# any poems you cannot live without? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 2, 2003, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827 "2003-07-02T18:04:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![maddiesilver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@maddiesilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maddiesilver)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/1 "2003-07-02T18:04:50Z")
Hi folks…newbie here… By way of breaking the ice, I’m wondering if folks would care to talk poetry. I have been reading all kinds of great poems lately, and am always on the lookout for new favourites…of all periods, styles… I was wondering what poem(s) people just cannot live without, and could re-read incessantly without losing that great rush… I understand we cannot quote whole poems here, so I’ll just begin by naming 2 poems that I really cannot get tired of reciting in my head. “Dream Variations” by Langston Hughes, which seems to me a perfect gem, and “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop…ironic and melancholy: my 2 favourite flavours… ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/2 "2003-07-02T18:48:40Z")
Can’t quite say I can’t live without them, but a few favorites are: Ozymandias, by Shelley The Listeners, by De La Mare The Highwayman, by Noyes and haiku by Basho, Issa, Buson, and quite a few English language ones ---
**Author:** ![Harli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c0e974/32.png) [@Harli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harli)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/3 "2003-07-02T19:29:44Z")
There are a couple poems from my childhood that I adore. _A Walking Stick Went Walking_ can’t remember the poet’s name. “A walking stick went walking, where it met a looking glass. They had to step aside to let a riding stable pass…” _Dragonswitch_ by D.C. Troicuk (sp?) “Across all time and space A place Exists in fables rich A land they all Call Jehmal Where lives the Dragonswitch…” Other poems I really enjoy are Poe’s _Annabelle Lee_, Plath’s _Never Try to Trick Me With A Kiss_, and Kipling’s _A Smuggler’s Song_. There are many many more poems that I can read over and over again, but those are the ones that come to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Manach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Manach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manach)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/4 "2003-07-02T20:16:53Z")
“An Irish Airman forsees his death” - Yeats ---
**Author:** ![if6was9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47c2d/32.png) [@if6was9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/if6was9)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/5 "2003-07-02T23:16:20Z")
I’m a newbie too. I’m not sure about the board’s policy on quotes, but I’ll try one line from “High Flight”: I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air. ---
**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/6 "2003-07-03T00:02:47Z")
I hate winter and have a hard time getting though it (and I’m in the South, for pity’s sake!) So last year when someone on another list I’m on posted the poem that this is excerpted from, it quickly became a “must-read” on those winter-blah days. (I don’t know the author though.) Deep in the arms of winter Deep in the arms of winter The snow falls like a blessing. The wild things sleep below the ground. They are not cold, they are not lonely Deep in the arms of winter… It goes like that for a couple more stanzas. It’s immeasurably comforting to me somehow. ---
**Author:** ![DeVena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@DeVena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeVena)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/7 "2003-07-03T00:09:52Z")
[The Jumblies by Edward Lear](http://eserver.org/poetry/jumblies.txt) ---
**Author:** ![Major\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Major\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Kong)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/8 "2003-07-03T00:34:21Z")
I sure I could live without, but I always liked The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams. ---
**Author:** ![Major\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Major\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Kong)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/9 "2003-07-03T00:35:35Z")
Which you can read here: [http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/wcw-red-wheel.html](http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/wcw-red-wheel.html) ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/10 "2003-07-03T01:08:34Z")
Well, it kind of became a poem after her speech, but [this](http://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/truth.htm) is one of my favorites. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/11 "2003-07-03T01:36:21Z")
Good idea for a thread, **maddiesilver**! Welcome to SDMB to you, **Manach** and **if6was9**! _Rembrance_ by Ray Bradbury (It took my breath away the first time I read it. You have to be middle-aged to read it. I think there’s a law.) 😉 _Lake Isle of Innesfree_ and _Easter,1916_ by Yeats. He is my favorite, so I could have listed many. _George Gray_ from SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY by Edgar Lee Masters The best book of poetry that I’ve seen in a long time is GOOD POEMS collected by Garrison Keillor. They are the ones he has read on the air daily at NPR. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/12 "2003-07-03T01:39:05Z")
This is my favorite poem: [Conscientious Objector](http://www.caterina.net/paw/archives/000145.html) by Edna St. Vincent Millay I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death. I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I hear the clatter on the barn-floor. Click the link if you want to read the rest. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/13 "2003-07-03T01:41:31Z")
Also, my husband read _Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening_ at our outdoor January wedding. The lake around us was frozen and surrounded by woods. (We married at the end of a covered pier.)[/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/14 "2003-07-03T01:46:40Z")
Cliched perhaps, but I’d say The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. ---
**Author:** ![Atreyu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@Atreyu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atreyu)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/15 "2003-07-03T01:58:09Z")
[The Peace of Wild Things](http://www.gratefulness.org/poetry/peace_of_wild_things.htm) by Wendell Berry ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/16 "2003-07-03T02:16:08Z")
I love the Wendell Berry poem, **Atreyu** and can’t resist posting one more. For the whole poem you have to click the link and scroll about half way down the page. It’s worth it. The poem is by Ted Kooser. In part: [So This Is Nebraska](http://tc.unl.edu/rrp/Kooser.html) The gravel road rides with a slow gallop over the fields, the telephone lines streaming behind, its billow of dust full of the sparks of redwing blackbirds… \ So this is Nebraska. A Sunday afternoon; July. Driving along with your hand out squeezing the air, a meadowlark waiting on every post. ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/17 "2003-07-03T02:54:45Z")
As I’ve said to everyone else’s exhaustion (but can’t keep from nattering about) T. S. Eliot’s _Four Quartets_. I’ve got the first two memorized (_Burnt Norton_ and _East Coker_), and together with Tennyson’s _Ulesses_, they form my mantras. _There is, it seems to us, only a limited value In the knowledge derived from experience. The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies For the pattern is new in every moment And every moment is a new and shocking Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm… The only wisdom we can hope to aquire Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless._ Ezra Pound’s _River-Merchant’s Wife, A Letter_ is pretty integral to my mental furniture, too. Actually, it’s difficult to choose the poems most important to me. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/18 "2003-07-03T03:01:02Z")
My beloved Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “If I should learn, in some quite casual way.” If I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again– The whole poem is here: [http://sonnets.org/millay.htm#105](http://sonnets.org/millay.htm#105) I love it. Can’t read it too often. Julie ---
**Author:** ![Cormac36](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/958977/32.png) [@Cormac36](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cormac36)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/19 "2003-07-03T03:01:58Z")
In the ninth grade, our English teacher made our class memorize the poem \Invictus\ . I cannot remember the name, of the author, but I believe the last name was Henly, or something close to that. At the time Mr. Edwards said that at sometime during our lives each of us would be tested in someway. He said that if we could remember this poem’s message, it would help us pass our test, whatever it was. At the time I thought he was just a flaky old teacher in his last year before retirement. Now, more than twenty years later, I think he was a genius. The final stanza goes like this: It matters not how straight the gate, How charge with punishment the scroll, For I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. I’ve faced many tests, and I’m sure I’ll face many more, and Mr. Edwards was right. ---
**Author:** ![Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dread_pirate_jimbo/32/3897_2.png) [@Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dread_Pirate_Jimbo)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827/20 "2003-07-03T03:28:10Z")
Although my fellow English majors will all look down their snooty, pedantic noses at me, roll their eyes and say, “Well, that’s not a _real_ poem; it’s just a silly children’s rhyme,” my favourite poem of all-time is “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll (aka Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). Clever, delightful, entertaining, descriptive. Number two on the list is sonnet CLI by William Shakespeare, my third fave is “Pied Beauty” by Gerard Manley Hopkins, fourth is “The Eve of St. Agnes” by John Keats and fifth is “Strange Meeting” by Wilfred Owen. Welcome aboard, **maddiesilver** and **if6was9**. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-poems-you-cannot-live-without/185827.md?page=2)