Poetry thread

one I fell for the other day

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also I recorded myself reading Imagining Defeat by David Berman on Whatsapp when the girl I am seeing asked to hear my voice before we’d met

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Dating has become a lot more involved since I was last in the game :thinking:

Like this tbh tbf :+1:

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so did she :blush:

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bump
about to read this

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Really like this one

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In fact I’d say i really bloody love it. Always get a bit sad when i love poems because all i can ever do is read them. And if you read them too much they lose power, not always but for me anyway, they don’t evolve with my knowledge of them the way a song does

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Nawwwww didn’t realise this thread was so sparse. I’m generally a Sylvia Plath sort of gal. In fact i didnt realise how much of what i write is a paltry attempt to emulate her.

But here’s some, actually not very plath like in anyway stuff I’ve liked of late.

I like this new one, the first part as a stand alone poem anyway, though i do like the other parts.

Summer in a Small Town by Linda Gregg

When the men leave me, they leave me in a beautiful place. It is always late summer. When I think of them now, I think of the place. And being happy alone afterwards. This time it’s Clinton, New York. I swim in the public pool at six when the other people have gone home. The sky is grey, the air hot. I walk back across the mown lawn loving the smell and the houses so completely it leaves my heart empty.

Night Gleam by Allen Ginsberg

Over and over thru the dull material world the call is made
over and over thru the dull material world I make the call O English folk, in Sussex night, thru black breach tree branches
the full moon shone at 3AM, I stood in under wear on the lawn -
I saw a mustached Englishman I loved, with athlete’s breast and farmer’s arms
I lay in bed that night many loves beating in my heart
sleepless hearing songs of generations electric returning intelligent memory
to my frame, and so went to dwell again in my heart
and worship the Lovers there, love’s reachers, youths and poets who live forever
in the secret heart, in the dark night, in the full moon, year after year
over & over, thru the dull material world the calls made

Darkness Music by Muriel Rukeyser

The days grow and the stars cross over
And my wild bed turns slowly among the stars.

Quite like this one

The Shipfitter’s Wife by Dorianne Laux

I loved him most
when he came home from work,
his fingers still curled from fitting pipe,
his denim shirt ringed with sweat,
smelling of salt, the drying weeds
of the ocean. I’d go to where he sat
on the edge of the bed, his forehead
anointed with grease, his cracked hands
jammed between his thighs, and unlace
the steel-toed boots, stroke his ankles
and calves, the pads and bones of his feet.
Then I’d open his clothes and take
the whole day inside me – the ship’s
gray sides, the miles of copper pipe,
the voice of the foreman clanging
off the hull’s silver ribs. Spark of lead
kissing metal. The clamp, the winch,
the white fire of the torch, the whistle,
and the long drive home.

Not a fan of the entire poem and this isnt my style at all but I love this last part of Steps by Frank O’Hara

oh god it’s wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much

Return by Audre Lorde

Looking Back Across the Far Field by Kasey Jueds

And of course - let’s have some of the goddess Lucille Clifton in here too…

wishes for sons

i wish them cramps.
i wish them a strange town
and the last tampon.
i wish them no 7-11.

i wish them one week early
and wearing a white skirt.
i wish them one week late.

later i wish them hot flashes
and clots like you
wouldn’t believe. let the
flashes come when they
meet someone special.
let the clots come
when they want to.

let them think they have accepted
arrogance in the universe,
then bring them to gynecologists
not unlike themselves.

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Not sure how much I like the writing in this or not tbh but i like the scene it sets about just wanting to spend time adoring someone in the morning and how its a happy coincidence that there’s nowhere open to go on a date in that moment anyway :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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that’s really good

Yeah I’m a bit in love with it. Might pay more attention to the Poetry Foundation magazine as some poems ive liked lately have been new commissions for that.

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I should as well, I generally only discover poets I like once they’re already dead. Sure there is absolutely tons of good stuff that just completely passes me by.

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I read Tony Harrison’s V for the first time this week and was just floored.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/tony_harrison/poems/12693

Little haul


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Would also like this

Really enjoying Grit.

Emily is so good, we’ve worked together a few times and its always been really encouraging and have produced nice things together but I’ve not really looked into her poetry before now, always just thought of her as more long form stuff (we both did the same Place Writing course though at slightly different times)

Yet to read one in this collection that’s not really grabbed me so far. Lovely stuff, aww i feel so proud of the stuff she’s done :pleading_face::heart_eyes_cat:


That blurb really sold it to me, so I’ve just ordered this as a payday treat!

Ah nice! Let me know what you think. I’ve read two that i found online and really liked them.

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How goes Thicket?

I’ve been parcelling it out, just one or two poems a night so I don’t overdo it. It’s good, thumbs up so far. The first poem is still my favourite, though, and I’ll be a bit disappointed if that’s the case by the time I get to the end. It’d be like going to see Motörhead and they open with Ace Of Spades.

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