Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Today is National Poetry Day
So,
time to read a poem written in praise of a Harringay beauty spot
Harringay in Poetry
the work of Harringay poet Michael Donaghy, written about by his wife here, in the Poetry archive
the poetry of local poet Eva Salzman
National Poetry Day
Poetry content on HOL
time to read a poem written in praise of a Harringay beauty spot
Harringay in Poetry
the work of Harringay poet Michael Donaghy, written about by his wife here, in the Poetry archive
the poetry of local poet Eva Salzman
National Poetry Day
Poetry content on HOL
Tags for Forum Posts: poetry
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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And today also happens to be the 439th anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto - so a double reminder to me to re-read G.K. Chesterton's stirring (if nowadays somewhat non-PC) poem Lepanto which begins with the Ottoman Sultan smiling in his beard:
White founts falling in the Courts of the Sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships . . . .
and ends with Don Quijote de La Mancha a mere glint in the eye of Miguel de Cervantes:
Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in his sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade ....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)
Cervantes lost the use of his left hand in the battle, hence his nickname 'Manco de Lepanto', and later spent five years as a captive of los Turcos in North Africa. In the 1580s he was an Andalucian tax collector - doing his bit for the Armada, I suppose. Between 1605 and 1615 he wrote his two volumes of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, y murió en Madrid el día 23 de abril de 1616 - same day as his contemporary, one William Shakespeare.
So this year's (inter)National Poetry Day's not a bad day for a spot of windmill tilting or to renew acquaintance with Chesterton, Cervantes and Shakespeare.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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It may be that the first line breeds contempt with its familiarity but on a day like today, Keats' Ode to Autumn deserves to be recalled in its entirety.
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With regard to the discussion about the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square.
Porridge.
Why is there no monument
To Porridge in our land?
It it's good enough to eat,
It's good enough to stand!
On a plinth in London
A statue we should see
Of Porridge made in Scotland
Signed, "Oatmeal, O.B.E."
(By a young dog of three)
Spike Milligan
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