# What is your favorite poem? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 8, 2008, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802 "2008-02-08T15:39:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/21 "2008-02-08T17:54:16Z")
> [@](#): > > “There once was a man from Nantucket…” Which one? There’s a clean version and a dirty version, with nothing in common but the first line. Myself, I think my favorite is probably Poe’s “The Raven”. But I’m also partial to Frost’s “Fire and Ice” and several of Eliott’s cat poems (his others are very good, too, but damn, they’re depressing). ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/22 "2008-02-08T18:06:00Z")
??? There’s a \*clean \* version? For heaven’s sake, why? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/23 "2008-02-08T18:22:38Z")
**Sonnet 29** When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d, Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least: Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee,–and then my state (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate; For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings’. ``` William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) ``` ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/24 "2008-02-08T18:29:51Z")
Robery Creeley’s **The Signboard** : \*The quieter the people are the slower the time passes until there is a solitary man sitting in the figure of silence . Then scream at him , come here you idiot it’s going to go off . A face that is no face but the features , of a face , pasted on a face until that face is faceless , answers by a being nothing there where there was a man. \* I have no idea what it means, or even why I like it so much. I first read it back in junior high, and I’ve had it stuck in my head ever since. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/25 "2008-02-08T18:31:48Z")
I’m not partial to poetry, but I do like [The Bells](http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/The_Bells.htm) by Edgar Allen Poe. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/26 "2008-02-08T18:33:29Z")
[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig] I’ve always been fond of _Ozymandias_, and often think of it when visiting ruins in “antique lands”. [/QUOTE] My favorite as well. I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things, The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/27 "2008-02-08T18:42:59Z")
I love [Gustavo Adolfo Becquer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becquer)’s _Rima 21_: \*¿Qué es poesía? dices mientras clavas en mi pupila tu pupila azul. ¿Qué es poesía? ¿Y tú me lo preguntas? Poesía… eres tú. \* I’ve seen it translated numerous ways. I would put it: _What is poetry? you ask while your blue eye pierces mine. What is poetry? And you ask me? Poetry…is you._ Quick, economical, and the roguish wink practically jumps off the page. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/28 "2008-02-08T18:46:22Z")
I’m fairly lowbrow when it comes to poetry–never been a big fan of much of it. But if the ability of a poem to make you tear up every single time you read it makes it a good poem, then I would have to say one of my favorites is [110 Stories](http://nielsenhayden.com/110.html) by John M. Ford. I think he captured his subject beautifully. Just a small excerpt: \*… I hugged the stranger sitting next to me. So this is what you call a second chance. One turn aside, into eternity. This is New York. We’ll find a place to dance. With resolution wanting, reason runs To characters and symbols, noughts and ones.\* ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/29 "2008-02-08T18:49:59Z")
I read this one in junior high, and it always gives me a chill. I don’t know why. The red rose breathes of passion And the white rose whispers of love O the red rose is a falcon And the white rose is a dove But I send you a cream-white rosebud With a flush on its petal tips Because the love that is purest and sweetest Has a kiss of desire on its lips. John Boyle O’Reilly. 1844–1890 ---
**Author:** ![Scubaqueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@Scubaqueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scubaqueen)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/30 "2008-02-08T19:02:21Z")
my two favorites: ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ by Robert Frost Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sounds the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. and Samuel Coleridge’s [‘rime of the ancient mariner’](http://etext.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Rime_Ancient_Mariner.html) which is far too long to post here. chills abound. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/31 "2008-02-08T19:03:33Z")
I don’t think I’d call this my favorite poem ever, but it’s been in my head lately. I heard this recently on the Writer’s Almanac. Heart breaking poem. A Boy in a Bed in the Dark by Brad Sachs Born with a cleft palate, My two-year-old brother, Recovering from yet another surgery, Toddled into our bedroom Toppled a tower of blocks That I had patiently built And in a five-year-old’s fury I grabbed a fallen block And winged it at him Ripping open his carefully reconstructed lip. The next hours were gruesomely compressed Ending with a boy in a bed in the dark Mute with fear Staring out into the hallway with horror As the pediatrician went in and out of the bathroom With one vast blood-soaked towel after another Shaking his head worriedly. My brother’s howls And my parents’ cooed comfort Became the soundtrack to this milky movie That plays In my darkest theatre, The one that I sidle past each night With a shudder And a throb in my fist ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/32 "2008-02-08T19:08:54Z")
For short poems, I’ll third “Ozymandias”. Buut I’m partial to longer works. I like **The Rime of the Ancient Mariner** , the **Iliad** , and the **Odyssey** (although I only know the last two through translations, so you could argue I don’t really know them at all.) ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/33 "2008-02-08T19:09:37Z")
[O sweet spontaneous](http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/945.html) , by E. E. Cummings. I like it because it’s about how, despite all the bullshit we humans spew, the Earth just goes about its business, such as doing the Spring thing. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/34 "2008-02-08T19:14:41Z")
[_Invictus_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invictus) by William Henley is my favorite, I think. It’s followed closely by _Ozymandius_. I don’t have any scholarly analysis to offer, or anything of the sort. They just resonate with me. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/35 "2008-02-08T19:20:52Z")
[QUOTE=Scubaqueen] my two favorites: ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ by Robert Frost Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sounds the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. and Samuel Coleridge’s [‘rime of the ancient mariner’](http://etext.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Rime_Ancient_Mariner.html) which is far too long to post here. chills abound. :eek: [/QUOTE] I came to say Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but thanks to **Zsofia** , would like to change it to Dulce Et Decorum Est. As for the Frost poem, a skit I once saw on the Muppet show has doomed me to forever hear it in the voice of Fozzie Bear. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/36 "2008-02-08T19:24:36Z")
The Desiderata by Max Ehrmann. Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires. Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, and heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys. Know what to kiss, and when. Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do. Wherever possible, put people on hold. Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, and despite the changing fortunes of time, there is always a big future in computer maintainance. ---
**Author:** ![Paladud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Paladud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paladud)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/37 "2008-02-08T19:25:44Z")
Pushkin’s “The Upas Tree.” [url=http://szfski.livejournal.com/]inadequate translation taken from here [/quote] . On sand the sun has seared and scarred, In avaricious desolation, The Upas like a baleful guard Stands watching over all creation. Sere nature of the thirsting plains Begot it on a day of wrath And steeped the green and deadened veins And filled the roots with liquid death. The venom oozes down the bark, And liquefies beneath the sun And hardens at the fall of dark Into a cold, translucent gum. This tree no bird or beast will try. Alone the desert wind will dare Assail that tree of death and fly Away on black and murderous air, And should a raincloud rove and strew The brooding foliage with rain, The boughs exude a lethal dew And poison fills the blazing plain. Yet to this tree was man by man Dispatched with one despotic glance, Went forth that evening and at dawn Returned with poison in his hands. He brought a black and deadly bough, A branch with withered leaves, and sweat Across his sick and sallow brow Ran in a freezing rivulet. He brought it, faltered and fell spent Upon the reed for his reward To die pathetic in the tent Of that unconquerable lord. That lord had servile arrows filled With venom, and at his command Destruction was fired forth, and killed His neighbors in their native land. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/38 "2008-02-08T19:31:40Z")
I have been fascinated with this woman reading her poetry for the past few weeks (audio). [Safe for Work](http://www.wbcn.com/topic/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=1268161) ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/39 "2008-02-08T19:39:57Z")
My favorite, which I carry in my wallet yet I don’t know the name or the author anymore… We are the music-makers And we are the dreamers of dreams Wandering by lone sea-breakers And sitting by desolate streams; World-losers and world-forsakers On whom the pale moon gleams Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems With wonderful deathless ditties We build up the world’s great cities, And out of a fabulous story We fashion an Empire’s glory; One man with a dream, at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown And three with a new song’s measure Can trample an Empire down We, in the ages lying In the buried past of the earth Built Ninevah with our sighing And Babel itself with our mirth; And o’erthrew them with prophesying To the old of the new world’s worth For each age is a dream that is dying Or one that is coming to birth ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/40 "2008-02-08T19:40:09Z")
[QUOTE=Scubaqueen] my two favorites: ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ by Robert Frost Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sounds the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. [/QUOTE] Watch _Death Proof_. It never dawned on me before seeing that, but it’s quite possible that poem is all about fucking. Perhaps Frost even wrote it about fucking Kurt Russel [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802.md?page=3)