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Goodbye to July Picnic
Sunday, every Sunday, let's have a community picnic. It's probably been a long week, and it's lovely to have a few minutes to sit back and relax and enjoy some good conversation in a less formal space. Feel free to bring something for the Picnic Basket - a poem you liked this week, a thought you had or something you experienced, or even something completely unrelated to poetry whatsoever that you just feel like sharing. Just take a moment to say hello, and maybe have a bite to eat; no one is going anywhere fast, and the shade promises some relief from the everyday heat. Let’s get to know each other a bit better, here under the branches of the poet’s tree.
New Poetry Form to Try
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I might do a version of John Barleycorn, which is a popular folk poem/ballad one version of which was written by Scottish poet John Burns. (Warning: it is a tale of a personification of corn/grain being killed in a cyclical manner, so some of it might be too graphic for your taste. I would say that if you can handle Shakespeare then you can handle this poem.)
Why would I enjoy this poem, you might wonder? In a neopagan setting, John Barleycorn personifies the rise and fall of summer and the sun throughout the year. He also symbolizes self-sacrifice. I also think of John Barleycorn whenever I think of all the things life can throw in your path that kind of knock you about, and getting up again afterward...for after all, next year John Barleycorn is planted again and it happens all over again.
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http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/lloyd/songs/johnbarleycorn.html
http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/folk/songs/heyjohnbarleycorn.html
And The Barley Grain For Me (which is similar to the one you know but with an upbeat drinking song sort of tune instead of a dirge):
THE BARLEY GRAIN FOR ME
Oh, three men went to market to sell three loads of rye.
They shouted up and they shouted down: the barley grain should die.
CHORUS: Ti rie icherie eerie an
Ti rie ichrie ee.
Ti rie icherie erie an
The barley grain for me.
The ploughman came with a heavy plough. He ploughed me under the sod,
The winter being over and the summer coming on.
The reaper came with a sharp knife. He made me for to cry.
He caught me by the whiskers and he cut me above the thigh.
The binder came with a heavy thong. She bound me all around,
And they hired a handy man to stand me on the ground.
The pitcher came with a sharp fork. He pierced me to the heart,
And like a thief or highwayman, they threw me on the cart.
The thresher came with a heavy flail. He swore he'd break my bones,
But the miller he used me worse, he ground me between two stones.
They took me out of that. They put me in a well.
They left me there for a space of time 'till my belly began to swell.
The brewer came with all her art. She put me in the pan,
And when I got into the jug, I was the strongest man.
They drank me in the kitchen. They drank me in the hall,
But the drunkard used me worst of all. He threw me against the wall.
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So, period cowboy poetry, instead of the modern genre of nostalgia.
---L.
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Full poem: http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/calendar-hares
A Calendar of Hares (extract, the first half: 6/12)
1. At the raw end of winter
the mountain is half snow, half
dun grass. Only when snow
moves does it become a hare.
2. If you can catch a hare
and look into its eye
you will see the whole world.
3. That day in March
watching two hares boxing
at the field's edge, she felt
the child quicken.
4. It is certain Midas never saw a hare
or he would not have lusted after gold.
5. When the buzzard wheels
like a slow kite overhead
the hare pays out the string.
6. The man who tells you
he has thought of everything
has forgotten the hare.
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I'm reminded of a favorite poem that mentions hares -- Czeslaw Milosz's "Encounter": http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Encounter.html
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Oh, I love Encounter! I don't remember reading it before, although it's one of those poems that makes me feel as if I've always known it. Thank you for the link! It reminds me of the Kentish nobleman's image in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Book II, Chapter 13):
Life is like a banquet hall. Inside is light and fire and warmth and feasting, but outside it is cold and dark. A sparrow flies in through a window at one end, flies the length of the hall, and out through a window at the other end. That is what life is like. At birth we emerge from the unknown, and for a brief while we are here on this earth, with a fair amount of comfort and happiness. But then we fly out the window at the other end, into the cold and dark and unknown future.
Hares and birds, it seems, are persistent symbols of mystery in human minds.
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(An extract from) Olympic fireworks by Mark O'Connor (written in the year 2000)
Never such cracking and banging,
such warding off of midnight demons
as we declare wars on the clouds;
galaxies born out of nothing
roar and fade.
Full poem here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/sep/23/poetry.features
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