Requisite Words 24 – Taking Thomas Hardy on Faith

After a very 2020 hiatus, we’re back with two of Thomas Hardy’s poems, God’s Funeral and The Darkling Thrush.

Episode Music:
Be Chillin’ by Alexander Nakarada | www.serpentsoundstudios.com
Music promoted by www.free-stock-music.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Photo is in the public domain, from wikimedia.org

Requisite Words 23 – Shakespeare’s Sonnet 127

This episode we share the first of Shakespeare’s Sonnets to the Dark Lady, Sonnet 127, alongside a brief contextual reading of the piece.

This episode was inspired by Patrick Stewart’s A Sonnet a Day initiative, which has been a source of much delight in recent months, but overlooked this one piece during a break.

Episode Music:
Be Chillin’ by Alexander Nakarada | www.serpentsoundstudios.com
Music promoted by www.free-stock-music.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Photo is in the public domain, from wikimedia.org

Poetry Roundup – August 2020

I’m publishing (on average) a short piece per day on Twitter, including a mix of poetry and prose, so I’m posting a “highlights reel” here, and the rest can be found on my profile, @PeterRavlich.

If you enjoy ultra short form work, there are hundreds of other poets and writers creating moments of delight, tension, wonder and bravery, most consistently using the hashtag #vss365.


Prompt: Swoon (vss365)

You are so
far
beyond me
in every
single dimension—
I can’t even


Prompt: Flutter (Poetryin13)

That sweet
lub-dub was
so sufficient—
but feeling
this flutter
is bittersweet
bliss


Prompt: Integer (vss365)

In your influence
I feel
infinite
and yet constrained
Ordered
only to your orbit
where I’m dying
to remain
Count my singular
resolve
and salve this pain


Prompt: Concern (painfulprompts)

There are only four chambers
inside this heart
but I can’t seem to find
my way out


Prompt: Triangle (vss365)

The first is a fragile instant—
A heart is surrendered and won
The second a cognitive frisson
A deft dalliance is begun
The third is the angle unchallenged
Who toys with the others in turn
He’ll posture and pout as misdeeds echo out
But never be ready to learn


Prompt: Commute (vss365)

Everything you are to me
an absolute anomaly
in isolation can’t exist
(the pun misplaced but accurate)—
This is a sum that can’t be split
the product is inviolate
no cognitive coherence how
you’ve come to populate my now

But I’m glad


Prompt: Complex (vss365)

You say you’re
simple—
so simple

maybe it’s the word
that’s insufficient

maybe it’s me

because simple

has never meant
so much


Prompt: Field (vss365)

A heart is not a book
but a library
Where the authors each submit
a single tome
Whose pages leave us shook
and sad, and teary
But where sometimes we still sit
to dream of home


Prompt: Vector (vss365)

Turn my key until it binds
and point me down a stumbled line
I’ll be your rusting soldier
til the end
And when that final spring unwinds
my clockwork heart, my whole design
will be no single fraction colder—
For I’ve had you as a friend


Prompt: Calculus (vss365)

You nudge me
unexpectedly
and sometimes
off the edge—
how is one to
ascertain
these rates
of change?

If I were in
any way a smart
predictor I would
hedge—
It is not at all
unpleasant
but it’s strange.


Prompt: iff (vss365)

I just can’t see a case
that tests for true

When something ill-defined
and ephemeral is
lost
what do you weigh?

I know it’s my fault
But not how
when I can’t
be false
again


Prompt: Vector (vss365)

I have value
I know
and volition – a vector
so why
does my verse
tend
to zero
on you?


Prompt: Enhance (vss365)

If wishes
worked—
even once
You’d be unafraid
still perfect
but content
too

Requisite Words 22 – Shakespeare’s better foot

We attempt to balance out the bawdy and bluest of the Bard with a few of his nicer Sonnets.

Featuring Sonnets 17, 18, 19 and 29.

Transcript follows below.

Episode Music:
Be Chillin’ by Alexander Nakarada | www.serpentsoundstudios.com
Music promoted by www.free-stock-music.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Photo by Shamia Casiano from Pexels.com

Transcript

You’re listening to this pod, so you’re likely familiar with Patrick Stewart‘s recent “a sonnet a day” initiative, where he’s working his way through performing all 154 of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

For the last week, I’ve been summarising each of those daily poems for my wife, who is incredibly patient with me, but less so with Shakespearean language and idiom.

Unfortunately, Sir Patrick is currently up to Sonnet 95, and this part of the sequence, while containing some beautiful works, is also deeply paranoid and potentially anxiety-inducing.

So with far too much context there, I’d like to share a few of the more uplifting and just generally lovely sonnets from Shakespeare’s sequence, along with what I’ve been calling the Lisa Versions.

I’m certain I’ve shared Sonnet 18 before, and it’s the best known of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but I’d like to start with it and 17.

The early part of Shakespeare’s sequence is an appeal for the speaker’s beloved “young man” to procreate and in doing so immortalise his beauty.

In a precedent that will continue through the sequence, the speaker then attempts to find an alternate solution: what if the young man does not have children? How can his beauty be immortalised?

Sonnet 17 is an attempt to impose a dual solution, and might be seen as a bridge from “go forth and multiply” to “I’m an amazing writer, I can just preserve you here -” but ideally, let’s do both and build in some redundancy.

Sonnet 18, as the most famous of the sonnets today, is both signifier and signified: it is the single enduring image of Shakespeare’s young man sequence, which is precisely what it posits.

Sonnet 17

Sonnet 18

And I can’t stop there, because 19 is also an amazing piece.

To recap, we’ve gone from “have children to keep your beauty in this world,” to “well, my poems can help too,” to perhaps a sudden realisation that genetics aren’t always predictable, so let’s double down on the poetry.

In 19, we again go a step further: now that 18 has established a permanent
“save point” for the beloved, the speaker gets cocky and decides to taunt Time, placing the beloved explicitly beyond its reach.

Sonnet 19

I’ll conclude this episode with Sonnet 29, in which the speaker attempts to describe the disparity between the value of being loved and of all worldly aspirations. It celebrates the power of love to grant transcendence, and to fundamentally and utterly reframe the world for the better. Sonnet 25 follows a similar theme, but is more militaristic, and while the tone is darker, I find this one more heartfelt.

Sonnet 29

Poetry Roundup – July 2020

I’m publishing an average of around one short piece per day on Twitter, including a mix of poetry and prose, so I’m posting a “highlights reel” here, and the rest can be found on my profile, @PeterRavlich.

If you enjoy ultra short form work, there are hundreds of other poets and writers creating moments of delight, tension, wonder and bravery, most consistently using the hashtag #vss365.

Prompt: Ocean (#vss365)

Yours is the shore
and the shallows
yours are the deeps
and the docks
You are the ocean
whose bellicose
bellows
give beat
to this heart
as it clings
to the rocks


Prompt: Nectar (#vss365)

Your nectar is far
too sweet—
I can’t stop sipping
the heart is
blameless here
but it still hurts
to feel it slipping

#Hamilton #AngelicaSchuyler #TakeABreak



Prompt: Nostalgic (#vss365)

The volumes on
my mental shelves
are battered
Like every book
I’ve ever loved
too much
But those pages are
pristine
that really matter—
Every visit
restored
with a delicate
touch



Prompt: Estrange (#Poetryin13)

Is there
an inverse
corollary
or tacit
apology—
rearrange
estrange
and this
remains


Prompt: Charisma (#vss365)

I know it’s problematic
to conflate sincerity with reality—
to make a character emblematic
when the stage and the page
are more suited to static impressions
than actual accuracy…

But as for charisma
it’s clear there’s
no deficit here—
Miranda’s Hamilton
is revelatory
owning his story
and an absolute
revolution to see.


Prompt: Xenophobe (#vss365)

Losing fear
is liberation;
Holding it
habitual

But when that fear
is fabricated
facile, false and fanciful

An arbitrary othering
of any trait you
don’t digest

You’ll find my
sympathy
is slipping—
please don’t
put it to
the test.


Prompt: Orphan (#vss365)

I sometimes wished
No,
often
while the belt was
coming down
in the latest
punctuation of
my faults

That some other
explanation
for my
being
was at hand;
that could
justify
escape from
these assaults


Prompt: Pachyderm (#vss365)

How ponderous
our parries
when that trunk
gets in the way—
yet how deftly
we deny
our own
détentes


Prompt: Liberty (#vss365)

The figure of
Liberty beckons
with a valiant
verdigris mien
While behind this
inviting impression
Is an irony
cast for a queen


Prompt: Demogorgon (#vss365)

Your petals
seem peculiar
and your botany—
bizarre
While I hate
to hasten rumour
I can’t fathom
what you are
Open wider
let me see—
those look
remarkably like
teeth
just a second
maybe three
to get
my head in
underneath…


Prompt: Angel (#vss365)

You used
to call me angel
but I thought
my wings
were gone—
that time
had marred
the feathers
that I’d fallen…

I was wrong

I was silly
and afraid
but those
do not reflect
on you
and if I soar
again it’s only
‘cos you were my
angel too