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[samsom]

I've recently run across two very different poems, ones I haven't read in a long time but the fragments of which floated around the back of my unconscious for years.

The first is long, several verses and I've been listening to Loreena McKeenitt sing it on my iPod, falling more and more in love with it with every play.

The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes

http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/highwayman-orig.html

V & VI are my favorite verses, plus the last four. I just adore the repetition of certain words and phrases, and of course, it's a great story. Very tragic.

The second is The Look by Sara Teasdale. I think I read this the one and only time before today when I was about twelve or thirteen. It dug its way down into my pysche and influenced a lot of what I try and write - the unspoken, the subtext, between two people. I don't always succeed, if ever, but I try. I found it today thanks to the miracle of Google.

http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2964.html

If anyone is so inclined, what words are you grooving on currently, have grooved on?

Comments

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize I knew "The Look". It's a great poem, a lot said in very few words.

I own that version of "The Highwayman". Tis awesome.

[samsom.livejournal.com]

I own that version of "The Highwayman". Tis awesome.

So awesome. I found myself listening rapturously the other day, which never happens anymore, and wishing there was more of it.

[samsom.livejournal.com]

*g*

It's not a scene - damn, I wish - it's an incredibly accomplished manip. Charisma's amazing ass shot courtesy of a photo shoot she did for either Stuff magazine or FHM. I can't remember which. Angel's crouched feral pose is from a scene in BtVS s3, Beauty and the Beasts. Right after Buffy finds a wild Angel running around the woods in Sunnydale - along with wolf!Oz and the bad guy of the week (man, them woods was crowded!) - she takes him back to his mansion and chains him up against a wall.

It's one of my favorites. Well. Okay. They're all my favorites, but this one is especially well done.

[samsom.livejournal.com]

Well. I'm an idiot. I'm staring at your icon while I'm babbling away.

*headdesk*

The scene in my icon is from s4. I can't remember the name because I do what I can to block out most of season 4, but it's an episode where Lilah lures everyone out of the Hyperion by attacking Connor and Cordelia. Cordelia was doing an incredibly good job of fighting off the ninjas until one knocks her a good one on the noggin and start dragging her out of the room. Angel busted in, kicked the ninjas away, and grabbed Cordelia while she was falling. Then he sets her down on a comfy chair and begins to whale on the rest of the gang while Lorne gets his brain sucked by Lilah's henchmen.

My memory's fuzzy so if any wants to correct me, feel free.

[landrews.livejournal.com]

lolol over the icons, hee!

I love that you have a great poem. The Look is wonderfully efficient and true. Hands down, the most influential poem in my head is The Death of The Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell. We read it in a Lit class my junior year of college. I was almost eighteen and I do believe it's colored a lot of my perceptions ever since (I'm 41 now :issurprised:) I just remember thinking, I understand this and the feeling behind it- though I had no reason to-

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

My other sense memory poem was from fifth grade- Carlos Williams Carlos- Between Walls

the back wings
of the

hospital where
nothing

will grow lie
cinders

in which shine
the broken

pieces of a green
bottle

And seeing this I think of his This is Just To Say which is about cold, sweet plums, probably the reason I had Angel eat plums in one of my fics, lolol. Thanks for stirring up my brain :-)

[landrews.livejournal.com]

Wow! I was tired last night! That would be William Carlos Williams, lolol

[samsom.livejournal.com]

I like the Ball Turret Gunner one - that last line's a killer.

I think the Highwayman creates a sense of midnight that I'd love to incorporate into a fic. The black sky, the black outlines of the trees, the sound of a horse's hooves before you see the rider. I just felt everything in it, the feeling between the lovers, the sense that Bess wouldn't let him die no matter what. She took control of a situation where they tried to render her without control or choice.

[damnskippytoo.livejournal.com]

The only poems that have ever really stuck with me or moved me greatly were Poe's poems, especially, For Annie, The Raven, Annabel Lee, and Alone. I guess I've been sick and depraved since childhood or just enamored of the beasties and ghoulies.

[landrews.livejournal.com]

Enamored, of course! Poe's haunting. I have an awesome pic of my brother miming the cutting out Poe's black cat's eye in a monologue he performed. Samsom's fired me up :-)

[samsom.livejournal.com]

I had to do Poe's Cask of Amontillado my eighth grade year for my English class. Crashed and burned during the actual putting on of the play, but I remember the sense of horror during rehersals, trying to build the suspense the way the story did.

I also really enjoy Robert Frost. I don't consider myself a poemy kind of gal, but Dropping By Woods on a Snowy Evening, and Miles to Go are two of my absolute favorite for the atmosphere they create.

[damnskippytoo.livejournal.com]

I recited "For Annie," very dramatically I'm sure, for eighth or ninth grade English. Ah, teen angst. I'm sure your brother really got into cutting out that eye. Boys are gross. :)

[samsom.livejournal.com]

I like The Raven for the sense of foreboding, of course, but also because of the way some verses and words and phrases are repitive - I think it drives the narrative forward very fluidly.

Also, you and dark Poe?

Miss-gotta-have-the-fluff?

*pokes*

[damnskippytoo.livejournal.com]

I think Poe sucked the dark out of me at an early age. Hence the fluff addiction. :)

[starlet2367.livejournal.com]

People can be so picky about kids watching violent TV, yet look at all the poems we had to read in lit class. LOL! No wonder we all love blood mist and midnight!

I loved, loved, loved Casey at the Bat. No matter how many times I read it, I was breathless and hoping they'd win! Such simple language, such powerful beats in those measures.

I didn't like Poe or many of the Victorian era poets we read in high school. It wasn't until I found modern poets in college that I caught fire. My current fave is Morning Poem by Mary Oliver.

[ladysophiekitty.livejournal.com]

Oh ma god I LOVE Loreena McKennitt. One of the best moments in my life is when I went with my mother to her concert last year. AMAZING.

Anyway, would you mind friending me? I've been reading your LJ (don't mean to sound creepy, by the way) and I love your stories. Plus you seem really awesome.

[samsom.livejournal.com]

Hi, sure no problem on the friending. :D

Until I get it fixed, I have to warn you I have no email notification of comments right now. I found these by accident trying to manage my journal.

Thanks for liking my fic, and Loreena is da bomb. Not too long ago I heard her sing Greensleeves on YouTube and she nailed it so good, I wanted a cigarette. :D