' Live-Poets Society ' – A Corner For Poetry

[mogwhy]

i came too late to know the man while alive, but  the love and respect shines through and makes me wish i could known him and not just the shadows of peoples memories. to live in the hearts of others is to live forever. 

[AC Benus]

In a recent Ask an Author segment, I was asked about Sonnets. I started spewing...um, er...writing the information below, but scrapped it in favor of a more general reply. Here’s what I had to say about getting inspired to write Sonnets specifically

 

----------------------   

 

Oh, boy. Advice on writing Sonnets....

 

I think I can only answer this by relaying my personal journey with the form. First of all, I hated high school. It was awful for me; a real daily nightmare of abuse and feeling like no one cared if I lived or died. It’s when I started writing poetry, and might have been the only thing that saved me. That first year, when I was 15, Mrs. Kennedy included a day on Shakespeare’s W.H. Sonnets. I still have the photocopied handout she gave us with two of the poems on it. I saved it mainly because No. 116 utterly baffled me. I could not understand it all, but I knew there was immense meaning to it. I tormented myself with it, using the dictionary for tricky words but still was not able to puzzle out what he was saying, except the obvious fact that he loved a man. Of course, others of his sonnets are much easier to grasp. By the time I was in college, I was experimenting with the form and producing some mangled attempts. Sonnets would have stayed a very minor part of my poetry if not for a book I bumped into when I was twenty-three. Now I have a love-hate relationship with Stephen Booth’s 1977 “Shakespeare’s Sonnets” because he shows the incredible dirtiness and raw meanings (many of them sexual and wonderful) that contemporary readers of the W.H. Sonnets would have gotten immediately. Finally here was my key to unlock No. 116 and understand arguably the greatest love poem one man ever wrote to another – but I hate the priggish way Booth felt obliged in 1977 to cover up and obscure the same-sex love at the soul of these 154 love poems. Thinking about that, and how there continues to be a whitewash denial of the obvious even to this day, makes me incredibly angry and frustrated.

 

So, if you are interested in Shakespeare’s W.H. Sonnets, you must have Booth on your shelf, and you must relegate it to the sad insistence of non-Gay people to write that same-sex love did not exist in the past, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence they are forced to bury in empty rhetoric every day.   

 

(For those of you who do not know the circumstances of the W.H. Sonnets, they are these: Shakespeare edited and prepared the text for publishing himself; the volume was published in Shakespeare’s lifetime; the volume of 154 love poems [containing such lines as “O thou, my lovely boy…”] is dedicated like this: “To the only begetter of these ensuing Sonnets, Mr. W. H., all happiness and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet.”)

 

_ 

Edited January 3, 2018 by AC Benus

[AC Benus]

Shakespeare's W.H. Sonnet No. 116

 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments: love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

Oh no, it is an ever fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

     If this be error and upon me proved,

     I never writ nor no man ever loved.

 

 

_

Edited January 5, 2018 by AC Benus

[Parker Owens]

Thank you for posting this. It remains one of my favorites, and ever shall.

[Mikiesboy]

This was rather special:

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2018 by Mikiesboy

[Mikiesboy]

On 1/5/2018 at 1:43 PM, AC Benus said:

Shakespeare's W.H. Sonnet No. 116

 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments: love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

Oh no, it is an ever fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

     If this be error and upon me proved,

     I never writ nor no man ever loved.

 

 

_

this is rather special too ... i love this .. read it several times

[AC Benus]

I was curious about a phrase I had used in Mojo and googled it. Surprisingly, the phrase was used by a poet I had not heard of before. Looking over his work briefly, this poem really reached out to me. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Eternity

by Samuel Waddington  

 

 

‘Of old,’ spake the priest; spake the parson and preacher –

‘After death, Oh my Friends, after death is Eternity.’

‘Not so,’ cries my Spirit, ‘not so, Oh wise teacher!

It was, and it is, and it ever shall be –

Now, now is Eternity! Is it for thee?’  

 

 

_

Edited January 8, 2018 by AC Benus

[Parker Owens]

17 minutes ago, AC Benus said:

it was, and it is, and it ever shall be –

Now, now is Eternity! Is it for thee?’  

 

What an eloquent way to talk about the eternity of the moment. Thank you for posting this.

[AC Benus]

@BDANR has posted an Elegy. I think we should all check it out and encourage him with our thoughts

 

https://www.gayauthors.org/story/bdanr/loving-fiercely-how-i-resist/14

 

 

[Parker Owens]

30 minutes ago, AC Benus said:

@BDANR has posted an Elegy. I think we should all check it out and encourage him with our thoughts

 

https://www.gayauthors.org/story/bdanr/loving-fiercely-how-i-resist/14

 

 

 

I quite agree. It is really good.

[asamvav111]

Fresh off the oven https://www.gayauthors.org/story/asamvav111/euphoria-and-other-poems/10

[Emi GS]

On 12/01/2018 at 7:57 AM, AC Benus said:

@BDANR has posted an Elegy. I think we should all check it out and encourage him with our thoughts

 

https://www.gayauthors.org/story/bdanr/loving-fiercely-how-i-resist/14

 

 

 

7 hours ago, asamvav111 said:

Fresh off the oven https://www.gayauthors.org/story/asamvav111/euphoria-and-other-poems/10

 

Will check them out soon...

[AC Benus]

Ae Fond Kiss

by Robert Burns

 

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, for-ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy:
But to see her was to love her;
Love but her, and love for ever.
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met, or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure!
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel alas, for-ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.

 

 

Edited January 13, 2018 by AC Benus

[Mikiesboy]

Perhaps not to all tastes...but here is Yours, in my, The Poetry of D/s

[Parker Owens]

8 hours ago, Mikiesboy said:

Perhaps not to all tastes...but here is Yours, in my, The Poetry of D/s

 

I recommend this highly. 

[MacGreg]

'Incantation'

by Czeslaw Milosz

 

Human reason is beautiful and invincible.
No bars, no barbed wire, no pulping of books,
No sentence of banishment can prevail against it.
It establishes the universal ideas in language,
And guides our hand so we write Truth and Justice
With capital letters, lie and oppression with small.
It puts what should be above things as they are,
Is an enemy of despair and a friend of hope.
It does not know Jew from Greek or slave from master,
Giving us the estate of the world to manage.
It saves austere and transparent phrases
From the filthy discord of tortured words.
It says that everything is new under the sun,
Opens the congealed fist of the past.
Beautiful and very young are Philo-Sophia
And poetry, her ally in the service of the good.
As late as yesterday Nature celebrated their birth,
The news was brought to the mountains by a unicorn and an echo.
Their friendship will be glorious, their time has no limit.
Their enemies have delivered themselves to destruction.

 

Berkeley, 1968

[Mikiesboy]

32 minutes ago, MacGreg said:

'Incantation'

by Czeslaw Milosz

 

Human reason is beautiful and invincible.
No bars, no barbed wire, no pulping of books,
No sentence of banishment can prevail against it.
It establishes the universal ideas in language,
And guides our hand so we write Truth and Justice
With capital letters, lie and oppression with small.
It puts what should be above things as they are,
Is an enemy of despair and a friend of hope.
It does not know Jew from Greek or slave from master,
Giving us the estate of the world to manage.
It saves austere and transparent phrases
From the filthy discord of tortured words.
It says that everything is new under the sun,
Opens the congealed fist of the past.
Beautiful and very young are Philo-Sophia
And poetry, her ally in the service of the good.
As late as yesterday Nature celebrated their birth,
The news was brought to the mountains by a unicorn and an echo.
Their friendship will be glorious, their time has no limit.
Their enemies have delivered themselves to destruction.

 

Berkeley, 1968

thanks for posting this, Sir 

[mollyhousemouse]

33 minutes ago, MacGreg said:

'Incantation'

by Czeslaw Milosz

 

Human reason is beautiful and invincible.
No bars, no barbed wire, no pulping of books,
No sentence of banishment can prevail against it.
It establishes the universal ideas in language,
And guides our hand so we write Truth and Justice
With capital letters, lie and oppression with small.
It puts what should be above things as they are,
Is an enemy of despair and a friend of hope.
It does not know Jew from Greek or slave from master,
Giving us the estate of the world to manage.
It saves austere and transparent phrases
From the filthy discord of tortured words.
It says that everything is new under the sun,
Opens the congealed fist of the past.
Beautiful and very young are Philo-Sophia
And poetry, her ally in the service of the good.
As late as yesterday Nature celebrated their birth,
The news was brought to the mountains by a unicorn and an echo.
Their friendship will be glorious, their time has no limit.
Their enemies have delivered themselves to destruction.

 

Berkeley, 1968

one of the benefits to this site, that no one really talks about, is the the exposure to new poets, and authors.  learning their stories.

reading the biography of this one was enlightening

thank you Sir for sharing it

[Mikiesboy]

4 hours ago, mollyhousemouse said:

one of the benefits to this site, that no one really talks about, is the the exposure to new poets, and authors.  learning their stories.

reading the biography of this one was enlightening

thank you Sir for sharing it

welcome to the club, molly  (((hugs))) 

[Mikiesboy]

Without Waver

 

Another collaborative effort with @MacGreg Sir,   i am very pleased with what we have produced in both the poems we have written in this way. it's very rewarding.. 

Edited January 20, 2018 by Mikiesboy

[MacGreg]

14 minutes ago, Mikiesboy said:

Without Waver

 

Another collaborative effort with @MacGreg Sir,   i am very pleased with what we have produced in both the poems we have written in this way. it's very rewarding.. 

We done good, boy.

[mollyhousemouse]

1 hour ago, Mikiesboy said:

welcome to the club, molly  (((hugs))) 

thanks tim,

i've been here a while poking around and reading, but thought i'd take the plunge so i could participate more fully

[Parker Owens]

A description of this evening at sunset... an odd threefold Haiku...

 

Dusk sky, pink and green,
bright backlit contrails streaking
the Jasperware light;
above the ridge line,
high clouds steal in from the west,
predicting fine rain;
grey morning drizzle
which drips from oaks and maples,
waking the still brook. 

[AC Benus]

47 minutes ago, Parker Owens said:

A description of this evening at sunset... an odd threefold Haiku...

 

Dusk sky, pink and green,
bright backlit contrails streaking
the Jasperware light;
above the ridge line,
high clouds steal in from the west,
predicting fine rain;
grey morning drizzle
which drips from oaks and maples,
waking the still brook. 

Beautiful, my friend 

[Mikiesboy]

50 minutes ago, Parker Owens said:

A description of this evening at sunset... an odd threefold Haiku...

 

Dusk sky, pink and green,
bright backlit contrails streaking
the Jasperware light;
above the ridge line,
high clouds steal in from the west,
predicting fine rain;
grey morning drizzle
which drips from oaks and maples,
waking the still brook. 

yes it is very lovely.. wonderful Parker