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Poetry Appreciation Discussion - July 2024 (Patreon)

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2024-07-12 20:36:11
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2026-06
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  • The Poetry of War - Appreciating Owen, Sassoon, Brooke.pdf

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Dear Book Club Readers ---

Your appreciation of great poetry in June was phenomenal, and it would be lovely to hear about the poems you're enjoying this month.

Our poetry appreciation thread is the place to mindfully check in and share what poetic works have resonated with us recently. So let us know:

What poems are you appreciating at the moment?

Let us know anything that has resonated with you during your poetic excursions:

  • Resonant lines

  • Striking imagery

  • Sublime musicality

  • Intriguing allusions

  • Compelling themes

  • Your favourite poets

  • Powerful metaphors

  • Elements you want to examine

  • Poems you want to recommend

  • Reflections, musings, and insights

  • Passages you're learning by heart

This is the place to put your poetry appreciations and get other readers weighing in on your thoughts!

Curated Poetic Vintages:

Your responses to our last three poems were beautiful. It was deeply rewarding to read your insights and meditations. And you can read my appreciation in the downloadable PDF at the bottom of this post.

I have also specially curated three more poems for you to enjoy. There is another link running through these poems. It could be thematic, stylistic, or philosophical. You don't need an in-depth knowledge of poetry to uncover the connection. You only need to read, reread, and feel.

I would love to know what you make of the chosen poems. Which one is your favourite? Which poet resonates with you the most? And what lines stand out to you?

I will reveal the link running through them in the next poetry thread, along with the next three poetic vintages. And all poems can be found in the Norton Anthology of Poetry, which makes an excellent poetic textbook.

Thank you so much for sharing your love of great literature with us.

Happy reading, everybody!

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Comments

Judy

Benjamin, Thanks as always for the poems in your list. My first read left me with stray images of looking through windows at the landscape. Lately my exposure has been sort of random, by reaching to my shelf and dipping into Bloom’s Best Poems selection, mostly when I need a break and change in focus. Thomas Hardy’s The Darkling Thrush, written at the onset of the twentieth century keeps me re-reading. I like the image of the old century as a corpse laid out on the winter landscape, and even the bird is ‘aged,frail,gaunt and small’. As opposed to ‘ fervorless’ sight, hearing interrupts this dreariness with the ‘ecstatic’, ‘fullhearted’ thrush song that startles with hope and joy. Maybe I should turn to music to take a break? I also liked D.H. Lawrence’s Medlars and Sorb Apples, and his ‘intoxication of loneliness’.

Spider in your cider

Dover Beach is an old friend. The image of looking out from the cliffs of Dover toward the French shore isn’t easily forgotten. The waves remind us of how things arise and cease, come and go, flinging us about. Then the poet seems to speak to us directly (reassuring us about what really matters) “Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.” There is meaning in our connection to each other.

Estella

These poems are great! I notice a common theme of having a conscious awareness of small and imperfect things against the backdrop of the sublime that is life. Matters of faith are also seen in the theme as well. I especially liked the poem "Pied" by Gerard Manly Hopkins: All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him. (7-11) "Dover Beach" is always a favorite of mine. Bronte's poem is haunting, especially when we read about the stranger she is waiting for as she rests in the silence of the night: The little lamp burns straight, its rays shoot strong and far: I trim it well, to be the wanderer’s guiding-star. (7-8) This week I read "The Puppet" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Ironically this poem speaks about the need to live life well and be aware of the small and simple things that matter. Here is a portion of the poem: (the rest of it is amazing too!) If for a moment God would forget that I am a rag doll and give me a scrap of life, possibly I would not say everything that I think, but I would definitely think everything that I say. I would value things not for how much they are worth but rather for what they mean. I would sleep little, dream more. I know that for each minute that we close our eyes we lose sixty seconds of light. I would walk when the others loiter; I would awaken when the others sleep. I would listen when the others speak, and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream. If God would bestow on me a scrap of life, I would dress simply, I would throw myself flat under the sun, exposing not only my body but also my soul. My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hatred on ice and wait for the sun to come out. With a dream of Van Gogh I would paint on the stars a poem by Benedetti, and a song by Serrat would be my serenade to the moon. (1-15) This made me curious, so I looked up poems by Mario Benedetti and these lines in his poem called "Little Stones at my Window" resonated with me: Once in a while joy throws little stones at my window it wants to let me know that it's waiting for me. (1-3) The poems Ben provided, along with the ones I read on my own, emphasized the importance of having an awareness and appreciation of life and the world around you. What a fun experience!

Anna

I remember first hearing about "Dover Beach" when it was mentioned in Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451", which I read earlier this year. The main character was trying to read it to his wife and her friends, but due to their shallowness and concerns about trivial things - in their dystopian society rife with anti-intellectualism and book banning - they rejected him and poetry altogether. They didn't want to be challenged by this poem because it made them reflect on their empty lives and how meaningless their connections were to each other. Poetry has power to make us think and feel deeply, to challenge us intellectually, to allow us to gain perspective on another's experience, and to connect with each other. And those are beautiful things.

Ylva

This post sealed my fate: I ordered a copy of Emily Brontë’s collected poetry. What a stunning poem hers is in this month’s shared trio. My clear favourite. Yes, it gives me this cosy feeling at the start, and yet something seems to be lurking. Looking at it, I also can’t help but think of Wuthering Heights and Cathy wandering in the dark, forever locked out of the warmth. My self-prompted forays into poetry have been scarce since the last appreciation post. In spite of my determination to befriend myself better with it, time is a critical factor currently. Though since finishing Genji, I catch myself going back to the waka. And then I read Romeo & Juliet on Sunday (as a preparation for a ballet production which was absolutely gorgeous), and found myself pausing at Friar Laurence: “Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here! Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear, So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies Not truly in their hearts but in their eyes. Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine Hath washed thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline! How much salt water thrown away in waste To season love that of it doth not taste. The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears, Thy old groans yet ringing in mine ancient ears. Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit Of an old tear that is not washed off yet. If e'er thou wast thyself and these woes thine, Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline. And art thou changed? Pronounce this sentence then: Women may fall when there's no strength in men.” Very reminiscent of Genji too, now, or rather vice-versa. Especially the middle section with the brine and tears.

Mike

I enjoyed the PDF on the war poets. I was moved by Owen's poem, which has to be one of the most gritty, unnerving, haunting war poems ever written. I want to read a biography on Sassoon's life. He was a courageous, inspiring officer whose post-war life went through some unexpected twists and turns. Any recommendations?

Christopher Tiernan

I lost a close friend this week. He was my college roommate, a brilliant thinker and exquisite writer.. Our friendship lasted for over 40 years. This poem is by Wendell Berry: Kentucky poet, environmentalist and author of the wonderful novel “Jayber Crow” and others. It is giving me a sense of peace right now and others may find comfort in it: The Peace of Wild Things When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. Wendell Berry

Lord Vader

I recently read the Snow Man by Wallace Stevens and it is now one of my favorite poems. It contrasts well with another one of my favorite poems by Robert Frost: Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. I think when compared to Frost who in this poem creates abstract symbols that we have to describe ourselves, Stevens makes the reader create figurations from simple descriptive language.

Jonathon Glover

This term my Year 10 are reading through To Kill A Mockingbird, so our poetry this term is African American voices. The poem for this week was by Claude McKay and I have been moved by its beauty, and its harsh, discordant tones, and how skillfully he shifts between them. Joy in the Woods BY CLAUDE MCKAY There is joy in the woods just now, The leaves are whispers of song, And the birds make mirth on the bough And music the whole day long, And God! to dwell in the town In these springlike summer days, On my brow an unfading frown And hate in my heart always— A machine out of gear, aye, tired, Yet forced to go on—for I’m hired. Just forced to go on through fear, For every day I must eat And find ugly clothes to wear, And bad shoes to hurt my feet And a shelter for work-drugged sleep! A mere drudge! but what can one do? A man that’s a man cannot weep! Suicide? A quitter? Oh, no! But a slave should never grow tired, Whom the masters have kindly hired. But oh! for the woods, the flowers Of natural, sweet perfume, The heartening, summer showers And the smiling shrubs in bloom, Dust-free, dew-tinted at morn, The fresh and life-giving air, The billowing waves of corn And the birds’ notes rich and clear:— For a man-machine toil-tired May crave beauty too—though he’s hired.

Terri Matter

I was feeling unwell most of July and took a bit of time off from the HLBC but am back to it! These poetry posts do more to replenish me than any doctor and these three selections are superb, with unparalleled imagery. Hoping we will be seeing more this month—thank you Benjamin!

Clare Shepherd
>>143573119

One of my favourites too. If you have a selection of Hardy's poems, please try "The Ruined Maid". I defy you not to giggle.