matt's poetry pocketbook: poems and poets

poets: living

Chinua Achebe: Eze elina, elina! - Kemefuna's song from Things Fall Apart; Matt's note on Eze elina, elina!; Speed is violence - Butteryfly; Matt's note on Butterfly
Breyten Breytenbach: (I) breathe in (I) breathe - flowers for buddha; Dames en Here, vergun my om u voor te stel aan Breyten - Bedreiging van die Siekes
Helen Clare: Six to start - Snakes and Ladders, about; As if in the school sick room with the sound of the secretary’s heels - Tired; Helen Clare's website; Mollusc, her first book (Comma Press, ISBN 0-9548280-0-3, £6.95, 80pp)

Gerald England: and the crowd has - from Four Square Replay; Gerald England's website
jb: next only bed - you & me boy; this is how the moo is - several different moos (or can you read?); 'What beach?' I ask - Sea Pinks
Duane Locke: The impulse planted in the hands, voices - An Evening in Florence Before the Doors of Paradise; The wild bay galloped through my body - The Wild Bay
James Lockyear: upon my fingers - newt relief
Pierre Louys: Under the sheet of transparent wool we slipped - Penumbra
Khaled Mattawa: My lips came with a caravan of slaves - History of my Face
Naomi Shihab Nye: Here comes the woman who never looks up with one - La Feria
Christopher Okigbo: Fanfare of drums, wooden bells - Thunder Can Break
Akoli Penoukou: Tether which inhibited us in barter - The tether will suffer the wear and the tear
Adrienne Rich: The pact that we made was the ordinary pact - From a Survivor
roo: i fear if i were the night - little star ii
Wole Soyinka: My skin is pemiced to fault - Fado Singer for Amalia Roderinguez
John Taggart: To breathe and stretch one's arms again - Slow Song for Mark Rothko
Calaya J Williams: Oh / I only wanted to see - Slug Tracks
Gary Young: I discovered a journal in the children's ward - I discovered a journal in the children's ward

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poets: dead

Guillaume Apollinaire: Je songe á Gaspard ce n'est certainement pas - Étoile; Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine - Le Pont Mirabeau.; Du rouge au vert tout le jaune se meurt - Les Fenêtres
Philip Bainbrigge: If I should die, be not concerned to know
Roland Bathes: When I buy colours, it is by the mere sight of their name - from Roland Barthes
William Blake: Tyger! Tyger! burning bright - The Tyger
Lewis Carroll: How doth the little crocodile - How doth the little crocodile; I'll tell thee everything I can - A-sitting on a Gate (White Knight's Song)
C P Cavafy: Like the beautiful bodies of those who died before growing old - Longings; As you set out for Ithaka - Ithaka (original in Greek)
Samuel Daniel: Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night
Sir Edward Dyer: The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall
T S Eliot: The river sweats - from The Waste Land
George Gascoigne: And if I did, what then?
Theophile Gautier: Soulève ta paupière close - Le Spectre de la Rose
Robert Graves: She tells her love while half asleep - She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep
Thom Gunn: I wake up cold, I who - The Man with Night Sweats; Guardian obiturary
Earnest Hemmingway: The age demanded that we sing, and cut away our tongues - The Age Demanded
Gerald Manley Hopkins: As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme
Jules Laforgue: I am in love, I am in love: I have drunk a good dizzying gulp - Coup de foudre
C S Lewis: Arise my body, my small body, we have striven - After Prayers, Lie Cold
Amy Lowell: All day long I have been working - Madonna of the Evening Flowers
Edward Lear: Calico pie - Calico Pie
Wilfred Owen: Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade - Arms and the Boy
A B 'Banjo' Paterson: Oh! there once was a swagman camped by a Billabong - Waltzing Matilda - a song
Alan Paton: Kyk ma, daarkom dies ossewaens Lied van die Verdorpene
Sylvia Plath: Pure? What does it mean? - Fever 103°; The hills step off into whiteness - Sheep in Fog
Saphho: We put the urn aboard
William Shakespeare: Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale - from Anthony and Cleopatra; Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds - from Romeo and Juliet; O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you - from Romeo and Juliet; Full fathom five thy father lies - from The Tempest
Percy Bysshe Shelley: When the lamp is shatter'd - Lines
Sir Philip Sidney: My true love hath my heart and I have his - The Bargain
Stevie Smith: I always remember your beautiful flowers - Pad, pad
Edward Thomas: Yes, I remember Adlestrop - Adlestrop
Walt Whitman: As Adam early in the morning; I celebrate myself, and sing myself - from Song of Myself; Stretch'd and still lies the midnight - from Song of Myself; The world below the brine - The World below the Brine; This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger - from Song of Myself
Oscar Wilde: Tread lightly, she is near - Requiescat
W B Yeats: Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths - He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven

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poems: anonymous and traditional

Two Bambara praises for the Crowned Crane: The beginning of beginning rhythm
Traditional Scottish blood vow: Ye are my Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone
My son John - traditional: Deedle, deedle, dumpling, my son John
Perywynke is an erbe of grene colour and other traditional charms: Perywynke is an erbe of grene colour
Jenny Jones - traditional girl's game: Please, we've come to see Jenny Jones, Jenny Jones, Jenny Jones; Matt's note on Jenny Jones
Sumer is icumen in: Sumer is icumen in
Five Akan praises of hunters: The hunter will go: he will bring meat; Matt' note on Five Akan praises
Song, anon (dunno): The sun has got his hat on
Winde, when wilt thou blow?: Westron winde, when wilt thou blow
Foundling poem by a mother, once: Hard is my Lot in deep Distress; Matt's note on Hard is my Lot in deep Distress
Yoruba praise: We are meningitis

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