Wedding Poetry

[Morpheus]

Has anyone got any good poetry for a wedding?

I got married to Mrs Morph in 2012 in Coniston by the lake with views of the Old Man behind us. We had these readings:

https://poets.org/poem/scaffolding

Mrs Morph's family are from Morecambe so we had these lyrics from the Morecambe and Wise show as a reading too:

Bring Me Sunshine
Bring me Sunshine, in your smile,
Bring me Laughter, all the while,
In this world where we live, there should be more happiness,
So much joy you can give, to each brand new bright tomorrow.

Make me happy, through the years,
Never bring me, any tears,
Let your arms be as warm as the sun from up above,
Bring me fun, bring me sunshine, bring me love.

Bring me Sunshine, in your eyes,
Bring me rainbows, from the skies,
Life's too short to be spent having anything but fun,
We can be so content, if we gather little sunbeams.

Be light-hearted, all day long,
Keep me singing, happy songs,
Let your arms be as warm as the sun from up above,
Bring me fun, bring me sunshine, bring me love.

[jisbell00]

I think Four Weddings and a Funeral has a great wedding poem. Certainly it has a great funeral poem, by Auden IIRC. Yup, it's here: http://niksargent.com/blog/2009/3/19/po ... rding.html

Oh _ I write wedding poems. I think that's the way to go. I've written about half a dozen now.

CHeers,
John

[Macavity]

One to wake them up...

https://allpoetry.com/i-like-my-body-wh ... -with-your

Ps can you post a link for the Heaney poem to avoid infringement of copyright.Ta

[Morpheus]

John, I bet you write great poetry for occasions. I wrote my own wedding vows in couplets but I didn't have any poetry friends close enough at time to be lucky enough get anything original.

When I lived in South Cumbria in the early years I used to attend a workshop run by the South Cumbrian poet laureate in her old grand Victorian house situated across the road from ancient abbey ruins in Barrow in Furness. There was an emotionally unstable woman there who took a real disliking to my poetry and would be very rude and try to humiliate each week. One time I recall I took a poem I'd written about wine in deliberatly pretentious sommelier language using a cheat sheet I obtained at a vineyard in Franschhoek, South Africa. The woman was so dismissive and rude about my writing that the local laureate later called me to apologise. I carried on attending for a while but it was awkward so I decided to stop. After that I took a break for a while and focus on sonar rather than sonics.

Mac, thanks for the e e cummings, I know a girl who is obsessed with cummings and the film Candy. It'd be a very eye raising choice. I'll look for the link to the Heaney poem and update the OP.

[jisbell00]

Hi Morpheus,

Some of my wedding poems were decent poetry, I thought! They all went over fairly well, which is only natural. You are right, it is nice when a friend writes for your wedding. We had a fun Tibetan wedding to which my brother and his wife contributed a good deal.

Sorry about that lady you ran into, and nice of the host to apologize. Some people are weird. It's like the old saying, Don't like gay marriage, don't have one. Or the old definition of a Puritan: Someone with the nagging fear that somehow, somewhere, somebody else is having a good time.

Cheers,
John

[Morpheus]

John, I used to have a New York pen friend who was Bob Thurman's assistant and did a lot of Sanskrit translations. She had poems published about 9/11 as observed from her Brooklyn flat and she used to send me Rumi books along with her own collections. Her name is Annie Bien and a quick Google search shows she got presence in the poetry heirachy stateside. I met her though the BBC website in the days it had a thriving international poetry community. We just fell out of touch while getting on with our lives. I might ping her on WhatsApp to say hello.

Regarding the unstable woman, in a way I can understand it. She was trapped in her own head writing about disability and I think she was autistic too, which presents challenges to interpretation. When I rocked up with high falutin poems about thing vinous from far away lands I don't think I would have liked me either if I were her.

[jisbell00]

Now Sanskrit is a tough language, starting with the alphabet! Good for your friend for translating from it.

Cheers,
John

[Morpheus]

I can link this back to Weddings because I met Annie at Union Square for lunch in NY the week my wife and I attended a wedding in Jersey city, Hoboken. The wedding was in one of those hotels on the Hudson River overlooking Manhattan. The poetry readings were really good but I can't remember what they were because it was in 2009. I'm sure I've kept the order of service somewhere. It was a grand affair with food halls, lobster starter and a free cocktail and beers of the world bars. Shame they're getting divorced now.

Where in the US do you call home John?

I used to visit Newburyport, MA for work and would frequent The Grog for clam chowder. The Brits didn't have the best of reputation there because previous parties were too light on tipping.

[jisbell00]

Plus, no taxation without representation! The British are coming, the British are coming! Sorry, my inner American revolutionary got the better of me for a moment.

We'll be in Boston starting June 26, then San Francisco from August 1. Back to Paris on September 1. As to home - well, I know Boston pretty well. We just spent seven years in Texas, and that's where our house is, but we'll be selling it in a bit. I was born in Seattle and lived in Ohio and Indiana, one way and another.

That about wraps that up. My family is mostly on both coasts.

Cheers,
John

[Morpheus]

I'm a fan of the duck tours in Boston and they do a good job of tongue-in-cheek anglophobia with comedy value.

Sounds like a fabulous itinerary. I've visited San Francisco and loved it, quite European in some respects given that it's so far west. I tried leaving Mrs Morph in a cell on Alcatraz but they wouldn't let me so I made her walk everywhere at my pace instead. That's not a hill it's a gentle incline.... no cable car required and all that. Paris I haven't been too since my sister lived there in a Studio flat somewhere near the champs-élysées back around 2000 I think.

Never been to Texas, Seattle, Ohio or Indiana though. You've certainly reinvigorated my interest in all things USA with your poetry.

[jisbell00]

Yes, those cells on Alcatraz are visitors only these days!

Paris is pleasant. They say it'll be flooded with tourists this summer, post-pandemic. It's already pretty busy.

I'm glad you're enjoying the American poems. I think we're on about p.60 out of 80 at this point!

Cheers,
John