The Hot 100

[Dawn]

It has arrived!! contemplating my favorite poems lately (haven't chosen my top ten yet), this one right away came to mind. I've loved it since I was young and had my very own little 'woods' and horse and even a little lake close by. I think I even put it to music on my guitar at one point... Sometimes I think analysis is overdone. imo he's pausing to see the beauty of a dark snowy wood but has to get going as he has a ways to travel yet...seems obvious to me. But that's just me--the way I prefer to hear it...I appreciated DWill's comments re: what makes a poem 'dingable' to us. I'll admit I'm not much of an analyst. I tend to go with what speaks to me personally (as you all can tell by now) and wave the others by...Thanks for allowing for my erratic enthusiasms here.

[lady of shallot]

I need help identifying a poem. Yesterday I needed to kill a few minutes of time and so was browsing an art display done by people in our local senior college (OLLI)

This was book "art" One piece contained a poem I absolutely loved but was not at all familiar with. It was about bones leaving a cemetery and various experiences and uses they were put to before being returned to their grave.

A nearby woman was familiar with the art and the artist of this piece. I asked if the artist had written the poem and the woman said she did not know but it seemed unlikely to her. She said there may have been an attribution on the back but it was not visible to me.

Does such a poem ring any bells with anyone here?

[Penelope]

Robert Tulip wrote:
That is not a hatred or belittling of women, just a suggestion, like Paul, that it is better not to marry because family responsibilities detract from a higher calling.



Women are not a trap, never a trap, family is not a trap. We are built for romantic/sexual relationships, romantic/sexual attraction lead us to people that we can attach to and create a home base (=family). Attachement to a loved person or persons does not detract from any higher calling. We all need to belong to someone/some group. I would not say that family or love of partner is a lower calling than to ones god, art, or anything else. I believe that it is often in loving another that we are able to reach a higher level. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that rejecting sexual love/attachment is to diminish ones humanness and that there is something sacred about sex.

Oh buggering bloody bollocks.....spit, spit, spit!!!.....What a lot of great input I've missed being involved in.

Belgium was very, very great btw.

As to the above, in quotes.....Robert v Saffron.....

The Christian church teaches, the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit (implied as male).....as The Trinity

But it really should be,,,,the Father, the Son and the Mother(female).

The Holy Trinity, in other words, is the Male, the Female and the creation of another; miracle....child, male or female.

It is Sexuality, and Love, it is Sacred, it is 'The Lifeforce'.

Because it is Sacred, Sexuality, when it is corrupt....at the wrong time, in the wrong place with the wrong person....is unholy.

Sex is the creative life force....and so should be treated with joy.....but with reverence. It is a Holy thing. It is the most holy, creative, life affirming thing that we, mere mortals, can enjoy.

End of 'alternative' sermon.

[lady of shallot]

Penelope:

Because it is Sacred, Sexuality, when it is corrupt....at the wrong time, in the wrong place with the wrong person....is unholy.

Sometimes they call this marriage! LOL

[Penelope]

Penelope:

Quote:
Because it is Sacred, Sexuality, when it is corrupt....at the wrong time, in the wrong place with the wrong person....is unholy.

Sometimes they call this marriage! LOL

Now you're being wicked LofS.......

[Penelope]

I'm trying to do flippin' 'Dover Beach' - having been there twice this weekend!!!!!!

I wanted to say that the French call the Sea....La Mer - The Mother!!!!

But now I can't remember why I wanted to say that.......but it was for some 'poetic' reason.

[Penelope]

Robert Tulip writ:

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!


There is an old line of English bigotry, 'the wogs begin at Calais'. This arrogant sense that England is the world and that Europeans are inferior was central to empire. So the contrast between the 'glimmering and vast' England and the 'gone light' of France. Yet there is a wistful sense that this English imperial arrogance is false, that its derision of European culture is puffed up denial of the cultural superiority of European depth.

..this is rubbish,.....the French treat us with equal contempt......

It is a case of sibling rivalry between the French and us....and the English Channel is 'La Mer'.....The Mother,.

The Dutch are near neighbours....and treat everyone with equanimity.

Poor little Belgium is divided.....half French, half Flemish.

But, the Flemish language is more English than French......I'm going to learn Flemish.....not very useful......but at my age that doesn't matter.....and it is a delightful language.....a joy to the ears.. tot ziens!!

[Robert Tulip]

I said to some one that Australian English speakers are the most monolingual people on earth, and they said Britain is worse. At least Australians have an excuse of being so far away from everyone else. Brits just think they are the centre of the universe. Isn't the pas de Calais a sleeve?

Arnold wrote "on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand; Glimmering and vast." I wonder why he chose those images? Choosing this time of day to contrast how the light remains in England after it has died in France reads like an allegory for how Continental mysticism is going down the gurgler while British empiricism remains standing, or is even rising.

LOS: re dance of death, check out http://fleursdumal.org/poem/226 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danse_Macabre not quite what you asked but shows the theme is widespread.

[lady of shallot]

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast

In the summer we sometimes visit an island called Grand Manan. This is a Canadian island but is actually off the coast of Maine. We have gone to see the sun set on Maine from Grand Manan. It would have been the furthest thing from my mind (of all the thoughts one may have in the presence of such beauty) to think that one was a comparison of superiority over the other.

Would one not have to think then, that the rising sun which visits France first, is showing a blessing upon France from mother nature?

Also isn't the poem speaking of the cliffs being glimmering and vast? Not the country?

Penelope, when my husband and I were going together there was a song called "La Mer" or was it "Le Mer" it

was a French song and was a great favorite of mine. I thought Mer meant sea and Mere meant mother????
Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd_nopTFuZA

All this talk of the sea reminds me of our lovely walk by it on Sunday. Very high surf, this is a pic we took.

[Penelope]

Oh Lovely picture, thanks LofS.

Robert Tulip writed:

I said to some one that Australian English speakers are the most monolingual people on earth, and they said Britain is worse. At least Australians have an excuse of being so far away from everyone else. Brits just think they are the centre of the universe. Isn't the pas de Calais a sleeve?

English is spoken by America.....so that makes it powerful. Australians speak English although, sometimes, we still don't understand one another. French is a beautiful language....but not so useful, because fewer people use it, as with the other European languages. Not that those languages are inferior.....just the way history has unfolded, has made English most useful on a global basis. That has made us lazy, not that we think we, or our language is superior.....not that we are proud of our language....just that we are lazy because we don't need to learn other languages....most people speak ours.

It is a very rich language though.....with input from all over the globe.

I speak French, a bit of Italian and when we go to Spain, Greece or Germany - I attempt to make myself understood in their languages......often with hilarious results.....

The Dutch are always popular because they speak everyone's language....why? Because they get everyones' television!!

The people I speak to in Belgium have excellent English, although they often say they never had an English lesson....they learn it all from the Television, often with an American accent, and often with the Australian, questioning lift in intonation at the end of the sentence??????