What is poetry, what is your favorite poem and why?

IF by Rudyard Kipling

“At First She Came to Me Pure”
Translated from Spanish
by Juan Ramón Jiménez

At first she came to me pure,
dressed only in her innocence;
and I loved her as we love a child.

Then she began putting on
clothes she picked up somewhere;
and I hated her, without knowing it.

She gradually became a queen,
the jewelry was blinding…
What bitterness and rage!

…She started going back toward nakedness.
And I smiled.

Soon she was back to the single shift
of her old innocence.
I believed in her a second time.

Then she took off the cloth
and was entirely naked…
Naked poetry, always mine,
that I have loved my whole life!

I love Annabell Lee by Edgar Allen Poe. Why, it’s beautiful and romantic, and timeless.

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Laughed loud at her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went laughing at her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the laughter in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

@KNOWITALL Good choice.

@gorillapaws I liked yours, too.

@KNOWITALL, wherever that copy came from, it’s been tampered with. There’s no laughter in “Annabel Lee.” Better look closer.

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Laughed loud at her and me.
—should be “coveted”

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went laughing at her and me—
—should be “envying”

And neither the laughter in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
—should be “angels”

@Jeruba Yes, there’s a couple versions, good catch. The Poetry Foundation is usually where I go, but I just googled this one for this purpose. I’ve read it so many times, I didn’t catch that since I just skimmed.

That is not any actual version of the poem. It’s somebody’s idea of a joke.

The Tyger by William Blake

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

I read this in my senior year of high school in front of my English class.

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you planned:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

I like this one too..Lily of a day
It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night— It was the plant and flower of Light.

Always been one of my faves:

Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I don’t know what poetry is.

My favorite poem is a Dutch translation, by Hendrik de Vries (I’m not hundred percent sure about this, though), from a Portuguese verse (don’t know the poet’s name…).
I’ll (try to) translate it into English.
Obviously, me being neither Portuguese nor English spoken, nor a poet, the result may be a bit meh.

I would desire your death
If I then could be your grave
Hugged in my arms
You would always be mine

@Dutchess_III That’s in my top 5. I think of that ‘path less travelled’ when I make unpopular decisions, like choosing not to have children, etc.

Yep. Me too, @KNOWITALL. But I still don’t know if “all the difference” has been good or bad.

@Dutchess Yes, personal happiness is very fluid.

Poetry is an escape from all rules. A sanctuary from a trouble world where we can be free.

I like the following poem because it grabs be and haunts me. I feel there with the writer’s sorrow.

A hunter shot at a flock of geese
That flew within his reach,
Two were stopped in their rapid flight
And fell on the sandy beach.

The male bird lay at the water’s edge
And just before he died,
He faintly called to his wounded mate
And she dragged herself to his side.

She bent her head and crooned to him
In a way distressed and wild,
Caressing her one and only mate
As a mother would a child.

Then covering him with her broken wing
And gasping with failing breath,
She laid her head against his breast
A feeble honk… then death.

This story is true though crudely told,
I was the man in this case,
I stood knee deep in snow and cold
And the hot tears burned my face.

I buried the birds in the sand where they lay,
Wrapped in my hunting coat,
And I threw my gun and belt in the bay
When I crossed in the open boat.

Hunters will call me a right poor sport
And scoff at the thing I did,
But that day something broke in my heart …
And shoot again??? God forbid!!!

By Lemuel T. Ward

Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Mrs Midas by Carol Ann Duffy

I can’t say I have a favourite poem, in the same way I don’t have an absolute favourite song, there are just too many that I like and so much depends on mood. But I absolutely adore this poem, especially after hearing it read by the author herself. The humour is wonderfully quirky, very clever. I haven’t copied it into this post because of the length.

I would define poetry as art through words. I’ll admit that not much thought has been put into that definition—I am hoping it is sufficiently broad—but I really just want to share my favorite poem.

A poem I always liked was “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, a sequel to “Ozymandias” that @canidmajor shared. I never had much of an appreciation for poetry, but the strong lyrics of “New Colossus” (and similarly, “Ozymandias”) just struck me for some reason. I like listening to people recite this sonnet, and I can recite it myself.

“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

@gondwanalon, what is the title of the poem by Lemuel T. Ward. It is wonderful.

@Bill1939 (A) Hunter’s Remorse

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five, I was just alive.
But now I am Six, I’m as clever as clever,
So I think I’ll be six now for ever and ever.

—Milne

Oh I love the Pooh man.

Written by an African kid -

And you calling me colored??

When I born, I black.
When I grow up, I black.
When I go in sun, I black.
When I scared, I black.
When I sick, I black.
And when I die, I still black.

And you white people.
When you born, you pink.
When you grow up, you white.
When you go in sun, you red.
When you cold, you blue.
When you scared, you yellow.
When you sick, you green
And when you die, you grey…

And you calling me colored??

When I write, I grammar. ~

This poem was nominated as best poem by UN in 2005. Here’s more info

Well, I heard that well before 2005 @imrainmaker. I think I first heard it in the 70s.
And who ever wrote it gave it the cadence of the old deep south American blacks, (“I black” instead of “I am black” and “And you calling me colored?” instead of “And you’re calling me colored?”)
I don’t see any reference to a nomination of “Best Poem by the United Nations,” either.

^I agree but whatever sites I visited say so ( without any link though) so I’m not sure. It has been attributed to different people as well. But that’s not important. What I love about it is it’s so simple yet thought provoking like the one posted by @Caravanfan.

I agree.