Proms Poetry Competition (and your favourite musical poetry)

[cavatina]

Did anyone enter the Proms Poetry Competition? If so, here's a space to share your entries with the board. If not, I thought it might be an appropriate way to celebrate by posting our favourite poetry, musical or otherwise. I seem to remember some highly original musical poetry on the old board...if you're feeling poetic, why not write your own and share it now?

Here's a paragraph from the competition guidelines to get you started:

So, think about the piece of music. How does it make you feel? Does it remind you of a place you've been to, a person you know? Does it feel like a story or a description or simply a bunch of words thrown into the air? Any of those are fine: what I'm looking for is your personal response to a piece of music in the Proms. You don't have to tell me the tale of how the music got written or what the composer meant by it, unless you really want to. Think outside the box as marketing people in bright ties and designer glasses say. And remember: I want to be startled!

He asked for it, so let's have it!

[cavatina]

Anyone feel like sharing poetry? Just tonight, I found two poems that describe what their authors were thinking and feeling at a concert...hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

"AFTER MUSIC OF LOVE..."
Nina Gorsky
(From Juan Ramon Jimenez)

After music of love had eventually ceased off to sound
And, like petals of blooms, hands had fallen on pearls of the keys,
They were long mad of Schubert – the strings, raised to heavens and downed
By the river of grief with aroma of wonderful breeze.

Blanca slowly said, "I think Germans are boring a little…"
And the wife of a lawyer – oh, muses! – yawned slightly: "A bore!"
"Yet Beethoven’s the best, his sonatas are perfectly distilled",
Added Rosa from Cuba – "an expert a public before".

I didn’t answer all them - swelling tears made me utterly smothered,
To the garden’s fresh roses, I ran from the music and farce…
And in green of sad night, I met Schubert – my dear composer –
The refined cavalier, decorated with heavenly stars.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

That's rather beautiful.

[cavatina]

Thanks, glad you like them! I'll post a few more tonight after I'm full of Brahms.

[cavatina]

Here are a few lovely lyric poems Brahms set to music...enjoy!

IT MOVES LIKE A MELODY
by Klaus Groth

It moves like a melody,
Gently through my mind;
It blossoms like spring flowers
And wafts away like fragrance.

But when it is captured in words,
And placed before my eyes,
It turns pale like a gray mist
And disappears like a breath.

And yet, remaining in my rhymes
There hides still a fragrance,
Which mildly from the quiet bud
My moist eyes call forth.

***

TO AN AEOLIAN HARP
by Eduard Mörike

Leaning up against the ivy-covered wall
Of this old terrace,
You, an air-borne muse,
A lute-melody full of mystery,
Begin,
Begin again,
Your melodious lament!
You come, winds, from far away,
Ah! from the boy
Who was so dear to me,
From his hill so freshly green.
On your way, streaking over spring blossoms
Saturated with sweet scents,
How sweetly, how sweetly you besiege my heart!
You rustle the strings here,
Drawn by harmonious melancholy,
Growing louder in the pull of my longing,
And then dying down again.
But all at once,
The wind blows violently
And a lovely cry of the harp
Echoes, to my sweet terror,
The sudden stirring of my soul,
And here, the ample rose shakes and strews
All its petals at my feet!

[Serial_Apologist]

In Just Spring by E E Cummings

Which expresses better than anything else the child-like euphoria of awakening to a spring day.

In just spring
When the world is puddle wonderful...

[...]

Nobody can stop it!
Not all the policemen in the world!

Unfortunately someone nicked my copy of Cummings poems, so I forget the rest of it; but those lines suffice me. I first heard it in a setting by Patrick Harrex, iirc, back around 1969.

Less means more, innit

[mangerton]

On the basis that less certainly does mean more, here is one of my favourite poems.

On yonder hill there stands a coo -
If it's no there it's awa noo.

And here is a link to my favourite musical poem:

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bagpipe-music/

[vinteuil]

In Just Spring by E E Cummings

Which expresses better than anything else the child-like euphoria of awakening to a spring day.

In just spring
When the world is puddle wonderful...


Unfortunately someone nicked my copy of Cummings poems, so I forget the rest of it; :

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little lame balloonman


whistles far and wee


and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring


when the world is puddle-wonderful


the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing


from hop-scotch and jump-rope and


it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed


balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

[vinteuil]

In Just Spring by E E Cummings

Which expresses better than anything else the child-like euphoria of awakening to a spring day.


[...]

Nobody can stop it!
Not all the policemen in the world!

Unfortunately someone nicked my copy of Cummings poems, so I forget the rest of it; :

(listen)

this a dog barks and
how crazily houses
eyes people smiles

faces streets
steeples are eagerly

tumbl

ing through wonder
ful sunlight


- look -
selves,stir:writhe
o-p-e-n-i-n-g

are(leaves;flowers)dreams

,come quickly come


run run
with me now
jump shout(laugh
dance cry sing)for

it's Spring


- irrevocably;
and in
earth sky trees
:every
where a miracle arrives


(yes)

you and I may not
hurry it with
a thousand poems
my darling


but nobody will stop it

With All The Policemen In The World

[Serial_Apologist]

(listen)

this a dog barks and
how crazily houses
eyes people smiles

faces streets
steeples are eagerly

tumbl

ing through wonder
ful sunlight


- look -
selves,stir:writhe
o-p-e-n-i-n-g

are(leaves;flowers)dreams

,come quickly come


run run
with me now
jump shout(laugh
dance cry sing)for

it's Spring


- irrevocably;
and in
earth sky trees
:every
where a miracle arrives


(yes)

you and I may not
hurry it with
a thousand poems
my darling


but nobody will stop it

With All The Policemen In The World

Oh THANKS Vinteuil - that must have been a labour of love

I remember now - Jane Manning was the singer, and what a wonderful job she did with the poem.