Monday, April 26, 2010
have a favourite poem?
have a favourite poem?
have a book of poetry that you cherish?
have a poet you just adore?
well here in canada (& the usa, too!) april is national poetry month. a chance to celebrate the "aesthetic & ... evocative" language form that is poetry.
i'm lucky to be married to a fabulous poet, who both writes and studies the form, and so over the years i've come to adore so many fabulous poems, poets, genres of poetry.
i love the energy of a great poem.
i love the way a good poem can inspire us, mesmerize us, romance us, speak for us, motivate us, allow us, evoke us, provoke us: run the whole gamut of emotive thought in a few
perfect
words.
i love how poetry reaches folks of every age. little rikrak (and so many children i've taught!) are so inspired by language when they read or hear brilliant poetry like: shel silverstein, dr. seuss, dennis lee, and so many more linguistic masterminds who use creative language to engage the wee ones of our world! love it!
as a young adult, i came to love the masterful simplity of poetry:
in a brilliant poem: william carlos williams' the red wheelbarrow,
thru a book: adrienne rich's beautiful i dream of common language,
or learning about a whole body of work to adore: like bp nichol,
basho, e.e.cummings, or pablo neruda.
of course tastes change over time. (luckily, or i'd still be sporting my neon-technicolour, shoulder-pad studded business suits from my pre-teen years! *phew*) ... and it's always such a joy to discover a new-to-me poem, or poet.
so i want to hear yours!
? have a favourite poem?
? have a poem that has a special meaning to you?
? do you ever write poems?
? have a poetry book that changed you?
{and ottawans: if you're out and about tonight, mr. rikrak is hosting the poetry cabaret: pan-canadian poetics at the ottawa international writer's festival in town: it promises to be a great night with erin moure, rachel zolf, gregory scofield and more!}
happy poetry month, nicies!
yay words! Pin It
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I didn't know it was National Poetry Month. I've always loved the Romantic Poets like Keats or Byron!.
ReplyDeleteYou ARE lucky to be married to a Poet! I picture him leaving you little love poems around the house. ;>
I read this in highschool and I've always remembered it. :)
ReplyDeleteDo not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-Dylan Thomas
Another one I love. "Little Chalrlie Chaplin man" just rolls off the tongue!
ReplyDeleteConstantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of the day
performing entrachats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence
-Lawrence Ferlinghetti
My favourite poem is "Tonight I Can Write" by Pablo Neruda.
ReplyDeleteKindness-- by Naomi Shihab Nye
ReplyDeletehttp://elise.com/quotes/poetry/naomi.htm
AND
Because the World is So Fast and SO Small-- Kathleen Paul Flanagan
http://emjayandme.blogspot.com/2010/03/monday-love_07.html
oh these are great!
ReplyDeletethanks so much for sharing!
{and it is great, lori... but it's not *quite* like that! :)}
teehee!
what perfect timing! falling asleep last night i couldn't get this piece by Emily Dickinson out of my head:
ReplyDeletethis world is not conclusion
another stands beyond
invisible as music
but positive as sound
i have many favorite poets including dickinson, elizabeth bishop, william carlos williams, ee cummings and maya angelou amoung others
The Art of Losing by Elizabeth Bishop is a fantastic poem as well.
Oh, and IF by Rudyard Kipling. Wonderful!
oops, the title is One Art...sorry.
ReplyDeleteI love poetry!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I don't read enough of the genre but my very favorite poem is by Robert Frost.
I discovered it at age 20 or so and somehow when I have to make an important decission in my life, the poem is always in my mind.
I know it by heart.
The Road Not Taken
TwO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I have lots of favorite poems. I love Lucille Clifton and Gwyendolyn Brooks.
ReplyDeleteHere is one of my favorite Lucille Clifton poems:
Lorena - News Report: Lorena Woman cuts off husband's penis, later throws it from car window.
it lay in my palm soft and trembled
as a new bird and i thought about
authority and how it always insisted on itself, how it was master of the man, how it measured him, never was ignored or denied, and how it promised there would be sweetness if it was obeyed just like the saints do, like the angels
and i opened the window and held out my uncupped hand; i swear to god
i thought i could fly
Here is a poem I love by Gwendolyn Brooks:
Kitchenette Building
We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,
Grayed in, and gray. "Dream" mate, a giddy sound, not strong
Like "rent", "feeding a wife", "satisfying a man".
But could a dream sent up through onion fumes/ Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes
And yesterday's garbage ripening in the hall/ Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms,
Even if we were willing to let it in/ Had time to warm it, keep it very clean/ Anticipate a message, let it begin?
We wonder. But not well! not for a minute! / Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,/We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.
I have many I love. I made a necklace recently out of a poem by Mary Oliver because I like the power of words and the idea that I can carry that with me, not just in my pocket, but as ornamentation....
ReplyDeleteWild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver
How lucky are you to be married to a poet!
ReplyDeleteI love, "Waiting" by John Burroughs
Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.
I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.
Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.
What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it hath sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.
The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.
The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.
My favorite poem is Desiderata by Max Ehrman. It begins, "Go placidly amidst the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence." Truly inspirational.
ReplyDeleteI used to have this poster in my classroom! I probably still have it in a box somewhere cause I loved it, too!
ReplyDelete