O/T Does anyone read or listen to poetry anymore

An odd OT, even by my standards. Have been having a splurge on reading and reciting poetry in recent months.

Over the years I've had a go at writing some nonsense, mainly for children. Tosh of course, tho an artist mate had a go at illustrating one.

Does anyone here read/write/recite?

There was a young man from Nantucket...

No. Never was a fan either. They're weirdly arranged sentences which make sense when high.

I thought you said poultry. Big fan of fowl language.

I can probably still recite a couple of the John Donne poems I did for the HSC nearly 30 years ago but generally I find poetry difficult to enjoy.

skully wrote:There was a young man from Nantucket...

Some replies write themselves!

I know a few of Milligan's by heart

and limericks that make Nantucket look tame

lardbucket wrote:I know a few of Milligan's by heart

and limericks that make Nantucket look tame

Unspun socks from a chicken's laundry?

multiple original books and anthologies

lardbucket wrote:multiple original books and anthologies

Good for you L.

A while ago I read Larchfield (wood?) a novel loosely based on Auden's time teaching as a young bloke in a dire boarding school in Scotland (prolly a good school in Nigel's terms).

The novel is a fine read. Ultimately it inspired me to dig up some some old books, inc of Auden's. I find reading them out aloud (when no-one is around) is far more interesting than simply reading them.

Poetry is becoming my guilty secret.

Oh well. The boy stood on the burning deck etc.

Should not have topiced up. My fault.

Just ignore.

Its become the cheapest form of the literary canon. Write down whatever your angst is, put it into a couple of lines, call it free poetry and you'll probably be printed in The Oz Review section. Poetry is crap, has always been crap and will forever be crap unless it has a farking METER. I'm not even asking for one of the hard ones. Pope managed volumes of literary, social and political criticism in a meter (albeit an easy one) the least you full of yourselves dickheads could do is try to show you have some talent.

so qmy, while not a poet Joyce wrote 'novels' like Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake. What did you make of them? The rhythms of both are there and really need to be read aloud to appreciate for my mind at least.

My favourite Oz poet is Malouf who farked around with meter and ultimately brought the spare discipline of poetry to his novels.

Joyce wrote brilliant stuff, just like Hemingway and like Hemingway he wrote crap. Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake are both crap. Ulysses was written over about ten years and had a number of literary editors along the way and it farking shows. Some of the plates they used to print the original were that badly laid no-one's even sure what appears is what he wrote. They found a letter after his death where he joked (we think) that he hoped Ulysses would basically screw with the minds of literary students for generations (tried to read the book, read all the books about the book mate).

Ulysses is angst on farking steroids. If you claim to understand it you're farking bullshitting because I'm pretty sure he didn't have a farking clue, and like Joseph Heller (whom I'd met a couple of times) didn't give a fark.

Likewise Finnegan's Wake. Same farking book, different name. Just like Jeffrey Archer.

If they're poetry they're what's wrong with poetry.

The Limerick is an art form complex
Who's dealings run mainly to sex
Of voluptuous virgins & masculine urchins
and vulgar erotic effects.

Bradman wrote:Joyce wrote brilliant stuff, just like Hemingway and like Hemingway he wrote crap.  Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake are both crap.  Ulysses was written over about ten years and had a number of literary editors along the way and it farking shows.  Some of the plates they used to print the original were that badly laid no-one's even sure what appears is what he wrote.  They found a letter after his death where he joked (we think) that he hoped Ulysses would basically screw with the minds of literary students for generations (tried to read the book, read all the books about the book mate).

Ulysses is angst on farking steroids.  If you claim to understand it you're farking bullshitting because I'm pretty sure he didn't have a farking clue, and like Joseph Heller (whom I'd met a couple of times) didn't give a fark.

Likewise Finnegan's Wake.  Same farking book, different name.  Just like Jeffrey Archer.

If they're poetry they're what's wrong with poetry.

Even read any David Foster Wallace, qmy?

Nup! Heard of him. Sex scandal wasn't it?

I liked reading excerpts of Ulysses but admit to finding Finnegan's wake close to impenetrable. With the latter I only read clumps, moving quickly to passages I found of interest. I find it bizarre that Beckett would have been chasing the Joyce sprog and writing his austere plays at the same time as JJ was singing at FW.

Envious you met Heller. Read 22 when I was 16 on Xmas day. On staying up half the night to finish it, I started rereading it on Boxing Day. Aside from charging through Steinbeck when I was 13 or 14, no other book grabbed me by the throat like that.

Received an old edition of some Wilde poetry recently so have been perusing that.

Have had to study some modern poetry recently.

But just for fun, five members of my department left at the end of last year, so as head of said department, I penned a long tribute in rhyming couplets with just a slight hint of some assonance. It was fun and I received a standing ovation from the rest of the staff. Before reading the poem, I noted to the gathering that they being lubricated with alcohol was to my great advantage. Usually they they don't serve the drinks until speeches are concluded and we have the luncheon.

That was better than having them all farewelled individually.

horace wrote:I liked reading excerpts of Ulysses but admit to finding Finnegan's wake close to impenetrable.  With the latter I only read clumps, moving quickly to passages I found  of interest. I find it bizarre that Beckett would have been chasing the Joyce sprog and writing his austere plays at the same time as JJ was singing at FW.

Envious you met Heller. Read 22 when I was 16 on Xmas day. On staying up half the night to finish it, I started rereading it on Boxing Day. Aside from  charging through Steinbeck when I was 13 or 14, no other book grabbed me by the throat like that.

Gotta confess. When I was sixteeen I read the first half and their was a bit of dead air in the middle. I kept coming back to it and read it in instalments (the first half whenever I needed a pick-me-up) and it was only a couple of years ago I read it from start to finish in one go.

Some of the images and ideas from Catch-22 still resonate, years on.

Nately's whore.

Yossarian's discussion of religion with Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife.

Major Major.

The catch.

lardbucket wrote:Some of the images and ideas from Catch-22 still resonate, years on.

Nately's whore.

Yossarian's discussion of religion with Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife.

Major Major.

The catch.

Yeah with Milo it's almost like he foresaw the coming of Dick Cheney and Haliburton.

Continue to read poetry on and off. English and Hindi/ Urdu.

There's a lot of crap thinly disguised as poetry floating around because, IMO, too many folks think that having a 'sensitive soul' is enough to write a poem. Utter bollocks.

I never got Joyce, didn't try beyond page one of Finnegan's Wake. Ditto Beckett. Dylan Thomas didn't appeal much either beyond that 'Do not go gentle' thing. Seems to be a theme there, perhaps I stopped reading Irish writers after Oscar Wilde.

Joseph Heller was ace, but 22 was always going to be a hard act to follow.