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Help me find a cool poem to read aloud at a gathering <<squirm>>

54 replies

filthymindedvixen · 04/02/2008 19:51

Have promised to do this for a friend.
Need to find a not-hackneyed poem which is good for reading out loud. Cool/funky maybe rather than something straight out of The Nation's Favourite Poem IYKWIM.
Having said that, I haven't read anything other than The Puffin Book Of Children's Poems for years

please help, oh hugely cultured ones!

OP posts:
filthymindedvixen · 04/02/2008 20:06

Oh come on now people, I'm begging you please
I know this is something you can do with ease
Just help me find a poem to read out loud
(and save me from being pelted by the crowd)
For option b is even worse -
And that's to pen my own dire verse....

OP posts:
Bink · 04/02/2008 20:14

What's the event? - are teenagers involved, hence requirement for cool? Big group, small group, mixed ages, gathering for any particular purpose? Anything else?

filthymindedvixen · 04/02/2008 21:27

it's a special night for sa friend's birthday. Music and , erm, poetry. Youngish crowd, fancy themselves as boho intellectuals. I am not!

OP posts:
FrannyandZooey · 04/02/2008 21:45

something wendy cope? she is quite well known but always pleasing IMO

I don't know any funky poems that can be read out loud without embarrassing oneself, possibly

FrannyandZooey · 04/02/2008 21:46

this one a favourite of mine and doesn't last long:

Giving Up Smoking

There's not a Shakespeare sonnet
Or a Beethoven quartet
That's easier to like than you
Or harder to forget.

You think that sounds extravagant?
I haven't finished yet --
I like you more than I would like
To have a cigarette

Hassled · 04/02/2008 21:52

It sounds hideous.

If they see themselves as intellectuals, you could go for some incomprehensible Eliot or somesuch.

But I really like this - Maya Angelou. ALso has the advantage of being quite short, but doesn't really go with the boho bit.

Bink · 04/02/2008 22:02

I picked up this Carol Ann Duffy-edited anthology of poems about fashion (well, not just fashion, it got stretched to cover clothing in general senses) recently and thought it was great - the idea is that a bevy of contemporary poets each put in a fashion-related poem by a famous author, and then put in one of their own on same theme. So there is a lovely range from the familiar to the completely new, and it's likely that a fashion/clothing type theme will produce something right for a friend's birthday. (Carol Ann Duffy is a Good Thing.)

My own complete favourite in that collection is the Edward Lear "New Garments" poem, which is about a bloke who poshly fashions himself an elegant costume from edible things, goes out for a show-off walk & is frenziedly eaten naked. I think that would go down well anywhere (I may well read it to dd's year 2 class on Thursday).

Bink · 04/02/2008 22:05

(Oh, by the way, the only rubbish bit about that anthology is the overheated ponço blurb (reproduced on Amazon link) trying to justify the print cost by making it all Representative of Our Society's Something. Ignore that! - it's much more fun than that)

theyoungvisiter · 04/02/2008 22:09

do you want to be funny? Pam Ayres is quite amusing and easy for reading out loud (I think you have to go down a notch for reading becuase it's harder to listen to a poem than read it, iyswim). Her poem "the wonderbra" always makes me smile but it's maybe more suitable for a hen night than sophisticated bohos.

Liz Lochhead is lovely - helps if you have a Scottish accent! Her poems are wistful and bitter-sweet and sometimes humorous.

I like Wendy Cope's "The Uncertainty of the POet" - very funny! Quite hard to read though.

Or you could go VERY short
"When I am sad and weary
When I think all hope has gone
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on."
Adrian Mitchell

That's what I think about when I do the long walk home from the tube by myself - I think of my DH and DS in the bath together and it makes me smile...

Good luck, I love poetry but I'd rather die than read one aloud at a boho gathering!

BroccoliSpears · 04/02/2008 22:13

John Hegley?

theyoungvisiter · 04/02/2008 22:15

LIz Lochhead's "Riddle-me-ree" is sweet and (bonus point) interactive:

My first is in love (not contained within heart)
My second's in whole, but never in part
My third's in forever, but also in vain
My last's in ending, why not in pain?

Will (hopefully) get them guessing to the answer and spare you the anguish of sidling back to your chair. Unless of course there is a smart aleck Lochhead fan...

MissCreant · 04/02/2008 22:15

Where are you reading and for whom. What sort of poem, funny, clever, classic?

JackieNo · 04/02/2008 22:16

NOt sure it's cool, but I posted one a while ago, but it may not resonate with them if they don't have children.

cornsilk · 04/02/2008 22:19

Another vote for Carol Ann Duffy. There's one my ds's like that goes something like, 'Please pretty please...' and has all sorts of variations like 'pulchitrudinous please.' We like it anyway!

MrsBadger · 04/02/2008 22:19

anothger vote for wendy cope

(I like 'Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis', very apt for a bunch who fancy themselves as clever)

bellabelly · 04/02/2008 22:19

I really like John Cooper Clarke's stuff eg this one! (But think there might be a couple of lines missing at the end IIRC...)

I wanna Be Yours...

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina
I will never rust
If you like your coffee hot
let me be your coffee pot
You call the shots
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your raincoat
for those frequent rainy days
I wanna be your dreamboat
when you want to sail away
Let me be your teddy bear
take me with you anywhere
I don?t care
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your electric meter
I will not run out
I wanna be the electric heater
you?ll get cold without
I wanna be your setting lotion
hold your hair in deep devotion
Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean
that?s how deep is my devotion

LYRICS © JOHN COOPER CLAR

filthymindedvixen · 04/02/2008 22:20

oh thank you , there's some food for thought here....

I'm going to be embarassed whatever I choose. I think it's cringeworthy, reaally I do. And in a pub! [cowers]

OP posts:
MrsBadger · 04/02/2008 22:20

or 'some more light verse'

theyoungvisiter · 04/02/2008 22:21

oops - fairly major typo there!

My first is in life (not contained within heart)

It ends "is love the answer?"

filthymindedvixen · 04/02/2008 22:22

it's a real testimony to how much I love my friend, that I got talked into this...

OP posts:
MrsBadger · 04/02/2008 22:22

oh oh

Wendy Cope
Another Unfortunate Choice

I think I am in love with A.E.Housman,
Which puts me in a worse-than-usual fix.
No woman ever stood a chance with Housman
And he's been dead since 1936.

Moomin · 04/02/2008 22:23

Another vote for Carol Ann Duffy. 'Valentine' is a good one. Very bittersweet

Twiglett · 04/02/2008 22:23

How much confidence have you got in real life?

Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
they think I'm telling lies.
I say, It's in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I am woman. Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or fall down to their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
a hive of honey bees.
I say, It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing of my waist,
and the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman. Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can't see.
I say, It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman. Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say, It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
'Cause I'm a woman. Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman.
That's me.

TREBUCHET · 04/02/2008 22:24

Maybe ee cummings? Nobody knows what thats all about so you can fudge it, but he does write sort of nonsensical beautifulness

Anyone lived in a pretty how town
With up-so floating many bells down....etc

Twiglett · 04/02/2008 22:24

it's a real diva poem so has to be done with commitment

if not I'd go for a bit of Spike .. always good for a laugh

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