Discuss a poem per week

[Autodidact]

I realize it hasn't been a week, but I'm going to jump the gun to post one my favorite poems in the world, by Wendy Cope.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Orange[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I got a half.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It's new.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.[/FONT]
​

 

[sandandfoam]

I realize it hasn't been a week, but I'm going to jump the gun to post one my favorite poems in the world, by Wendy Cope.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Orange[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] The size of it made us all laugh.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] They got quarters and I got a half.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And that orange, it made me so happy,[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] As ordinary things often do[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] This is peace and contentment. It's new.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The rest of the day was quite easy.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] I did all the jobs on my list[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] And enjoyed them and had some time over. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] I love you. I'm glad I exist.[/FONT]

​

I like this a lot. Thanks Auto. I've never heard of Wendy Cope before - could you tell us a little about her?


That poem is just bursting with life and enthusiasm. It's the type that could give me a huge lift on a grey morning. She captures the joy of the mundane and makes it sparkle. Beautiful.

 

[Autodidact]

I love this poem because there is no simile. It's not, "Love is like an orange." It's about an orange, which embodies or conveys the joy of being in love. It's like William Carlos Williams and the plums in the icebox. It's really about plums, but it conveys so much more. I wish I could write like that.

Also, it's written in ordinary speech. There is nothing in it that you couldn't say and sound perfectly ordinary. Yet the meter and rhyme both scan perfectly.

Finally, on the most meta level, it says to me that the joy of love and oranges is as good as life gets, and we should enjoy it, it touches on the transcendent. The ordinary is perfect, if you let it be for you sometimes.

Wendy Cope is a contemporary British poet. Her work is considered light, even satirical. She does write some humorous poems especially poking fun at men. She uses traditional meter and rhyme.

Another of her love poems I like is called, IIRC, "Boring," and it's about how once you're in a good relationship you become boring, because you just want to stay home and be happy.

 

[sandandfoam]

Why do you think the peace and contentment of ordinary things is new to her? Is it that her love is new?

 

[Autodidact]

Why do you think the peace and contentment of ordinary things is new to her? Is it that her love is new?

Yes, the idea is that she never had a decent relationship before, and now has a man she loves and who loves her.

Here is Being Boring, which I think will show why some of her work is considered light an little more humorous:

Being Boring

If you ask me 'What's new?', I have nothing to say
Except that the garden is growing.
I had a slight cold but it's better today.
I'm content with the way things are going.
Yes, he is the same as he usually is,
Still eating and sleeping and snoring.
I get on with my work. He gets on with his.
I know this is all very boring.

There was drama enough in my turbulent past:
Tears and passion-I've used up a tankful.
No news is good news, and long may it last,
If nothing much happens, I'm thankful.
A happier cabbage you never did see,
My vegetable spirits are soaring.
If you're after excitement, steer well clear of me.
I want to go on being boring.

I don't go to parties. Well, what are they for,
If you don't need to find a new lover?
You drink and you listen and drink a bit more
And you take the next day to recover.
Someone to stay home with was all my desire
And, now that I've found a safe mooring,
I've just one ambition in life: I aspire
To go on and on being boring.

 

[Sunstone]

Why couldn't she stop? I think it is interesting that she uses 'couldn't' and not 'wouldn't'. I think that she infers compulsion in life and am taken by her portrayal of death as kindly.

I think there's something gentle about death conveyed in the opening lines. I'm interested in your view on my take.

I agree she seems to find in death a kindness. I suppose that not everyone of us must rage against the dying of the light, but that for some of us, it might be a kindness to pass on by. My own feelings about death are mixed. On the one hand, I like the beauty of this world. But on the other hand, I confess I won't myself be greatly missing the politicians, preachers, and political pundits.

 

[Foxfire]

It's funny this thread started with the mention of Emily Dickinson as this poem is hers as well and one of my favorites:

Some keep the Sabbath going to the Church —
I keep it, staying at Home —
With a Bobolink for a Chorister —
And an Orchard, for a Dome —

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice —
I just wear my Wings —
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton — sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman —
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last —
I'm going, all along.


I really enjoy poetry and was wondering if this is the right thread to post favorite poems. The topic of this thread is the closest I got.

I like this poem because Ms. Dickinson finds her deepest meanings in the natural world, as do I. What one can glean from going to Church, one glean even more by being in nature.

 

[Autodidact]

I like the end--instead of getting to Heaven at last, she's going, all along. It celebrates life, instead of death, and life as a journey, rather than destination. It's kind of subversively anti-Christian, really.

 

[Foxfire]

I like the end--instead of getting to Heaven at last, she's going, all along. It celebrates life, instead of death, and life as a journey, rather than destination. It's kind of subversively anti-Christian, really.

I would call it more natural-based and probably anti-dogma as opposed to anti-Christian. Heaven is here on earth - you can enjoy it right here, right now. Although she does talk about replacing church with her orchard - she is still observing the Sabbath, I guess.

As soon as I read "a bobolink as a chorister" I was smiling. I love being outdoors.

 

[NobodyYouKnow]

Here is my favourite poem (by my favourite poet). You can discuss it if you like and I shall add a different one each week:

Sweeney Erect - T.S. Eliot

And the trees about me,
Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
Groan with continual surges; and behind me,
Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!

PAINT me a cavernous waste shore
Cast in the unstilled Cyclades,
Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks
Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.

Display me Aeolus above
Reviewing the insurgent gales
Which tangle Ariadne’s hair
And swell with haste the perjured sails.

Morning stirs the feet and hands
(Nausicaa and Polypheme),
Gesture of orang-outang
Rises from the sheets in steam.

This withered root of knots of hair
Slitted below and gashed with eyes,
This oval 'O' cropped out with teeth:
The sickle motion from the thighs

Jackknifes upward at the knees
Then straightens out from heel to hip
Pushing the framework of the bed
And clawing at the pillow slip.

Sweeney addressed full length to shave
Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,
Knows the female temperament
And wipes the suds around his face.

(The lengthened shadow of a man
Is history, said Emerson
Who had not seen the silhouette
Of Sweeney straddled in the sun).

Tests the razor on his leg
Waiting until the shriek subsides.
The epileptic on the bed
Curves backward, clutching at her sides.

The ladies of the corridor
Find themselves involved, disgraced,
Call witness to their principles
And deprecate the lack of taste

Observing that hysteria
Might easily be misunderstood;
Mrs. Turner intimates
It does the house no sort of good.

But Doris, towelled from the bath,
Enters padding on broad feet,
Bringing sal volatile
And a glass of brandy neat.