Stevie Smith reading her poems
She was not yet really 'known' -
but asked to read by this small group
of older Jewish refugees and eager youngsters,
talent destined for a fame,
at the tiny Gaberbocchus Press
which did not affect at all
the self-contained aloneness
that walked up the aisle from door to barely stage
and in a clear dry voice neither apology nor hope
read her poems that gave a meaning
to the new word 'throwaway' - they were her,
she read them, threw the invisible sheets away,
and if you caught them as you laughed
which was easier than crying tears,
so be it.
Her voice at the poems' end
was herself: as if, not waving, no, but drowning, neatly,
with a certain acceptance,
in the incomprehensibility of life; she read
as if when the poem ended
you might quickly but quietly rise from your seat
and leave, not rudely but because
there was nothing more to say
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Related quotes
Do not read my poems…. [for YOU ]
Do not read my poems…
After I am dead
As a lament, a wail
An elegy, a requiem
Do not read my poems…
After I am gone
When no more I can
Hear your velvet voice.
Do not read my poems…
Alone without me
To comment along
And read with you
But, do read my poems
When I beside you lie
With my head resting
On your supporting arm
Listening to you read
In whisper, in kisses
In silence, in love
In sleep, in dream
Watching you feel
Every word I wrote
I’ll close my eyes - Love
Brush aside my hair
With your breathe
Which half veils my face
Sleepless fevered I wrote
Read me my poems
Now sing me a lullaby
Rock me to sleep
On your broad chest
Diving into your eyes
A thousand times
I am refreshed
By your smile
I’ll write on you a poem
Traced by my fingertips
To be etched in your heart
And burnt into your soul!
So, do not read my poems…
poem by Angelina Pandian
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To All Those Whose Poems I Have Not Read
TO ALL THOSE WHOSE POEMS I HAVE NOT READ
To all those whose poems I have not read
Who have said a kind word about mine-
I apologize
I simply am too selfish
And do not want to give the time-
I too do not want to lie
What if I do not like your poem?
And also I do not want to recognize
So many ‘equals' when I am after all to myself ‘the poet'-
An apology is of course not a real answer
Perhaps I will try to do better in the future-
But I do feel badly about this-
Please go on without me
There is a big world out there
And many listeners who hopefully
Will give time and attention to your poem
As I have regrettably not.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Names disappear
You are your own master
As thoughts flow faster
You should worry for none
As you have to go it alone
Let words flow from you mind
They may exactly suit and find
The place where they must affect
Crate the impression and act
They all come from inner strength
As you have picked the length
It may wait for no theme
As they have natural rhythm
You are destined to be bird
So your voice is likely to be heard
Not when you are live and prominently read
But there after when you are gone and dead
Flowers fade and lay scattered
Your poems are remembered and uttered
With all that messages you had planned
Read and reread as they were beautifully penned
Names disappear but not the poems
As they are all meant for them
Someone may adopt it as model
The message will be clear to tell
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
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The Professional Poet
and of course it was wrong
to label him as that – in just that tone of voice;
a touch of envy there, no doubt
implying a comfortable life,
a smart careerist, older poets youthfully
cultivated, poems in the right magazines,
editors gently kept in touch with;
keeping on the right side of his peers,
'interesting' reviews of their poetry skilfully woven,
professional favours quietly exchanged;
academic posts gracefully filled, and
moved on from; leaving grateful ex-students
recommended for the vacancy;
and an acquired ability
to write just enough, but not less;
so it should be rather, a lifelong devotee of poetry,
and when he started to read to us I felt mean
for assuming him to be some artificial thing
a professional poet;
I wanted to inhabit his poetry, the
house of his poetry; but some doors
to rooms were open, some were shut;
would I give the time to find and love the key?
He read his own poems
as if they were step-children –
proud to show them off, and yet, not really his;
the audience, taken aback by this,
hesitated to applaud.
But when he read the poems of others,
he read them as though they were miracles
to stun and to admire, yet he was, we were, barely worthy of;
dropping as fine mercy, as the gentle dew of heaven; he read like
an amateur would read the great, in awe; as -
a lifelong devotee of poetry. He shone.
In each of us, a poet was born and lived.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Faves And Yuks
and some say
oh that’s my favourite ever poem
my aunt my uncle my teacher read it
to me when I was twelve
and the more I read it
the more true it is and now
I’m older I can say it off by heart
as if the poem knows my heart
and some say
that poem yuk I really really hate it
the more people said to me
that’s a great poem
the more I hated it
now if I see it
in an anthology
I skip the page quickly
I really really hate it
and I wonder if
the more people read a poem
do they take a bit of its power into themselves
so it no longer has quite that surprise it had
or the more people read that poem
the more they add to it
so it has the power
to surprise more people
or do poems
like a rest from time to time
like that old toy in
your grandparents’ attic
which so surprised you
that Jack-in-a-box
with a face like
Pushkin
or Langston Hughes
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Like So Many Poems I Read
LIKE SO MANY POEMS I READ
Like so many poems I read
These poems I am reading now
Are not poems to me.
They are too detached
Too abstract
Too up in the air.
I want to hear the words
Make a music of feeling
In my soul.
A poem must move me
If it is to be real.
Why then do I write these words
as if a poem?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I love chapbooks. They're in some ways the ideal form in which to publish and read poems. You can read 19 poems in a way you can't sit down and read 60 to 70 pages of poems.
quote by Robert Morgan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What Is A Jewish Poem?
WHAT IS A JEWISH POEM?
What is a Jewish poem?
‘Shema’ is a Jewish poem
Perhaps the Jewish poem-
'Shmoneh Esreh' is comprised of Jewish poems
Nineteen prayers as one-
Our history is filled with Jewish poems-
From the beginning with Abraham and Sarah
Those who have given so much beyond our understanding -
Jewish poems everywhere -
Is each Jewish life a poem and a story also?
Or is it only those who give something to our people and history
Who are worthy of Poetry?
I have known many Jewish poems
People the great world will not know the names of
People who whether they walked humbly or not
Made the lives of others better in some way –
Kindness is perhaps the ultimate Jewish poem
And Justice also-
And Jewish poems are not without their contradictions –
As I write this poem in Jerusalem in the land of Israel
I think of the small Jewish world of Troy New York where I came from so many years ago
And miss so many people no longer of that and this world –
Longing for Israel for two thousand years was the Jewish poem
Living here now is a blessing and a gift
I thank God for.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Wanted My Poem To Be A Real Poem
I WANTED MY POEM TO BE A REAL POEM
I wanted my poem to be a real poem-
I have read and studied and memorized
So many real poems-
I wanted my poem to be one of them
Which others would read and feel and memorize
And make their own –
We want and we want and we want
And who are we with all our wanting?
Who am I with all my wanting?
One more dreamer
One more ambitious person
One more lover of poems
One more writer of poems
One more wanter of real poems
Who writes this poem
For others
who dream like me
of writing real poems.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Dark Poems
Dark poems are everywhere,
floating in the midnight air.
Listen, listen, you have no choice,
the evil words, the devils voice.
Where the world falls apart,
there lies a dark poem of the heart.
Dark poems tell the devils lies,
they make you hear the evil cries.
Hold onto your ravaged soul,
don’t let life take its toll.
Dark poems are everywhere,
read them, read them, if you dare.
REB
poem by Rik Bertrand
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Fed On Contradiction
If you've only read,
One of my poems...
And found it to be,
Contradictory.
You certainly haven't read,
'My' poems.
Most of them are...
Fed on contradiction.
You should read the ones,
Based on dysfunction.
They are the ones,
That are most normal.
And...
You might not find them,
To your liking at all!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Hand Behind
The hand behind is controlling
my mouse, the bug, cursor everything..
The arrow roams alone without me,
along the screen.........
I feel, it's you, you only,
shadowing me, following my steps!
Who are you my invisible friend?
You read my poems, when they get
ready to see the light of the
readers' curious eyes.
You want to make me dance
along with your thought,
you dislike my talk with other,
You want to read me with clicks.
I want you to read me, once, twice,
thrice.....I know, at the day's
end you can' t bag anything you want...
You know, I'm crystal clear! !
poem by Nilakshi Das
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I Read Today A Hundred Poems
I read today a hundred poems
And cannot find
A single one that moved me -
Perhaps it is not the poems
But my poetic soul
that has no life -
I remember a poem
I read yesterday by Neruda
How beautiful how deep
How filled with passion and longing-
How rich in surprise-
I marvel at the greatness
Of his Poetry of Love-
There is Poetry
One only has to read a true poet
To find it.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Why Should I Have A Poem?
WHY SHOULD I HAVE A POEM?
Why should I have a poem?
Who am I to have a poem?
Who is anyone to have a poem?
But then again
Aren’t we all poems?
Many poems
And each one of us many voices
And who knows how deep feelings
We ourselves cannot understand
And lingerings of beauty
We can ourselves barely decipher?
Who knows what a poem is
And what life means
And why we write and read
And what words move us
In the middle of the night
Or at the end of the day
When even our dreams are asleep?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Have Read Many Poems I Know I Never Could Have Written
I have read many poems I know I never could have written
Poems whose language was far richer and more remarkable than mine
Poems that saw as I cannot see and sounded as I cannot sound
Poems of magnificent music and many hidden meanings
I have read many poems greater than those I could ever write
And have been humbled and saddened and inspired by them
Out there somewhere else
There have been real poets
And I in my own little lines
Love and respect them.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The literary life
We went to the house
of Afrikaans poetry together
on weekends and spent hours there
and listened to the master lecture
and met some poet friends
around a table
with a drink or two.
Sometimes the poetry was Afrikaans,
English, Dutch or even German
and we learnt form poets
around the globe.
We discussed what we had
just learned,
asked about his views
of certain things,
or what people in the group think,
discussed poetry, life,
sometimes even politics
and philosophy
as individuals of a group.
We read our poems,
listened to other poets,
reading their own,
analysed every word, every line
comprehending meaning, impact
and sharpened our art.
Your poetry was really great,
from when I read the very first line,
but mine had still to grow
from rhyme into free verse.
At times I hated comments
that forced me to move,
but realized that it was meant
with great goodwill
and even though I was in pain
I sharpened my verse
and free verse brought
a clearer ear, making it
much easier to write
great rhyme.
Now that I had to leave Pretoria,
weekends I really miss
that great writing school,
new poems from great poets,
learning something there,
experiencing poetry at its core,
lectures from that great master
and verses of his own,
but much more
your poems.
poem by Gert Strydom
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I Take My Poems With Me Wherever I Go
I take my poems with me wherever I go-
I write and read them inside myself
Sometimes I try to recall them and cannot
And most are forgotten
And live elsewhere on pages little or never read -
But inside myself
I have poems
I write and rewrite
Read and reread.
I am poems
And wherever I go they are with me
poem by Shalom Freedman
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To Read And Read Again
TO READ AND READ AGAIN
To read and to read again
And to be left empty
By the abundance of words
Whose meanings multiplication
Erases all sense
Of their coherence
And our understanding.
To read and read again
As if in this pretence of learning
Salvation will come
To read and read again
And be forever dumb.
.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I think most people read and re-read the things that they have liked. That's certainly true in my case. I re-read Pound a great deal, I re-read Williams, I re-read Thomas, I re-read the people whom I cam to love when I was at what you might call a formative stage.
quote by James Laughlin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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You Complimented My Poem And I Did Not Have The Consideration To Read Yours
YOU COMPLIMENTED MY POEM AND I DID NOT HAVE THE CONSIDERATION TO READS YOURS
You complimented my poem and I did not have the consideration to read yours
Now I apologize to you without mentioning your name
Or reading your poem-
A weak apology
Meant to get me off the hook-
Still I know how lonely it is to write and write
And not hear the words you want to hear in reply
Forgive me
Perhaps I will read your poem or poems one day-
But I cannot promise.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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