Read More Poems!

[Mhaladie]

I have a secret:
I like poetry.

I was never all that interested in it, actually, before this year. I thought it was ok, I'd read it if someone showed me a cool poem or whatever, but I never wrote poems and I didn't know any poets and didn't read poetry that much. Then, sometime last year I bought the poetry magazine my old school puts out annually, and I slowly became more interested. I'd write (terrible) poems on occassion, would look up poems sometimes, got to know a couple well-known poets.

I've been auditing a poetry class at my old school this year, and with each class I go to I become more and more interested in it, and become more and more convinced that people don't read enough poetry. Because it's quite fun, and hey, you might even learn something or want to write something yourself, you never know.

So what I was thinking; maybe we could have a poetry-sharing thread like this, post a poem you like, whatever. People could read them. If you feel so inclined, write something and post it here too. I feel like even if you think you aren't good at writing, if you read good stuff and put good sentences in your ears, and practice, you can get better and write nice things. So share some poems, read some, try writing one; it's fun!

Here; this poem, called Thesaurus, is by one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins. He used to be Poet Laureate of the US, and I actually really like a lot of his poems. Some other ones I like a lot are Introduction to Poetry and Forgetfulness. Here's him reading a nice one, too, called The Lanyard.

Another poem I like a lot that I was shown recently is The First Step, by Constantine Cavafy, because it kind of has a lot of... well, I often feel quite like Evmenis in pretty much everything I do. :P

One more; if anything, watch this, because Taylor Mali is really fun to listen to: What Teachers Make. His other stuff is great, too.

So share something, comment, write something. It's nice~

 

[opaltiger]

I agree wholeheartedly! Everyone needs more poetry to brighten up their day.

My favourite poet is Eliot. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (which I learnt by heart in first year), The Hollow Men (of the infamous "this is the way the world ends/not with a bang but a whimper"), and Preludes are my favourite of his, in rough order.

Then there are a few odd poems I like; Dylan Thomas' Do not go gentle into that good night is very nice, as is a lot of Seamus Heaney's work (I particularly like The Forge). Hmm, let me see. Emily Dickinson is okay; she has some very nice poems (One need not be a chamber to be haunted).

That's all I can think of right now, but there are definitely more I am forgetting.

I also write poetry from time to time (I even posted one a page or so back!). It never turns out how I want it to. :(

 

[Tarvos]

I prefer writing poetry to reading poetry: I have about 130 pages of poetry that I wrote in a document. I need to assemble some of the newer ones into it.

As for my favourite poet, it would have to be Poe, Keats, or Wilde.

I'm classical like that.

 

[Tailsy]

Keats' 'Ode to a Nightingale' is one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry I've ever read.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

 

[departuresong]

Phillip Lopate's "We Who Are Your Closest Friends" is my favorite.

We who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting,
as a group,
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift.
Your analyst is
in on it,
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband;
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us.
In announcing our
association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves.
But since our Thursday nights
have brought us
to a community
of purpose
rare in itself
with you as
the natural center,
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your disastrous personality
then for the good of the collective.

 

[Sage Noctowl]

I quite like 'Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori' by Wilfred Owen:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

It's message intrigues me, and it's written beautifully.