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User Rating: |
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9.2
/10
(81
votes)
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I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.
John Clare
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Read poems about / on: childhood, memory, lost, woman, sleep, sea, sky, death, god, life, joy, women, rose, dream, friend
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Comments about this poem (I Am
by
John Clare
) |
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comments about this poem (I Am by
John Clare
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Jan Campbell
(7/21/2009 6:00:00 PM) |
John Clare suffered from manic depression, to say that this beautiful poem is 'self-obsessed drivel' trivialises his sufferings in a very arrogant way. I think it is a privilege to be allowed to glimpse those sufferings expressed so vividly. I too suffer from this illness which thankfully is much better understood today and the first time I read this poem I identified with John Clare and it remains my favourite. There is definately something about being in a dark place that causes some people to reach into the depths of their pain and find relief in writing, painting etc which we then can share.
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Ian Fraser
(2/18/2009 9:57:00 AM) |
Most of John Clare's poetry is simple nature poetry, beautifully observed and remarkable for its complete freedom from the slightest tinge of anthromorphism. Clare was self-educated and from a very poor background. Normally at the time he was writing this would have been an absolute impediment to any form of literary pretension and it's fair to say in fact that for most of his life he was largely misunderstood, though the extent to which this contributed to his subsequent bouts of 'insanity' is debatable. These famous lines - as famous as anything in literature I would suggest - were in fact written during one of his various incarcerations (I use the word advisedly) in Northampton Lunatic Asylum. It's a bitter irony that although Clare was clearly never mad - the bolts of insight alone that this poem contains are clear proof of that - he came to believe that he was so. And what greater punishment can there be for a sane man than that? . For all that, Clare produces poetry here that has entered the language in a way that otherwise only Shakespeare has. 'I am the self-consumer of my woes', ' a living sea of waking dreams' are phrases that are not just memorable, they have become both iconic and lasting and even hard-bitten anti-romantics like me can barely read that final stanza without a tear in my eye.
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Is It poetry
(12/10/2008 4:50:00 PM) |
Well I did'nt have any coffee and this dude is rockin...drivel these colors blinded devine twined in such wonderfull fasion of time..wooh
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Robert Quilter
(12/10/2008 9:07:00 AM) |
im intrigued by the idea that our perception kind of governs how we feel about (this) piece of work.Whether i call this stunning/drival depends on my culture, background or even if my coffee tasted good this morning.....
Or more likely we are viewing it colored by our own ever-fragile sanity, and as i heard someone (mis) quote, we are all indeed seperated by seven degrees of sanity.
im not sure that 'people with a mental disorder make the best poets', but they've certainly left some interesting pieces of work.......i say that, you not knowing, my sanity.
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Lorna Dominy
(11/17/2008 9:26:00 PM) |
I read this poem first at 17, I'm now 41, but what this poem meant at 17 has not changed for me since. I understand his stress, his despair. his joy. He was looking for god, or some kind of nirvana, but I also think he knows this does not exsist. He wrote this in a mental asylum and there is no such thing as insanity, just varied degrees of sanity.
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Peter MacKay
(7/18/2008 11:22:00 PM) |
Jim Doyle (reviewer, above) says that Clare's poem is self-obsessed drivel. I disagree. I don't think there is such a thing as drivel. There is only writing. I don't even believe in good or bad writing. I believe, though, in perception. And it is perception that Doyle has used to attack Clare's timeless poem. I wrote this poem out on onion paper in Gothic script with a calligraphic pen, framed it, and gave it to a good friend of mine. My friend, who doesn't have a sentimental bone in her body, read it aloud as we sat having a pot of tea in the garden. The tears fell from her eyes, like raindrops against a window-pane. She was so taken by Clare's words, so moved by them, she found it difficult to speak. Again - perception. We had Earl Grey tea and hot buttered scones. It was a delightful day... Again, perception. Nothing but. Thank you, too, to Jane Koehorst (reviewer, above) who spoke so kindly and movingly about Clare's poem. You say: 'I wish I could create something as beautiful as this with words.' My dear, you just have. Peter - alphecca@gmail.com
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Abc Poet
(4/12/2008 3:31:00 AM) |
I recently posted my views about the last stanza of the poem at: http: //literarybonanza.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-long-for-scenes-where-man-has-never.html
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Abc Poet
(4/12/2008 3:30:00 AM) |
I recently posted my views about the last stanza of the poem at: http: //literarybonanza.blogspot.com/
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Danielle Stith
(3/1/2008 5:14:00 AM) |
I don't think that Kim Wood or Jim Doyle really understand the depth behind this poem. John Clare suffered from depression- quite obviously, and it's not about feeling like that 'one time or another', and it's not 'self obsessed drivel'. Clare is trying to express himself in a way that is accurate to the way he feels.
Depression is not a quickly passing thing, and he obviously needed some way of showing the true nature of the illness.
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