A promise

This will be my last poetry post for a while! I just had to share this poem, it has been on my (poorly self-made) desktop for the last few months, and if I ever get my dream, it will be painted above my bed in my London flat.

It’s one of the only poems I stumbled on and immediately fell in love with that is English.  My first thought was that it reminds me of Millay’s poetry, and that can never be a bad thing.  I think it describes a relationship most people have been in at one point in their life. It’s the kind of relationship I like.

Also, a question for women visiting my blog: can we have wet dreams? Because I think I had one, I dreamed I was in a porn movie (which I would never consider irl) and it was so naughty and sneaky! (and hot)

Poetry under the cut!

Bored?

Ask me anything, it’s anonymous!

Zug, a pranksters website

You must choose!

The Harlot’s Handbook

You think punternet didn’t exist before the internet? Think again! In the 18th century there was a published book, Harris’s Lists, which was a catalogue describing the talents and attributes of London’s floozies. Created by a pimp, a prostitute and a poet, the Lists became an instant bestseller.

Hallie Rubenhold wrote ‘The Story of The Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies’ and uses the details found within the Lists to produce a vivid depiction of the steamy underside of Georgian life. In 2007 BBC4 aired a documentary based on the book, it’s only 30 mins long, if you want to, you can watch it here:

Perfect to watch on a rainy ashy afternoon.

I want to bite my initials on a sailor’s neck

I’ve never been up-to-date when it comes to music, even now I wouldn’t recognise a song by Lady Gaga. I usually blame my lack of knowledge on not listening to the radio but as most people are very passionate about music it is rather embarrassing to admit to said L of K.

Now that doesn’t mean I don’t love music, I’m just not ‘with it’. I love singing a long in my car with musicals. (and only in my car, my singing is so bad I don’t even dare to sing in the shower) I played the piano for over eight years, and while I didn’t appreciate it at the time, I certainly like classical music now. I also have a preference for strong woman’s voices like Janis Joplin, I love swing and when I go out dancing, I’m not ashamed to admit, I’m all for a good beat.

So you see, I’m hardly starved for good music, I do fine thank you, even if I don’t have an idea who sang this or that song. Who is N°1 in the charts or what singer X looks like.

I want to share a song that influenced me as a young impressionable girl. This song is called Lorelei and I came so close to chosing it as my escort alter ego. Joline was much easier though, closer to my real name and no connotations with Gilmore Girls. Ella Fitzgerald sings it, and Lorelei is a floozie, definitely worth listening too!

Poetry I love: Edna St.Vincent Millay

I started studying literature as an extracurricular activity when I was 7, and I carried on for over ten years. When I was younger we learned about a good pronunciation and little poems, as I grew older we started going through the history. From the first book ever written, the first written Dutch text found, till right up to now. I even made my secondary school thesis about the use of colour and smell throughout history.

It wasn’t always fun, we started with lots of people, at the end only a few were left. Some parts didn’t resonate at all and were quite boring, and sometimes I just wanted to quit. There were things that made it all worth while though, and I want to share one of these with you.

I have no idea how popular Edna St.Vincent Millay is in English literature, you may know her better than me. I first learned about her poetry through a Dutch translation of Herman de Coninck, I loved it. She writes about death, sex and love in a very modern way even though she was born in 1892. She had an open marriage, and writes about her lovers in her poetry. She is frank and strong, and I think when I read her poetry as a teenager I longed to be like that.

Her most popular poem is Renascence, I am more fond of her sonnets. She is definitely worth reading, and you can find a lot of her work on the internet. I’ll leave you with one of the first poems I read.

V

If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
That you were gone, not to return again –
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man — who happened to be you –
At noon to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry aloud — I could not cry
Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place –
I should but watch the station lights rush by
With a more careful interest on my face,
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care
Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.