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Poets?

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 4:53 pm
by Arydra
I am partially tired of seeing this section with nothing new in it :), and I am generally curious. As it will take several life time to read all of the books in the list on "Fantasy Books Canon", I though I should try a new topic.

Who are some of your favorite poets and their poems you like the most? Or poets you do not like?

For myself, I would have to say that at this moment, my favorite poets are:
Tennyson: Charge of the Light Brigade
Edgar Allen Poe: Dream Within A Dream
William Butler Yeats: Sailing to Byzantium
Li-Young Lee: The Hammock

Poets I dislike:
Sherman Alexi: I dislike pretty much all of his works.
Walt Whitman: Song Of myself really killed any enthusiasm about his works

Re: Poets?

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 5:47 pm
by SamWiser
Dante is always interesting. The Divine Comedy is a hard read, but cool.

I have always liked Alfred Tennyson, but I don't know any books either of his poetry, or by him.

Re: Poets?

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 6:04 pm
by Arydra
SamWiser wrote:Dante is always interesting. The Divine Comedy is a hard read, but cool.

I have always liked Alfred Tennyson, but I don't know any books either of his poetry, or by him.
Can't believe I had forgotten Dante! I managed to get through Inferno, but I never got around to the other two. Tennyson is cool, and if you want to find poems try http://www.online-literature.com

Re: Poets?

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 8:00 pm
by lingrem
I'm a big fan of Edgar Allan Poe, but my favourite is "Annabelle Lee" along with the Raven.

I also quite like Burton's "The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy".

Lewis Carrol's "The Walrus and the Carpenter" along with "Jabberwocky"

I'm not much one to read poetry. But apparently I lean towards the weird and macabre.

Re: Poets?

Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2013 8:15 am
by John
Faust, by Goethe. It's a German Dante. Very similar to Dante, it's poetry as well as a play really. I love it, and if you can read German phonetically, it sounds really great.

Re: Poets?

Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 11:50 pm
by Arydra
Just found this short, yet powerful piece. In Flanders Field, by John McCrae I suggest you take a look at it. This poem goes to show that a few words can be just as moving as many words.

Re: Poets?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:01 am
by lingrem
Is this your first time seeing In Flander's Fields?

Re: Poets?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:06 am
by Arydra
I have read it before but I just remembered it and thought I should spread it's awesomeness.

Re: Poets?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 6:59 pm
by TinSoldier
Arydra wrote:I have read it before but I just remembered it and thought I should spread it's awesomeness.
I agree, it is a truly awesome poem.

Re: Poets?

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 7:56 pm
by Arydra
removed

Re: Poets?

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2013 6:40 pm
by Wolfie
One of my favorites from school

Introduction to Poetry

Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Re: Poets?

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2013 6:44 pm
by SamWiser
I like that. It is a pretty good metaphor for what we do in classrooms.

Re: Poets?

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2013 9:17 pm
by RocketScientist
lingrem wrote:I'm a big fan of Edgar Allan Poe, but my favourite is "Annabelle Lee" along with the Raven.
When my friend talked me into making a Second Life character, I named her Annabelle Frog. Because Annabelle Lee + Edgar and Allan Frog from The Lost Boys. :lol: Sadly, I hated Second Life, so Annabelle was short lived.

Wolfie, that's great. That's just what happens to poetry in most classrooms.

Re: Poets?

Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2014 1:18 pm
by Unlucky-for-Some
Arydra wrote:Just found this short, yet powerful piece. In Flanders Field, by John McCrae I suggest you take a look at it. This poem goes to show that a few words can be just as moving as many words.
That's awesome - haven't read that before but I certainly will again.

Re: Poets?

Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 9:06 am
by RedwoodElf
What? Absolutely nobody has mentioned Rudyard Kipling yet? Tsk...kids these days!

This one in particular kept going through my head on September 11th, 2001:

Hymn of Breaking Strain
Rydyard Kipling, 1935

THE careful text-books measure (Let all who build beware!)
The load, the shock, the pressure Material can bear.
So, when the buckled girder Lets down the grinding span,
'The blame of loss, or murder, Is laid upon the man.
Not on the Stuff - the Man!

But in our daily dealing With stone and steel, we find
The Gods have no such feeling Of justice toward mankind.
To no set gauge they make us- For no laid course prepare-
And presently o'ertake us With loads we cannot bear:
Too merciless to bear.

The prudent text-books give it In tables at the end
'The stress that shears a rivet Or makes a tie-bar bend-
'What traffic wrecks macadam- What concrete should endure-
but we, poor Sons of Adam Have no such literature,
To warn us or make sure!

We hold all Earth to plunder - All Time and Space as well-
Too wonder-stale to wonder At each new miracle;
Till, in the mid-illusion Of Godhead 'neath our hand,
Falls multiple confusion On all we did or planned-
The mighty works we planned.

We only of Creation (0h, luckier bridge and rail)
Abide the twin damnation- To fail and know we fail.
Yet we - by which sole token We know we once were Gods-
Take shame in being broken However great the odds-
The burden of the Odds.

Oh, veiled and secret Power Whose paths we seek in vain,
Be with us in our hour Of overthrow and pain;
That we - by which sure token We know Thy ways are true -
In spite of being broken, Because of being broken
May rise and build anew

Stand up and build anew.

(Excellently arranged and sung by Julia Ecklar and Leslie Fish here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEwxguHUi_U )

Re: Poets?

Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 2:11 pm
by Unlucky-for-Some
That is fantastic!