Weekly/Fortnightly Poetry Suggestions

Short Poetry Collections, Short Story Collections, and our Weekly Poetry Project
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msfry
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Post by msfry »

Ok, how about this one for a weekly? It's not in our catalog yet.

NATURE by William Wordsworth

As a fond mother, when the day is o’er.
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leave his broken playthings on the floor,
Still gazing at them through the open door,
Nor wholly reassured and comforted
By promises of others in their stead,
Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;
So Nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wished to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the what we know.
TriciaG
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Post by TriciaG »

Looks good to me. :) Thanks!
Serial novel: The Wandering Jew
Medieval England meets Civil War Americans: Centuries Apart
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msfry
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Post by msfry »

I've come around in my thinking lately regarding how to PL these repetitive poetry recitations. Clearly, these are not primarily for listeners, but about our readers taking a stab at poetry, relaxing and having some fun with it. I used to cringe at crazy mis-pronounced words, wrong words, and interpretations that miss the point, but now I'm beginning to find them interesting, actually fun. They point up how difficult it is to render a poem, extract meaning from rhyme, display how many different interpretations there are, and showcase the skill it takes to avoid mistakes. This tool is an English teachers' paradise!

I'm interested in what other BC's and DPL's of these Poetry gigs think. How do you PL these poems?
TriciaG
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Post by TriciaG »

I'm fairly slack on the poem itself. I don't do word-perfect, and certainly don't worry about interpretation. Pronunciations aren't supposed to be PL'd anyway.
Serial novel: The Wandering Jew
Medieval England meets Civil War Americans: Centuries Apart
Humor: My Lady Nicotine
KevinS
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Post by KevinS »

msfry wrote: June 20th, 2021, 12:44 pm I've come around in my thinking lately regarding how to PL these repetitive poetry recitations. Clearly, these are not primarily for listeners, but about our readers taking a stab at poetry, relaxing and having some fun with it. I used to cringe at crazy mis-pronounced words, wrong words, and interpretations that miss the point, but now I'm beginning to find them interesting, actually fun. They point up how difficult it is to render a poem, extract meaning from rhyme, display how many different interpretations there are, and showcase the skill it takes to avoid mistakes. This tool is an English teachers' paradise!

I'm interested in what other BC's and DPL's of these Poetry gigs think. How do you PL these poems?
When I've PLed weekly or fortnightly poems, I have to admit that I just kind of grind through them. I make sure the technical specs are right and that all the words are there. It's only much later that I re-visit the poems and somewhat randomly listen to the variations among them that one finds. I've always thought that these collections are most valuable to the student who is learning the performance of poetry. Hearing different approaches to performing poetry of all types is very helpful, though I have to admit that I'm pretty comfortable with my 'style' after all these years.

I'm not too fond of the poetry slam types of poems I sometimes hear, but we don't see any of that here because of the poetry's age. I doubt that I could pull off that style. I'd feel silly, to begin with, and a little helpless.
williamjones
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Post by williamjones »

Michele, Tricia, Kevin, you have each enlightened me.
I agree with all of your sentiments and I have to admit that I have been, by nature, hard-line, rigid, inflexible and uncompromising PLer -- in other words, an ungrateful wretch.

Why do people add their recitations to these collections? Well, as the Grand Trio have said: mostly for people to practice their delivery and pronunciation.

Mostly, but NOT ALWAYS.... Occasionally, someone will have a unique spin to put on a poem and will want to share it with the world. That sounds a bit arrogant, doesn't it? Well, to some degree or another all of us are theatrical hams who sometimes can be found "chewing the scenery".

You three have turned my head around. If I should PL other poems, I'll mention only "the technicals" and missing lines; otherwise, the readers will receive a Golden PL OK.
-- Bill Jones

When you think that you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven't.
--- Thomas Edison
Nedge
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Post by Nedge »

The weekly and fortnightly poems, to me, give everyone a chance to shine.
It's the karaoke of Librivox threads, and everyone's singing "Crazy" by Patsy Cline.

It's a chance to hear good, better, best, professionals, beginners, everyone put their spin on the poem. Even if they don't have a spin, that's a spin in itself.

I enjoy doing them when I've been away from Librivox for a while and I want a short, simple, enjoyable exercise going through the entire process of recording, fixing, checking noise, making it loud enough, taking out the long spaces, and counting the minutes and seconds.
"Ready, willing, and vaguely competent." -- Sandra Boynton, 2021
msfry
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Post by msfry »

Here is one not in the catalog, but perhaps a tad long for a fortnightly. It has teeth!
But is it a poem????? If so I would be happy to BC it.

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). from the book Cornhuskers. 1918.
https://www.bartleby.com/134/22.html

Wilderness


THERE is a wolf in me … fangs pointed for tearing gashes … a red tongue for raw meat … and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me … a silver-gray fox … I sniff and guess … I pick things out of the wind and air … I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers … I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me … a snout and a belly … a machinery for eating and grunting … a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me … I know I came from saltblue water-gates … I scurried with shoals of herring … I blew waterspouts with porpoises … before land was … before the water went down … before Noah … before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me … clambering-clawed … dog-faced … yawping a galoot’s hunger … hairy under the armpits … here are the hawk-eyed hankering men … here are the blond and blue-eyed women … here they hide curled asleep waiting … ready to snarl and kill … ready to sing and give milk … waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so. 5

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird … and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want … and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.
williamjones
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Post by williamjones »

msfry wrote: July 3rd, 2021, 11:41 am Here is one not in the catalog, but perhaps a tad long for a fortnightly. It has teeth!
But is it a poem????? If so I would be happy to BC it.

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). from the book Cornhuskers. 1918.
https://www.bartleby.com/134/22.html

Wilderness


THERE is a wolf in me … fangs pointed for tearing gashes … a red tongue for raw meat … and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me … a silver-gray fox … I sniff and guess … I pick things out of the wind and air … I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers … I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me … a snout and a belly … a machinery for eating and grunting … a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me … I know I came from saltblue water-gates … I scurried with shoals of herring … I blew waterspouts with porpoises … before land was … before the water went down … before Noah … before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me … clambering-clawed … dog-faced … yawping a galoot’s hunger … hairy under the armpits … here are the hawk-eyed hankering men … here are the blond and blue-eyed women … here they hide curled asleep waiting … ready to snarl and kill … ready to sing and give milk … waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so. 5

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird … and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want … and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.
WOW and Double-WOW!!
This is superb stuff. Breath-taking imagery and elevated prose.
If it gets picked up, I'll take a shot at doing it justice.
-- Bill Jones

When you think that you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven't.
--- Thomas Edison
TriciaG
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Post by TriciaG »

Better as fortnightly than weekly, since it's not PD everywhere.

This fortnight's poem closes next week. :)
Serial novel: The Wandering Jew
Medieval England meets Civil War Americans: Centuries Apart
Humor: My Lady Nicotine
msfry
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Post by msfry »

TriciaG wrote: July 3rd, 2021, 1:57 pm Better as fortnightly than weekly, since it's not PD everywhere.

This fortnight's poem closes next week. :)
I like fortnightly so it gets more participants, but what does that have to do with PD?????
Put me in for a date, sooner or later, and let me know.
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Post by TriciaG »

We try to keep Weekly open to everyone, so PD everywhere.

Looks like that information was posted in the Weekly Poetry Planning thread which was the precursor to this one, and not transferred over. Here's a quote from 2011 about how poems are chosen:
Lucy_k_p wrote: November 22nd, 2011, 7:13 am I have no idea how to find all the weekly poems. There might be a clever way of searching the catalogue to do it, but off the top of my head I can't think of one.

There are no real rules for selecting or suggesting weekly poems. Some variety in theme, style, author is usually appreciated so that people who don't like one weeks may like another, but this is more courtesy on the part of the BCs than anything else. And I generally pick out poems that I like myself, as I consider that a BC's perk, but if someone suggests but doesn't want to coordinate a poem I will generally get around to doing it at some point, even if I'm not a fan.
And for things like national holidays/special days an appropriately themed poem is usually picked (such as at Remembrance or Christmas time, the 4th of July, etc) and I think it's nice to celebrate days that have meaning for non-English/American volunteers, but these usually have to be suggested by people who do celebrate these days because otherwise I just don't know about them, so they often get lost in the shuffle. But none of these are rules, just things I like to do.

If a poem is longer it will usually be suggested as a fortnightly - I have read a few fortnightly poems that were over 5 minutes long. Anything over 3 or 4 minutes is probably too long to be a weekly, especially as we try to get newbies to read it as first, short and easy to edit recording and if it's much longer than that it isn't.

Also weekly poems have to be PD everywhere. Fortnightly just have to be PD in the US (I.E PD enough for LibriVox to use). So poems with authors who died less than 70 years ago cannot be weekly poems but are used for fortnightly poems.
I'll check the first post and add it if it's not there.
Serial novel: The Wandering Jew
Medieval England meets Civil War Americans: Centuries Apart
Humor: My Lady Nicotine
msfry
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Post by msfry »

TriciaG wrote: July 3rd, 2021, 2:51 pm We try to keep Weekly open to everyone, so PD everywhere.
Lucy_k_p wrote: November 22nd, 2011, 7:13 am
If a poem is longer it will usually be suggested as a fortnightly - I have read a few fortnightly poems that were over 5 minutes long. Anything over 3 or 4 minutes is probably too long to be a weekly, especially as we try to get newbies to read it as first, short and easy to edit recording and if it's much longer than that it isn't.

Also weekly poems have to be PD everywhere. Fortnightly just have to be PD in the US (I.E PD enough for LibriVox to use). So poems with authors who died less than 70 years ago cannot be weekly poems but are used for fortnightly poems.
I'll check the first post and add it if it's not there.
Thanks. Learn something new every day! :mrgreen:
Newgatenovelist
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Post by Newgatenovelist »

I'd like to propose a short poem by Jane Grey, the 'Nine Days' Queen', who isn't currently in the catalogue as an author.

Lines in Latin, inscribed with a pin upon her prison wall.

Think not, O mortal, vainly gay,
That thou from human woes art free;
The bitter cup I drink to-day,
To-morrow may be drank by thee.

Her wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Jane_Grey

The etext:
https://archive.org/details/voicesfrompriso00speagoog/page/n133/mode/2up

Erin
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alanmapstone
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Post by alanmapstone »

When I set out for Lyonnesse by Thomas Hardy is one of his best short poems and contains some fine magical imagery.

I would be prepared to BC this if that would help.

https://www.theotherpages.org/poems/hardy04.html#53
Alan
the sixth age shifts into the slippered pantaloon with spectacles on nose
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