Getting into reading some poetry.

The last couple of deaths in my family (bro-in-law and father) have prompted me to write something about them. I've surprised myself by doing that. I think what I wrote isn't bad but I doubt I would post it here.

BUT there's a national poetry competition on at the mo - deadline is end of October - I might just stick one in - only costs £7. I'd urge some people here to have a go as there is clearly some talent here.

Anyhow doing that has got me interested in poetry - something I hated as a kid in school.

Some of the stuff I have read is incredibly dense - it's a superb medium. Probably my favourite at the minute. There isn't a filler word in good poetry and that appeals to me.

I enjoyed creative writing when I was a kid in school ; despite the fact I didn't like poetry. Loved the short story - something I still admire.

That was lost in my higher education trying to get into IT - which I did - but at the cost of losing that love. Funny how these things come back to you.

Anyhow reading some fellow N.I. man's work Seamus Heaney at the minute. He wrote this stuff in the 70s after moving out of Belfast (which was pretty violent at the time) to the sticks.


Badgers

When the badger glimmered away
into another garden
you stood, half-lit with whiskey,
sensing you had disturbed
some soft returning.

The murdered dead,
you thought.
But could it not have been
some violent shattered boy
nosing out what got mislaid
between the cradle and the explosion,
evenings when windows stood open
and the compost smoked down the backs?

Visitations are taken for signs.
At a second house I listened
for duntings under the laurels
and heard intimations whispered
about being vaguely honoured.

And to read even by carcasses
the badgers have come back.
One that grew notorious
lay untouched by the roadside.
Last night one had me braking 
but more in fear than in honour.

Cool from the sett and redolent
of his runs under the night,
the bogey of fern country
broke cover in me
for what he is:
pig family
and not at all what he's painted.

How perilous is it to choose
not to love the life we're shown?
His sturdy dirty body
and interloping grovel.
The intelligence in  his bone.
The unquestionable houseboy's shoulders
that could have been my own.

davyK wrote:

Getting into reading some poetry.

The last couple of deaths in my family (bro-in-law and father) have prompted me to write something about them. I've surprised myself by doing that. I think what I wrote isn't bad but I doubt I would post it here.

BUT there's a national poetry competition on at the mo - deadline is end of October - I might just stick one in.

Come on, davy, share with the group!

This thread got bumped, it's time for more of my lord e e cummings (no caps as he would have appreciated)

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

tigerswiftly wrote:

Incredibly impressed with your daughter's words, Tin. You must be proud.

I am, yes.

Thanks to all for your kind words.