I don’t know a lot about poetry, but I enjoy it. In the lines of what you were wanting, how about *The Highway Man * by Alfred Noyes. And I always like Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott.
I just heard Jean Valentine (is there a better poet’s name?) read, and liked her very much. I don’t think her work fits your criteria, but I thought I’d mention her anyway. Not the stuff I usually go for, but I was surprised.
Some great suggestions here. The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and The Lady of Shalott are some of my favorites from my Eng. Lit. class days. Choosing between the two poets, I’d probably go for Tennyson. But if you want to go for your own higher emotions, the older poets are living in different worlds, and there will be a lot in there that’s a bit far removed from our days. Of course much of the bigger emotions still stand, and some stuff is as evocative today as it ever was. One of my favorites:
“Had we but space enough, and time
This Coyness, lady, were no crime”
Norton Anthologies are your friend. I have three of them, two of ‘English Literature’ and one of ‘American Literature’. You’ll also find a lot of other great stuff, such as short stories like the wonderful The Scarlet Letter, which uses beautiful imagery and has a really insightful ‘message’ that you will definitely be able to reflect on your own life.
There are very many different ways of reading a poem. One is in an attempt to understand what the author meant, which is partly a biographical/historical/political reading (depending on how broad you look at the author and which aspect), one is reading the text per se (looking at style, rhythm, etc.), and one is focussing on the reader interaction. In your case, that means very personally focussing on what the poem evoces in you.
As this latter is incredibly personal, I’d recommend taking a wide view. For instance, Jewel also writes poetry and has some pretty decent stuff out there, that will likely have as strong, or perhaps even a stronger effect on you as, say, Emily Dickinson. She sometimes reminds me a little of a mix between Emily and T.S. Eliot.
From her first collection, a night without armor:
envy
passionless bodies
with pointless little limbs
that flaunt in vain
such narrowness of frame
with nothing to offer but bone
I Am Patient
I am patient
but do not push
for it is silently
my heart will break
one night
___and with no words
you will find me gone
come morning
The Chase
And now it begins
you will see.
Once you are gone
my game gets stronger
In love with the pursuit
I will seduce you,
with ink,
blot out the night
and invent new stars.
I will sew you to my side
nevermore shall you roam
without the outline of my chase
branded on your heart.
Fragile
Fine. If that’s the way you want it.
I will walk away with all the finality
and coldness you accuse me of, but
it won’t be what you expect–
a retaliation, a scene, a tangle,
it will be your jaw
flapping like an archaic flag
limp with contemplation.
Ah yes, the Loreena McKennitt fan in me cries out for more. I forgot that Tennyson did LoS. I think I’ll start with him.
Kipling is on my list to read one of these days (after I get through my Giant Book of Every Surviving Icelandic Saga).
As for why I don’t like Byron, I found a site that has a sampling of his works and holy fuck did I think I was in high school, sitting in the back with the goths.
Anyone after about 1900 really doesn’t do it for me. That said, I started a thread awhile back about WWI poetry, but have yet to pick that one up. I imagine that this is because I can get replicas of old magazines that published poetry and I can see all the crap that was considered good enough to fill space but will never make it into a best-of in the future. So, for me, poets from long ago are all brilliant (even if I don’t like them) and their words are worth considering.
I know that’s really, really wrong, but I can’t get it out of my head.
I think an anthology will cut around too much for me; in this case, I’d really like to get inside a poets head and see what they’re doing.
For who knows, one day I may want to write my own. Eck.
Thanks for the suggestions, I think I’ve got a lot of reading ahead of me.
You may want to try Byron’s “Don Juan,” despite your general distaste for the man. It’s hilarious.
I second (third?) Coleridge and especially Browning – the latter is absolutely brilliant. Check out “My Last Duchess” if you don’t believe me. Auden is highly worth a read, as well, even though he’s 20th-century.
I don’t know if you’ve read much Wilfred Owen, but he’s very much worth reading – I suspect he will find a place in future best-ofs, if he’s not already there (he does have a poem linked on the left side of the above-linked site, so at least somebody else besides me thinks he’s deserving).