Ship of Fools: Bang, Bang, Bang, Crash !

Thread: Bang, Bang, Bang, Crash ! Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

This is a form that comes from Old English poetry, I think technically it is called accentual alliterative poetry. This blog has a really good explanation.

I have always been intrigued by this kind of poetry, especially as it developed specifically for English - unlike many other forms that have been wrestled into the language.

However, I've never really learned to write it. I am starting this thread with the hope I may find some fellow shippies who would also like to give it a go.

Here is an example from W.H.Auden's The Age of Anxiety

quote:

Deep in my dark the dream shines
Yes, of you, you dear always;
My cause to cry, cold but my
Story still, still my music.

[ 24. July 2014, 07:16: Message edited by: Doublethink ]

Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :

Oh, wow, that's beautiful.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Auden had an amazing facility to blend technical expertise with lyrical fluency. I can't think of anyone his equal really, I suppose Pound and Eliot and some of the Americans (Lowell?). This stanza is very fine.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

I know we are unlikely to reach Auden's heights, but I think it will be fun to try.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I think Hopkins did something similar with vowels, maybe influenced by Welsh poetry:

Earnest, earthless, equal, attuneable, ' vaulty, voluminous, . . . stupendous
Evening strains to be time’s vást, ' womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night.

(Spelt from Sibyl's leaves).

I quite fancy doing a comic version.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

He used a technique he called sprung rhythm which is hard to do - but is fantastic when it comes off, I think you are right it would work for comedy.

That tumbling headlong quality would work well for farce.

[ 24. July 2014, 08:22: Message edited by: Doublethink ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
He used a technique he called sprung rhythm which is hard to do - but is fantastic when it comes off, I think you are right it would work for comedy.

That tumbling headlong quality would work well for farce.

How do you know so much about all this? I used to teach Eng Lit and wrote poetry. Too old now.

Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :

This love is like to me lit shade
Warmth, when all the world is cold
Colour climbing, in clearing sky
Lifted, alight, in love we rise

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

The bus she sat in, burned bronze and gold -
Peckham, Pimlico, Pirbright its goal;
Thigh to thigh, we thundered down
The Broadway; busty, beatific, my Ceres!

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
He used a technique he called sprung rhythm which is hard to do - but is fantastic when it comes off, I think you are right it would work for comedy.

That tumbling headlong quality would work well for farce.
How do you know so much about all this? I used to teach Eng Lit and wrote poetry. Too old now.

I've always loved poetry, and written it periodically since I was a child. Some years ago I bought and read Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled, which I would recommend to everyone in the entire world. It is really accessible, and talks about poetry as a hobby.

The pleasure of the process, and makes the point that you would not decide not to sing because you're not Pavarotti, or not paint because you are not Constable - so you shouldn't be put off writing poetry just because you aren't going to be Shakespeare.

It is really inspiring, and takes you through lots of different poetic forms with a wide variety of examples. It is where I learnt most of what I know about the technical aspects of poetry.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

And now I have seen Yorick and quetzalcoatl sharpen their quills, I must do a verse - something about a saxophone I think.

[ 24. July 2014, 11:06: Message edited by: Doublethink ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

A secret - I like dirty poems.

The dick she dandled in her doughty hands
Was Fire, Foam, Forensic joy;
Alas, the time came, after he came, when she came
To know loss, languor, letting go – No!

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

Oh my saxophone, like a strangulated swan you honk
Then wheeze, and where is the whitegold beauty
The threnody of sound that held me in thrall three minutes -
As Adolphe played ? Apogee. But I merely quack.

[ 24. July 2014, 11:33: Message edited by: Doublethink ]

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

I did have a go at a bit of alliterative verse some years back.

The result was - well, strained in places. I fancied not a bad first effort.

I discover it still exists on t'intertubes

http://freespace.virgin.net/karl_and.gnome/seawife.htm

Make of it what you will.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

Had you just read Beowolf ?

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Had you just read Beowolf ?

No, but I was already familiar with it. It may owe somewhat towards it. Not to mention far too much Tolkien.

[ 24. July 2014, 11:55: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Oh my saxophone, like a strangulated swan you honk
Then wheeze, and where is the whitegold beauty
The threnody of sound that held me in thrall three minutes -
As Adolphe played ? Apogee. But I merely quack.

Delightful.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Interesting how some famous lines from Shakespeare's 'Cleopatra' start off very alliteratively:

The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

"the poop was beaten gold"

Classy lady that Cleopatra. Even her bodily functions reeked of royalty.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Karl, you need to visit the National Maritime Museum - several burnished poops and royal barges there.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Karl, you need to visit the National Maritime Museum - several burnished poops and royal barges there.

kersnipp kersnipp arf arf fnarr fnarr etc.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
"the poop was beaten gold"

Classy lady that Cleopatra. Even her bodily functions reeked of royalty.

Oh no, I can feel an urge to write doggerel about having a shit. Must control, must repress, must squeeze forehead.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

Please try hard to stay
On the topic of poetry

Doublethink
Verseworks Host

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

The pleasures of defecation are many and varied,
But is is widely thought they are better left unshared.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Isn't that one of the problems of some poetry, and Shakespeare in particular, that the language used is often less familiar and needs explaining? And the only way to understand it is to find out more about what was intended?

Posted by Macrina (# 8807) on :

Ode to Otautahi - a Christchurch verse

About me broken buildings, bowed and bent
Tourists, tentative, talk softly now
At gaping gaps with mouths agape they stare
and look in empty space for what was there
But here yet hearts beat, and humans grow
This city bright in future sight will rise

Posted by St. Stephen the Stoned (# 9841) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
"the poop was beaten gold"

Classy lady that Cleopatra. Even her bodily functions reeked of royalty.
Oh no, I can feel an urge to write doggerel about having a shit. Must control, must repress, must squeeze forehead.

“ O Cloacina, Goddess of this place,
Look on thy suppliants with a smiling face.
Soft, yet cohesive let their offerings flow,
Not rashly swift nor insolently slow. ”*

Attributed** to Lord Byron

**by Stephen Fry

Posted by the famous rachel (# 1258) on :

I can't manage a poem about poo, I'm afraid, but I wanted to have a go at the "bang, bang, bang, crash" thing. Here's my attempt: I'm not sure the stresses are right in the first line...

Sleep’s summons comes with sullen frowns
My fight though flawed will force my lids:
Wakeful, watchful, waiting still
Come, cariad, come soon.

Best wishes,
Rachel.

Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :

I thought that was just right, Rachel. [Overused]

Let me lie, lulled gently
Rocking my restless random spirit calm
Till tall shadows by trees shed
Darken in dusk the daylight's glare.

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