The dead are dancing with the dead, the dust is whirling with the dust...


Suprising confession: I'm an awful reader of poetry. For one thing, I'm a compulsive skim reader - of course, you can't skim read poetry or you miss the point. I also loathe intrusive Classical references ("like Niobe, all tears!") which a certain era of poetry cannot do without. I tend to regard a lot of it as pretentious, and finally (most importantly) I can't understand it. I usually have to have poems explained to me.


I mean, I like poetry in theory - a single idea, perfectly expressed. Oscar Wilde said poetry was idealised grammar, and it is true. But my appreciation of it is rooted in the fact it confuses me, because in my book, the greatest poets can get their point across even if you don't understand - T.S. Eliot, probably the best poet I've ever read, is a master at this. No, I don't get what he's going on about on a stanza, line or even word by word basis - but at the end, I have grasped the atmosphere and meaning in some intangible way.


And I love beautiful poetry for the sake of the beautiful imagery or perfect phrasing alone, again because I don't always get the whole picture. My favourite poet is actually George Barker, who you probably haven't heard of. He's a contemporary of Eliot, and you can kinda tell - a mess of imagery and referencing, building up a grim and glum picture of life.


I picked a copy of his book up at a second hand book stall, and it's the only book I brought with me to university. I don't understand a damn word of it, and have no idea whether or not they are any good. But he writes so well, and I'm attracted to some cadance in the words. Take the climax of my favourite, Bamborough Castle:


There where no house is no home I stood,
Bamborough I - cracked and crowned with blood
Disfigured by the birds I knew were no birds
But the heart haunting human who kills with words


I mean, the rhythm of it, the picture. Maybe if I gave you the whole poem you could explain, but that's not the point. I genuinely find something moving in the way he arranges words. Or from Battersea Park:



How can I ever be at home here
Where Sorrow sings of Joy in my ear?
How can I here be happy, when I know
I can be happy only here and now?


Again, in the context of the poem I'm not sure exactly what he's getting at, but it's a beautiful phrase which often pops into my head. Actually, I think it's on my Facebook page.


Curiously, a month after being here, the meaning of one poem suddenly leapt into dazzling meaning. So there is one I understand now, though it could just be me overlaying my own angsts onto it. In another one of his lovely lines, it opens:


Time is not quick enough, space is not far enough
But I can hit it with the point of my hand...


I'm interested in reading his book The Dead Seagull, partly because I love his style, and partly because it's his account of his affair with writer Elizabeth Smart, who also novelised the dirty details in By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. The pair are going to be fascinating to compare...


The best of the entire poems I've found online is O Who will speak from a Womb or a Cloud?

in case you feel like reading a whole one. I've always thought of it as a song about a miscarriage. And if you don't have time for the whole thing, I mean just look how gorgeous this stanza is:


O remember
How once the Lyrae dazzled and how the November
Smoked, so that blood burned, flashed its mica,
And that was life. Now if I dip my hand in your grave
Shall I find it bloody with autumn and bright with stars?



Now that, my friend, is breathtaking.


Strictly, Mr Barker should count as a Wonderful Thing all on his own, but lets expand this to "my favourite poetry" full stop. There's not very much of it - see above: I don't get the mass of poetry.


Oscar Wilde is obviously a topic I can't help but address. We all know how much I adore him, but to be honest I've always had the impression that really, his poetry isn't very good. It tries very, very hard indeed. I'm intensely fond of it, and some days in the mood for even the ones I regard as daft. But en masse, they're terribly pretensious. It works in his prose, but in poetry it sounds like he's trying too hard. I'd be curious to see how his poetry is regarded by someone who knows what they're talking about. I've never been able to get through The Sphynx, because I find it impossible to take seriously. I think it was the porphyrie stanza that did it. I find the lavish description glorious in Dorian Gray, and I'm even Salome's only fan. But these are in general too much for me.


But there are some I regard as truly perfect. Obviously, Ballad of Reading Gaol - another example of how an idea can be so perfectly expressed in poetry. Resquiescat, for his sister who died when he was very young, is so moving precicely for its simplicity. Helas! and Taedium Vitae are probably among the most interesting for scholars, looking to read the author into his poems. But The Harlot's House is my favourite, the imagery is very dark and desperate, with a surreally nightmarish feel, and there are some wonderful lines. It's worth reading in full for the buildup.



And there are other poems I like, though I'm going to bring them to mind very randomly. My favourite T.S. Eliots are Portrait of a Lady and La Figlia che Piange, particularly the latter which yet again I don't pretend to understand, but find very lovely.


I've recently discovered a new favourite via Poems on the Underground, Francis Cornford's Parting in Wartime. Again a simple idea, simply expressed, combined with a pummeling-emotional-gut-kick, copied here in full:


How long ago Hector took off his plume,
Not wanting that his little son should cry,
Then kissed his sad Andromache goodbye
-And now we three in Euston waiting-room.


The damned Canada expedition will recieve little praise from me, but it's left me with an enduring love of Laurence Binyon's epic classic, "they shall not grow old as we that are left grow old", and John Magee's High Flight. So maybe it wasn't a wholly wasted experience.


I remember a time when I loved The Raven (Poe) and "To see a world in a grain of sand" (Blake) most. And lets not forget the Romans. I adore Virgil and the Aeneid, and Catallus. Both of those have actually had me in tears before. And Ovid is the wonderfuls. I'll talk more about them at some point, but I want to wrap up and do some actual Latin now. So I'll leave you with a favourite drawn from poetry classes five years ago, picked by a teacher interestingly named Mr Hill. It's The Hill by Rupert Brooke, and it's content and style will suprise nobody from the poetry appreciation in the poetry above.



BREATHLESS, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.

You said, “Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,
When we are old, are old.…” “And when we die
All’s over that is ours; and life burns on
through other lovers, other lips,” said I,
—“Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!”

“We are Earth’s best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!” we said;
“We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!”… Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
—And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.