Poetry

If I Could Tell You – W. H. Auden – Analysis

richinaword Poetry analysis Tags: , , Leave a comment

If I Could Tell You

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

W. H. Auden

Looking at the structure, this is a villanelle – a distinct poetic form of 19 lines with five three line stanzas and a closing four line stanza.

The key to the villanelle is the two rhyming lines which flow through the whole of the piece, in this case …

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Once you have created ‘the key’ you have in fact created eight of the nineteen lines.

Another feature of the villanelle is the end-rhyme word of each second line in the six stanzas as well as the rhyming dictated by the key in the other lines.

It has a detached tone and there is modification to the iambic pentameter rhythm in line 14. A well crafted poem.

This is a poem about time and the repetitive nature of the villanelle is ideal for holding the thought on one aspect of time. The inability to see the future but inevitably the future will arrive given time. We all have to pay the price – our lives are input. How do we influence the future? – well that’s another question.

Time is personified. The reader contemplates and adds his or her own thoughts. For example, if time is an animal then this animal knows something that we don’t know … the animal makes real its nature on an on-going basis … until eventually it swallows us up. Or if time is a novel of infinite pages then we must wait for time to turn the page at the same time adding our own lines in the process. Each page is of course unique according to the reading of the individual and when we no longer feature in the story the story still progresses … hopefully there will be a happy ending or happy endings to chapters … we all seek happy endings don’t we?

But returning to the text, the thing is we all want to know the future … we may have expectations … and looking at the text …

In S2 … will we enjoy the show that we are going to tonight … our expectation is usually positive … will we stumble make mistakes, interfere or disrupt others
In S3 … fortunes are unknown … but it looks as though time has a thread of love and would like ‘fortunes’ to occur
In S4 … whatever eventuates has a reason … things will happen because … but we often have little understanding of the ‘because’ and any rationality
In S5 … do the roses really want to grow … does nature have a force for survival … and if roses equates to love then does love always seek expression

In the closing quatrain … there is fear … what will happen if we have no army … a sense of being insecure.

This poem is decontextualized from time and place and this perhaps adds value to the poem. If it was specific to a period and place would this detract?

Adding a date adds a dimension to the poem … this poem appeared in Auden’s posthumous Collected Poems – the editor Edward Mendelson attached a date at the end of the poem – October 1940 … he then linked it to the war equating the ‘lions’ to the English and the soldiers to WWII. This disturbs the notion of the poem as a self-contained unit … perhaps I should say as a timeless unit! And if you have just read this post you will see that I have influenced the future in some small unknown way – enjoy your day!

Bat Intrusion – Reporting from Batemans Bay

richinaword My Poems, Other words on poetry Tags: , Leave a comment

Currently there exists an invasion of bats in the Water Gardens at Batemans Bay, New South  Wales. It has been estimated that up to 100,000 bats are involved. They have been arriving each year but this year in unprecedented numbers. They are quite a problem especially for those living near the gardens because of the smell, droppings – not to mention the defoliation. I stayed safely in a bird-hide watching the twilight departure and it took over 45 minutes before the skies started to thin out.

There has been considerable discussion on what should be done. They are a protected animal and it would be a very expensive operation to try and move them elsewhere. Then they would become somone else’s problem. Personally I think a waiting game is the only option for they will move on with colder weather. Some have thought global warming might be a cause as we have had a very warm autumn. Below is an image and a prose type poem in response – waiting for the ‘spell’ to end so to speak.

 

BatsWaterGardens

Bat Intrusion
Water-gardens, Batemans Bay

A Macbeth ingredient to a massive brew
annual arrival, unprecedented numbers
spell a discord in the local population.

The defoliation exhibits the hangout.
They settle clipping in early morning light,
so many smelly bags of washing.
The continuous gabble groom or sleep
eyes grounded on the dung-spat path.

With evening the crepuscular cauldron
stir into mass movement for forage.
The insidious cloak-flight of the night feed
dark sweep in the disappearing light
with ultrasonic echo into insect-prey.

The sickened water-gardens must wait
for a change in the season, this spell to end,
for fresh air, for the chance for restitution.

Richard Scutter 18 April 2016

Yes – Brian Patten – Analysis

richinaword Poetry analysis Tags: , Leave a comment

Yes

Last night I dreamt again of Adam returning
to the garden’s scented, bubbling cauldron.
Eve was beside him.
their shadows were cut adrift
and the hum of bees was in their blood,
and the world was slow and good and all
the warm and yawning newness of their flesh
was fixed forever in the glow of “Yes”.

Brian Patten

Yes, Yes Yes ! – a poem in the strong affirmative … religion can often to be a No, No, No and a restriction on life

… in a way this is a full circle poem, the beginning and the end … similar to birth-death … remember TSE’s memorial words … in my end is my …

… Jesus is often thought of as the second Adam … providing the transformation from the negative to the positive … with the emphatic statement …Yes! … JC came to give life! … and as by-product – joy!

… interesting that since ‘the fall’ (or just the imperfect world) the state of life is a bubbling cauldron = indicating to me an on-going mystical transformation

… so the second garden scene may see the unification of Adam and Eve … perhaps as depicted by the image above … a great change from the original and that apple! … and the much misaligned Eve … a touch of heavenly permanence

… and I like the significance of the shadows cut adrift. The difference between shadow and shade (Dante). … a spiritual union taking place – a higher order marriage in the after-life

Re shadow and shade : – The Italian word ombra in Dante’s lexicon means both “shadow” (as in the shadow cast by a body) and “shade” (a term for the form of the soul in the afterlife). On the terrace of lust, as Dante’s very real body prepares for its most challenging test, the poet shows–via a lecture by Statius–how the two meanings of ombra combine to encapsulate the fundamental relationship between life and afterlife. When the soul leaves the body, Statius explains, it “impresses” the body’s form on the surrounding air (as saturated air is adorned with colors of a rainbow), and the resulting “virtual” body follows the spirit just as a flame follows fire. This new form therefore goes by the name of “shade” / “shadow” (ombra): as a “shadow” follows–and repeats the form of–a real body, so the “shade” takes on all bodily parts and functions
(Courtesy – http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/textpopup/pur2501.html )

Brian Patten on Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Patten

Brian Patten’s Poetry Site – http://www.brianpatten.co.uk/poetry.html

Richard – Carol Ann Duffy

richinaword Poetry analysis Tags: , , 5 Comments

Richard

My bones, scripted in light, upon cold soil,
a human braille. My skull, scarred by a crown,
emptied of history. Describe my soul
as incense, votive, vanishing; your own
the same. Grant me the carving of my name.

These relics, bless. Imagine you re-tie
a broken string and on it thread a cross,
the symbol severed from me when I died.
The end of time – an unknown, unfelt loss –
unless the Resurrection of the Dead …

or I once dreamed of this, your future breath
in prayer for me, lost long, forever found;
or sensed you from the backstage of my death,
as kings glimpse shadows on a battleground.

Carol Ann Duffy

When a poem has to be written for a special event it is not often that a brilliant piece of work materialises such as the above poem written by the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy for the reburial ceremony of Richard the Third after the discovery of his bones underneath a carpark near Leicester cathedral in 2012.

The following is a YouTube link to the ceremony of the reburial in Leicester Cathedral. Included is the reading of the above poem by Benedict Cumberbatch – a blood descendant on the female line … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvhLbqbVh24 – at 17m 10sec in the video.

Bones likened to human braille … braille = a writing system for the visually impaired … a very apt comparison for ‘Richard the Third’s bones lay hidden for more than 500 years and from and the ‘DNA language’ of his bones it was established that they indeed belonged to Richard the Third. And now he will be truly remembered with the carving of his name.

Votive = ritual. I particularly like the simple words ‘lost long forever found’ with the double meaning – his physical memorial in the cathedral and a biblical spiritual reference.

This link gives full details behind the text of the poem … http://genius.com/Carol-ann-duffy-richard-annotated including are references to a number of biblical texts and Christian philosophy.

Richard the Third died at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, the last major battle in the war of the roses and he was the last English king to die in battle.

Here is the Wikipedia link to details of that battle … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bosworth_Field

And for those interested in the history of Richard the Third here is the Wikipedia link  to the king … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England

Gold Leaves – G. K. Chesterton – Analysis

richinaword Poetry analysis Tags: , , 1 Comment

Gold Leaves

Lo! I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold;
Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out
The year and I are old.

In youth I sought the prince of men,
Captain in cosmic wars,
Our Titan, even the weeds would show
Defiant, to the stars.

But now a great thing in the street
Seems any human nod,
Where shift in strange democracy
The million masks of God.

In youth I sought the golden flower
Hidden in wood or wold,
But I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold.

G. K. Chesterton.

Nice iambic rhythm to the syllables with end rhyme in the shorter second and fourth lines.
Syllables in the first stanza …
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ / ^^
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ / ^
^ ^ ^ ^^ / ^ ^ ^
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ / ^
S1 – the gold leaves of autumn equated to the silver hair of the aging … the aging year equated to the aging person
S2 – when young seeking to be a leader and associating with the strong and defiant even when in error (when the weeds were showing) … Titan strong and large force
S3 – but with age God is now found in any human nod and in the common place – in the street … I like the thought in the statement ‘the democracy of God’ … evident in all humanity
S4 – in youth there was a search in a hidden world – a search for meaning … finding gold or is that God – but in old age gold or God can be seen everywhere – it seems that there is a sense of contentment – the search and battle over – less energy and not so idealistic perhaps … more time to value all the gold in abundance that surrounds the beauty of life.

A link to G. K. Chesterton on Wikipedia.

Easter is for the optimist

richinaword My Poems Tags: , , 1 Comment

 

Sunrise

Sunrise, Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra

Easter Sunday

the world is charged with the grandeur of God
Gerard Manley Hopkins

Easter is for the optimist.
An extension cord
powered by imagination
connects to a caring creator
to glow in the mind
believing the unbelievable
that humanity has a bright future
and life is eternal.

For the pessimist
unseeing, the door closes
on such possibilities
the blind mind denies
darkness prevails
the switch not reached.

Richard Scutter

Because I Liked You Better – A. E. Housman – Analysis

richinaword Poetry analysis Tags: , , Leave a comment

There is great musicality in this structured lament on the unrequited homosexual love of A. E. Housman for Moses Jackson – a student he met at university. My comments are in italics after each of the four stanzas.

Because I Liked You Better

Because I liked you better
Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
To throw the thought away.

Not easy to admit homosexuality in Victorian times. There was no like response from Jackson – it irked him.

To put the world between us
We parted, stiff and dry;
‘Good-bye’, said you, ‘forget me’
‘I will, no fear’, said I.

Jackson went to America and Housman said he would forget him – later we see this is a somewhat cynical response.

If here, where clover whitens
The dead man’s knoll you pass,
And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,

There is only common ground clover on the ‘dead Housman knoll’ … a tall flower never bloomed – his love never came to fruition. The white flowering could indicate both purity and coldness.

Halt by the headstone naming
The heart no longer stirred,
And say that the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word.

Housman’s heart at last dead to his love … and it is only in death that Housman forgets him – and thus he kept his word.

A. E. Housman (1859-1936)

may i feel – e e cummings – comments

richinaword Poetry analysis Tags: , , Leave a comment

e e Cummings – may i feel

may i feel said he
(i’ll squeal said she
just once said he)
it’s fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she

(let’s go said he
not too far said she
what’s too far said he
where you are said she)

may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you’re willing said he
(but you’re killing said she

but it’s life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don’t stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she

(cccome? said he
ummm said she)
you’re divine! said he
(you are Mine said she)

This e e cummings poem is very easy on the mind unlike many of his poems which require some thought. A rhyming conversation piece of sexual tension between ‘he’ and ‘she’ … and I guess that when this piece was written it would have been quite an audacious poem. As well as the simple four line ‘he/she’ voices there are internal rhyming words throughout.

The third stanza from the end provides a nice twist in thought as infidelity is at play and such liaisons always come at a cost. But love is always costly in one way or another. Is love, or is it lust, worth the cost of such a relationship?

At a recent poetry meeting there was some debate on the last line with the capitalisation of ‘Mine’. Perhaps this highlights the fact that the lady is taking ownership on a temporary basis to that which belongs to another. It reminded me of the praying mantis insect where the female devours the male after copulation!

It is a great conversational performance poem with a gentleman reading and a lady responding. We did this at our poetry meeting and it was very effective. Note that love and lust are four letter words unlike sex.