Yeats (split thread)

Mbabazi

Yeats is amazing! I read about 8 of his poems at about 4 yesterday morning, he remains one of the greats. Christy Moore does a great musical version of "Wandering Aonghus" (sp?) on his latest "Live at Vicar Street" album, two pure geniuses.

article6

Yeah, ok. Moore (Christy, not a badly-spelt Thomas) should get a Nobel prize for something. And yes, Yeats is amazing. I concur that he deserved to be made a laureate, but I do stay by one of my original statements - Kavanagh was greater than Yeats, in my unbearably Catholic culchie opinion.

ll=llannah

yeah, Christy Moore . should

I don't know about Patrick Kavanagh being greater than Yeats. a matter of personal opinion. I love Yeats. he's actually my favourite poet. (of all time.)

Oh- if you love the Song of Wandering Aengus, then read He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven. I guarantee you'll love it. (in my session 1 '02 Irish writers course, we spent an hour and a half reading Yeats poems, and after i read that one, half of the class tearing up because they thought the poem was so beautiful. so i'd say it is a must read.)

but, article6, to preserve your sanity, I will also reiterate that I do think Kavanagh is amazing as well. :-)

purplepolkadot

Oh- if you love the Song of Wandering Aengus, then read He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven. I guarantee you'll love it. (in my session 1 '02 Irish writers course,

yep, that nearly made me cry, and i am one mad cold insensitive bitch.

but i can't remember how it goes
'had i heaven's embroidered cloths
enrought with light and half.... feck, type it down


oooh
'but i being poor have only my dreams
tread softly for you are treading on my dreams'

crap that's not it either

and what's your real identity for i was also at session 1 02...

joe the coat

well i dont like christy moore and i despise patrick kavanagh. BUT YEATS ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "He wish for the Clothes of Heaven" is up there with "The Garden of Love" by Blake!!! the epitath is good to... "Cast a cold eye on life on death horseman pass by"

pretty*monster

Uck, I can't stand Yeats, maybe it's as a result of having his poetry rammed down my throat in 3rd year but i hate all his work with a passion.

Mystic Fibrosis

I learned 2 poems for my JC.

Yeats- Isle Of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree
And a small cbin build there, of clay and wattles made
Nine bean rows will I have there,
A hive for the honey bee,
And Live alone in the bee-loud glade.

I will arise and go now, for peace comes dropping slow
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where theflower sings
Midnights all a glimmer,
Evening full of the Linnet's wings.

(3rd verse ommitted)
Ok, I screwed that up, but Im quoteing from memory here
and,
Conquerors, (grr, cant remembeer author)

By sundown we came to a hidden village
Where all the air was still
And no sound met our tired ears save the sorry drip of rain from blackened trees
And the melancholy song of swinging gates
And through a broken window some of us saw
A dead bird in a rusting cage
Still pressing its thin, tattered breast against the bars
As we hurried throught the weed-grown street
A gaunt dog started off from some dark place
on legs as thin as sticks into the wood, to die at least in peace
No one told us war was like this
Not one among us would have eaten
bread
Before he had filled the mouth of the grey child,
That sprawled, stiff as a stone, beneath the shattered door.
There was not one who did not think of home.

Also from memory.
I only needed Conquerors.

ll=llannah

sorry to interrupt the thread- but for those of u who would like to see it (just close ur eyes, pretty*monster.haha)

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly becuase you tread on my dreams.

come on, even for those of you who don't love poetry, that is one hell of a piece of poetry

purplepolkadot

*wells up, blows nose* thanks for that twix_girl, i couldn't find that book of poems that has it in it that i have. i didn't look for it but it wasn't on the floor so i was lost.

Yeats- Isle Of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made
Nine bean rows will I have there,
A hive for the honey bee,
And Live alone in the bee-loud glade.

I will arise and go now, for peace comes dropping slow
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings
where midnights all a glimmer, and evening full of Linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the something something something pavement's grey,
something about lake water lapping the shore
i hear it in the deep hearts core

I used ALL of that poem, I wrote out a bit, then described it, then wrote out some more...
And some of Heaney's stuff, Mid-Term Break, and um... another one. And probably the Daffodils and Base Details coz i know them off by heart. mmm strange

smiles

I like Yeats.

sometimes he tries too hard, like *way* too hard, so I really only like the short ones like this:

The Moods

TIME drops in decay,
Like a candle burnt out,
And the mountains and woods
Have their day, have their day;
What one in the rout
Of the fire-born moods
Has fallen away?

Thats just *wow*

<< Fio >>

joe the coat

ahgggggg! heaney! god i cant stand it... but he was rammed down my throat so that might explain it.

Mbabazi

You want poetry?

DiddleyedididdlodeeDiddleyedididdlodeeDiddleyedididdlodeeDiddleyedididdlodeeDiddleyedididdlodeeleetadohhh.......

The man is, to put it in the language of the CTYIzens, a legend.

article6

My God, that was a scarily... accurate transcription of the great line from the great man.

Heaney's ok, I guess, if you can keep patience with him. And he's the only poet whose work I have bought. Oh yes.

Yeats tries too hard? Never! Not the man who wrote I see Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness in a series of seven.

Crash

Personally i love Heaneys Poetry. Some of his poetry was the first poetry i was ever exposed to, in the shape of "midterm break" which is the only poem i can recall off by heart with little effort.

Twix_girl: that definitely has to be another of my favourite poems.

Lol, am i the only one who managed to get through the JC with knowledge of only one poem and answer adequately?

purplepolkadot

i didn't say heaney was good, and if i did i didn't mean it, but i had to learn nine yes NINE of his poems. mid term break was alright though, for some reason.

'joxer goes to stuttgart' by christy moore rocks everyones world. not just cos of the antienglishness of it all but its cute. as is reel in the flickering light, and the one about the shovel, and knock. jesus they're all good.

crazyjoemcmad

I got through my Junior Cert with one poem (prayer before birth by MacNeice - scrap Yeats and Heaney - this is unalloyed brilliance); about two-thirds of the paper completed; and wrote an essay entitled "People who make the World a Better Place" - the subject being Adolf Hitler (and no, i'm not a Nazi). And I still got a B.

Mbabazi

"Joxer" isn't anti-English, it's pro-Irish and pro-underdog.

Of all the lines in the song, the only ones you're referring to are

"The next morning none of the experts gave us the slightest chance,
They said that the English team would lead us on a merry dance,
With their Union Jacks them English fans for victory were set,
Until Ray Houghton got the ball and stuck it in the net!"

I hate it when people hijack songs as "Republican" songs - look at what happened to "The Fields of Athenry."

lordsippa

I love Yeats. So much that I actually stood and listened to some street poet guy read his stuff and then gave him money. I LOOOOOVE Daevid Allen's University Of Errors song version of Lake Isle Of Innesfree <misspelled in the actual title>.

Um... Allen Ginsberg anyone? He was brilliant.

Yeah... really gotta check out Crowley's poetry. I'm kinda a mystic so I love poetry that involves it <for example, Yeats>.

I dislike Heaney. He is far too country-esque.

Or are we talking solely about Irish poetry? Cause... Um... It can be very good, but some other stuff also rocks too. Leonard Cohens music and other such things.

I listen to far too little Christy Moore to judge him. Perhaps I shall give him a try.

Good day tiddley toodle doo!

smiles

Heeney tries too hard lately, his early stuff was good.

Christy Moore is great!!! At one of his concerts 3 weeks ago!

<< Fio >>

Mystic Fibrosis

Was that the one vodafone were giving away tickets for?

Girliebug

Yeats' poetry is great, but he loses me when he starts on about his political & social analysis. Everyone knows about his obsession with Maude Gonne, but did you know he tried to win over her daughter too?! Nice.
I like Heaney but Kavanagh, not a chance. I always imagined him smiling, and then his face cracking into tiny little pieces.
I read a few poems by Sasoon, and I always meant to dig out more. His war stuff is brilliant.
Christy Moore...he da man!

lordsippa

Aye... hell he still obsessed about her after he was married with children.

But yeah... Yeats did a fantastic poem for his daughter... wish i could remember it....

damn.

claire h

On the topic of Maud Gonne - look, she did the guy a favour by not marrying him. She told him that he was a better poet as a bachelor than he would be as a happily married man, and... yeah, she was right. Unrequited love - bad for the soul, good for the art.

Having said that, I haven't read very much of Yeats' stuff, but He Wishes For The Cloths of Heaven ranks as one of my all-time favourite poems.

Seamus Heaney is evil. Let us not speak of him. He's on the 2004 LC course... *shudders violently*.

Green Hand Guy

Poetry eh? Way back in WFL '01 which seems oh so long ago I tried to write poetry but it sucked so instead I wrote stories about terminally stupid handyman midgets in jumpsuits who finished each others sentences and were hired as mercenaries by a secret terrorist organisation plotting to take over America (and this was before 9-11). Unfortunately the copy with this story in it was lost within two days (probably stolen by the CIA or something). So it is now only in my head, the heads of all the people from my class, and a copy in CIA headquarters which is being held as evidence for them to put away a certain little Irish terrorist.

Oops. I went a bit off topic. As for the poet thing I don't have any favourite. I like spooky, mysterious poems though which pretty much throws Kavanagh out the window.

And on the topic of Maud Gonne, did anyone ever see a photograph of her. She was hideous (sure, she was about 80 at the time of the photograph, but still).

ll=llannah

Lordsippa- I have to agree with your previous comment- i can't stand Heaney either. i tried. i really did. but i just couldn't like his stuff. i'm not sure what it is about him...i gave up trying ot figure out my dislike. (trying to remember the one he wrote for his daughter....i can't remember either....dammit....do u remember a line from it??...frustration...)
was Maud Gonne really ugly? well- on the subject of obsessions and writers, i've always had the opinion that an obsession of any sort makes for better writing. i'm sure some pple will disagree- just figured i'd throw that out in the discussion, though.

Mystic Fibrosis

hm....gotta say my favorite poem has to be Conquerors by Henry Treece.

Dunno. if its the sorrow, or the death or what.Its not exactly a Yeats in terms of inner meaning, but.......I just LIKE IT, DAMMIT!!!

ll=llannah

ah....brain trying to work....could it have been "To a Young Girl" ? or am i becoming dilusional?

Crash

One of my favourite poems has to be "Dulce Et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen. i love that poem.

Some of Heaney's stuff is pure crap IMO, But mid-term break is a very emotional poem that i love.

Claire, is that the current 5th yr class that has him? oh shagit, apparently his stuff for leaving is bitch hard.

claire h

Neil - yup and yup. I haven't read any of the poems yet, though. Was flipping through the poetry book going "Yay! Emily Dickinson! Yay! Sylvia Plath! Seamus Hea - oh, shoot me, shoot me now!"

"Mid Term Break" is one of his few good poems, but I think the problem I've had with it is that it's the poem that you do over and over again from about halfway through primary school, until it loses all meaning and stops being able to emotionally affect you.

And Maud Gonne was a beauty in her day, so they say. If you look at pictures of her when she was in her twenties and thirties she's pretty attractive. Give Yeats some credit... he wouldn't have obsessed over her for so long if she was hideously ugly.

Moni

Sylvia Plath? ewwwww. I can't take her poetry. farr too depressing. and unnecessarily so.


Oh, and the poem for Yeats' daughter is called "A Prayer for My Daughter." How creative. No, actually it's a really good poem.

Typedef

Originally posted by smiles
I like Yeats.

sometimes he tries too hard, like *way* too hard, so I really only like the short ones like this:

Crap Yeats is the Man!
EOF.