Post up your favourite poem..

This was very powerful when Tony Walsh read it in Albert Square

This is the place in the North West of England
It’s ace, it’s the best and the songs that we sing
From the stands, from our bands set the whole planet shaking
Our inventions are legends! There’s nowt we can’t make and

So we make brilliant music. We make brilliant bands
We make goals that make souls leap from seats in the stands
And we make things from steel and we make things from cotton
And we make people laugh, take the mick summat rotten

And we make you at home and we make you feel welcome
And we make summat happen, we can’t seem to help it
And if you’re looking for history then yes, we’ve a wealth
But the Manchester way is to make it yourself

And make us a record, a new number one
And make us a brew while you’re up, love. Go on!
And make us feel proud that you’re winning the league
And make us sing louder and make us believe it

that this is the place that has helped shape the world
And that this the place where a Manchester girl
Name of Emmeline Pankhurst from the streets of Moss Side
Led a Suffragette City with sisterhood pride


And this is the place with appliance of science
We’re on it, atomic, we strut with defiance
In the face of a challenge we always stand tall
Mancunians in union delivered it all

Such as housing and libraries, and health, education
And unions and co-ops, the first railway station
So we’re sorry! Bear with us! We invented commuters!
But we hope you forgive us – we invented computers!

And this is the place Henry Royce strolled with Rolls
And we’ve rocked and we’ve rolled with our own Northern Soul
And so this is the place to do business, then dance
Where go-getters and goal setters know they’ve a chance

And this is the place where we first played as kids
And me Mam lived and died here, she loved it she did
And this is the place where our folks came to work
Where they struggled in puddles, they hurt in the dirt


And they built us a city. They built us these towns
And they coughed on the cobbles to the deafening sound
Of the steaming machines and the screaming of slaves
They were scheming for greatness, they dreamed to their graves

And they left us a spirit, they left us a vibe
The Mancunian Way to survive and to thrive
And to work and to build, to connect and create and
Greater Manchester’s greatness is keeping it great

And so this is the place now we’ve kids of our own
Some are born here, some drawn here but we all call it home
And they’ve covered the cobbles, but they’ll never defeat
All the dreamers and schemers who still teem through these streets

Because this is a place that has been through some hard times
Oppressions, recessions, depressions and dark times
But we keep fighting back with Greater Manchester spirit
Northern grit, northern wit in Greater Manchester’s lyrics

And there’s hard times again in these streets of our city
But we won’t take defeat and we don’t want your pity
Because this a place where we stand strong together
With a smile on our face, Mancunians Forever


And we’ve got this* as the place where a team with a dream (*Forever Manchester)
Can get funding and something to help with their scheme
Because this is the place that understands your grand plans
We don’t do No Can Do, we just stress Yes We Can!

Forever Manchester’s a charity for people round ‘ere
You can fundraise, donate. You can be a volunteer
You can live local, give local. We can honestly say
We do charity differently, that Mancunian Way

And we fund local kids, and we fund local teams
We support local dreamers to work for their dreams
We support local groups and the great work they do
So can you …help us help… local people like you?

Because this is the place in our hearts, in our homes
Because this is the place that’s a part of our bones
‘Cos Greater Manchester gives us such strength from the fact
That this is the place. We should give something back.

Always remember. Never forget. Forever Manchester.
 
This be the verse by Phillip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
 
Lamia (excerpt)
By John Keats

She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd;
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,
Dissolv'd, or brighter shone, or interwreathed
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries -
So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries,
She seem'd, at once, some penanced lady elf,
Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self.
Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire
Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne's tiar:
Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet!
She had a woman's mouth with all its pearls complete:
And for her eyes: what could such eyes do there
But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair?
As Proserpine still weeps for her Sicilian air.
Her throat was serpent, but the words she spake
Came, as through bubbling honey, for Love's sake,
And thus; while Hermes on his pinions lay,
Like a stoop'd falcon ere he takes his prey.

Bloody Ashton Grammar School English Lit O Level! Can still recite most of that excerpt, where she changes from half woman/half serpent into a woman.
 
Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,
From yon blue heavens above us bent,
The gardener Adam and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.
Howe’er it be, it seems to me,
’Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere - Tennyson. My favourite verse from it, it's a long one.
 
I prefer poems of an ecclesiastical or academic nature, such as:

There was a young man from St John's
Who wanted to bugger the swans
But the faithful old porter
Said "Sir, take my daughter
Them birds is reserved for the dons".
or....
Loud cries from the crypt of St Giles
Could be heard for miles upon miles.
Said the verger "Good Gracious!
Has Father Ignatius
Forgotten the Bishop has piles?"
or...
There was a young student from Trinity
Who shattered his sister's virginity,
Had twins by his mother,
And buggered his brother,
But still got a First in Divinity.
 
There has to be a bit of Percy Bysshe Shelley. This one was inspired by a famous event in our own beloved Manchester.

England 1819

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King;
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,
But leechlike to their fainting country cling
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
A people starved and stabbed in th' untilled field;
An army, whom liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed—
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
 
Used to recite this to the kids and now the grandkids. Always loved the 'runcible spoon' line - good for making them chuckle.

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
BY EDWARD LEAR
I
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

II
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-Tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

III
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
 
A moving poem by John Pudney, recited by John Mills in "The Way to the Stars", after Michael Redgrave has been killed in action in the RAF:

"Do not despair
For Johnny head-in-air
He sleeps as sound
As Johnny on the ground.

Fetch out no shroud
For Johnny in the cloud
And keep your tears
For him in after years

Better by far
For Johnny the bright star
To keep your head
And see his children fed."

A great war film, all so very understated, and all the more affecting for it. I hope some others here saw it.
 
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