What's your favourite piece of poetry?

Marriage by Gregory Corso

And then this depressing poem is my second favorite.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard No offense intended so don’t get me wrong. That is the most mediocre thing I have ever read.

Might I recommend?

Love Song

How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn’t touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn’t resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin’s bow,
which draws one voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

—Rainer Maria Rilke, from New Gedichte (New Poems) 1907–1908 (North Point Press, 2001)

@atlantis to which were you referring to? If you were talking about Corso, I reserve the right to murder you with a flock of crazed weasels.

Favorite poetry… oh I can’t pick!!!! I can’t….. I’m a Brit Lit, American Lit, and Deaf Lit teacher… choose a favorite flower among thousands?!!?
Some of my favorites…
Valediction: A Forbidden Mourning, John Donne
Sonnet 116, Shakespeare
Crossing the Bar, Tennyson
Manfred, Byron
Intimations of Immortality, Wordsworth
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, Dylan Thomas
Amelia Mixed the Mustard, A.E. Housman
Song of Myself, Walt Whitman
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot
The Lynching Claude McKay
Howl, Allen Ginsburg
The Taxi, Amy Lowell
Phenomenal Woman, Maya Angelou
When They Tell Me, by myself :D (I’ve published several works)
I also love the poetry of Pia Seagrave, Christopher J. Heuer, John Lee Clark and Salvadore J. Parlato

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard

Try me

“The Hands of my Father”
by Christopher J. Heuer

Not once did my father sign to me.
He was a farmer; his explanations
were for the ground. Corn, rain,
earth—this was language,
the planting and bringing forth
of things. He did not like talking
to people, their noise and pace
and frantic lives. To him a sense

of hearing was only good for wind
and thunder, for the moaning
of cattle. I remember the hands
of my father, fingers clenched white
like teeth around the steering
wheels of tractors and the grips of
pitchforks; taking refuge from
the movement of my language

among the motions of his life.
Mine was not the kind of silence
that he knew, standing in rows
to be entered like a church—
undisturbed beyond the brush of
the leaves against his face and arms—
in the fields we would not cross
to meet one another.

My kind of silence was flood
and drought. He watched me
as if God had set the locusts on him.
His hands struck the dinner table
with the fast crack of lightning.
My silence was famine and disease,
forces of nature he could not
root out, or control. Or cure.

But now that he is dead, I see
his fingers in the corn, reaching
over the hills and fences to his son,
to say that he is sorry. At the
field’s edge, the touch of each
kernel against my palm is a kiss
from his lips. I would go to him
if I knew where to walk.

Song by Allen Ginsberg

@linguaphile

Love is a word used
too much and
much
too soon

Love me little

Only 3 out of the whole list talk about love… true, that?

@FutureMemory \m/ I bow down at the altar of Ginsburg \m/

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Or so they tell me
I don’t know, I’m color blind

@linguaphile I was on the Shakespeare sonnet. Haven’t gotten til the end of the line yet

An impossible question, but I like this…....

A Want In Me
By Padraic Fiacc (1924 – )

Sweet little seconds watching the ugly gull
I spend holding a head up dreaming up
Into the loneliness of the skies.

I stick my tongue out at the powerful
No arm of a strong man can break what I build
And I do not care about the wise.

I have no set purpose in the whole wide world
Nothing that the world can give me pleases me for long
I close my eyes to the moment that passes.

Nor am I right enough to love the furled
Flag on the responsible street. The fife, the song
Only I love, and the clouds, and the grasses.

Impossible to answer this question. Here’s a few of my favourites..

Daddy, Sylvia Plath

_Invictus
by William Ernest Henley_

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot

_Life is Fine
by Langston Hughes_

I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn’t,
So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn’t a-been so cold
I might’ve sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.

I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn’t a-been so high
I might’ve jumped and died.

But it was High up there! It was high!

So since I’m still here livin’,
I guess I will live on.
I could’ve died for love—
But for livin’ I was born

Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry—
I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!

Nicotine, Ezra Pound

Hymn to the Dope

Goddess of the murmuring courts,
Nicotine, my Nicotine,
Houri of the mystic sports,
trailing-robed in gabardine,
Gliding where the breath hath glided,
Hidden sylph of filmy veils,
Truth behind the dream is veiléd
E’en as thou art, smiling ever, ever gliding,
Wraith of wraiths, dim lights dividing
Purple, grey, and shadow green
Goddess, Dream-grace, Nicotine.

Goddess of the shadow’s lights,
Nicotine, my Nicotine,
Some would set old Earth to rights,
Thou I none such ween.
Veils of shade our dream dividing,
Houris dancing, intergliding,
Wraith of wraiths and dream of faces,
Silent guardian of the old unhallowed places,
Utter symbol of all old sweet druidings,
Mem’ry of witched wold and green,
Nicotine, my Nicotine:

Neath the shadows of thy weaving
Dreams that need no undeceiving,
Loves that longer hold me not,
Dreams I dream not any more,
Fragrance of old sweet forgotten places,
Smiles of dream-lit, flit-by faces
All as perfume Arab-sweet
Deck the high road to thy feet

As were Godiva’s coming fated
And all the April’s blush belated
Were lain before her, carpeting
The stones of Coventry with spring,
So thou my mist-enwreathéd queen,
Nicotine, white Nicotine,
Riding engloried in they hair
Mak’st by-road of our dreams
Thy thorough-fare.

John Donne

“Death be not proud, though some have called thee”

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, 5
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, 10
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

It was a poem by William Wordsworth. I think it was called Stargazers. It was about the use of telescopes. It talked about how some people would take advantage of others using telescopes. I can’t find the poem any more, and I last read it in 1988. I led my AP English class in studying this poem, but I have no idea how or where I found it.

@GracieT, I think it is called Stargazers:

What crowd is this? what have we here! we must not pass it by;
A Telescope upon its frame, and pointed to the sky:
Long is it as a Barber’s Poll, or Mast of little Boat,
Some little Pleasure-Skiff, that doth on Thames’s waters float.

The Show-man chuses well his place, ‘tis Leicester’s busy Square;
And he’s as happy in his night, for the heavens are blue and fair;
Calm, though impatient is the Crowd; Each is ready with the fee,
And envies him that’s looking—what an insight must it be!

Yet, Show-man, where can lie the cause? Shall thy Implement have blame,
A Boaster, that when he is tried, fails, and is put to shame?
Or is it good as others are, and be their eyes in fault?
Their eyes, or minds? or, finally, is this resplendent Vault?

Is nothing of that radiant pomp so good as we have here?
Or gives a thing but small delight that never can be dear?
The silver Moon with all her Vales, and Hills of mightiest fame,
Do they betray us when they’re seen? and are they but a name?

Or is it rather that Conceit rapacious is and strong,
And bounty never yields so much but it seems to do her wrong?
Or is it, that when human Souls a journey long have had,
And are returned into themselves, they cannot but be sad?

Or must we be constrain’d to think that these Spectators rude,
Poor in estate, of manners base, men of the multitude,
Have souls which never yet have ris’n, and therefore prostrate lie?
No, no, this cannot be—Men thirst for power and majesty!

Does, then, a deep and earnest thought the blissful mind employ
Of him who gazes, or has gazed? a grave and steady joy,
That doth reject all shew of pride, admits no outward sign,
Because not of this noisy world, but silent and divine!

Whatever be the cause, ‘tis sure that they who pry & pore
Seem to meet with little gain, seem less happy than before:
One after One they take their turns, nor have I one espied
That doth not slackly go away, as if dissatisfied.

Thank you! That is it. I looked on the web after I wrote that. I have absolutely no idea why I didn’t look before. All I could remember was the name and the first stanza.

There are many I love but Poem in October by Dylan Thomas is the first one to spring to mind.

In Dillman’s Grove by John Lillison

On Dillman’s Grove
My love did die
And now in earth
Shall ever lie
No one could e’re replace her visage
Until your face brought thoughts of kissage

Here’s one of scores; by W B Yeats

“He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven”

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with the golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams beneath your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams…

Two more of his:

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
When You are Old

And this: arguably the most satirized short poem in the English language. (Google “This is Just to Say parodies”.)

When I was in 6th grade, my teacher introduced us to grownup poetry and made me feel like I was capable of understanding poetry. I have loved poetry ever since. Thank you to all the real teachers. I will never forget the poem we studied.

It was Stephen Crane’s “I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon:

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
“It is futile,” I said,
“You can never -”

“You lie,” he cried,
And ran on.

@bkcunningham I know what you mean. The first grown up poem I was ever taught which opened my eyes was On His Blindness by John Milton : “They also serve who only stand and waite.”

Thank you Teacher!

“All beings, grass and trees, when alive, are soft and bending
When dead they are dry and brittle.
Therefore the hard and unyielding are companions of death,
The soft and yielding are companions of life.
Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water.
Yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better;
It has no equal.
The weak can overcome the strong;
The supple can overcome the stiff.”
— Lao Tzu

Not really a poem but also verse

“Beans, beans the magical fruit…”

I’m not one for poetry usually, but I go through moods of liking some different artists. Maya Angelou is cool, and Margaret Atwood (though I like her speculative fiction more). Can’t think of others off the top of my head, aside from a friend of mine.

I don’t know if I have a favorite piece of poetry, but my favorite poet is Dean Young. Here are a couple of his pieces (both from the collection entitled Skid):

My People

Initially, I too appeared between the legs
of a woman in considerable discomfort.
A rather gristly scene but fairly common
among my kind. Those early days, I must
admit: a bit of a blur but generally
I was provided for, wiped off
and kept away from the well.
Dressed as a shepherdess until
I could handle an ax, it was then
I saw the golden arches and tasted of
the processed cheese and left my field
forever, disastrously it must be said
although it has led me here, addressing you
in this grand and ugly hall, paid
a nominal fee and all the grapes
I can eat. Well, I’m told they’re grapes.
But I leap ahead when leaping backward
as well as vibrating in place
is more what’s called for,
much like the role of the tongue
in the bell. Hear that?
Reminds me of the coyotes of our youth
before we hunted them to near extinction
then expensively reintroduced because
it turned out they were the only solution
to our rodent problem, at least
on the outside, in the cribs. Inside,
it’s a grackle/possum/viper problem too,
even algae in some areas. Somehow
we’ve managed to ruin the sky
just by going about our business,
I in my Super XL, you in your Discoverer.
A grudging, fat-cheeked tribe,
we breed without season, inadvertently
or injected with quadruplets. The gods
we played with broke, they were made of glass.
The trees our fathers planted we will not see again.

How I Get My Ideas

Sometimes you just have to wait
15 seconds then beat the prevailing nuance
from the air. If that doesn’t work,
try to remember how many times
you’ve wakened in the body of an animal,
two arms, two legs, willowy antennae.
Try thinking what it would be like
to never see your dearest again.
Stroke her gloves, sniff his overcoat.
If that’s a no-go, call Joe
who’s never home but keeps changing
the melody of his message.
Cactus at night emits its own light,
the river flows under the sea.
Dear face I always recognize but never
know, everything has a purpose
from which it must be freed,
maybe with crowbars, maybe the gentlest breeze.
Always turn in the direction of the skid.
If it’s raining, use the rain
to last the windowpanes or,
in a calmer mode, deepen the new greens
nearly to a violet. I can’t live
without violet although it’s red
I most often resort to.
Sometimes people become angelic when they cry,
sometimes only ravaged.
Technically, Mary still owes me a letter,
her last was just porcupine quills and tears,
tears that left a whitish residue
on black construction paper.
Sometimes I look at used art books at Moe’s
just to see women without their clothes.
How can someone so rich,
who can have fish whenever he wants,
go to baseball games,
still feel such desperation?
I’m afraid I must insist
on desperation. By the fourth week
the embryo has nearly turned itself
inside out. If that doesn’t help,
you’ll just have to wait which
may involve sleeping which may involve
dreaming and sometimes dreaming works.
Father, why have you returned,
dirt on your morning vest?
You cannot control your laughter.
You cannot control your love.
You know not to hit the brakes on ice
but do anyway. You bend the nail
but keep hammering because
hammering makes the world.

Encounter / Czeslaw Milosz

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

Words, Wide Night
by Carol Ann Duffy 1955 -

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you

and this is what it is like or what it is like in words.

I love many, many poets. ee cummings is so unconventional. I love his rebel spirit. I cleaned house for the retired head librarian at Daytona Beach Community College when I was in my early 20s.. Her name was Dorothy. She was a black woman who grew up during the depression. Her feet was deformed like a Geicha. Her family was too poor to worry about the proper fitting of shoes. I’ll never forget the way her feet looked from mistreatment and neglect.

She said she only had hand-me-downs and you just wore whatever shoes you had at the time. Her poor old toes were sitting on top of each other. She told me stories and kept me entertained while I worked for her. Because of her background as a head librarian; I trusted what she said about literature. When I told her I loved ee cummings,

It makes me smile when I see her elegant ebony face twist into a grimace. She said there were much better poets. “Don’t stop with him,” she said. “It is time to move from baby food to meat.” I still love him though.

@sarahhhhh, Milton is a master. I am glad you had a good teacher too. There are out there and deserve recognition.

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If I had to pick just one:
One Art, Elizabeth Bishop

@lonelydragon: That one knocked me cock-a-hoop.

Whenever someone asks why form and meter matter in poetry, I think of “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” Now I can add this Bishop one.

What a way to end a day that included not being diagnosed with Lyme disease. Thank you.

@gailcalled, yeah!!!!!

@lonelydragon Excellent poem

@gailcalled That’s a great way of expressing it. Glad you enjoyed. And hooray for a clean bill of health!

Lonelydragon, I read your just one poem and liked it, My one art is finding and winning, not losing.