What are you reading?

[Guest alex]

I don't mind him. I think it's mainly because people who like him think he's a genius.

 

I've read Slaughterhouse 5 and Sirens of Titan and Cat's Cradle. They were pretty good but I just couldn't get why everyone (mainly in America) bones the guy. I guess it just got irksome that when I said he was just okay, people would look at me as though I was in some way defective.

 

That's fair enough, not really him doing your head in then, more other people.

 

I might put Slaughterhouse 5 on the list, but I'm not sure I'd say genius either, that term should really be reserved for Leonardo DaVinci and maybe Wayne Rooney.

 

Yeah, that's more the case. I just didn't want to offend Alex though.

Don't worry, you do my head in too

 

Not really

[adios 717]

I'm kicking myself for not telling you to have a murmur with yourself. It was too late to go back and edit though.

 

 

Couldn't let it go though, I know the feeling, did you know the French call that esprit d'escalier.

Edited October 17, 2006 by ObaGol

[Gemmill 34413]

I didn't, but I do now.

 

esprit d'escalier

from "wit" and "stairs"; thinking of witty remark too late; hindsight or afterwit

[Guest alex]

Aye, it's a good phrase. We've all experienced it at one time or another. Especially on here

[Guest Patrokles]

John Berryman & James Schuyler both wrote terrific poems about being in mental hospitals, by the way, if anyone's interested in that kind of thing.

[Guest alex]

I'm not a big one for poetry tbh, although I like Yeats.

[Gemmill 34413]

I quite like limericks.

[adios 717]

I'm not a big one for poetry tbh, although I like Yeats.

 

"Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, it's with O'Leary in the grave"

Miserable bollocks was right.

 

I've never been able to get into poetry, but I do like Eliot.

[Guest alex]

I'm not a big one for poetry tbh, although I like Yeats.

 

"Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, it's with O'Leary in the grave"

Miserable bollocks was right.

 

I've never been able to get into poetry, but I do like Eliot.

Aye, The Wasteland is good. As is Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats tbh

[adios 717]

Have you read The Cat Inside by William Burroughs? Now there's a legend, I assume everyone knows the story about him shooting his wife? I shouldn't laugh but...

[Guest Patrokles]

I'm not a big one for poetry tbh, although I like Yeats.

 

Yeats is bloody difficult! I never got into him for that very reason. Schuyler is both brilliant and accessible. Berryman is generally very difficult but has moments.

 

Schuyler wrote very good poems about a number of things but one of his recurrent themes was of being in love with someone who wasn't around due to distance. eg.

 

from Was It

 

Was it a quarrel that barred

the spring with shadow and

brought to troubled sleep

rude awakenings? Not

exactly. The depression of

one puts pressure on both.

Distance, silence, separation..

Pop tune blues: "I miss

you so." "Bye bye baby

bye bye." An angry wish

to shake it off and be oneself

again. Goodbye: I'm glad

I didn't say it. We're

reconciled.

 

Schuyler is brilliant at (I don't know the technical term or even if there is one) lines that modulate in meaning once you read on. eg, the start of the poem above has the 'Goodbye: I'm glad' bit, and because the line ends there, you assume they broke it off and he's glad of that. But then the sentence continues onto the next line and it becomes 'I'm glad I didn't say it. We're reconciled.' He's incredibly good at things like that.

 

There's a poem he wrote to Virginia Woolf which has him imagining he were there with her the day she decided to kill herself; he'd say to her: '"I know you're/ sick, but you'll be well/ again: trust me: I've been there."' That's one of the nice things about him, how he dealt with depression. He tried to kill himself a number of times but it doesn't affect his hope that maybe things could be better, etc. He never wallows. Admirable. He wrote a series of poems, the Payne Whitney poems, from his time in a particular asylum that are sad but handled very well and never quite seem as bleak as they should be.

 

Berryman is a whole different kettle of fish. The guy did manage to kill himself eventually and when you read his poems you can see he was pretty ready for it for a number of years (incidentally, he jumped off a bridge but missed the river and landed on the bank. But it did the job). His Dream Songs are his most famous works but they are impenetrable. There are moments in the later ones when you can tell he's going to kill himself, though.

 

He wrote a series of poems about one of his spells in an asylum. He writes more about those in there with him, though. His final poem on the subject is actually a kind of tribute to everyone he was there with, and it's one of my favourites:

 

Purgatory

 

The days are over, I leave after breakfast

with fifteen hundred things to do at home;

I made just now my new priority list.

Who will I miss?

 

Paul Bauer at 3 a.m. with his fine-going story

I cover over with him word by word

controlling the reader to do half the work

but forcing each sentence-series interesting?

 

Marcia, 15, tall, with her sweet shy grin

& low-voiced question

'Do you think I belong here like the others?'

against the piano, the pool- & ping-pong tables?

 

Greg who wandered into my room at midnight

& rehearsed to me (exhausted)

with finite iteration & wild pauses

his life-story? He retired two years ago

& hasn't had a good day or good night since.

 

Some of the rest? Yes, yes! except for the black lady

who told us on Wednesday morning in the Group

she was going to suicide between 62 and 67.

Arrogant, touchy, vain, self-pitying, & insolent:

 

I haven't been spoken to so for thirteen years.

In print of course they insult you, & who cares? But in person?

O no I won't miss her. But Mrs Massey,

long widowed, long retired, toothpick-thin,

 

grew bored, & manages, with a withered smile

for each sole patient, our downstairs dining-room

at the evening eat. We have been friends for years

on my returnings, her survival. Late in a dinner

she stops by whatever table I am at

 

& bends over: 'Mr Berryman, was everything all right?'

Tonight though she touched my elbow afterward

as I was bearing my cleared tray to the rack:

'It gives me honour to serve a man like you,

 

would you sometime write me out a verse or two & sign it?'

O my brave dear lady, yes I will.

This is it.

I certainly will miss at 6.25 p.m. you.

 

And if you can carry on so, so maybe can I.

[Guest Patrokles]

The Waste Land is very good when heard read but the best poem in terms of actually hearing it read by the author is Howl, no doubt. I'd actually heard it a lot before I ever read it, or could understand reading it.

[adios 717]

Why is Yeats difficult? He's standard fare from a young age in Ireland. Maybe while your teachers were dodging the subject of what he was actually often writing about, things ceased to make sense.

[Gemmill 34413]

I never thought I would see the day tbh. I'm leaving this forum. It's gone all man-kissy.

[Guest alex]

Have you read The Cat Inside by William Burroughs? Now there's a legend, I assume everyone knows the story about him shooting his wife? I shouldn't laugh but...

Nah, only read 'Junkie' and 'Naked Lunch'. I quite like Bukowski's poems though, which I'd forgotten about, although I like his novels best.

[adios 717]

from Was It

 

Purgatory

 

I've read over those a couple of times, and I just don't get what's good about them? I think I prefer the first one, but that might just be because it's shorter...

[Guest Patrokles]

Why is Yeats difficult? He's standard fare from a young age in Ireland. Maybe while your teachers were dodging the subject of what he was actually often writing about, things ceased to make sense.

 

Some of us read poetry outside of school.

 

A lot of Yeats relies on a background knowledge of classical allusions, Irish folktale, and his own life. This makes it more difficult than, say, Larkin.

[adios 717]

Nah, only read 'Junkie' and 'Naked Lunch'. I quite like Bukowski's poems though, which I'd forgotten about, although I like his novels best.

 

I've only read Pulp, which I really enjoyed, never any of his poetry. I think Giamatti quotes a line or two from one of his poems in Sideways and I liked that.

[adios 717]

Why is Yeats difficult? He's standard fare from a young age in Ireland. Maybe while your teachers were dodging the subject of what he was actually often writing about, things ceased to make sense.

 

Some of us read poetry outside of school.

 

A lot of Yeats relies on a background knowledge of classical allusions, Irish folktale, and his own life. This makes it more difficult than, say, Larkin.

 

I was waiting for that, I assumed he wasn't on the curriculum over there.

[Guest alex]

Nah, only read 'Junkie' and 'Naked Lunch'. I quite like Bukowski's poems though, which I'd forgotten about, although I like his novels best.

 

I've only read Pulp, which I really enjoyed, never any of his poetry. I think Giamatti quotes a line or two from one of his poems in Sideways and I liked that.

If you liked Pulp (which I did) I would say you'd definitely like his Henry Chinanski novels ('Factotum'*, 'Post Office'*, 'Women', 'Ham On Rye'* and 'Hollywood'). John Fante is a novelist with a similar style and his work set in the 30's hugely influenced Bukowski, especially the Bandini Quartet.

 

*I'd especially recommend those.

[Tom_NUFC 0]

Dark Continent. Mark Mazower's assessment of 20th Century Europe, in which he argues that Europe - often portrayed as being a cultured and civilised continent was actually a barbaric and bloody place, hence the title, which was often used as a term for the 'uncivilised' Africa.

[Guest Patrokles]

Why is Yeats difficult? He's standard fare from a young age in Ireland. Maybe while your teachers were dodging the subject of what he was actually often writing about, things ceased to make sense.

 

Some of us read poetry outside of school.

 

A lot of Yeats relies on a background knowledge of classical allusions, Irish folktale, and his own life. This makes it more difficult than, say, Larkin.

 

I was waiting for that, I assumed he wasn't on the curriculum over there.

 

At University briefly. He's not bad, it's just the kind of thing that needs teaching, especially for the younger generations.

[adios 717]

Why is Yeats difficult? He's standard fare from a young age in Ireland. Maybe while your teachers were dodging the subject of what he was actually often writing about, things ceased to make sense.

 

Some of us read poetry outside of school.

 

A lot of Yeats relies on a background knowledge of classical allusions, Irish folktale, and his own life. This makes it more difficult than, say, Larkin.

 

I was waiting for that, I assumed he wasn't on the curriculum over there.

 

At University briefly. He's not bad, it's just the kind of thing that needs teaching, especially for the younger generations.

 

I hated him when I was younger, but have grown to appreciate him more with time, guess that shows how cynical I've become. He fantasises about a time that never really existed, but of course he probably realised that and mourned it none the less. That's why I quoted that line, I think it's relevant to so much more than that time or that place, certainly to me.

 

Cheers for those recommendations, Alex, yet more for the list. Though I've a feeling this current one's going to take a while.

[Guest alex]

You should promote some Chuck Buk to the top of it tbh, plus you can read most of his books in next to no time.

[ChezGiven 0]

Normally something intellectual but at the moment i am reading 'A Mag for all seasons' by Billy Furious.

 

Poetry is alright.. I liked Robert Frost until i realsied that the Road Less travelled was used in Dead Poets society.