Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with poetry

Poetry about new beginnings, new friendship?

archofatlas — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:29:12 -0800

I want to inscribe a book of poetry with a short poem, one about new beginnings, new friendship, possibly new love - something romantic is fine, but I'd prefer something not overly sentimental. Any suggestions?

Let's go to the (alternative) video tape:

bobbyno — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:57:49 -0800

What was that poem Jim Carroll recited on the music videos by mail tape? My family didn't have cable and I once had a subscription to a music-videos by mail service. You chose your favorite genre (mine was "alternative") and they'd mail a tape to you every month with 9 or so videos. (Bonus question: what the heck was the name of that service? Sometimes I wonder if I dreamed it.)

One month, there was this cool video of Jim Carroll walking around reciting a poem. I can't dig it up on the web. All I remember is that he was talking about a women (I think) and I said, "I tried. I tried." a few times, emphatically. Anyone know what poem this was, and better yet, where I can see this clip? It wasn't a poetry reading, it was made sort of like a music video.

Thank you!

Looking for writing similar to Wendy Cope and Dorothy Parker

whats-in-a-name — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 11:50:46 -0800

Please recommend some witty poetry and/or prose in the same vein as Dorothy Parker and Wendy Cope!

Woof.

corn_bread — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:39:20 -0800

Please share your favorite poems/quotations about man's love for dog(s).

Online publishing for poetry chapbook

Astro Zombie — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:12:42 -0800

Looking to self-publish a small poetry chapbook. Anybody got recommendations for online sites that will do this for me? I am looking to have hard copies I can sell at readings, rather than have people order from the Web.

where can i find new poetry?

anya32 — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 07:52:57 -0800

i am looking for some new poetry/poet recommendations. i love nikki giovanni, sharon olds, mary oliver, ee cummings, adrienne rich, neruda. i'm looking for new pieces that talk about love, friendship, connection, growth, new beginnings, hope. a broad range of topics. i have found it difficult to find new poets and works, even though i have discovered some treasures by randomly searching the poetry foundation website, by searching online and by attempting to pick up random books in the bookstore.

any suggestions that you may have, whether uber-romantic, comical, would be appreciated. i am not looking for super cheesy stuff though. have plenty of that in my journals from high school and college.

thanks so much!
anya

Poetry to help me through my first breakup.

yaymukund — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:13:48 -0800

What poetry has brought you comfort after a breakup? It was my first relationship, she broke up with me, but I think it was for the best. Derek Walcott's Love After Love really resonates with what I'm feeling right now. Nothing depressing or bitter, please. Thanks, Metafilter.

What is this poem about servants to the rich and drunk?

Dojie — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 08:19:25 -0800

Poemfilter: Trying to remember a poem I memorized at the last second and almost instantly forgot for an assignment in 10th grade. In my fuzzy recollection, it was about some servants going about their morning routine while their Gatsbyesque employers slept it off. I remember thinking at the time that the hangover theme made it a rather odd choice for a high school English textbook. The opening lines were something along the lines of:

Having come in late and crashed the car door on the front gate,
Their young masters would not, they supposed, be coming down.

I thought for ages that it was Robert Lowell, but it doesn't appear to be one of his. I'm fairly certain the author's name was similar though - maybe Robert or Richard something.

Caged beast poem

fearfulsymmetry — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:55:17 -0800

Trying to track down a poem I remember reading at school. It was set in a zoo and contrasted the majority of the animals who had given into their fate and just lazed in the sun with one creature (some sort of big cat, I think) that, to the writer of the poem, still seemed to be wild, pacing its cage, not surrendering to its situation. Google is failing me. (It's not the Panther by Rilke)

Abraham Lincoln is tired in this poem.

Slap Factory — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:03:18 -0800

PoemFilter: They exhumed the bones of Lincoln in order to re-inter him elsewhere, and the former president spoke of being tired, tired of the packing and unpacking and packing again. Do you know the poem? I recall reading many years ago a poem that was written by a witness to the final exhumation of Lincoln's body, which occurred during the process of moving his grave. The author recounts a soliloquy by Lincoln, during which he says that he is tired. It has been thirty years since I read the poem, but I would love to share it with my own children if I can find it.

Does it ring a bell for anyone?

Audio of Geoffrey Hill's "Mercian Hymns"?

everichon — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:02:23 -0800

I am looking for an audio recording of Geoffrey Hill reading his Mercian Hymns. It's proving harder than I thought it would; I guess I am hoping someone has some sort of "inside" academic resources that aren't internet-apparent, or for some other kind of AskMe magic. I would happily pay for said recording.

What is it about love that makes we want to spew poetry?

nikkorizz — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:46:22 -0800

What is is about love that makes me want to spew poetry? I don't do poetry. Or at least I didn't. I've been in love for a while, but it was only recently I found out that the person I've been pining after all this time has the same feelings for me. This makes me so incredibly happy and now the only thing that seems to come out of my mouth or on paper is poetry and art.

Why do I want to write poetry now, especially if I suck at it?

I also want to bake cookies, knit scarves, compose music, dance and/or sing, all for this person. I suck at all these things. What gives?

I'm a poet and no one knows it!

the matching mole — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:06:02 -0800

Which web site is best for self-publishing poetry? Twenty years ago I finished a degree in creative writing, focused on poetry. I continue to write poetry, but I haven't done anything with it. It's scattered in notebooks, computer files, and napkins. I need to gather it, encapsulate it, and move on to the next thing. I want to have the satisfaction of closure -- and the sense of accomplishment that a book would give me.

I'm not looking to be the next Billy Collins, and I'm not particularly interested in finding a publisher (yet), but it'd be nice to have a pretty little book with an artsy cover I could sell for a few bucks or give to close friends.

I'm looking for something I can do online. Putting all the poetry into a PDF or Word doc, or submitting digital artwork is not a problem.

There are quite a few web sites that offer this service. Which one's the best for me? Have you done something like this? Please tell me about it!

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors ...

jammy — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 07:25:07 -0800

Tell me of your favorite poem to welcome the autumn. This Tuesday, September 22nd, is the Autumn Equinox. I like to read & learn of new poems whenever a new season turns, and then share them with my family & friends.

So! Tell me of your favorite poem to welcome the autumn. As with a similar question previously, it doesn't have to be about autumn directly - themes of harvest & feasting, of balance, of memory & remembrance, etc., are all welcome. For example, Rainer Maria Rilke's Sunset is a poem that powerfully evokes autumn for me.

Help me remember a poem about character and leadership.

BirdD0g — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:09:07 -0800

I'm trying to remember a poem I read about a man's character. Or was it about leadership? This is super annoying because I can't remember anything specific about the poem. Here's what I think I remember:

- I believe it was by someone relatively well-known, but I don't think the poet was still alive
- The language used was pretty close to modern day English language, upfront, and easy to understand
- I'd guess it was about 250 words, more than a couple stanzas but not really long

As for content (and take this as a very loose description), it was about doing what you believe is right even when you have doubters and skeptics and people attacking you. Trying your best, fighting your fight, and resting confident that your tried your best.

I can try to answer any questions you have, but seeing as I can't remember a single specific line, I've got very little to offer.

Can you take a screenshot of Wong Kar Wai's Days of Being Wild for my book cover?

johnasdf — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:12:27 -0800

Wong Kar-Wai Screenshot Poetry Emergency! Can you make a high-resolution screenshot today or tmw from Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Being Wild so I can use it for the cover of my debut poetry book? (Or got any tricks for increasing the print resolution of a low-resolution image, which I know is impossible?) My poetry collection Juvenilia is coming out from Yale University Press next year. I've gotten permission from KINO, the US distributor of Wong Kar Wai's 1990 film Days of Being Wild for the cover of my book. I specifically want this image at the end, where Leslie Cheung is walking away from the house of his estranged mother and wandering off on this forest road into the future; it seemed like a very fitting image, and doesn't imply a specific narrative separate from my book since his back is to the camera, for a book called Juvenilia.

I took a screenshot, a Tiff file that you can see here, but it's too low resolution: the press says that if they print it out, it ends up being only about two-inches by two-inches. Because they're sending out their catalog soon, they need me to send them a higher resolution version of the same image ASAP--and I just flew to California, where I don't have my mac or any of my DVDs.

This may be a long shot, but: do any of you own this DVD and would it be possible for you to somehow take a higher resolution screenshot and send it to me? Is it even the case that a new screenshot would be better than the one I already have?

Alternately, is there a way to take what I already have and somehow up the resolution? I know there are scaling softwares that fake higher resolution (like this), but do these actually work? I've also thought about other ways to solve this program, such as using a filter or vectorizing the art to make the resolution issue moot (but how to do it w/o it looking cheesy?) or by actually recreating the shot myself (not enough time; not a good enough photographer). In case you're wondering, the Press and Kino can't really offer much more help on this.

I've lost a poem I loved.

woot — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:24:33 -0800

[NewYorkerPoetryFilter] Sometime in the 1990s, the New Yorker published a poem of several verses consisting of the same lines in different order. Please help me find it. It was one of the most extraordinary things I've ever read, both for its content as well as the sheer brilliance of the structure. I recall perhaps five or six verses, each one eight or ten lines long or so. After the first verse, the second verse consisted of the same lines rearranged, with the addition of one new line. This pattern continued, to where the final verse re-introduced lines from the first. Despite the rigorous structure, the poem grew and evolved and was beautiful. I would love to find it again, and know who wrote it, and see what else he (and I believe the author was a man) has done. I've tried Googling but with no recall of the words or the author, I've struck out. Please, hive mind, help me find this beauty.

How do I start a poetry group at work?

zooropa — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:25:37 -0800

How do I start a poetry circle at my company? I just purchased a new book called Leading from Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead. Originally, I bought it to read and inspire myself at work. Now, as I go deeper into it, I'm thinking this would be a terrific thing to do with other people at work.

Does anyone have ideas or thoughts on how to start a poetry reading group? Obviously, I would perfer thoughts on how to start one at work, but I'll take general poetry circles at this point. Do multiple read a poem or does one person? Do you ask people to share their own? Do you ask them to read it aloud or to themselves? What kind of questions are good to start conversation?

Please bear in mind, I'm not trying to start a prayer or meditation circle. I work for a media agency and it's difficult to keep the bigger picture in mind as we rush from project to project. My goal is to bring people together for 45 minutes one day a month where we read poetry together as a way of recharging our creative batteries.

Your thoughts and recommendations are more than welcome.

Poems of direct address?

Ambrosia Voyeur — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:16:06 -0800

What are some good poems to read aloud, that take the form of direct address? Something about the specific nature of address comes easily to me in performance, and I am looking for poems to read which thus allow me to inhabit the speaker in that particular way. "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath, and "To a Mouse" by Robert Burns were really fun for me to perform, for example.

Power to the beats

litleozy — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:04:59 -0800

I have no/little rhythm and I need to find some. Occasionally, I write. And some times I write poetry (yes you can all run away now, it's fine). Thing is, I've never gotten the hang of how iambic pentameter or its siblings actually work: I generally just scan what I've written and see if it flows, which works to an extent. But more and more I feel like I need to get the basics of rhythm nailed, like how you can see the beats in a line or how to see if a line is lopsided.

So basically it's two questions: how can I recognise the beats in a line and how can I improve my sense of rhythm.

Any suggestions?

(let me put it like this: I played an instrument for a long while and got pretty good at it, but it was always following the tune and mucking around with that rather than having a clear notion of where the beats lay. It works, but leaves you a bit handicapped. Sort of the same thing when I write)

Like Sugar and Halva

thegreatfleecircus — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:35:38 -0800

I've been asked to read a Persian poem for a friend's Persian/Taiwanese wedding, and I am beginning to panic as the date approaches. I can speak and understand some rudimentary Farsi, but that is not helping me very much in my search. I would love to read a fantastic poem, and do justice to the literary traditions of the country, while avoiding the most well-known love poems. Does anyone have any ideas for specific poems, or any bilingual internet resources? (Transliteration would be extra helpful.)

Where's this quote from?

The Toad — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:26:10 -0800

"The poet writes the history of his own body". Did Thoreau use this sentence, and if he did, where exactly? I couldn't find the precise source via Google. Lots of people use it, all of them attribute it to Thoreau, but nobody says where it's from.

The earliest reference I found was in "A study of poetry", by Bliss Perry, 1930, full text here. (Again, no precise source given.)

Can you help, Mefites? Any Thoreau experts around?

Produce poems?

bubukaba — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:27:26 -0800

I'm looking for poems about food, especially fruits and vegetables. Anything from the lowest doggerel to the highest verse.

I know about this thread from last year, but I'm hoping for a broader selection (I don't care if it's not in the public domain) and a more specific focus (fruits and veggies).

"Comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat..."

jammy — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:18:12 -0800

Tell me of your favorite poem to welcome the summer. This Sunday, June 21st, is the Summer Solstice. I generally like to celebrate this by watching the sunrise with my sweetie. Then we send a picture of that morning rising sun, a bit of music, and a nice poem to our friends and family.

So! Tell me your favorite poems to welcome the summer. They don't have to be about summer per se - themes of growing and growth, ripeness, warmth and light, and, indeed, the recurring proposition of all poetry which is to stop & be present right now to fullness of all things - are all possible and encouraged.

Li Young Lee's From Blossoms is a pretty damn perfect example of what I'm looking for. But then, also, William Stafford's You Reading This, Be Ready ... and also, Saint Francis and the Sow (warning: autoplay sound) by Galway Kinnell.

What is this somewhat dirty poem?

pammeke — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:16:10 -0800

When I was in high school (USA, late 1980's) a friend had a poem (copied from a magazine or a book) taped to the inside of her locker. It was Bukowski-esque, but I do not believe it was Bukowski. The line I recall went something like: "I either want to consume or have sex with everything in existence." Can anyone tell me what that poem was? My Google-fu has failed me, and I'd love to find the poem again (either online or in published form). Thank you!