Thread: Your Favourite Poets

Originally Posted by female_writer

Wow.
Powerful.

I guess I am, now, also a Lovelace fan.
Thank you for posting.

My 2 faves remain Yeats and Millay.
Their poetry touches me at an intellectual and heart level, its rare to feel both I think.

I think that last stanza, quoted below, is a great comment for those who think that everything can only be defined by science, maths and economics. People should never lose sight of the fact that the human spirit has a capacity to rise above all circumstances and limitiations.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

Poe, by far.

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore"

i've just recently discovered a mancunian poet, i guess his poetry is more appealing to people from manchester but its good non the less.

Cheers Ta Poetry - Publishing - Performance

on his website you can listen to his work.

Anne Sexton

There is something about her in-your-face style that draws me to her writing. It seems that no topic is taboo, and she draws from a wellspring of life experience. Sad that she finally got her wish..


With Mercy for the Greedy

Concerning your letter in which you ask
me to call a priest and in which you ask
me to wear The Cross that you enclose;
your own cross,
your dog-bitten cross,
no larger than a thumb,
small and wooden, no thorns, this rose—

I pray to its shadow,
that gray place
where it lies on your letter ... deep, deep.
I detest my sins and I try to believe
in The Cross. I touch its tender hips, its dark jawed face,
its solid neck, its brown sleep.

True. There is
a beautiful Jesus.
He is frozen to his bones like a chunk of beef.
How desperately he wanted to pull his arms in!
How desperately I touch his vertical and horizontal axes!
But I can’t. Need is not quite belief.

All morning long
I have worn
your cross, hung with package string around my throat.
It tapped me lightly as a child’s heart might,
tapping secondhand, softly waiting to be born.
Ruth, I cherish the letter you wrote.

My friend, my friend, I was born
doing reference work in sin, and born
confessing it. This is what poems are:
with mercy
for the greedy,
they are the tongue’s wrangle,
the world's pottage, the rat's star.

Pablo Neruda; Charles Olson; the suicide girls: Sexton and Plath; Frank O'Hara.

My favourite collection of poetry is by Alan Williamson, A Muse of Distance, which is a series of long poems about a family journey through the midwest.

An excerpt, including my most beloved lines of poetry at the end:

Next morning we drove out an indeterminate, elm-lined boulevard
to a lavendar-Gothic house. When I got out
to take a picture, he said I was "making a spectacle";
and then, as we pulled away, "it must have been here
that I had the t.b. That bilious little attic room."

And I said, 'It must? But Daddy, don't you know?"

Then off again: but that night I wondered
just what he was revisiting when, as often,
he groaned himself to sleep.

(Though my mother once
returned from the thin-walled motel bathroom, her voice
a mixture of panic and triumph - "They were saying,
'do you think there's something wrong
with that man in there?'"

-it was not an
unmusical sound: long, falling, half a sigh,
like wind in the wires, or a train distancing.)

Haven't read much poetry in the past, but this one's memorable.

Probably because it showed how topsy-turvy poetry could get and still be inspiring, and the subject matter is thoughtful too.

anyone lived in a pretty how town - e.e cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

aparently this one (im not sure if it's a poem, but by the way it's formatted it seems like one) was hanging on mother theresa's wall. I like it:

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-cantered,
LOVE THEM ANYWAYI

f you do good, people ill accuse you of
selfish, ulterior motives,
DO GOOD ANYWAY

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies,
SUCCEED ANYWAY

The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow,
DO GOOD ANYWAY

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable,
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY

What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight,
BUILD ANYWAY

People really need help but may attack you if you help them,
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY

Give the world the best you have
and you'll get kicked in the teeth,
GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST
YOU'VE GOT ANYWAY.

Frost, Ginsburg, Eliot, Blake, and Poe.

Mines is by far Robert Burns.

Probarly due to the fact that every year we in Scotland celebrate Burns Night and read out his famous works. Aaaa For Auld Lang Syne.