HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: zola@hardy.u.washington.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: Who wrote "The Road Not Taken"?
Date: 5 Jan 93 07:35:06 GMT
Article-I.D.: shelley.1ibdnaINN4u7
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: hardy.u.washington.edu


ooops. I posted this and saw that my editor had betrayed me,
I will try again (or rather to post a coherent version with the
sentences in the right order...).

>In article nemo@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (Capt. Nemo Semret) writes:
>>Fittingly, for the novice that I am, my first posting to the group is
>>a trivial question. But I really need the answer very soon.
>>Who wrote this poem, and when? (name, nationality, date)
>>
>
>Capt.-
>There are no stupid questions, as a friend reading over my shoulder
>pointed out.
>
>The poem is by Robert Frost, American, 1916
>
>For what it is worth, the Norton anthology says:
>
>"According to Lawrance Thompson, this poem was slightly mocking parody
>of the behavior of Frost's friend Edward Thomas, who used to choose a
>direction for their country walks, then, before they had finished, berate
>himself for not having chosen a different, more interesting way.  Frost
>says Thompson, did not approve of romantic "sighing over what might have
>been."
>"On the other hand, E.S. Sergeant, in _Robert Frost: The Trial by 
>Existance_, quotes a letter from Frost, written February 10, 1912
>in which he describes how, going down on a lonely cross-road on a 
>recent evening, he saw someone who "looked for all the world like
>myself coming down the other, his approach to the point where our 
>paths must intersect being so timed that unless one of us pulled up
>we must inevitably collide.  I felt as if I was going to meet my
>own image in a slanting mirror... I stood still in wonderment and let
>him pass by."
>
>I hope that helps,
>Rebecca
>
>
>
>
>
>>****************************************************
>>The Road Not Taken
>>
>>Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
>>And sorry I could not travel both
>>And be one traveller, long I stood
>>And looked down one as far as I could
>>To where it bent in the undergrowth;
>>
>>Then took the other, as just as fair,
>>And having perhaps the better claim,
>>Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
>>Though as for that the passing there
>>Had worn them really about the same,
>>
>>And both that morning equally lay
>>In leaves no step had trodden black.
>>Oh, I kept the first for another day!
>>Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
>>I doubted if I should ever come back.
>>
>>I shall be telling this with a sigh
>>Somewhere ages and aages hence:
>>Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
>>I took the one less travelled by,
>>And that has made all the difference.
>>****************************************************************
>>
>>Please answer via this newsgroup, or preferably, by mail to
>>
>>nemo@mcrcim.mcgill.edu
>>
>>Thank you.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>-- 
>>
>>nemo
>>************************************************
>>THE BADDEST MOTHERFUCKER THIS SIDE OF MIKE TYSON
>
>
From: paleblue@byron.u.washington.edu ()
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: first post :)
Date: 12 Jan 1993 14:57:02 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: byron.u.washington.edu


Hi, I've been reading for a while and I thought I'd try posting.  I started 
writing this poem for my friend Andrea because she was depressed about 
visiting her father.  It turns out that I wrote a pretty depressing poem,
but who knows?  Maybe just reading about someone else's troubles will make
you feel better?  :)  Besides, it's just a story.  It's not real.


Dancing


Every day he asked me if I loved him.
Finally I said love was like dancing,
we have to take careful steps around each other,
we can't cling tight or we'll trip and fall.
"Do you understand?"
"Love is like dancing."
And he walked out of my room.

My roommate told me the whole story.
It was winter and we just got some snow.
I could tell the police footsteps.
He had worn sneakers.
I looked at the pretty circular patterns
like some leaves had swirled onto the roof
and there was that half-footstep,
that deep heel.  What lovely dancing!
He didn't need me after all.


-Hermes
January 12, 1993


p.s. I'm not afraid of criticism so go ahead and email or post!

-- 
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT  Theresa "Hermes" Bock
TTTTTTT_____    _____TTTTTTT
TTTTTTTTTTTT    TTTTTTTTTTTT  paleblue@byron.u.washington.edu  
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems,alt.suicide.holiday,wpi.students.vox,alt.personals
From: euclid@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Euclid K.)
Subject: Re: Will - C&C desired
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 18:53:21 GMT

     # 2

There's time for you,
And time for me,
And time for all
Eternity.
            e.k. (i forget when i penned that one)
--
Euclid K.  standard disclaimers apply
YOUR WILL IS AS FREE AS YOUR SOUL.  Question is, do you have a soul???
"It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature
and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant examples"
                                     ----Charles Dickens
From: wachtel@canon.co.uk (Tom Wachtel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: why Instead is bad writing / Marek
Date: 12 Jan 93 15:38:17 GMT
Reply-To: wachtel@canon.co.uk
Organization: Canon Research Centre Europe Ltd

pagrawal@portal.hq.videocart.com (Pankaj Agrawal) writes:

> To my simple mind, language is simply the means by which we try to express the 
> feelings inside. It is my no means an end (pun intended). And as long as

as kph put it, so concisely, several months ago, poetry is primarily a
question  of language.

> achieve a certain clarity and efficiency in its use. But, it is still no more
> than a form. It is not the substance. I don't care how many different meters

	which without the other's thorn
	is less? or more? or hoof? or horn?

> And whats so wrong with cliches?

they are as wonderful as limpid pools on the moon in june.


-- 

Tom Wachtel (wachtel@canon.co.uk)
From: ap531@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jessica Fox)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Departures
Date: 12 Jan 1993 22:21:56 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: ap531@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jessica Fox)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Departures

Dull grey concrete arches over us
in the cool space of Newark International Airport.
Jostling through the carry-on luggage and the clamor
of frantic frequent-flyers, we ease into 
the generically plastic airport cafe.
We have some time to kill.  
Late May sunshine streams through the Plexiglas window,
darting off the cylindrical bodies of jets who nuzzle
up to the gates like hungry piglets to their mother.
I am too nervous to eat.  I've not yet acquired 
the unruffled cool of the seasoned world traveler.
My great-Aunt almost has it, but even she cannot
pretend that this trip will be easy for her.
Her elegant time-worn face is half happy anticipation,
and half shadowy sadness for all the trips
she will never again take with Uncle Marty.
She knows his ghost is hovering over her
Upper East Side apartment, making irons
with no water in them steam, chiming clocks 
that have never worked.  She coughs, the wispy
smoke of the anxious woman next to her irritates her
failing lungs.  She looks old today.
She knows, like Mom and I,
that it will be the last time she will see Paris.
My mother is starting to get that annoying "I'm so happy
I could cry" face.  You can always count on Mom 
for a few tears, or for that tear-struggling
lip-biting smile she sends me back to school with.
Both she and my Aunt cling, she to her dead husband
and Mom to me and my very much alive siblings.
Mom tells me to be careful when I go on the Metro, she 
was almost mugged one night.  Aunt Evelyn bemoans 
the fate of the dollar in Europe and remembers when 
the dollar reigned supreme.  "Who's in Paris now?" she asks 
with hostility. "The Japanese and the Germans, that's who."

I look out the window, see the blurry Turnpike,
the bleak tankers docked in Port Elizabeth,
and the white planes straining against gravity.



-----------------------
critiques and comments welcome! -jf-
-- 
-%- "For to be a woman is to have interests and duties, raying out in all  -%-
-%- directions from the central mother-core, like spokes from the hub of a -%-
-%- wheel.  The pattern of our lives is essentially circular.  We must be  -%-
-%- open to all points of the compass.."        Anne Morrow Lindbergh      -%-
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: alk4@ellis.uchicago.edu (Alex L. Karan)
Subject: The energizer bunny
Reply-To: alk4@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 18:43:16 GMT

It just so happens that I have been trying hard
to find a place for the energizer bunny on one of my pages.

Imagine the damned thing reading ozymandias's (sp) lines?

Imagine it drumming its way past ruins, past crinkled pages,
past passed ages, past the few glitters of our arguments.

Lets work on poems with a central image:

the energizer rabbit  .  is it rabbit or bunny?

it wears sunglasses, thongs, has a drum, smiles...

Shelly would love it.

Alex

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: moh2@quads.uchicago.edu (Kateri/Mary Anne)
Subject: Braid (c&c welcome)
Reply-To: moh2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 17:54:39 GMT

Braid

pale strands
	brown strands
		pale strands
small
bright diamonds of the mind
diamonds of melted Chicago snow in a cloud of bi-colored hair
drawn into a braid of fire - lips
				to lips
					to lips
drowning in hands	fingers
      necks	shoulders	cheeks
	    teeth	tongues
       legs	  hips		breasts
	    six arms wrapped and 
	          h a i r

exploding! in a mesh tangle across the pillows
reforming into the newly-ordered braid

Words cannot contain us.
World dares not comprehend.

*****

M.A. Mohanraj
January 12, 1993

-- 
i thank you God for most this amazing
day:  for the leaping greenly spirits of the trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes		 - e.e.cummings
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: yellow jacket 4
From: jabolliger@miavx3.mid.muohio.edu
Date: 8 Jan 93 11:29:14 EST

		There's a yellow jacket on my neck


	Can't see her but I know she's there.
	There's a yellow jacket on my neck!
		Don't look down
		get a mirror.

	There she is, crawling 
	to the inside of my sweater.

	Gently nudge her.
	say no thank you.
	Please Go
	fly away!

	There she goes.  She's gone
	but I can still feel
	a yellow jacket on my neck.

Jean Ann Bolliger
September 1990

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: bhattach@quip.eecs.umich.edu (sayan bhattacharyya)
Subject: Re: One more gem from Tagore
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 22:17:23 GMT

Here is another translated Bengali poem, by Rabindranath Tagore,
who needs no introduction.

Iftekharuddin Mohammed Choudhury posted it in soc.culture.bangladesh.

The translation is by J.C. Ghosh, who, I think, has a volume of Tagore
translations. 

It is worth remembering that the original Bengali poem is actually a
song. Anyone who has heard Suchitra Mitra sing "Krishnakali" will 
most assuredly not forget it in a lifetime.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------

In article <1ifeugINNrqs@tamsun.tamu.edu> imc7142@tamsun.tamu.edu (Iftekharuddin Mohamme Choudhu) writes:
>		KRISHNAKALI
>
>In the village they call her the dark girl
>but to me she is the flower Krishnakali
>On a cloudy day in a field
>I saw the dark girl's dark gazelle-eyes.
>She had no covering on her head,
>her loose hair had fallen on her back.
>
>	Dark? However dark she be,
>	I have seen her dark gazelle-eyes.
>
>Two black cows were lowing,
>as it grew dark under the heavy clouds.
>So with anxious, hurried steps,
>the dark girl came from her hut.
>Raising her eyebrows toward the sky,
>she listened a moment to the clouds' rumble.
>
>	Dark? However dark she be,
>	I have seen her dark gazelle-eyes.
>
>A gust of the east wind
>rippled the rice plants.
>I was standing by a ridge,
>alone in the field.
>Whether or not she looked at me
>Is known only to us too.
>
>	Dark? However dark she be,
>	I have seen her dark gazelle-eyes.
>
>This how the Kohl-dark cloud
>rises in the north-east in Jaistha;
>the soft dark shadow
>descends on the Tamal grove in Asharh;
>and sudden delight floods the heart
>in the night of Sravan.
>
>	Dark? However dark she be,
>	I have seen her dark gazelle-eyes.
>
>To me she is the flower Krishnakali,
>whatever she may be called by others.
>In a field in Maynapara village
>I saw the dark girl's dark gazelle-eyes.
>She did not cover her head,
>not having the time to feel embarassed.
>
>	Dark? However dark she be,
>	I have seen her dark gazelle-eyes.
>
>____________________________________________
>Original:	Rabindranath Tagore
>Translation:	J. C. Ghosh
>____________________________________________
>
>Iftekhar Choudhury
>Texas A & M University


Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: Ben.Magid@launchpad.unc.edu (Ben Magid)
Subject: Poem: Post Acme Love
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin Board Service
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 23:56:43 GMT

 Post Acme Love (or Regretable Indecision)
 
 Love reliably greets me,
 as an over-ripe tomato
 whose flesh is to soft
 to maintain a firm grasp
 as is needeed by the 
 swift and steathy juggler
 who has performed so many
 saturday parades.

C&C welcome

--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  laUNChpad.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
From: bbresen@cerebus.cc.edu (Brian Bresen)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Poem: A Cry For Help.
Date: 8 Jan 93 03:20:20 GMT
Reply-To: bbresen@cerebus.cc.edu (Brian Bresen)
Organization: Carroll College-Waukesha, WI


c&c welcome


		A Cry For Help
		--------------------------------
		Standing on the edge of the cliff I stretch
		my arms out to the side
		lean back with my chest out
		and close my eyes.
		I scream out in pain
		of a lifetime.

		I open my eyes and
		stare
		at the canyon below.
		But you stand between
		I
		and the ledge
		staring me down,
		staring through my eyes,
		staring you find me deep inside
		and pull me out.

		I return your look and the
		ledge looks
		evil,
		imperfect,
		somehow wrong.

		"Who are you?
		Why did you listen to my cry?"

		"You wanted me to hear,
		you cried out to me."

		"And why did you come?"
		"Because I know."

		"And why do I love you?"
		"Because I know."

		"Then why am I still scared?
		Why do my hands still shake?
		Why is there no
		pain
		when I look into your eyes?"

		"Because your fear
		blinds
		you.  It fills your eyes and
		blocks
		your vision."

		"But now I can
		see.
		I can drive away the
		storm overhead
		when I look at you
		and hold you while
		I watch the
		sunrise."

Brian
--
--
*********Brian Bresen******************************bbresen@cerebus.cc.edu*****
Oo oi!
			-Pikel Bouldershoulder, "Canticle"
******************************************************************************
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: alien@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Diego Barros)
Subject: Looking Through A Broken Window (c&c welcome)
Organization: Monash University General Access Unix
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 02:38:12 GMT

Looking Through A Broken Window
-------------------------------

I can see an angel's face
Starring at me from within the light bulb
Dolphin's ruled this world
Before the monkey man devastated this globe

Deejay's calling out for blinds and deafs
To tell him what they see and hear
They call out, "These dancing elephants are great"
"But it's kinda warm in here."

Old Mister O'Donnell's eyeing a chair bound lady
From across the street
She remarks how he no longer can fly that kite
"I'll show you I can still get it up. If only we can meet."

Shooters out in the marsh, twin barrels aimed
And ready to kill
Lobbyists cry in fear, "Duck shooting's not nice"
"If ducks shot you man, how would you feel?"

Johnny's got marks and pain, all on his ribs
From what went down last night
To her daughter she quietly says
"Close your legs while you eat dear, It's not polite."

Things finally paid of for the local martyr this month
He'd not had any luck for so long
He got down and crazy
With some needle wielding loose and easy blonde

The priest got extra donations, this blessed day
Got himself new cream for his pores
Cleansed his soul before going 'round the corner
To say hi, to his favourite little sinning whores

The daughter's sleeping with the grandmother
The son with the mom, father's with who knows

It's on hell of a depressive world
Things have gotten way out of hand
But at least we'll all end up on some talk show

Marriage counsellors talk from experience
And try and talk people out of marrying twice

The beau young man strolls along the boardwalk
With his German shepherd in tow
Checking out the action for prospects and woman
Bored with what they've got at home now

Sinners leave hell for the relief that heaven provides
For their wounds and pain
Saints enter hell for the pleasures it provides
But return to heaven at dawn and be back at night again

Don't buy anywhere else, I've got what you need
Tell me what it is and it will be yours
Just as long as you do as I say, don't ask questions
And you'll be rewarded in due course

I'm looking through a hazy window
Cracks all along, from side to side
Wanting to see what's on the other side
Wanting to know
You wipe away the dirt with your hands
You think you noticed someone you knew
People outside look at each other briefly, just a glance
Looking up at the world outside
Looking through a broken window
I see what's out there, it makes me sad
Looking through a broken window
The things going on can really make you mad
Looking through a broken window

-----
	Diego Barros
	December 14, 1992

----------

-- 
			-------------------------
	      -----------------
   _____     : Mmmmm Donuts... :	 Diego Barros - Alien
  /     \    o ----------------   Mail : alien@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: R3TLM@VM1.CC.UAKRON.EDU
Subject: standing here waiting
Organization: The University of Akron
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 15:50:43 GMT

 
drifting
other places
moons never setting
blood pumping mind racing
running quickly startled
standing here
waiting
 
 
Enjoy it, if you can.
                ---Bonehead
From: sws@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Sergio Sedas)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: A Kiss
Date: 5 Jan 93 07:27:21 GMT
Reply-To: sws@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Sergio Sedas)
Distribution: rec
Organization: Field Robotics Center, CMU



                    A KISS

	I just wanted to let you know
	that you were the first woman I ever kissed.
	Yours was the first kiss that ever touched my heart
	and will never be forgotten.

	With you I learned how to love.

	I learned the feelings that one can only feel 	
	through the expression of a single kiss.

	For many years I wanted to return to your country 
            to seek you out.
	Your memory and the memory of that innocent romance
	accompanied me through time.

	How I longed to be able to hear from you.
	To see you at least in picture, 
	and know what has become of your life.

	Oh, if this could only come true.
	If I could only once again hear from you.
	I would know you remember me,
	at least as someone you once knew.


					Sergio Sedas
--
Sergio Sedas				| e-mail: sws@ri.cmu.edu
Carnegie Mellon University		| office: (412)268-6557
Field Robotics Center			| fax:    (412)682-1793 
Pittsburgh, Pa 15213			|
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: kt1@herahera.cc.bellcore.com (tellefsen,karen a)
Subject: A Fishwife's Song
Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 16:33:29 GMT
Keywords: satire


A Fishwife's Song

I have flounders, smelts, and kippers
caught this morning, by the skipper
of the trawler named
the Fishy Dame.
And my tunas net no Flipper.

I may deem my lines Skeltonic,
but in truth, they are moronic.
So decreed by Flip,
with Russian lip.
Seems I haven't mastered phonics.

Sing the fishwife's salt Bronx cheer             (a rude noise) 
to the Harvard student's jeer.
Though my verse may stink
with fishy ink,
of his flames, I have no fear.

He's three hundred miles from here,
and his witty Ascii spear,
too remote to grate
my fishwife's pate,
can't restrain my rhymes this year.

1/2/93


Notes: 

Some poets may favor iambic triameter; the form used in this poem is 
"Looney Toons"[1]. This was realized after writing the doggerel,
so it was unintentional, like some supposed Skeltonics.
This semi-classical form is best suited for light verse
and taunts; it's a semi-elegant nose-thumb in rhyme. Serious 
poetry written this way would be very strange, indeed.  To
my knowledge, it hasn't been done.

"Looney Toons" is similar to that old favorite, the limerick. 
The rhyme scheme is the same, but the meter is shorter and jazzier.
The best "Looney Toons" verse is written by would-be poets, who
haven't the slightest idea what they are doing, that is the
hacks, toads and fishy dames. Rather than detract, leaky scansion
and cheesy rhymes add to the charm of the dogger.., em, er, poem. 
Refined versifiers and serious scholars seem to be totally incapable 
of coherent expression in this frisky form.

[1]  Examples are given in the film, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

--/ -/ -/(-)  a               - = unstressed, / = stressed
--/ -/ -/(-)  a
--/ -/        b
-/ -/         b
--/ -/ -/(-)  a

With tongue firmly wedged in a fishwife's cheek,
K
-----------------------------------------
 The news poster gives a bad address;
 send e-mail to kt1@cc.bellcore.com  
 or it will be lost in the ascii aether.
 Karen Tellefsen

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: lichter@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Michael I. Lichter)
Subject: is nice
Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 93 23:33:40 GMT

		is nice
		------------------------------------------------

		repetition is nice
		self-defeat is nice
		repetition is nice
		self-defeat is

		charbroiled burgers is nice
		nuclear winter is nice
		charbroiled burgers is nice
		nuclear winter is

		religious ecstasy is nice
		cold borscht is nice
		religious ecstasy is nice
		cold borscht is

		ultimate control is nice
		spurting blood is nice
		ultimate control is nice
		spurting blood is

		human growth hormone is nice
		swaying cedars is nice
		human growth hormone is nice
		swaying cedars is

		howling chainsaws is nice
		reason is nice
		howling chainsaws is nice
		reason is

		is
		is 
		is
		is nice

			Michael Lichter
			January 9, 1993
From: daq@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom)
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 21:23:20 GMT
Subject: Re: Instead
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems

In rec.arts.poems, satan@wpi.WPI.EDU (Matt Meyer) writes:
> 
> I disagree with Marek, but i'm sure in his 'infinite wisdom' he can point 
> out several 'flaws' (according to him and whatever poetry establishment 
> he cares to quote). 
> 
> The thing that sometimes annoys me about the posted criticism on this group,
> is though it is honest (which is important) it is often tactless.  The 
> object of criticism is not to crush the ego of the writer (and it isn't to
> inflate it either).


Well, I suspect it is safe to say that the object of criticism is
exactly what the critic intends it to be.  To generalize any more
than that risks the danger of being wrong.

>  It's is to point out flaws and areas for improvement.

This is one possible purpose.

> Need we open our criticisms with statements like "remarkably bad piece of 
> writing."  

I think it is probably best to say what you think and to be prepared
to defend the position if challenged.  I really doubt that this
phrase is going to destroy Don's confidence as a writer, and
the mere act of stating the case does not make it true.

doug