This is topic Poetry in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Joldo (Member # 6991) on :
 
Since I've noticed Hatrackers have impeccable literary taste, I'd like to ask what your favorite poem is and why.

My favorite is Song, by John Donne, which goes as follows:

Go and catch a falling star
Get with child a mandrake root
Tell me where the past years are
Or who cleft the devil's foot.
Teach me to hear mermaids singing
Or to keep off envy's stinging
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights
Things invisible to see
Ride ten thousand days and nights
Till age snow white hairs on thee.
Thou, when thou return'st, will tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee
And swear
Nowhere
Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou findst one, let me know
Such a pilgrimage were sweet
Yet do not; I would not go
Though at next door we might meet
Though she were true when you met her
And last till you write your letter
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two or three.

Punctuation's a bit off because this is typed from memory, but otherwise, that's it. I like the interesting imagery and concepts of the first verse, and the wry finish of the poem, the third verse, is just too much fun to recite aloud. Also, it really attracts the babes.

And you?
 

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Posted by Infrared (Member # 9196) on :
 
Words to live by, Kipling-style. It's not my all-time favorite, but it's philosophically on my level and holds special meaning.

quote:

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If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

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quote:

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e.e. cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

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quote:

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Love can change me, transform in a moment all I am into something new, something whole. The world slips away, melting from my consciousness to just background noise. When my lips are on yours, they destroy me and form me again, brain distant, heat billowing, my skin alive. I breath you in and I can no longer remember who or what I am. Your body pressed onto mine, nothing else seems important, everything but the moment fades, my pulse races and pounds in my ears, and all I can feel is you. Place your mark upon my soul, wrap your fist around my heart, break it if you must, but this moment is ours alone. Whispered words and heavy breath, our bodies entwined, in our passion, lost together, we find each other.

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quote:

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Also, it really attracts the babes.

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quote:

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What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust

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quote:

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We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Infrared:
[QB] Words to live by, Kipling-style. It's not my all-time favorite, but it's philosophically on my level and holds special meaning.

[QUOTE]If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

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Maybe I'm just oversensitive at the moment, maybe I suffer from a lack of sleep, but I nearly started too while reading this poem. It's so touching...

If only because of the last line, I wished
I were a man/boy (or had a son), so I could recite this poem more convincingly. Nevertheless I'll learn it by heart. It's a pity, that it's actually too long to be used as a kind of Mantra.
 

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Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
I'm definitely in with Eliot, and yeah, The Wasteland is great.
 

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Posted by Pinky (Member # 9161) on :
 
Jup, it's great, but it also gives me the shivers...
 

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Posted by esl (Member # 3143) on :
 
I think lack of sleep is preventing me from finding/reading the above posted poems. I want to do them justice. My mind is not up to poetry at the moment. For that matter, it often isn't.
Anyway, my teacher had us memorize twelve lines of poetry for our final. I basically opened a book and picked out the first few twelve-lined poems there. I memorized this one, and I'm growing to like it.

Последняя туча рассеянной бури!
Одна ты несешься по ясной лазури,
Одна ты наводишь унылую тень,
Одна ты печалишь ликующий день.
Ты небо недавно кругом облегала,
И молния грозно тебя обвивала;
И ты издавала таинственный гром
И алчную землю поила дождем.
Довольно, сокройся! Пора миновалась,
Земля освежилась, и буря промчалась,
И ветер, лаская листочки древес,
Тебя с успокоенных гонит небес.

Александр Сергеевич Пушкин, 1835
 

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Posted by vonk (Member # 9027) on :
 
My favorite poem is "Please Master" by Allen Ginsberg. The language isn't appropriate for this forum, but IMO it is the most intense and passionate love poem while being the least conventional.

Look it up if your interested in an excellent poem and are not faint of heart.
 

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Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
Morning Song from Senlin, by Conrad Aiken.

It starts like this...

IT is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
And do the things my fathers learned to do.
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.

Vine-leaves tap my window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.

It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And tie my tie once more.
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight
Crash on a coral shore.
I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:
How small and white my face!—
The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
And bathes in a flame of space.
There are houses hanging above the stars
And stars hung under a sea...
And a sun far off in a shell of silence
Dapples my walls for me....
 

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