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Tag overview for: 'poetry'

Entries on this site with 'poetry'

• sonnet ix
  Oh to be idle loving idleness! But I am idle all in hate of me; Ever in action's dream, in the false stress Of purposed action never set to be. Like a fierce beast self-pe
• the gift
  ...a work of art is a gift, not a commodity. Or, to state the modern case with more precision, (...) works of art exist simultaneously in two 'economies', a market economy
• when the new season makes its way
  If after seeing ' Hadewijch ' ( reviewed before ), you're curious about the 13th century poet, mystic and beguine ('begijn') from Brabant, here's a sample of her work. Had
• korreltjie sand
  Korreltjie korreltjie sand klippie gerol in my hand klippie gesteek in my sak word korreltjie klein en plat Sonnetjie groot in die blou ek maak net 'n ogie van jou blink i
• black marigolds
  Even now My thought is all of this gold-tinted king's daughter With garlands tissue and golden buds, Smoke tangles of her hair, and sleeping or waking Feet trembling in lo
• the fisher king
  Did you ever hear the story of the Fisher King? It begins with the king as a boy having to sleep alone in the forest to prove his courage so he can become king. While he's
• winter days
  While on the subject of Raoul Servais (see previous post ), an interesting project he participated in is ' Winter Days ', an animated film based on a renku by Bashō and ot
• where once the waters of your face
  Where once the waters of your face Spun to my screws, your dry ghost blows, The dead turns up its eye; Where once the mermen through your ice Pushed up their hair, the dry
• go forth
  What to think of Levi's using Walt Whitman as a spokesman in its new Go Forth campaign? The commercial is certainly daring, featuring a rare recording of Whitman reading h
• het grote verhaal
  Hebben wij een afspraak met het leven gemaakt? Hebben wij ons aan die afspraak gehouden? Hebben wij beloofd ons aan die afspraak te houden? Zijn wij de afspraak vergeten?
• the savage detectives
  What an impossible book to summarize, Roberto Bolaño 's ' The Savage Detectives '. An exploded novel with dozens of narrators and a frenzied story spilling out from 1975 M
• the rose of time
  when the watchman falls asleep you turn back with the storm to grow old embracing is the rose of time when bird roads define the sky you look behind at the sunset to emerg
• 100,000,000,000,000 sonnets
  ' 100,000,000,000,000 Sonnets ' is a nice online version of Raymond Queneau 's 'Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes' (' Hundred Thousand Billion Poems '). Composed of fourteen
• the flowering past
  There is no poetry when you live there. Those stones are yours, those noises are your mind, The forging thunderous trams and streets that bind You to the dreamed-of bar wh
• inanna's journey to hell
  'Inanna's Journey to Hell', composed in Mesopotamia (what is now Iraq) in the third millennium BC, ranks among the oldest surviving stories of mankind. Inanna , the Lady o
• and this i dreamt, and this i dream
  And this I dreamt, and this I dream, And some time this I will dream again, And all will be repeated, all be re-embodied, You will dream everything I have seen in dream. T
• the simorgh
  It's a bit weird to use a spoiler warning when reviewing a book that's over 800 years old. But ' The Conference of the Birds ' ('Mantiq at-Ta'ir'), by twelfth century Sufi
• the railroad station
  My nonarrival in the city of N. took place on the dot. You'd been alerted in my unmailed letter. You were able not to be there at the agreed-upon time. The train pulled up
• all i have to bring
  It's all I have to bring to-day,   This, and my heart beside, This, and my heart, and all the fields,   And all the meadows wide. Be sure you count, should I forget, -   S
• the last concern
  Sequence To sleep, with the moon in one eye and the sun in the other, Love in your mouth, a lovely bird in your hair, Adorned like the fields, the woods, the routes, the s
• you, the living
  Reviewing Roy Andersson 's new film, ' You, the Living ' ('Du Levande'), inevitably means comparing it to his previous masterpiece ' Songs from the Second Floor '. To a la
• the jewel stair's grievance
  The jeweled steps are already quite white with dew, It is so late the dew soaks my gauze stockings, And I let down the crystal curtain And watch the moon through the clear
• deer park
  Just four lines long, the ancient Chinese poem 'Deer Park', by Buddhist poet Wang Wei , has inspired poets and translators through the ages. Eliot Weinberger 's '19 Ways o
• in jerusalem
  Some inspiring literary discoveries today at the Winternachten festival in The Hague, at a program ironically titled How to Bluff your Way into Arabic Literature . Featuri
• how fortunate the man with none
  You saw sagacious Solomon You know what came of him, To him complexities seemed plain. He cursed the hour that gave birth to him And saw that everything was vain. How grea
• marquis de canteclaer
  A promise made here over two years ago was to post some more of the poetry of Marquis de Canteclaer. In full, Querulijn Xaverius Marquis De Canteclaer van Barneveldt was o
• barbaric yawp
  To quote some more from Walt Whitman 's endlessly quotable ' Song of Myself ' (see previous post ): I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric
• what is the grass?
  A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of
• mexico: tenochtitlan
  Mexico City, formerly known as Tenochtitlan , the capital of the Aztecs , was built on an island in Lake Texcoco and one of the world's largest cities by the time it was d
• one must
  Couldn't find a translation for this one, so it'll be in Dutch today... Men moet Men moet zijn zomers nog tellen, zijn vonnis nog vellen, men moet zijn winter nog sneeuwen
• chinese art and greek art
  Following up on my earlier post on Pamuk's 'The Black Book', it appears the story about the competition between the two painters was inspired by a poem by Jalal ad-Din Muh
• la tigre e la neve
  Maybe it's too easy to dismiss Roberto Benigni 's ' La Tigre e la Neve ' ('The Tiger and the Snow') as ' La Vita è Bella ' ('Life is Beautiful') in Iraq. But the similarit
• memory of holland
  The first David Reid Poetry Translation Prize resulted in over 30 translations of Marsman 's famous poem 'Herinnering aan Holland' / 'Memory of Holland' . Thinking of Holl
• love detective
  We slept in this morning and she had to get ready in a hurry - no time for her usual attention to detail - and she ran out the door, slamming it behind her, leaving her ke
• omar khayyám
  ' The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám ' is one of the great classics of Persian poetry. Written by mathematician, astronomer and poet Omar Khayyám (1048 - 1123), the original col
• ahmet abi
  Apparently this weird, tucked away illuminated sign in Rotterdam is an art project by Arno Coenen . The text is based on a Turkish poem by Edip Cansever called ' The Voice
• nonsense nursery syllables
  Today I imagine the words of countless Languages to be suddenly fetterless - After long incarceration In the fortress of Grammar, suddenly up in rebellion. Maddened by the
• lord marquis
  Mephistopheles: Old bag of bones, can you not recognize You lord and master, here before your eyes? You scare-crow, what shall hold my sentence back, That blots you out, y
• klopjag
  South African pop band Klopjag is as cool as their name, and their lyrics in Afrikaans are both clever and endearing (to Dutch speakers). This is 'Rol van die dice', from
• yes and no
  As translator Judith Wilkinson remarks, the poetry of Toon Tellegen lends itself well to translation, "not only because of its linguistic simplicity - one might almost cal
• who knows where the time goes
  Many versions have been recorded of the song ' Who knows where the time goes ', written by Sandy Denny and sung by her on the Fairport Convention album ' Unhalfbricking '.
• mestre
  Master, serene All hours We waste, if in The wasting them, As in a jar, We set flowers. The beginning of Ricardo Reis' poem 'Mestre'. Reis was one of the Portuguese poet F
• als das kind kind war
  Als das Kind Kind war, hatte es von nichts eine Meinung, hatte keine Gewohnheit, saß oft im Schneidersitz, lief aus dem Stand, hatte einen Wirbel im Haar und machte kein G
• shi jing
  Some more on China... A sample from the ' Shi Jing ' ('Book of Songs' or 'Book of Odes'), the oldest collection of poetry from ancient China and one of the Five Classics .
• a passing glimpse
  I often see flowers from a passing car That are gone before I can tell what they are. I want to get out of the train and go back To see what they were beside the track. I
• the chance of humming
  A man standing on two logs in a river might do all right floating with the current while humming in the now. Though if one log is tied to a camel, who is also heading sout
• dutch hope in days of fear
  Admittedly a little late i've only just been discovering the legendary dutch cabaret of Neerlands Hoop in Bange Dagen (1968-1979), formed by Freek de Jonge and the recentl

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