stephan Crane is perfect to do next. Library time! rae on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by/page/2#post-575742 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:19:51 +0000 rae 575742@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Hehe, yes, I don't want that -- plagiarism is the kiss of death! I'm afraid my own stuff is pretty negative, lol. ManidipaM on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by/page/2#post-575722 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:49:46 +0000 ManidipaM 575722@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Yay, Rae --- never too late for good verse! But really, you should've submitted your own song! We hold you poets to higher standards of anti-plagiarism, you know rae on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by/page/2#post-575709 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:40:59 +0000 rae 575709@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Darn it, I missed World Poetry Day! I loved reading all these; I used to write and read poetry all the time, and this really takes me back. If you will allow a belated entry, this is not a poem about fashion per se, but it encapsulates my approach pretty well - and it did inspire the title of a recent WIW post. Frome Stephen Crane's "Black Riders": In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, "Is it good, friend?" "It is bitter -- bitter," he answered; "But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart." ManidipaM on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by/page/2#post-575699 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:31:30 +0000 ManidipaM 575699@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Bella, funny you chose that poem and then mentioned translation! A couple of the poems in Indian Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's award-winning volume actually very similar in style and sentiment to Kipling's 'If'. Interestingly, in their personal lives, Kipling and Tagore disagreed pretty fiercely on political positions; yet many a critic has drawn parallels between 'If' and these particular poems: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekla_Chalo_Re" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekla_Chalo_Re</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitto_Jetha_Bhayshunyo" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....Bhayshunyo</a> Tagore of course wrote originally in Bengali (happens to be my mother tongue, making life much easier and richer in this case); but he won the Nobel for the English translations (or rather, transliterations) he penned himself. Both versions appear in the wikipedia links. I was recently in Shanghai, where I was startled to be invited to a Tagore evening --- I met the lady you had translated Tagore into Mandarin, and heard readings and plays in Chinese, English, and offered the Bengali myself! It was fascinating to hear from one young lady, sent to boarding school as young as four --- much younger than her peers, so oft neglected and perhaps pushed around, a little bullied by the 'big girls' --- talk of how at the age of six, her father's gift of the Chinese translation of the Gitanjali gave her courage at night! One of the subjects I studied at university was comparative literature. We read Spanish, German, French and Italian writers; several African authors but not enough Scandinavian; some ancient Indian Sanskrit (dead language now) texts as well as modern Hindi. So while I'm cognizant of the difficulties, I also readily grasp that translated literature is art in its own right as well. Good thing too --- in a nation like ours, with so many languages (1,652 per the census in the middle of the last century!), it is imperative for communication. I can read Tagore in the original, but Kirti, Sunita, Una or Sona (if they have a knowledge of other Indian languages, I don't actually know) might be privileged to read different canonical classics --- and the only way for us to share each other's wealth is through Hindi and even more comfortably English (a foreign language!) translations. Isn't that stupendous? It's certainly not ideal, but it is far more enriching than if I had to learn 1652 languages, and then some to appreciate great literature. If you will accept it, I would draw a parallel with food. The Chinese street foods of India and the Chinese takeaways of the US are worlds apart from each other and from mainland China --- but one can't but acknowledge they are informed by Chinese heritage, and enjoyable precisely because of that unique bouquet of textures, flavours and techniques. Likewise with literature I think --- much is lost in translation; yet it is its own achievement. bella on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-575675 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:06:49 +0000 bella 575675@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ This is a great and I am late to the party. But I want to chime in. It was great to hear about the original story of the Auden poem, thanks for the info. I think it is a beautiful poem and 4 weddings and a funeral is one of my favorite romantic comedies - intelligent writing and great acting. I love the funeral scene. My favorite english poem is "If" by Rudyard Kipling: If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream - and not make dreams your master, If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son! Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) I find poetry the art form that is the most intertwined with the language, hence reading translated poetry immensely difficult. what are your thoughts on that? ManidipaM on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-575583 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:03:54 +0000 ManidipaM 575583@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Indeed, the original five-verse version of 'Funeral Blues', first written in 1936, was part of a verse play that Auden wrote with Christopher Isherwood. It was intended as a parody of the excesses of public mourning for a statesman (imagine a modern poet satirizing the outpouring of grief at Princess Diana's death --- really hits home, doesn't it?). However, he then went on to change the last three verses, and the final four-verse poem here is actually seriously intended as a lover's lament. Yet I've often wondered if the reading of it in Four Weddings isn't intended by the character --- quite a maverick himself --- to be initially ironic and therefore all the more poignant because heartfelt. (Sorry, I'm expressing this very badly --- but I mean to say there is, I suspect, an acknowledgement of the exaggeration and wit the first two verses embody, and the transcendence to genuine emotion, because we have also been shown very playful personas and a lightheartedness to the characters' relationship). [AND so... we're dissecting poetry on YLF! Gotta love the richness of this forum!] Michelle on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-575568 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:47:51 +0000 Michelle 575568@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ I remember reading somewhere once that the Auden poem, which is called Funeral Blues, was written as a satire to send up obituaries of the time. It's so hard to believe, since it's so beautiful and feels so heart-felt. Anyone who hasn't seen Four Weddings and a Funeral should do so just for the scene involving this poem. Meredith1953 on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-575551 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:00:03 +0000 Meredith1953 575551@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ @Sunita, I always think of the same poem by Auden you quoted when my father died 10 years ago. It is lovely. Meredith1953 on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-575547 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 11:58:41 +0000 Meredith1953 575547@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ One of my favorite poems is "Warning to Children" by Robert Graves. Children, if you dare to think Of the greatness, rareness, muchness Fewness of this precious only Endless world in which you say You live, you think of things like this: Blocks of slate enclosing dappled Red and green, enclosing tawny Yellow nets, enclosing white And black acres of dominoes, Where a neat brown paper parcel Tempts you to untie the string. In the parcel a small island, On the island a large tree, On the tree a husky fruit. Strip the husk and pare the rind off: In the kernel you will see Blocks of slate enclosed by dappled Red and green, enclosed by tawny Yellow nets, enclosed by white And black acres of dominoes, Where the same brown paper parcel - Children, leave the string alone! For who dares undo the parcel Finds himself at once inside it, On the island, in the fruit, Blocks of slate about his head, Finds himself enclosed by dappled Green and red, enclosed by yellow Tawny nets, enclosed by black And white acres of dominoes, With the same brown paper parcel Still untied upon his knee. And, if he then should dare to think Of the fewness, muchness, rareness, Greatness of this endless only Precious world in which he says he lives - he then unties the string ManidipaM on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-575472 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 06:47:21 +0000 ManidipaM 575472@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Michelle, that is SO beautifully poignant. Thanks for sharing! Michelle on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-575439 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 04:57:50 +0000 Michelle 575439@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ I love this thread to bits, manadipa! It gave me a chance to read some wonderful verses here, some of which are new and some old friends. It also got me lost in the wonderful world of Louis MacNeice, whose work I just adore. I had such a hard time picking one to include on this thread, but finally settled on this one: The Sunlight on the Garden The sunlight on the garden Hardens and grows cold, We cannot cage the minute Within its nets of gold; When all is told We cannot beg for pardon. Our freedom as free lances Advances towards its end; The earth compels, upon it Sonnets and birds descend; And soon, my friend, We shall have no time for dances. The sky was good for flying Defying the church bells And every evil iron Siren and what it tells: The earth compels, We are dying, Egypt, dying And not expecting pardon, Hardened in heart anew, But glad to have sat under Thunder and rain with you, And grateful too For sunlight on the garden. ManidipaM on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-575415 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 04:13:16 +0000 ManidipaM 575415@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Inge, what a brilliant, brilliant idea for cultural tourism! Whyever did they stop?? So very beautiful. Fruitful on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-575132 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:06:11 +0000 Fruitful 575132@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Inge, what a wonderful thing for a city to do! Inge on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-575078 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 23:33:24 +0000 Inge 575078@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ I think the Book Club category is the perfect spot for this, Manidipa. And thanks for starting this thread in honour of World Poetry Day, love it! I'm really loving a few poems by Belgian writer Dimitri Verhulst. They're in Dutch though, so I'll share a lovely initiative instead: for a number of years several Belgian cities used to do a "poetry walking tour". Poems by renowned and beginning writers were integrated into the city landscape (often near museums, statues and other tourist attractions). Each year had a different theme, and you could stroll around the city reading all the poems at leisure. Fruitful on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-574405 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 05:53:34 +0000 Fruitful 574405@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Anne, thanks, it wasn't there I heard it - I'm still trying to figure it out! ^_^ May there always be sun May there always be sky May there always be mama May there always be I. anne on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-574400 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 05:28:45 +0000 anne 574400@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ It was in the funeral scene in Four weddings and a funeral - but I think they read the whole poem then. Fruitful on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-574396 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 05:24:25 +0000 Fruitful 574396@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Enjoying all the poems, thankyou Manidipa <3 And I'm going crazy now because I recently heard the last verse of the Auden poem somewhere and I didn't then realise it was a quote. Wracking my brains... anne on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-574389 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 05:15:34 +0000 anne 574389@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ As a mum I read lost of nursery rhymes and here are 2 fragments (one I was reading this morning in DD's classroom) that appeal to me from the point of view of how they sound, rather than the meaning Little boy blue come blow your horn the sheeps in the meadow the cows in the corn and Over in the meadow In the sand in the sun, lived an Old mother turtle and her Little turtle one. "Dig," said the mother, "I dig," said the one, and they Dug all day in the sand in the sun. Both of them seem so evocative of enjoying of the sunshine love reading the thread and those you have posted ManidipaM on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-574383 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 05:01:11 +0000 ManidipaM 574383@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ "Believe me when I say it was beautiful." Diana, I do. It is. So stirring. Diana on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-574366 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 04:33:57 +0000 Diana 574366@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ A little late, but here is one of my favorites: LOVE —Miroslav Holub Two thousand cigarettes. A hundred miles from wall to wall. An eternity and a half of vigils blanker than snow. Tons of words old as the tracks of a platypus in the sand. A hundred books we didn't write. A hundred pyramids we didn't build. Sweepings. Dust. Bitter as the beginning of the world. Believe me when I say it was beautiful. ManidipaM on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-574364 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 04:30:13 +0000 ManidipaM 574364@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Christie Anne, that is so beautiful! Thank you. I hadn't read Oppen before, so now I have a new poet to look up :-) And a high-five on the Wallace Stevens too. Love! christieanne on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-574360 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 04:26:21 +0000 christieanne 574360@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ The Forms of Love but George Oppen Parked in the fields All night So many years ago, We saw A lake beside us When the moon rose. I remember Leaving that ancient car Together. I remember Standing in the white grass Beside it. We groped Our way together Downhill in the bright Incredible light Beginning to wonder Whether it could be lake Or fog We saw, our heads Ringing under the stars we walked To where it would have wet our feet Had it been water (My other favorite is Wallace Stevens - 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird) ManidipaM on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-574315 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 03:29:35 +0000 ManidipaM 574315@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Sunita, high five! I LOVE that poem so much! Angie: Ha, ha, I wonder if *that* can be worked into my (MIA) style direction! Sunita on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-574212 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 01:48:34 +0000 Sunita 574212@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ This one is quite somber, but it really pulls at me and won't let go... Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone W. H. Auden Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good. Angie on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-574200 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 01:42:42 +0000 Angie 574200@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Manidipa, YOU are a poet Laurinda on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-574133 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:47:34 +0000 Laurinda 574133@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ What a wonderful thread to celebrate poetry day! (I'm hoping some of the evening posters might want to add a verse jayne on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-573607 Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:00:30 +0000 jayne 573607@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ What a great thread! thanks for starting it ManidipaM on "OT: Poetry you (s)Wear by?" https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/ot-poetry-you-swear-by#post-573566 Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:29:27 +0000 ManidipaM 573566@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ Lyn, I've always been stirred by the sense of foreboding Frost brings to those 'lovely' woods, right alongside the longing. Used to be one of my favourites too! Laurinda, that is so powerful! Such a stunning opener: 'You do not have to be good.' I hadn't read this before, so thank you so much for sharing! And I've got yet another one (not a fashion-related one this time)! A friend of mine from a different forum sent me this: The Word By Tony Hoagland *** Down near the bottom of the crossed-out list of things you have to do today, between “green thread” and “broccoli” you find that you have penciled “sunlight.” Resting on the page, the word is as beautiful, it touches you as if you had a friend and sunlight were a present he had sent you from some place distant as this morning—to cheer you up, and to remind you that, among your duties, pleasure is a thing, that also needs accomplishing Do you remember? that time and light are kinds of love, and love is no less practical than a coffee grinder or a safe spare tire? Tomorrow you may be utterly without a clue but today you get a telegram, from the heart in exile proclaiming that the kingdom still exists, the king and queen alive, still speaking to their children, —to any one among them who can find the time, to sit out in the sun and listen. *** A very apt reminder for me today, because I was a little scattered and overwhelmed this morning