Written by
Dylan Thomas |
A Letter To My Aunt Discussing The Correct Approach To Modern Poetry
To you, my aunt, who would explore
The literary Chankley Bore,
The paths are hard, for you are not
A literary Hottentot
But just a kind and cultured dame
Who knows not Eliot (to her shame).
Fie on you, aunt, that you should see
No genius in David G.
,
No elemental form and sound
In T.
S.
E.
and Ezra Pound.
Fie on you, aunt! I'll show you how
To elevate your middle brow,
And how to scale and see the sights
From modernist Parnassian heights.
First buy a hat, no Paris model
But one the Swiss wear when they yodel,
A bowler thing with one or two
Feathers to conceal the view;
And then in sandals walk the street
(All modern painters use their feet
For painting, on their canvas strips,
Their wives or mothers, minus hips).
Perhaps it would be best if you
Created something very new,
A dirty novel done in Erse
Or written backwards in Welsh verse,
Or paintings on the backs of vests,
Or Sanskrit psalms on lepers' chests.
But if this proved imposs-i-ble
Perhaps it would be just as well,
For you could then write what you please,
And modern verse is done with ease.
Do not forget that 'limpet' rhymes
With 'strumpet' in these troubled times,
And commas are the worst of crimes;
Few understand the works of Cummings,
And few James Joyce's mental slummings,
And few young Auden's coded chatter;
But then it is the few that matter.
Never be lucid, never state,
If you would be regarded great,
The simplest thought or sentiment,
(For thought, we know, is decadent);
Never omit such vital words
As belly, genitals and -----,
For these are things that play a part
(And what a part) in all good art.
Remember this: each rose is wormy,
And every lovely woman's germy;
Remember this: that love depends
On how the Gallic letter bends;
Remember, too, that life is hell
And even heaven has a smell
Of putrefying angels who
Make deadly whoopee in the blue.
These things remembered, what can stop
A poet going to the top?
A final word: before you start
The convulsions of your art,
Remove your brains, take out your heart;
Minus these curses, you can be
A genius like David G.
Take courage, aunt, and send your stuff
To Geoffrey Grigson with my luff,
And may I yet live to admire
How well your poems light the fire.
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Written by
Robert William Service |
I met upon a narrow way,
Dead weary from his toil,
A fellow warped and gnarled and grey,
Who reeked of sweat and soil.
His rags were readyful to rot,
His eyes were dreary dim;
Yet .
.
.
yet I had the humble thought
To raise my hat to him.
For thinks I: It's the likes of him
That makes the likes of me;
With horny hand and lagging limb
He slaves to keep me free;
That I may have a golden time,
And praise the Lord on high,
Life grinds into the bloody grime
A better man than I.
Yet if in sheer humility
I yield this yokel place,
Will he not think it mockery
And spit into my face,
Saying: "How can you care a damn,
As now my way you bar,
When it's because of what I am,
You, Sir, are what you are?"
But no, he did not speak like that,
Nor homage did I pay;
I did not lift my bowler hat
To greet his common clay;
Instead, he made me feel an ass,
As most respectfully
He stepped aside to let me pass,
And raised his cap to ME.
|
Written by
A S J Tessimond |
I am the unnoticed, the unnoticable man:
The man who sat on your right in the morning train:
The man who looked through like a windowpane:
The man who was the colour of the carriage, the colour of the mounting
Morning pipe smoke.
I am the man too busy with a living to live,
Too hurried and worried to see and smell and touch:
The man who is patient too long and obeys too much
And wishes too softly and seldom.
I am the man they call the nation's backbone,
Who am boneless - playable castgut, pliable clay:
The Man they label Little lest one day
I dare to grow.
I am the rails on which the moment passes,
The megaphone for many words and voices:
I am the graph diagram,
Composite face.
I am the led, the easily-fed,
The tool, the not-quite-fool,
The would-be-safe-and-sound,
The uncomplaining, bound,
The dust fine-ground,
Stone-for-a-statue waveworn pebble-round
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
I much admire, I must admit,
The man who robs a Bank;
It takes a lot of guts and grit,
For lack of which I thank
The gods: a chap 'twould make of me
You wouldn't ask to tea.
I do not mean a burglar cove
Who climbs into a house,
From room to room flash-lit to rove
As quiet as a mouse;
Ah no, in Crime he cannot rank
With him who robs a Bank.
Who seemeth not to care a whoop
For danger at its height;
Who handles what is known as 'soup,'
And dandles dynamite:
Unto a bloke who can do that
I doff my bowler hat.
I think he is the kind of stuff
To be a mighty man
In battlefield,--aye, brave enough
The Cross Victorian
To win and rise to high command,
A hero in the land.
What General with all his swank
Has guts enough to rob a Bank!
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