Dear davidf,

The line I find most chilling in Randall Jarrell's poem is the first; “From my mother's sleep I fell into the State”. It describes so well the youth of so many who were lost or maimed terribly in the conflict but also the very Orwellian sense of the State being responsible for setting the trap. A trap we so often fall into with little resistance. Then there is the frozen wet fur of the young pup pulled into an alien environment.

The hosing of the turret spoke to me of the maw of the State being rinsed after feasting.

All in all a ripper.

Dear squeers,

For my 40th birthday I had a “Pomp, Port and Poetry” night complete with black tie and a piano player in the corner. It started as a little wink about my age with me being the first in my circle of friends to tick over that milestone, but everyone got into the spirit and it was a top night. All guests had to write a piece of verse before hand and read it out. I had expected some pretty rough and ribald stuff but I was floored how seriously almost everyone took the task and the quality was really quite high, although the port might have had a bit to do with that assessment.

This was a far cry from my 39th when the police were called twice.

Some of the best poetry came from tradie mates and I still have the copies. So from my experience I can't agree with your premise. Indeed it might be said that “complacently middle-classed”, “culturally-capitalistic” and “imperialistic and shallow” are great adjectives for someone who thinks poetry is reserved, enjoyed and appreciated only by the middle and upper classes.

It just ain't necessarily so guvnor'.

Dear csteele,

It ain't necessarily so indeed!

Here's another poem from Australian poet -
J.J. Bray:

"Non Event."

"Let's agree to sever,
Saving grief and gloom.
You want a freehold property.
I want a motel room.

Better abort the friendship,
Before it's too old to kill.
You want Joan and Darby,
I want Fanny Hill.

We would never have been concordant,
Either in heart or head.
You want a lifelong union.
I want an hour in bed.

You can't say I deceived you.
I never promised rings.
You want Tristan and Isolde,
I want a twang on the strings."

Poetry is an ancient and universal verbal art form
which has stood the test of time in multiple
manifestations. And it's found everywhere. Comic verse
is as much poetry as the ode; the limerick as
worthwhile as the sonnet. The world of poetry
(like the Kingdom of Heaven, has many mansions...).
Funny rhymes can help you keep your reason, just as
serious poetry can probe your soul!

Dear Foxy,

I have discovered through your thread that I seem to appreciate poems that have a back story so it appears I am probably not assessing the merits of each poem strictly on its worth as poetry.

An example is Magee's 'High Flight' posted earlier.

Another I have mentioned in different thread was the Last Farewell by Jose Rizal written the night before he was executed by the Spanish in the Philippines for insurrection.

I die as I see tints on the sky b'gin to show
And at last announce the day, after a gloomy night;
If you need a hue to dye your matutinal glow,
Pour my blood and at the right moment spread it so,
And gild it with a reflection of your nascent light! 

http://www.carayanpress.com/ultimo.html

Yet another favourite of mine is The Pearl Diver by Banjo Patterson

Down in the ooze and the coral, down where earth's wonders are spread,
Helmeted, ghastly, and swollen, Kanzo Makame lies dead.
Joe Nagasaki, his "tender", is owner and diver instead.

Wearer of pearls in your necklace, comfort yourself if you can.
These are the risks of the pearling -- these are the ways of Japan;
"Plenty more Japanee diver plenty more little brown man!"

But then my father was a deep sea diver until he died so it has obvious resonances for me. Visiting the Japanese pearl diver's cemetery in Broome was quite moving.

So I have given it some thought, what piece of poetry can I judge purely on its merits and the best I can come up with is the 23rd Psalm.

'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.'

Which brings me to another discovery, the common theme running through most of my favourites – death!

Emily pass the Mortein please!

I was interested in Squeers' point about the middle-classes claiming the poetry - and it reminded me of an instance I came upon recently where they claimed the poet as well.

I've lately been doing some research on my ancestors. I traced my great great great grandfather to Edinburgh, where he was a solicitor before the Supreme Court - then to his father and uncle who were solicitors and notaries in Dumfries in the late 1700's. I lucked out because they lived in the town at the same time as Robert Burns.
The fascinating thing here is that Burns was not like them at all, he was more of a working-class hero type, yet he was included amongst their ranks because by the time he landed in Dumfries he was famous. However, he became an exciseman (as fame hadn't translated into riches), He joined the Masonic Lodge and the Royal Dumfries Volunteers with a load of middle-class inhabitants including my forebears.
Burns wrote many poems about his middle-class associates during his final years in Dumfries. When I look at his poems I recognise the names of ordinary citizens who inhabited Dumfries at the time.
Unfortunately, he didn't write a poem about my ancestors (who probably weren't that interesting), however, I did find a quote where he referred to my great great great great uncle as "not having as many brains as a midge could rest its elbow on."

Dear Foxy,
I wasn't accusing you of prudery, dear, I just 'happened' to append some choice Chaucer; I was more invoking the spectre of Marx, channelled through Benjamin. The quote was originally intended as a criticism of bourgeois culture's aesthetic heritage; the fact that it's the accumulation of a history of injustice, indeed that modern canonicity is an artefact of early social engineering kicked off by Matthew Arnold. Fretting over his apostasy, and secularism generally, Arnold invoked the literary tradition to cultivate the benighted masses. He designated the English upper class barbarous, the middle philistine, and the lower beneath contempt. The same experiment was taken to India, with equal success--indeed it's interesting that Kipling is omitted, or only tacitly included in the canon during these postcolonial days. Thus, while our atomised postmodern culture might be designated apolitical pastiche, it's regulated by political correctness--the modern equivalent of prudishness--the disingenuous dictates of conscience. These days we are of course all philistines in that we enjoy poetry (culture) for its own sake. Just as the emerging bourgeoisie turned a blind eye to the horrors they perpetuated, so today the souffle (bourgeoisie), fully risen, is indifferent both to its barbarous past and its own devastating present (think of Nero and his fiddle). Whether we like it or not, there is a degree of complacency (dressed up as complaisance) in our literary comportment.
And I sound like a dreadful moralist!

Dear Csteele, unlettered I worked in factories for 25 years from the age of fourteen, reading lustily from the canon to compensate for my my deep insecurity, only to learn at university that my hard-earned cultural capital was counterfeit! Of course it's not; I'd be poorer without it--but it's laundered money!
I didn't met too many tradies who rose above composing dirt ditties btw :-)

Squeers

One doesn't have to be 'middle-class' to appreciate any art.

Know when you have been thoroughly trumped. Foxy's recent ditty's and Csteele's reference to Robert Burns put the lie to your claims of elitism.

Midsummer's Night Dream was the play that invited me (as a child) into the works of Shakespeare, just as it was intended, in its day, for the poorer folk of both education and income.

You may well wish to provoke the apparent veneer of complacency - however, just because you have a pigeon does not mean you have to shove it in a hole.

"the river
leans upon the snag
a moment"