So it’s important and you ought to look at it seriously. OK, I’m being ironic: putting something boring, uninspired, mannered or prancingly self-indulgent in short lines in a nice shape and calling it poetry and art doesn’t make it any more worthy of attention than anything else anyone writes or says. Still, you might [...]
All posts in category Prehistory
Apparently anything can be poetry, so it seems safe to say this is
Posted by simon7banks on May 12, 2012
http://simonsworlds13.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/apparently-anything-can-be-poetry-so-it-seems-safe-to-say-this-is/
Gloomy. Obscure. Negative. Vague. This sounds good…
I’m carrying on commenting on some poems I’ve already posted. They aren’t necessarily the best in my opinion, as some poems seem to me to be fairly obvious in their meaning and technique, and they could just possibly be good. The first one here, though, seems to me to be one of my best. UNDERWATER [...]
Posted by simon7banks on April 29, 2012
http://simonsworlds13.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/gloomy-obscure-negative-vague-this-sounds-good/
Nightingale Remembered
“Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird, No hungry generations tread thee down” But nightingales are begotten, born and die Living a lifespan lesser than a dog. I sing back not to the immortal song But to the bird that might not last the summer. Though fumbling in the enveloping folds [...]
Posted by simon7banks on April 19, 2012
http://simonsworlds13.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/nightingale-remembered/
If we deconstruct these poems, we can put all the letters in a different order!
OK, I know “deconstruct” doesn’t quite mean that, but it has a chilling, dehumanising sound. I don’t want to dehumanise my poems, though maybe throughhumanise them. Here’s some more with comment. DIGGING DOWN I have found an old guilt: By scrabbling in the dirt with callused hands Brushing away the low lying deposits Stories of [...]
Posted by simon7banks on April 17, 2012
http://simonsworlds13.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/if-we-deconstruct-these-poems-we-can-put-all-the-letters-in-a-different-order/
Wall
When the grey seas beat down on this low wall Remember us who built it high and died We knew the fish of the sea, we knew the soaring falcon, We tasted bread and wine and love and loss. This isn’t any one particular wall, but I’ve encountered many places that would fit. [...]
Posted by simon7banks on April 7, 2012
http://simonsworlds13.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/wall/
Of course, no-one, not even the “writer”, can “know” what the poem “means”, but still…
…academics can tie themselves in some fascinating knots and, it is even rumoured, disappear up their own theories. Here’s some more commentary on poems I’ve already posted: EDEN The fruit slipped ripe into the hand The hunting hard, but always good, The trees made shade to sleep within That was the Eden we once knew [...]
Posted by simon7banks on March 30, 2012
http://simonsworlds13.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/of-course-no-one-not-even-the-writer-can-know-what-the-poem-means-but-still/
Erm… I think I really meant…
So I’m carrying on commenting on some of my own poems already posted. These were written at a time when I was coming out of a period of great stress occasioned by a family illness. Writing such poems was part of the emergence from that period and they carry a certain bleakness as well as [...]
Posted by simon7banks on March 21, 2012
http://simonsworlds13.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/erm-i-think-i-really-meant/
Links
Sometimes if you stand in just this corner of the car-park Soft fronds will caress your face from the yew-tree forest That grew on the flattened hillside here; your hand stretching out will encounter Twisted, hair-cracked and creviced roughened tree-trunks. Sometimes a plastic bag will waft across like a ghost Through the enchanted long-dead [...]
Posted by simon7banks on January 17, 2012
http://simonsworlds13.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/links/
Founder
The first humans come to an unknown land and those early days are remembered in myth… FOUNDER I have set my foot in the wet sand And seen the alien trees, the dangerous berries Of a new land It cannot speak before I name it It is asleep before I claim it [...]
Posted by simon7banks on December 30, 2011
http://simonsworlds13.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/founder/
In the Valley of the Stones
The Valley of the Stones is in Dorset in the hills north of Weymouth. This poem comes from the same short holiday which produced “Weymouth Bay”. IN THE VALLEY OF THE STONES This valley is thick with time It seems to coagulate in my hands Only to slip through them The sarson stones lie [...]
Posted by simon7banks on December 6, 2011
http://simonsworlds13.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/in-the-valley-of-the-stones/
