Good morning! How are you today?
Let’s start!
Dzisiaj będzie trochę inaczej. Zachęcam do poczytania prawdziwej angielskiej poezji. Będzie za trudno? Ależ skądże! Gotowi?
“This is Just to Say” was published in 1934 and written by one of the most significant modern American poets, William Carlos Williams.
Williams was inspired by another American poet, Walt Whitman, who started a movement to write poetry that reflected the poet’s life and didn’t follow strict rules. Williams liked this idea and decided to write poems about his everyday life. He was particularly interested in what life was like in the American suburbs (the neighborhoods outside of a city).
“This Is Just to Say” was based on a note that Williams left on the refrigerator for his wife. The note let his wife know that he’d eaten the plums she was probably planning to eat later.
Let’s read it.
William Carlos Williams
This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Jack Prelutsky is one of the most well-known American contemporary children’s poets. “A Pizza the Size of the Sun” comes from a book of poetry he published under the same name in 1996. The poem is about exactly what its title suggests: the speaker making an enormous pizza.
Jack Prelutsky
A pizza the size of the Sun
I’m making a pizza the size of the sun,
a pizza that’s sure to weigh more than a ton,
a pizza too massive to pick up and toss,
a pizza resplendent with oceans of sauce.
I’m topping my pizza with mountains of cheese,
with acres of peppers, pimentos, and peas,
with mushrooms, tomatoes, and sausage galore,
with every last olive they had at the store.
My pizza is sure to be one of a kind,
my pizza will leave other pizzas behind,
my pizza will be a delectable treat
that all who love pizza are welcome to eat.
The oven is hot, I believe it will take
a year and a half for my pizza to bake.
I hardly can wait till my pizza is done,
my wonderful pizza the size of the sun.
Charles Bukowski was one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century. In his poem “So you want to be a writer,” the speaker details exactly what they think makes a real writer, and the poem is a fantastic example of Bukowski’s style.
Charles Bukowski
So you want to be a writer
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
A na deser piosenka. Angielska piosenka, która zaczyna się Marsylianką? To w ogóle możliwe? Okazuje się, że tak! I dodatkowo jest to piosenka, którą na pewno Państwo znają i kochają. Bo trudno jej nie kochać. Pozdrawiam serdecznie.