Poetry Forum

I prefer "Blood on the Tracks", but I'm not a "Bobhead". I wish he could sing properly!

I like this poem, both personal and universal. i've been toying with the idea of a poem about some photographs of an ex-girlfriend which my wife found and ripped up. i work on that so you can pass your opinion on it.

You sustain the sequence of rhymes very wittily, rather like oscar Hammerstein in the Lonely Goatherd from "The Sound of Music".

Mr Obama's probable eight years in power may be similar to New Labour's 11 years in government, a false dawn after a very optimistic start. I remember feeling almost physical relief when the Tories lost in 1997, and went to work with a smile on my face. Now in 2008, I'm very disappointed and will vo...

Our behaviour is influenced by our genes AND by our experiences. Nature and nature.

It's all right for us to carp , aware of our good taste, while these derivative rip-off merchants coin it every year, isn't it? Unfortunately the general public do not share our views.

thoke,
I can live with such dangers.

Thanks, boys for the masterclass in stiff-upper-lip minimal English poetry, but I'll choose to ignore your advice this time, because that's Ok with you.

Leona can undoubtedly sing in an overwrought way, but she can't write songs. She is only one of many in a line of many mainly black "divas" who seem to be paid by the note- Whitney houston, Mariah Carey, Cristina Aguilera et al.It is quite rare to find someone who can compose truly affecti...

Thanks, David. stuartryder, I think there are only two emotions in the first stanza/section, tension and fear, and I think I was being quite succinct about what we felt by expressing the desperate helplessness in two and a half lines. I don't share the English dread of expressing emotions, which mus...

"lay Lady Lay" PROVES that he couldn't sing, with its shifting tones.

I disagree, barrie. If you had lived through the tension of a morning before going to hospital with your 20-year-old daughter to find out if she had lymphoma, then you would not have thought the first verse was "overdone and "telly". ", for it is as near to capturing a feeling as...

ONE IN FORTY THOUSAND Taut morning of misery wracked with fear, stifling, pounding tension, numb flesh walking in tight circles of prayer till the sentence stammered by the doctor, “It’s not good news”. Cancer nurse, undertaker-black, on hand. “I know why you’re here” my daughter’s first words, brav...

Radiohead are wonderful, a class above all the indie bands since the early 90s, the more or less harmonious Pink Floyd of our time. Gloomy for many, but they will appeal to anyone with feelings and a brain.

Sexy Sadie was originally called Maharishi and was a Lennonesque jibe at the guru who the Beatles fell for in late 67. Ringo hated the food and promptly left, then Lennon smelled a rat and left, intending to slag off the Indian in a song. However, he was persuaded to change the lyrics for fear that ...

She's a good writer and a nice girl, sparky and eager to please, but I don't think she can really sing. But that never stopped Dylan, did it?

I found it as dull and flat as the countryside it is set in. Another disappointing yet acclaimed modern novel.

I read "The Sound and the Fury" and thought it was wonderfully original, a brilliant novel.

Greene veers close to thriller territory in many books. The best I read was "Brighton Rock" with its compelling anti-hero , the awful Pinkie.

I read it at uni and thought it was brilliant and eerily modern, fuelled by an Irish spirit at odds with the prevailing stuffy English one of the time. Highly recommended.

I read Kerouac's "On the Road" this year and was disappointed. It seemed inconclusive and plain, like Hemingway without a good story.

A wonderful, atmospheric swirl of a novel, getting into an alcoholic's addling brain which also makes you want to visit Mexico and forgive those bloody tacos.

I found it a little disappointing, and found myself not as moved as I thought I would be. Overlong, perhaps?

"The Pearl" is lovely as well, lyrical and pure and with a strong universal message for every age. He managed to create great sympathy for his characters, without sentimentality.

Wasn't Joyce's aim in writing the Dubliners stories to try to avoid any authorial presence whatsoever in the narrative? He didn't complete much, but what he left is brilliant. "Ulysses" was probably my best experience ever of reading fiction.