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Sally Murphy, Australian author

Poetry Friday: Magpies, a Poem That Makes Me Tingle

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When I sat down to post today for Poetry Friday I had no idea what to write about. Then I looked out of office window and saw five magpies playing on the grass across the road, and the words of a poem by Judith Wright came to my head:

Along the road the magpies walk
with hands in pockets, left and right.Magpie
They tilt their heads, and stroll and talk.
In their well-fitted black and white.
( You can see the rest of the poem at AllPoetry )

 

I’ve blogged before about different poems that make me tingle – that make me smile, or cry or shiver, and that stay with me for years and years. This is one of them. What a perfect extended metaphor, and about a bird I love. I hope you love it as much as I do.

Poetry Friday is hosted today at Merely Day by Day, where you can find links to all the poetry goodness.

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Poems That Make Me Tingle #4

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On my recent trip to Townsville, I walked along the ocean front and wondered at the great variety of boats out on the water. There were boats being rowed

Townsville boat

and paddled

Townsville boat

and raced.

Outriggers

There were little boats with sails and huge ships

Big and little

And even memorials to ancient boats

Canoe people

to remind us that people have travelled these waters for a long, long time.

And all this boaty-wonder, in turn, brought to mind yet another favourite childhood poem, this time by Robert Louis Stevenson. I think this one made me tingle because of the amazing word-picture it created. I could see that river, and those little boats bobbing along, off to some far-flung place. My version of Stevenson’s Child’s Garden of Verses shows the boats as made of leaves, but I also remember thinking of them as paper boats or just little toy boats.

I love how something like watching boats on the ocean can bring back a poem I’ve loved since I was really young. That’s the magic of good poetry.

 

Poems that Make Me Tingle #3

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When I was a child, we had a set of World Book Encyclopaedias which had a matching set of books for children, called Childcraft,   about all kinds of things. One of these was a collection of poetry, and I spent a lot of time reading and rereading this volume.  Not only can I still picture it, but I can still smell that book whenever I think of it.

Anyway, there were many poems in that book which I loved, but possibly my absolute favourite was this one:

 

The Purple Cow

by Gelett Burgess

I never saw a purple cow

I never hope to see one

But I can tell you, anyhow

I’d rather see than be one.

 

Why did this poem make me tingle? I suspect it was a combination of things – the absurdity, the ease with which I could remember it, and the illustration which accompanied it, a photo of a stunningly purple cow.

Apparently this poem, first published in 1895 went on to become the most quoted poem of the twentieth century. So obviously I wasn’t alone in loving this poem.

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