Ask HN: Can you recommend some poetry? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Can you recommend some poetry?

18 pointskeepamovin23 comments

Random question, I know, sorry. I'm a fan of classics -- ( Blake, Tennyson, Coleridge, Kipling, Ginsberg, Shakespeare, Basho, Yeats, Eliot, Lorde, Khayyam, Frost, Whitman ) -- but I want to branch out and very curious as to the poetry interests of this venerable group of intellectuals here. Haha! :) So please share your likes, preferably with links, and I'll definitely read them. Hopefully this can function as a useful spot for folks who enjoy poetry to share the (ideally modern and contemporary) poets they like. :)

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Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you’re old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor,

Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become,

so full of experience,

you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

BY C. P. CAVAFY TRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY

If we're suggesting Greek poetry I would like to suggest a more recent poet from my city who passed a few years ago, his name was Dinos Christianopoulos -- (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinos_Christianopoulos, some of his poems are translated here -- https://thegeby.wordpress.com/dinos-christianopoulos/)

I've heard many stories about him from locals. It appears that he was a vibrant member of the local community. One of Christianopoulos' characteristics was that we was never scared to say his opinion, and he had strong opinions. He also had some interesting opinions about other poets. When asked his opinion about other poets, he'd usually reply with something like "Interesting guy, but meh." He'd have that opinion even for some of the greatest poets. Cavafy is probably excluded though, as he appears to have liked him. In an interview, the interviewer asked him something about the current government. He said, "I don't even know who the current prime minister is." So it appears that he wasn't involved in politics much. Mostly ideologies. (Some of this information may be inaccurate and I very much apologize)

Along with that I'd like to suggest another local poet who is a bit more known: Manolis Anagnostakis -- (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manolis_Anagnostakis, poems: https://lsa.umich.edu/content/dam/modgreek-assets/Home/Windo...)

I would highly suggest reading his Wikipedia page or whatever biography you may find about him. His story is super interesting.

I like many of the poets you listed. In terms of 20th century folks, I also enjoy Khalil Gibran [0], Dylan Thomas [1], Sylvia Plath [2], ee cummings [3], and Leonard Cohen [4].

[0] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/148576/on-marriage-5b...

[1] https://poets.org/poem/force-through-green-fuse-drives-flowe...

[2] https://allpoetry.com/mad-girl's-love-song

[3] https://allpoetry.com/may-my-heart-always-be-open-to-little

[4] https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/suzanne.html

Rumi for sure. Coleman Barks' translation is the most popular, but it's also wildly inaccurate.

Many either love it or are dismissive of it, but I consider it a form of poetry on its own. e.g. Barks replaces Rumi's lust for God with lust for a lover. As a redditor put it, "he just makes stuff up." Barks is a brilliant poet though, and I feel he enhances Rumi in his own way.

Many accurate translations have difficulty carrying the poetic parts. But my favourite is Jonathan Star's interpretation.

I prefer Ghalib to Rumi but I couldn't pinpoint exactly why. Here are some interesting modern translations: https://yagmin.com/ghalib/joy.cgi?p=1

Recently heard Tim Ferriss recommend this translation:

Gold by Haleh Liza Gafori

https://www.nyrb.com/products/gold

For American poetry, it's worth checking out the annual release of The Best American Poetry: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Best-American-Poe...

I recently read a sci-fi novel by Andrew Knight that incorporated like 5 or 6 poems. Title = The Redemption Procedure. Here was my favorite:

On occasion in the morning light, when I am still in bed,

a joy seizes my soul, bestows abilities I wish I always had.

So splendid and resplendent is this delight

that brings about a totalizing transformation!

My heart turns clear and innocent;

my mind focuses to a point;

even my hand’s writing improves.

The earth opens itself to confess in a whisper

its place for me.

Worries flee, problems dissolve,

and those that do not

still seem soluble easily, with little effort.

I drink tea with golden honey, read,

dance and laugh and sing inwardly.

I might run the faucet to warm to shower,

and send messages of delight to whatever god

stayed my self-negating hand the night before.

I step off the tile onto the white bath, and

the story goes as it goes as it goes.

The water envelops me. The morning slows.

A shadowed normalcy returns to spirit.

i exit the shower, dripping, heavy headed,

dullest eyes a blur, soporific mind.

It is only still mid-morning as I

dry myself quarter hearted,

slumped and sinking,

to drag these pale bones

through chills,

to my sheetless bed

to sleep.

and when I awaken

in the afternoon

it is dark

again

Not big into poetry, but recently I really enjoyed "Song of the Strange Ascetic" by G.K. Chesterton, so will just share it here:

https://www.chesterton.org/the-song-of-the-strange-ascetic/

Who is Higgins? Is this how public figures insulted each other before twitter?

"16-bit Intel 8088 chip"

  with an Apple Macintosh
  you can't run Radio Shack programs
  in its disc drive.
  nor can a Commodore 64
  drive read a file
  you have created on an
  IBM Personal Computer.
  both Kaypro and Osborne computers use
  the CP/M operating system
  but can't read each other's
  handwriting
  for they format (write
  on) discs in different
  ways.
  the Tandy 2000 runs MS-DOS but
  can't use most programs produced for
  the IBM Personal Computer
  unless certain
  bits and bytes are
  altered
  but the wind still blows over
  Savannah
  and in the Spring
  the turkey buzzard struts and
  flounces before his
  hens.

Dylan Thomas: https://allpoetry.com/Dylan-Thomas . Try out "Fern Hill" for starters.

Dolce et decorum est

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decoru...

Try some of my local poets, Louis MacNeice and Seamus Heaney.

Pablo Neruda.

I've enjoyed everything I've read from Action Books. https://actionbooks.org/

https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/

Hyakunin Isshu

The University of Virginia has a webpage with some of the best english translations, even better then most published books.

Tracked it down from Reddit: https://jti.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/hyakunin/frames/hyakuf...

Du Fu https://allpoetry.com/Du-Fu

Ballad Of The Army Carts

Wagons rattling and banging, horses neighing and snorting, conscripts marching, each with bow and arrows at his hip, fathers and mothers, wives and children, running to see them off-- so much dust kicked up you can't see Xian-yang Bridge! And the families pulling at their clothes, stamping feet in anger, blocking the way and weeping-- ah, the sound of their wailing rises straight up to assault heaven. And a passerby asks, "What's going on?" The soldier says simply, "This happens all the time. From age fifteen some are sent to guard the north, and even at forty some work the army farms in the west. When they leave home, the village headman has to wrap their turbans for them; when they come back, white-haired, they're still guarding the frontier. The frontier posts run with blood enough to fill an ocean, and the war-loving Emperor's dreams of conquest have still not ended. Hasn't he heard that in Han, east of the mountains, there are two hundred prefectures, thousands and thousands of villages, growing nothing but thorns? And even where there is a sturdy wife to handle hoe and plough, the poor crops grow raggedly in haphazard fields. It's even worse for the men of Qin; they're such good fighters they're driven from battle to battle like dogs or chickens. Even though you were kind enough to ask, good sir, perhaps I shouldn't express such resentment. But take this winter, for instance, they still haven't demobilized the troops of Guanxi, and the tax collectors are pressing everyone for land-fees-- land-fees!--from where is that money supposed to come? Truly, it is an evil thing to bear a son these days, it is much better to have daughters; at least you can marry a daughter to the neighbor, but a son is born only to die, his body lost in the wild grass. Has my lord seen the shores of the Kokonor? The white bones lie there in drifts, uncollected. New ghosts complain and old ghosts weep, under the lowering sky their voices cry out in the rain."

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501501890

Parted When Getting Old

No quiet or calm in the land all around, those getting old can find no peace.

Children and grandchildren have all died in the ranks why should I survive alone? I throw down my cane and go out the gate, those who go with me feel bitter pain for me.

Fortunately I have some teeth remaining, that my frame shrunken and dry is what grieves me.

When a man puts on the armor and helm, he gives a deep bow, leaving the chief magistrate. My old wife lies weeping on the road, her clothes too thin for the end of the year. I know well that this is parting for good, yet I still feel pained at how poor she will be.

Once I go, I will surely never return, yet I still hear her urging me to eat well.

Earth-gate Barrier's walls are quite strong, it will be hard for them to cross at Apricot Garden. The situation is different than it was by Ye, so even though I will die, the time may be delayed.

pōtana's bhāgavataṁ, if you can read Telugu.

For the nerds on HN, Uncle Roger, by Judy Malloy.

https://people.well.com/user/jmalloy/uncleroger/partytop.htm...

The poetry was accidental. She was limited to 50 characters, and so she turned the lines into poetry. Judy said she was not a poet when she wrote Uncle Roger, but became one after it was done.

A perspective of the old Silicon Valley, when it was about the silicon, from the eyes of a woman. It's familiar yet so different. Things like this:

    Jeff kept talking about custom chips.
    He got very excited.
    I looked into his eyes which are brown.
    I wanted him to keep talking.
    "What is a custom chip?" I asked.

It just captures that feeling when I ask my wife about wastewater treatment or medical incinerators.

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