it's too good not to blog it...! the poems speak to me on such a personal level!
One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.
- Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
apparently an infamous poem. some essays 2 gif u a handle on it:
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/bishop/oneart.htm
"lit lect" in the book:
Lit Prof: is the love lost already , or does the poet place that loss, out of all the others, in the realm of the theoretical? is she talking about this loss as a possibility? a probability?"
Maggie: a probability
Lit Prof: Why?
Maggie: well, at the beginning of the poem, she's talking about real things, stuff that every body loses... it shifts from the tangible to the intangible... and then the poet starts getting... Grandiose. Like, she lost a house... a whole ocntinent...
Lit Prof: Which we can assume, would not be hers to lose...
Maggie: right.. and the way she writes about it, like it doesn't even matter that much...
Lit Prof: you're talking about Bishop's tone. would you call it ironic? detached?
Maggie: i think she wans to sound detached. like it doesn't matter to her, right? like the words she's using. Fluster....
[in fact the tone reminded Maggie of the way her sister talked about herself.]
Lit Prof: let's consider the structure again... A B A. A B A. Stanzas of three lines, until we reach the end, the final quatrain, and what happens?
Maggie: well, it's 4 lines, not three... and there's that interruption - 'write it!' - it's like she wants to be distant, she wants to be apart from it, but she's thinking of what's going to happen when she loses..
Lit Prof: loses what? who is the 'you' in this poem?
Maggie: [bites her lip. her sister she thought.] a friend maybe
Lit Prof: very good. very good.
then she turned back to the board, back to the class, back to the rhyme scheme and the formal demands of a villanelle. Maggie barely heard a word of it. she was still blushing. she, who never blushed.. had turned the rich ripe red of a Jersey tomato.
that night... thinking abt her sister, wondering if Rose had taken that particular poetry class and had read that particular poem, and whether Rose would ever believe that it was Maggie... who'd understood the poem best. she wondered.. whtat she'd have to do to get Rose to forgive her.
dis gotta b in d movie... it's kinda pivotal in Maggie's tranformation n poignant re relationship with her sister. will be upset if they dun include it!
makes me miss my lit lects n tuts juz so v badly... even tho i really din enjoy my lit lessons in NUS.
who is the "you"? it's XG...
To Say Before Going to Sleep
I would like to sing someone to sleep,
have someone to sit by and be with.
I would like to cradle you and softly sing,
be your companion while you sleep or wake.
I would like to be the only person
in the house who knew: the night outside was cold.
And would like to listen to you
and outside to the world and to the woods.
The clocks are striking, calling to eachother,
and one can see right to the edge of time.
Outside the house a strange man is afoot
and a strange dog barks, wakened from his sleep.
Beyond that there is silence.
My eyes rest upon your face wide-open;
and they hold you gently, letting you go
when something in the dark begins to move.
by Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
- E E Cummings, in 1958
No comments:
Post a Comment