# Favorite Poems **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 25, 2003, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671 "2003-09-25T01:54:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![electrozion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/85f322/32.png) [@electrozion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/electrozion)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671/61 "2003-10-09T13:59:48Z")
While I’m getting most of my poetry from Hip Hop music, i love this one: [Paul Celan: death fugue](http://osf1.gmu.edu/~lsmithg/deathfugue.html) I first read it when i was looking up the qoute “Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland” (“Death is a master from Deutschland” - Deutschland is not translated to Germany on the site I linked to) that is quit popular in the extreme left in Germany (and can be seen as graffti every once in a while, o r shouted at demonstrations). ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671/62 "2003-10-09T14:49:31Z")
Whoa–more excellent ones I’d never heard of. “Bruise purple, cadaver green.” from the Lobsters poem–excellent. And the Celan is wonderful too. And props for the Lorca. My pet peeve is posts which name a poem or poet and don’t link. Please link–I want to read what you all like. Thanks. ---
**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:** [October 10, 2003, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671/63 "2003-10-10T03:03:34Z")
[anyone lived in a pretty how town](http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=1185) I was so bored at work today I recited _somewhere i have never traveled_ and parts of Eliot’s _The Dry Salvages_ to myself. Of course, it doesn’t take a lot to make me recite poetry. I’m trying to raise the tone of the store I work in. Probably not possible. ---
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671/64 "2003-10-10T07:45:25Z")
There once was a lady from Wheeling Who had a peculiar feeling. She laid on her back And opened her crack And pissed all over the ceiling. :eek: 😛😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tigers2B1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc29f/32.png) [@Tigers2B1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tigers2B1)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671/65 "2003-11-25T05:23:19Z")
**"If I should learn, in some quite casual way" – Edna St. Vincent Millay** If I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again– Read from the back-page of a paper, say, Held by a neighbor in a subway train, How at the corner of this avenue And such a street (so are the papers filled) A hurrying man–who happened to be you– At noon to-day had happened to be killed, I should not cry aloud–I could not cry Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place– I should but watch the station lights rush by With a more careful interest on my face, Or raise my eyes and read with greater care Where to store furs and how to treat the hair. ---
**Author:** ![CadburyAngel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@CadburyAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CadburyAngel)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671/66 "2003-11-25T06:30:38Z")
There once was a man from Nantucket! (ducks and runs) ---
**Author:** ![lokij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5e9695/32.png) [@lokij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lokij)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671/67 "2003-11-25T06:58:04Z")
John Masefield’s “Sea Fever” [http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry/MasefieldSeaFever.htm](http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry/MasefieldSeaFever.htm) Longfellow’s “The Skeleton in Armor” [http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/longfellow/theskeleton.shtml](http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/longfellow/theskeleton.shtml) Rudyard Kipling “Cold Iron” [http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/p2/coldiron.html](http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/p2/coldiron.html) Maurice Thompson’s “An Address by an Ex-Confederate Soldier to the Grand Army of the Republic” [http://users.erols.com/kfraser/confederate/postwar/gar.html](http://users.erols.com/kfraser/confederate/postwar/gar.html) These in addition to the many listed already. ---
**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671/68 "2003-11-25T17:12:36Z")
Ah, **lokij** , Maurice Thompson! Also author of _The Witchery of Archery_\*. Very cool I commend to y’all’s notice the book **Good Poems** , selected and introduced by Garrison Keillor. (Yeah, I know, but it has a lot of Really. Good. Poems.) It introduced me to James Wright, and poems like this: [A Blessing](http://www.sover.net/~nichael/nlc-poetry/jw1.html). It always gives me goosebumps. ---
**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:** [November 25, 2003, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671/69 "2003-11-25T17:24:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Archergal \* > \*\*It introduced me to James Wright, and poems like this: [A Blessing](http://www.sover.net/~nichael/nlc-poetry/jw1.html). > > It always gives me goosebumps. \*\* I know what you mean about the goosebumps, James Wright is amazing! My all time favorite poem is his **Sitting in a Small Screenhouse on a Summer Morning**. Here’s the end: _It is so still now, I hear the horse Clear his nostrils. He has crept out of the green places behind me. Patient and affectionate, he reads over my shoulder These words I have written. He has lived a long time, and he loves to pretend No one can see him. Last night I paused at the edge of darkness, And slept with green dew, alone. I have come a long way, to surrender my shadow To the shadow of a horse._ For the whole thing, [go here and scroll down about a third of the way.](http://www.writersalmanac.org/docs/01_03_26.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671/70 "2003-11-25T18:40:57Z")
[The Spell of The Yukon](http://www.monologues.co.uk/SpellYukon.htm) and [The Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew](http://www.monologues.co.uk/Dan_McGrew1.htm), both by Robert Service. “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 at 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.” “The Bench-Legged Fyce”, by Eugene Field THE BENCH-LEGGED FYCE "Speakin’ of dorgs, my bench-legged fyce Hed most o’ the virtues, an’ nary a vice. Some folks called him Sooner, a name that arose From his predisposition to chronic repose; But, rouse his ambition, he couldn’t be beat - Yer bet yer he got thar on all his four feet! Mos’ dorgs hez some forte - like huntin’ an’ such, But the sports o’ the field didn’t bother him much; Wuz just a plain dorg, an’ contented to be On peaceable terms with the neighbors an’ me; Used to fiddle an’ squirm, and grunt “Oh, how nice!” When I tickled the back of that bench-legged fyce!"… ---
**Author:** ![skeptic\_ev](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@skeptic\_ev](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skeptic_ev)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671/71 "2003-11-25T19:01:39Z")
That’s beautiful, **Tigers2B1**. I’ve read it before, but I don’t think I understood it at the time. (I was a kid.) There are so many wonderful poems mentioned here … One I haven’t seen is [“There Will Come Soft Rains”](http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/sid.4/bookid.1246/sec.55/) by Sara Teasdale. Also, [“Richard Cory”](http://www.medialab.chalmers.se/guitar/richard.cory.lyr.html) by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Oh, and [“Mother to Son”](http://www.maitespace.com/englishodyssey/CW/Poetry/mothertoson.htm) by Langston Hughes. I believe someone already mentioned “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks and “This Is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams. Hmm … [“The Death of the Hired Man”](http://www.robertfrost.org/indexgood.html) (and others) by Robert Frost, and, among others by Emily Dickinson, [“I Heard a Fly Buzz”](http://www.wockyjivvy.com/poetry/acclaim/ed-flybz.html). Oh, and [“I Saw in Louisiana a Live Oak Growing”](http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Whitman/ISaw.htm) by Walt Whitman. Okay, I’ll stop now. ---
**Author:** ![DeVena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@DeVena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeVena)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671/72 "2003-11-25T20:49:41Z")
[By Kevin Kling](http://www.kevinkling.com/) - based on Odysseus IIRC I’ll send you my kisses like birds, hoping they’ll migrate to you. I’ll send you my kisses because by keeping them home, I might tame them. I’ll send you my tears like jewels, hoping they’ll be lost. I’ll send you my tears because by keeping them home, they might tame me. I’ll send you my love like warm wind on your back, hoping you’ll turn and breathe me in. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poems/203671.md?page=3)