JOHN BETJEMAN ~ THE POETS POET ~ LISTEN TO CHRISTMAS !
WHAT distinguishes Poets from People ?
Firstly it is IMAGINATION ~ The
Ability to see beyond REALITY
And to perceive Hidden Depth & Meaning !
It is this ability that requires
An infinite store of WORDS to express
Insight into Life & Love & Leisure !
If ones Native Vocabulary is .......
Inadequate ~ then there are six thousand
Languages to choose from ~ or invent WORDS
Poetic Licence ! Your WORDS must then be
Arranged into lines of appropriate
METER to give the POEM ~ FLOW ! RHYME is .......
NOT ESSENTIAL ~ but aids RECITATION !
Thanks for visiting ~ comments welcome ~ Love A & B 🧡🧡🧡
This POEM is presented as a 7 7 blank verse Sonnet ~ OK
Each line has ten syllables ~ iambic pentameter !
JOHN BETJEMAN is a Classical Poet ~ whose Poems always
have perfect meter and most of them have a consistent Rhyme
Pattern. They are a delight to recite and his VOCABULARY
(words) is PERFECT. If one looks at his MANUSCRIPTS ~ there
are many (sometimes minor) alterations until he got it RIGHT.
If you want to be a better POET ~ get a book of John*s Poems
and read ~ mark ~ learn & inwardly digest ! Please make sure
you read them out loud ~ to fully savour each & every WORD !
His Poem CHRISTMAS ~ is my favourite ~ It is the one POEM
of the thousand*s Ive read & recited ~ I wish I had written !
-
Author:
ANGELA & BRIAN (Pseudonym) (
Offline) - Published: May 28th, 2019 01:35
- Category: Family
- Views: 29
Offline)
Comments6
A fine write A&B. I googled on 'iambic-thingy'. Someone had put 'Oh no, not another iambic waffle! heehee.
Thanks UNCLE STEVE ! Please note ~ WITHOUT METER it is PROSE ~ WITH METER it is POETRY ~ OK ! I have added JB reading CHRISTMAS ~ please check. Please you liked it !
Blessings to YOU & Fearless FIDO
Yours as always ANGELA & BRIAN 🧡🧡🧡🧡 + 🧡
Only just under 7 months to go - wishing the year away - arrgghh!
Christmas is great but if I'd written any of his I'd be a happy man. Fine work A&B
THANKS UNCLE MIKE ~ We agree every one a GEM ~ A pity he became Poet Laureate so late in his life. I like the new system 10 years max ! I never rated DUFFEY ~ but I do rate SIMON ARMITAGE and I have a POEM on Him almost ready to publish on MPS. Pleased you liked our Presentation !
Blessings & Peace & Love
Yours ANGELA & BRIAN 🧡🧡🧡🧡
Ahh, Sir John
Fully deserves his statue in St Pancras even the bar in his honor which I have frequented.
His poem Loneliness helped me I love the englishness of his work a true laureate.
Wonderful Tribute he inspired and inspires many of us
Thank you A&B
Thanks ANDREW ~ For ANGELA & I ~ One of the greatest ~ a quitisenial ENGLISHMAN an Edwardian Eccentric and (Like Prince Charles) a lover of all things pre 1950 ! His Poems like Christmas & Joan Hunter Dunn are social comments on the 20's 30's & 40's and *Come Friendly Bombs & fall on SLOUGH* is a masterpiece ! In my POEM I was trying to emphasise FORM (does it look like a POEM ?) and METER (does it sound like a POEM ?) if it does both it is a POEM !
Blessings & Peace
Yours ANGELA & BRIAN 🧡🧡🧡🧡
Cor! and there i was thinkin, I could never be a poet. Now you've shown me how I might have a go.
THANKS *DA* ! IN THIS *BLANK VERSE* SONNET ~ We are talking specifically about WRITTEN POETRY. If it is just continuous writing (like a newspaper article or this REPLY) it is classified as PROSE not POETRY. A POEM must have STRUCTURE ~ Lines and Verses and it must have RHYTHM (meter) which should be consistent throughout the POEM ~ OK. A Poem does not have to RHYME but rhyming helps and it is traditional. Classical Poems like Villanelles & Pantoums etc do have strict Rhyme Patterns and a pattern of repeated lines ! The above example is a 7 7 Blank verse Sonnet ~ BECAUSE ~ It has 14 Lines ~ no Rhyme ~ but each Line has 10 Syllables to give it FLOW ~ OK Thanks for your comment !
Yours ANGELA & BRIAN ~🧡🧡🧡🧡
This POEM is an A & B Collaboration ~ OK !
Well that might be the way to teach kids how poetry used to be written but i move with the times.
Well *DA* Poetry is like Music. There is a vast catalogue of Classical Poetry which is an Academic Subject at University and personally I find a study of Classical Poetry makes me a better Poet. In the same way If I am studying Music (at any level !) I have to take account of the rules of composition ~ KEY ~ HARMONY ~ and the symbiosis of Word & Music and of course a SONG must scan (have Rhythm) to be singable ~ the same is true of poetry to be recitable. Most SONGS start out as Poetry. I do appreciate that there is a GENRE ~ MODERN POETRY ~ and we do get examples on MPS ! But it is lacking in Structure ~ Meter ~ Rhyme ~ Grammar ~ Spelling and often Meaning ! Personally (and this is only my OPINION) I would not consider it to be POETRY ~ Just as Science Fiction is not Science !
Yours as always ANGELA & BRIAN 🧡🧡
Incidently We are ENCOURAGERS and if we
comment on Modern Poetry ~ there are examples ~
(which is a legitimate genre) we comment on the
content ~ we dont castigate the Style ~ OK ~ A & B
As a jazz saxophonist i probably wouldn't see your way in music and that includes your necessity of rhythm to sing... however if you limit yourself to that you are assured of remaining in the mainstream. Every artform has its past archaic forms, mainstream and avant guard. Yesterdays avant guard either fell by the wayside or became adopted into the mainstream .... consider bass guitar avant guard of 1973 stanley clarke and later 70's of Jaco pastorius, both now adopted into mainstream. All art like language is fluid and ever changing. Art at its finest is after all self expression, at its second finest interpretation and at its lowest (lowest only for comparative purposes here) copying. Most of us start out copying, we learn so much with that. Later the interpretation phase is reached. To be actively expressing ones self through art though one is on a completely different level. vis Van Gogh, Picasso. Both scorned by contemporaries.....
.... a long winded way of saying ... rules with art - forget it!
THANKS AGAIN *DA* All Art moves forward POETRY ~ MUSIC ~ 2D & 3D visual ART etc. In the case of Music I guess the Ultimate is Glass\'s 5 minutes 21 seconds (I think) of Total Silence ! I have seen it featured in Concerts ~ and of course one hears all the other noises one wouldn\'t here if the piano was playing ! And then there are prepared Pianos with all sorts of things stuck under the strings to get different sound which Ive heard at Uni and Stockhausen etc which is very different from MOZART and Progressive JAZZ with George Shearing etc etc ~ the boundaries for MUSIC are infinite ! The same is true for Modern Art & Dali & Picasso & Impressionism ~ Painting what one sees in Ones Mind ! And Punk Rock etc ~ And Wharhol ~ a brilliant Draughtsman who broke all the rules of colour etc and painted Soup Cans which now fetch millions of Dollars and Tracy Ennims \"UNMADE BED\" we all have one of those each morning ! And again many paintings which sell for thousands of GB Pounds White on White ~ Black on Black ~ Red on Red etc BLANK CANVASSES ~ Noteless Music and a few days ago I posted a NONRYU a Wordless Poem etc etc BUT in the end one come back to the Great Ballad Singers of the 40s 50s & 60s Crosby ~ Sinatra ~ Jim Reeves ~ Nat King Cole ~ Tony Bennet (last Man Standing) which every one enjoys. Traditional JAZZ Humphrey Littleton ~ George Melly & The Feet Walmers ~ and All the famous American Jazzmen & the MJQ etc. And MOZART ~ CHOPIN ~ etc ~ Their Music will live for ever because it has Structure. The same is true of Shakespeare, Dickens, John Betjeman etc. I am a Science Teacher and I have to teach the History of Science and honour GREAT People LIKE NEWTON ~ GALLILEO ~ THE CURIES ~ CRICK & WATSON (DNA) ~ BUZZ ALDRIN (Moon) ~ EINSTE!N ~ MENDELEEV (Periodic Table) etc in order that my Students can appreciate modern ideas like QUANTUM MECHANICS & ATOMIC & MOLECULAR STRUCTURE & BIOSYNTHETC PATHWAYS etc etc. There are facts ~ Patterns & Principles in Science which have to be recognised for progress to be made in the 21st C ! To a lesser extent the same is true of All Forms of Art and even Sociology. I encourage all POSTINGS by NEW MEMBERS on MPS but from time to time SOME OF US do try to explain what HAIKU is all about ! There are millions of THREE LINE DITTIES but only a tiny fraction (in all languages) are TRUE HAIKU ~ OK
I appreciate there are mnay inacurracies in what I have written (it is just off the CUFF) and I was born in 1983 and was 18 in 2001 so who am I to defend the 17th 18th 19th & 20th Century Artists ! However as in SCIENCE I look for FACTS PATTERNS & PRINCIPLES so I look for the same in all the ARTS ~ OK
Yours as always BRIAN !
Im posting this unedited because Im off to the Cinema
to see ROCKET MAN ~ Life Story of Elton John !
Well now I know, I'm not a poet,
And old dogs like me, can't learn new tricks.
STILL LOVE BEING A KID, THERE IS A CERTAIN INNOCENCE AFTER ALL, BEFORE SOCEITY DESTROYS IT,
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