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When I was a young, I really enjoyed performing poetry. I've gotten back in to it a bit recently and am looking to expand my repertoire. Does anyone have suggestions of poems they find are fun to read aloud?
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I like Gerald Manley Hopkin's work for reciting/reading aloud. He plays with sound in ways that make his poems just plain fun to speak.
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Its not a poem but a sermon, I had so much fun as an atheist in high school reading the sermon of a wrathful man out loud in class that my teacher had me come back for another class and read it all almost as if it were a performance.
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Oh freddled gruntbuggly/thy micturations are to me/As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee. Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes. And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Oh freddled gruntbuggly/thy micturations are to me/As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee. Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes. And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't
Don't know if that's what you have in mind. I've really enjoyed slam poetry for the last few years. I've competed in our local slam multiple times and enjoy the challenge of creating and performing that kind of poetry, fully realizing I'm a rank novice and a terrible performer.
quote:Originally posted by AchillesHeel: Its not a poem but a sermon, I had so much fun as an atheist in high school reading the sermon of a wrathful man out loud in class that my teacher had me come back for another class and read it all almost as if it were a performance.
Look up "I Go Back to May 1946" (I might have the year wrong). It's a great poem that really speaks to people who have had parental issues (it was also read by the main character of "Into the Wild" at the beginning of the film). She has a lot of other stuff about being a woman, sex, having kids, parents, and other things like that, most of which we can all relate to. I personally think she's one of the better poets out there.
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This is one of mine that I enjoy reading aloud:
Mr. Fix-it (You've seen him on TV) Hey there mr. fix-it man, i wanna, no, i gotta know if you can fix-it all up spic'n'span, find it in your master plan and
Hey there Bobby sleeping in the subway joking with the junkies looking for his own way home to the place where the marigolds grow and Susan and her children seem to know that God's in the Easter basket, God's in the air, God's in the resurrection, God's in your hair so
Who can fix it if not mr. fix-it? If not mr. fix-it, no-one can. Who can fix it if not mr. fix-it? We got no-one else but the fix-it man.
And see em on the streetcorners slipping out of straitjackets working for a dime and handing out pamphlets now they believe and they know that it's so and telling you is saving you if only you'd go but God's in the street mime, God's in the prayer, God's in the caterpillar, God's everywhere so
What if mr. fix-it heard? What if mr. fix-it learned? What if mr. fix-it cried? What if mr. fix-it died?
Hey there preacher stitching up his sermon picking out a parable to make his point that he understands that He knows what he sows but he doesn't care 'cause He knows that you know that God's in the Sunday mass, God's in the teacher, God's in collection plates, God's in the preacher
But we've all seen dear mr. fix-it we've believed in mr. fix-it we all need our mr. fix-it (where the hell is mr. fix-it?)
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Oh freddled gruntbuggly/thy micturations are to me/As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee. Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes. And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't
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I don't know what kind of scope you're looking for--but a powerful series for reading aloud:
From Henry V: "St. Crispin's Day Speech" "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (Tennyson) "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" (Yeats) "Dulce Et Decorum Est" (Owen) I always waffle on one from WWII--sometimes "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," (Jarrell), sometimes "Protocols" (also Jarrell), sometimes "Eyeglasses" (Warwick). But the first is not that powerful as a readaloud & the second really requires two voices. "What Were They Like" (Levertov) "Gulf War Song" (Moxy Fruvous--not a readaloud, but a fun change of pace) "Prayer for the Twenty-First Century" (Marsden)
For things that are both powerful and fun, I don't think you can go wrong with Billy Collins.
I also love reading Elizabeth Bishop and some Auden aloud (pair his "Musee des Beaux Arts" with "Brueghel in Naples" by Dannie Abse). But I think my all-time favorite is A. E Housman, and my favorite of his is "Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff."
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If you want an excellent CD of spoken word reading, consider "Poets Corner" compiled by John Lithgow, with reading by Gary Sinise (CSI:NY)m Morgan Freeman, Billy Connolly, Kathy Bates, Jodie Foster, Sam Waterston, and many more.
Jabberwoky Kubla Khan Chicago By Carl Sandberg, and very well performed by Gary Sinise. Birches The Owl and the Pussy Cat No Doctors Today, Thank You by Ogden Nash, read superbly by John Lithgow Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright A Supermarket in California by Alan Ginsberg is extremely well read by Gary Sinise
I found it at Barnes and Noble at a considerable discount. The books contains the history of the various authors, and additional poems, plus it comes with a CD. I frequently listen to it when I go out for a walk, very relaxing, and all the poems are extremely well performed.
As to another poem that works well out loud, The Highwayman.
And if you can get the timing and the pace right, The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe is a nice read.
In addition, for American style folk poems, poems by Robert W. Services are very good, very fun, and very nice when read out loud.
The Cremation of Sam McGee -
There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee. ...
The Shooting of Dan McGrew -
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up In the Malamute saloon; The kid that handles the music-box Was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, Sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, The lady that's known as Lou. ...
I think these would be good bedtime poems to read to kids.
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