Favorite Poems

Cafe Society
21

Imperial by Don Paterson

Is it normal to get this wet? Baby, I’m frightened –
I covered her mouth with my own;
she lay in my arms till the storm-window brightened
and stood at our heads like a stone

after months of jaw jaw, determined that neither
win ground, or be handed the edge,
we gave ourselves up, one to the other
like prisoners over a bridge

and no trade was ever so fair or so tender;
so where was the flaw in plan,
the night we lay down on the flag of surrender
and woke on the flag of Japan

22

I’m unoriginal when it comes to poems: “Stopping in Woods on Snowy Evening” (Frost), “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” (Thomas), “Ode on a Grecian Urn”(Keats).

For my performing lit class, I picked Emily Dickinson’s “My Life had stood–a Loaded Gun–”. It is in the public domain, so I’ll print it here:

My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun –
In Corners – till a Day
The Owner passed – identified –
And carried Me away –

And now We roam in Sovreign Woods –
And now We hunt the Doe –
And every time I speak for Him –
The Mountains straight reply –

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow –
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let it’s pleasure through –

And when at Night – Our good Day done –
I guard My Master’s Head –
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck’s
Deep Pillow – to have shared –

To foe of His – I’m deadly foe –
None stir the second time –
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye –
Or an Emphatic Thumb –

Though I than He – may longer live
He longer must – than I –
For I have but the power to kill,
Without – the power to die –

23

My favorite poet is also Robert Frost. I like his “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “The Road Not Taken”.

Rick

24

Welcome to the SDMB, EmilyBean. I like the poem you gave us as your first post.

FF: The “Any wonder your eyelashes are wings to fly your look both in and out” line from Acorn’s Island poem is neat. The Anne Carson was very good too. Does she always do the period at the end of each line thing? It is arresting and distracting at the same time.

The Emily Dick (:)) is a good choice too.

25

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

  • John Donne, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day
into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why I should e’er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew–
Only more sure of all I though was true.
-Robert Frost, “Into My Own”

There are loads of others, but these are the first two that come to mind at the moment.

26

Acorn’s poems are full of little treasures like that, images that sneak up on you and leave you gasping. The first two stanzas are my favourite parts of The Island.
Other poems of his I’m partial to are I’ve Tasted My Blood and Pastoral.

No, Carson doesn’t always do that thing. But it can work very well when she does. My favourite collection of hers is Glass, Irony and God. I think I’ve bought four copies of it … they just keep disappearing. Theft is high praise for poetry.

You can’t go wrong with Emily Dick. She is often slighted because her poems seem so simple. But they aren’t; they are alive with intelligence, observation, wit, image, metaphor and wisdom. Singly or as a body of work, her poems mark her as one of the two best poets ever to write in English. I’d steal her stuff any day.

27

I don’t think I’ve ever read that Frost before; that line sure reminds me of my favorite Shakespeare sonnet. An homage, I suppose.

Well, FF, Emily Dick is one of the 2 best poets in English? So spill it–who’s the other?

28

Some old standbys.

If I should learn, in some quite casual way, by Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Second Coming, by WB Yeats

Dulce et Decorum Est, by Wilfred Owen

29

And I can’t find a copy of Richard Wilbur’s “A Barred Owl” online, but it is marvelous.

Terrible formatting, but this is a justly famous Billy Collins poem: Another reason why I don’t keep a gun in the house

Okay, I’m stopping now!

Julie

30

Oh, but that site leaves out my favorite Herbert poem, “Denial.”

Other favorites:

Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford, E.A. Robinson

A Hymn to God My God, In My Sickness, John Donne

On My First Son, Ben Jonson

Futility and At a Calvary near the Ancre, Wilfred Owen (to name a couple. I love Owen.)

Caliban upon Setebos, Robert Browning

and, on a lighter note, The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse

More as I think of them… :wink:

31

Prostrate and bowing, Sanscour .

Now how could I have forgotten about Shel Silverstein? His books are happiness printed on paper. Especially this one.

Hug O’ War

I will not play at tug o’ war,
I’d rather play at hug o’ war;
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs
And everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone grins,
And everyone kisses,
And everyone wins.

warm fuzzy feeling

32

Most of my favourites have been been mentioned - Jabberwocky, the Archy and Mehitable pieces, Frost, and above all Xanadu (‘These are the pure Magic. These are the clear Vision. The rest is only poetry.’ – Kipling).

Another I’m impressed by is My Last Duchess by Robert Browning. Very nasty!

And for the medievalists among us, this one from Ezra Pound. :stuck_out_tongue:

33

“archy and mehitabel”, of course. A roach can’t work the shift key, but he does get the letters in the right order.

34

Well, Humble Servant, I can never make up my mind who that other poet is. Some days it’s Shakespeare. Some days it’s Yeats. The [Seamus] Heaney body of work keeps expanding and digging deeper and deeper into me. Whitman rocks. Tennyson is no slouch. And recently Frost has begun edging in from the corners of seeing.

Keats died too soon. As did Marlowe. Pound was too distracted. Wordsworth and Milton are constantly muttering at the periphery. Hughes had his moments. And this damn upstart Carson just keeps pumping out beautiful book after beautiful book. And what do you do with Blake?

You see my problem?

35

Katisha, the Herbert site does have Deniall. It’s part of The Temple.

Futility is pretty fine.

36

Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries

These, in the days when heaven was falling, the hour when Earth’s foundations fled, followed their mercenary calling, took their wages, and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended; they stood, and Earth’s foundations stay; What God abandoned, these defended, and saved the sum of things for pay.

—AE Housman

…and that was from memory, I might add.

My second favorite, of course, would be High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee.

37

I like several of the poems mentioned here (and the number of them I don’t know is far too large), but I’m gonna act all shocked and appalled that nobody’s mentioned T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock yet. I don’t care if it’s a trite nomination, it’s still my favorite. You Philistines! :wink:

Also Kenneth Koch’s This is Just to Say spoof, Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams, is very funny.

38

Another poem I enjoy is by Michael Davis O’Donnell. Many of you will know it as the poem at the end of the movie Hamburger Hill:

If you are able,
save them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.

Sanscour

39

I do. Miss Emily seems to have a problem too. Perhaps you two could find your answers together.

Love that Chaucer!
And that Pound!
Ha–that’s gotta be the first time a poetry thread has copped two selections in Middle Englysh (as she is goodly spoke).

40

Isn’t it great? I wrote a paper on it last semester, actually, which involved a complicated network of ideas involving poetry, patronage, and the fact that purse could be Middle English slang for the scrotum (though the usual phrase when it’s used in that sense is “nether purse”). The ideas were better than the actual execution, though, and the prof was of the same mind. :wink: Well, I can always revise it. Grad school means never being finished with anything. :wink:

More Middle English for you: the anonymous poem Against Blacksmiths. This one’s fun. :smiley:

(This site has a bunch of Middle English poems, with translations. Look at the Middle English first, because it’s highly cool. ;))

And how about some Old English while we’re at it? Here’s the wonderfully cryptic poem Deor (also with translation; a newcomer can generally muddle through at least some Middle English but Old English requires study. I still suck at it after two semesters, but then, I didn’t study it very hard. ;))

More poetry…

The Grasshopper, Richard Lovelace

Inviting a Friend to Supper, Ben Jonson

The Flea, John Donne

I couldn’t find an e-text for John Skelton’s “Speak, Parrot,” which I’ve just encountered recently and am, perversely, beginning to like, but here’s the end of it. It’s a weird, weird poem, and extremely esoteric (you have to know quite a bit about the court of Henry VIII, and especially about Cardinal Wolsey, to follow it – in fact, you need to know rather more than I do), but the part linked is pretty comprehensible. :wink: