Poems That Make Grown Men Cry (18 page)
Read Poems That Make Grown Men Cry Online
Authors: Anthony and Ben Holden
Canoe
Well, I am thinking this may be my last
summer, but cannot lose even a part
of pleasure in the old-fashioned art
of idleness. I cannot stand aghast
at whatever doom hovers in the background;
while grass and buildings and the somnolent river,
who know they are allowed to last for ever,
exchange between them the whole subdued sound
of this hot time. What sudden fearful fate
can deter my shade wandering next year
from a return? Whistle and I will hear
and come again another evening,
when this boat
travels with you alone toward Iffley:
as you lie looking up for thunder again,
this cool touch does not betoken rain;
it is my spirit that kisses your mouth lightly.
(1940)
The Australian-born (1939) author, critic and broadcaster Clive James has lived and worked in the UK since the early
1960s. As well as his autobiographical series
Always
Unreliable
, and numerous volumes of criticism, he has published many distinguished volumes of poetry and a translation of Dante’s
Divine Comedy
(2013).
THEODORE ROETHKE
(1908–63)
STANLEY TUCCI
This poem speaks to me of the adoration that all children of a certain age have for their fathers. The father’s life outside the home is hinted at brilliantly through the
physical aspects (rough hands, the smell of whiskey), but never clearly defined. There is an aura of danger that these elements
carry with them.
One imagines that this small child has been cared for lovingly all day by a sweet and doting mother, has been fed and bathed and just before bedtime the father enters unfed, unbathed and
slightly drunk, undoing in an instant any sense of calm domestic order that has been put in place during the day. The father may well be loved or despised by the wife/mother due to his state,
we
don’t know. We just know that the child sees only his happy hero. Innocence is bliss, and something we lose as we age.
My Papa’s Waltz
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
(1942)
Stanley
Tucci (b. 1960) made his screen debut in the 1980s, has earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance in
The Lovely Bones
(2009), and won Golden Globes
for playing the title role in HBO’s
Winchell
(1998) and as Adolf Eichmann in
Conspiracy
(2001). Onstage, he received a Tony nomination as Johnny in the 2002 Broadway revival of
Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune
. Among his many
other film credits are
Billy Bathgate
(1991),
The Devil Wears Prada
(2006) and
Julie and Julia
(2009). He
co-wrote, co-directed and starred in
Big Night
(1996) and has directed three other films. In 2012 he published
The Tucci Cookbook
.
BERTOLT BRECHT
(1898–1956)
JACK MAPANJE
This may sound unusual but every time I read this poem, I cry with laughter. Do not ask me why.
The Book Burnings
When the regime ordered that books with harmful knowledge
Should be publicly burnt, and all around
Oxen were forced to drag cartloads of books
To the pyre, one banished poet
One of the best, discovered, studying the list of the burnt
To his horror, that his books
Had been forgotten. He hurried to his desk
On wings of rage and wrote a letter to the powers that be.
Burn me! he wrote, his pen flying, burn me!
Don’t do this to me! Don’t pass me over! Have I not always told
The
truth in my books? And now
I am treated by you as a liar!
I order you:
Burn me!
(c. 1941)
TRANSLATION BY TOM KUHN
Born in Malawi, Jack Mapanje (b. 1944) is a poet and writer. Head of English at the University of Malawi before being jailed without charge in 1987 – apparently for his
collection
Of Chameleons and Gods
, which was seen as critical of President Hastings Banda – he was declared a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International. The many international
protests against his imprisonment included a reading of his poems outside the Malawian High Commission in London by Harold Pinter. Released in 1991, he emigrated to the UK, where he wrote a memoir
of his experience,
And Crocodiles
Are Hungry at Night
(2011), which later became a play. He has since taught English at York, Leeds and Newcastle universities, and creative writing in UK
prisons.
PAUL ÉLUARD
(1895–1952)
JOE WRIGHT
I first came across this poem in my late teens and was told by I-can’t-remember-who that during the Second World War the RAF dropped thousands of copies of it over
occupied France. This legend illustrates for me the social and spiritual power of poetry. In the face of such terror, the delicacy and beauty of
hope makes me cry.
Liberty
On my notebooks from school
On my desk and the trees
On the sand on the snow
I write your name
On every page read
On all the white sheets
Stone blood paper or ash
I write your name
On the golden images
On the soldier’s weapons
On the crowns of kings
I write your name
On the jungle the desert
The nests and the bushes
On the echo of childhood
I write your name
On the wonder of nights
On the white bread of days
On the seasons engaged
I write your name
On all my blue rags
On the pond mildewed sun
On the lake living moon
I write your name
On the fields the horizon
The wings of the birds
On the windmill of shadows
I write your name
On the foam of the clouds
On the sweat of the storm
On dark insipid rain
I write your name
On the glittering forms
On the bells of colour
On physical truth
I write your name
On the wakened paths
On the opened ways
On the scattered places
I write your name
On the lamp that gives light
On the lamp that is drowned
On my house reunited
I write your name
On the bisected fruit
Of my mirror and room
On my bed’s empty shell
I write your name
On my dog greedy tender
On his listening ears
On his awkward paws
I write your name
On the sill of my door
On familiar things
On the fire’s sacred stream
I write your name
On all flesh that’s in tune
On the brows of my friends
On each hand that extends
I write your name
On the glass of surprises
On lips that attend
High over the silence
I write your name
On my ravaged refuges
On my fallen lighthouses
On the walls of my boredom
I write your name
On passionless absence
On naked solitude
On the marches of death
I write your
name
On health that’s regained
On danger that’s past
On hope without memories
I write your name
By the power of the word
I regain my life
I was born to know you
And to name you
LIBERTY
(1942)
TRANSLATION BY A. S. KLINE