Here is a sampler of various English-language poetry which, I hope, will give non-readers of poetry, in particular, the impetus to follow through and discover the joys of poetry for themselves.
The samples I have included are representative of the development of poetry over some 800 years, but without going into technical or critical detail; that is to say, I have tried to provide examples that may, notwithstanding any deeper meaning, be appreciated at face value.
Note that the list is fairly traditional, in that there are no examples of ethnic verse. This is purely for the reason that I have limited my selections to works with which I am familiar (ie. largely British and, to a lesser extent, American). It was extremely difficult restricting the list to the 20 excerpts detailed below and, whilst literary merit was my primary criteria, (arguably) my one indulgence was the William Carlos Williams poem.
If your own favourite is not here, tell us about it.
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med,
And springeth the wude nu –
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu;
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu!
[Loose translation]
Summer has arrived,
Sing loudly, Cuckoo!
Seeds grow and meadows bloom
And the forest springs anew
The ewe bleats after the lamb,
The cow lows after the calf.
The bullock leaps, the buck farts,
Sing merrily, Cuckoo!
This wonderful lyric is one of the most famous examples of Middle English (1066-1450) and, although it was traditionally sung as a “round”, is also commonly taught as an introduction to Middle English literature. It is thought to be written in the Wessex Dialect. W. de Wycombe, a late 13th century English composer and copyist has been suggested as being the author, but there is little evidence to support this. It is typically attributed as Anonymous.
Note that a round is a musical piece in which two or more voices repeatedly sing the same melody, but with each voice starting at a different time. “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” is an example of a round that most people will be familiar with.
Interesting fact: whilst some commentators translate verteth as “twisting” (or whatever) the word is, in fact, the earliest written example of vert, the Middle English version of fart!
And here is a very nice choral version for your listening pleasure, in counterpoint.
Image: Shakespeare’s First Folio, 1623
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Shakespeare who? A great sonnet from the nonpareil!
Interesting fact: Shakespeare ultimately had no descendents – apparently, his grandchildren all died!
Before rude hands have touch’d it?
Have you mark’d but the fall of the snow
Before the soil hath smutch’d it?
Have you felt the wool of beaver,
Or swan’s down ever?
Or have smelt o’ the bud o’ the brier,
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!
I was so tempted to quote Jonson’s famous Song : To Celia, which includes the famous line “Drink to me only with thine eyes”, but this lesser known example of his work is typical of his lyricism. It was published as one of ten linked pieces in 1623. A friend of William Shakespeare, Jonson was a complex character; he apparently liked an argument and could be arrogant, but was also noted for his sense of honour and integrity. Not quite a genius…but still one of the giants of English literature.
Interesting fact: Jonson is the only person buried standing up in Westminster Abbey (London). His grave bears the famous epitaph “O Rare Ben Johnson” – yes, the inscription erroneously includes an “h” in his name – the engraver made a mistake!
According to Westminster Abbey:
In 1849, the place was disturbed by a burial nearby and the clerk of works saw the two leg bones of Jonson fixed upright in the sand and the skull came rolling down from a position above the leg bones into the newly made grave. There was still some red hair attached to it.
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
These famous words by John Donne (pronounced “Dunn”) were not originally written as a poem – the passage is taken from the 1624 Meditation 17, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and is prose. The final 3 lines are possibly amongst the most quoted excerpts of English verse.
Interesting fact: Donne was Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral (London)
Old Times is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
Born in London’s Cheapside, Herrick was the seventh child and fourth son of Nicholas Herrick, a prosperous goldsmith, who committed suicide when Robert was a year old. He ultimately took religious orders, and became vicar of the parish of Dean Prior, Devon in 1629, a post that carried a term of thirty-one years. It was in the secluded country life of Devon that he wrote some of his best work.
The over-riding message of Herrick’s work is that life is short, the world is beautiful, love is splendid, and we must use the short time we have to make the most of it (“carpe diem”). He is also renowned for frequent references to lovemaking and the female body.
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.
Richard Lovelace was born a nobleman, being the firstborn son of a knight. On April 30, 1642, on behalf of Royalists in Kent, he presented to Parliament a petition asking them to restore the Anglican bishops to Parliament; as a result he was immediately imprisoned in Westminster Gatehouse where, whilst serving his time, wrote “To Althea, From Prison”, which contains – as per the excerpt given – one of the more famed lines of English verse “Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage”. Basically, Lovelace is saying that physical imprisonment/oppression cannot stifle his imagination or spirit.
Interesting fact: While in prison, Lovelace worked on a volume of poems, titled Lucasta, which was considered to be his best collection. The “Lucasta” to whom he dedicated much of his verse was Lucy Sacheverell, whom he often called Lux Casta. Unfortunately, she mistakenly believed that he died at the Battle of Dunkirk in 1646 and so married somebody else. Oops!
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heav’nly Muse, that, on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos;
Milton ! Another literary giant. Possibly ranked, in terms of sheer literary genius, second to Shakespeare. Paradise Lost is an epic, dealing with the fall and subsequent salvation of Man. So great was the contemporary acclaim for Milton’s poetic epics, that other writers began to avoid writing long poetical works…which contributed to the birth of the novel as a literary genre.
Interesting fact: Milton became blind, and most of his prodigious works were dictated to a secretary.
Also: as a student at Cambridge University, Milton was so vain about his appearance that he was nicknamed “the Lady of Christ’s College”.
Image: Inscription on the Church at Stoke Poges refering to Gray’s Elegy
The lowing Herd winds slowly o’er the Lea,
The Plowman homeward plods his weary Way,
And leaves the World to Darkness, and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
Gray’s Elegy (an elegy commemorates death) was written after the passing of one of Gray’s close friends, and is a meditation on the mortality of man. Gray was Professor of History and Modern Languages at Cambridge and, despite not being a prolific writer, was one of the most prominent poets of his day He was buried in Stoke Poges (near Windsor, England) the village whose churchyard was where he composed the Elegy.
Interesting fact: although he became a literary giant of his age, Gray only published 1,000 lines of poetry during his lifetime – this was due, largely, to his acute fear of failure.
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
This is a good example of a poem having as many dimensions as you might like to afford it. On the one hand, there is no certainty as to exactly what Coleridge is talking about. However, it is also deemed by many critics to be profoundly symbolic (art v nature etc.). The poem does appear to most to have obvious sexual imagery, though Coleridge himself did not elaborate on any hidden depths or symbolic undertones. Kubla Khan was, upon its publication, widely denigrated by contemporary critics. Today, it is viewed as a work of genius.
Interesting fact: Coleridge (possessor of an egregious opium addiction) stated that he woke one morning having had a dream/vision of the entire text of Kubla Khan. The poem remained unfinished because, as he was in the midst of writing it down, he was interrupted by a knock at the door – it was a local village tradesman. After some small talk the villager departed, but Coleridge had now lost his train of thought and could not remember the rest of the poem! Bummer!
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Much of Wordsworth’s poetry was concerned with nature. He was a well-traveled individual, accompanied on his excursions by his sister, and lifelong companion, Dorothy. He was a prolific poet, and every school pupil will probably be familiar with his poem Daffodils.
Interesting fact: Wordsworth was born in a town with the improbable name of Cockermouth.
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
George Gordon Byron (the 6th Lord Byron) was an egotistical and temperamental person who during his own lifetime witnessed his reputation as an individual and as a poet reach lofty heights for a time only to plummet due, in no small part, to his scandalous private life (he married a wealthy heiress who left him after a year of marriage for reasons that were greatly speculated upon but never divulged). In fact, his poetry was thereafter belittled so much he left England, never to return. His literary reputation has, of course, been more than restored since his death.
She Walks in Beauty was inspired by his being smitten at the beauty of his first-cousin, whom he met at a funeral – she being dressed in black mourning attire.
Interesting fact: Byron had a club foot, and his sensitivity to this is reflected in some of his works.
Image: Keats’ deathmask
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,-
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
Having already lost both parents, Keats wrote these soulful lines upon learning that his brother was dying and that he himself was suffering from tuberculosis. He views the nightingale’s song as lasting and eternal, and as a counterpoint to his own deeply-felt mortality. Having said this, Keats could also turn his hand to some of the most beautiful lines in the English language eg. To Autumn).
Interesting fact: Keats was a doctor who was tormented by operations carried out – as was the norm in his day – without anaesthetic.
Also, it seems that our friend Lord Byron was a little jealous of Keats’ obvious poetic talents. In letters to contemporaries he described Keats’ works as “mental masturbation”, and wrote of “Johnny Keats’ piss-a-bed poetry” Charming! To be fair, he wrote generously of Shelley (well, of his personality, if not of his works).
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England – now!
Wonderful words imaginatively expressing an ex-patriate’s nostalgia for his home country
Interesting fact: Stephen King’s Dark Tower series was inspired by Browning’s famous work “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”.
Also… Browning was the first person ever whose voice was able to be heard after his death ! He attended a dinner party in 1889 (the year he died) and was persuaded to talk into a phonogram (a wax-cylinder recording device). He (somewhat falteringly) read his famous work How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, which you can listen to here .
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the wife of the poet Robert Browning and, though the theme of her works was often social injustice, she shows in these well-known lines that she could turn her hand to romantic poetry – a fact well understood by her husband, who had to insist that she publish them. I think the words speak for themselves, and that it is fairly pointless to try and attribute any profound meaning to them.
Interesting fact: Barrett-Browning, having never been unwell, was prescribed opium at age 15 and suffered from unknown illnesses (so called “nervous disorders”) for the rest of her life.
Image: Fitzgerald’s grave.
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread – and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
Fitzgerald’s Rubáiyát is a (loose) translation of the work of 11th century Persian poet Omar Khayyam. It’s not a particularly consistent translation, but was a staple text for English students for many years (not so much today). It has been pointed out that the “thou” to which Fitzgerald refers in the second line of the famous tract, above, refers to a male (given that there does not appear to be any reference to women in this work).
Interesting fact: Fitzgerald was a vegetarian who, erm, apparently hated vegetables. He mostly lived off of bread and butter and fruit.
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.
We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—
Another who is commonly held to merit the title “genius.” This poem is reflecting, in a remarkably nonchalant manner, upon death. This particular poem has been described as “flawless to the last detail” by at least one eminent critic.
Interesting fact: reclusive in nature, only 2 of Dickinson’s 1,000+ poems were published during her lifetime – and these 2 without her permission!
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
from The Road Not Taken (1916)
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.
Just a few lines from two of Robert Frost’s more famous works. Frost remains one of America’s pre-eminent poets, and there is often a genial simplicity in his words that continues to make his poetry accessible. Although a common theme in Frost is individuality or independence, I cannot help but think that he doesn’t follow through enough.
Listen to Frost read The Road Not Taken.
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.
I’m not sure what is so compelling about this; maybe it is the simplicity of a writer who liked to create imagery about everyday people in their everyday lives. Whatever the case…I do know that most people, after a few readings, come to also love this short poem without really knowing why.
Interesting fact: Williams was a doctor.
Listen to him read one of his other works (Elise)
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
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, one of the 20th century’s more influential poets, wrote this to commemorate the death of his father. The poem (which in its entirety has 19 lines) has only 2 rhymes throughout.
Interesting facts: it is widely held that Robert Zimmerman adopted the name Bob Dylan as a homage to Dylan Thomas, who was somewhat of a Bohemian cult figure in the USA.
Widely believed to be an alcoholic (a rumor that Thomas himself “promoted”), there is much evidence to suggest that this was not the case (including the state of his autopsied liver).
Listen to Dylan Thomas, himself, reading the above poem.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
Who said modern poetry is dead! Undoubtedly Larkin’s best known poem, according to wikipedia “It appears in its entirety on more than a thousand web pages. It is frequently parodied. Television viewers in the United Kingdom voted it one of the Nation’s Top 100 Poems”. Cynical..yes, but also memorable.
Interesting fact: Larkin’s reputation was tarnished after his death. A biography based on his papers suggested that he was preoccupied with pornography and racism.
Contributor: kiwiboi
The misprint has been corrected
I didn’t mention Poe before because I thought he would be obvious. Well, perhaps he is obvious to me since his poem “The Raven” is the black maggot that corrupted my heart and changed me instantly from a bright little mama’s boy into the wreck of a soul you have before you. Also, I cannot forget again to mention S. King’s “Paranoid: A Chant”. One of my all-time favorites!
Jamie, if you ever decide to do a lit comprised of works by unpublished or lesser known authors, please contact me! I would love to turn you on to some great stuff, and not just my own either.
Kiwi, I forgot to thank you for the nod. I personally love all poetry that is dark, depressing, or both. I also love John Steinbeck because his stories for some reason are just so relaxing; especially “Cannery Row”, et. al.
“The misprint has been corrected ”
jfrater – thanks.
“Kiwi, I forgot to thank you for the nod”
Shadow – not a problem
Thanks for a great list, a couple of new discoveries for me.
One of my favorite short poems: “Cargoes” by John Masefield…
Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir;
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.
Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus;
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.
Dirty British coaster with salt-caked smoke-stack;
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.
jfrater:
come on man science fiction book series, comic book series, poetry, making roast chicken, operas???
i have regular ***** with the babes (that means im rad) and i need some sustenance!!
lets get this ***** back to how it was (tourture devices, serial killers, bizzar traditions, worst fads, etc). I’ve been here since the begining and there have been some AWESOME lists.
OK..to lower the tone, so here’s a harmless little ditty (limerick) that will appeal to all of us who hang out on internet forums, IRC, MSN etc. etc. :
A preoccupied vegan named Hugh
picked up the wrong sandwich to chew.
He took a big bite
before spitting, in fright,
“OMG, WTF, BBQ!”
BTW…too many to mention individually, but thanks to *everybody* who contributed their own suggestions/favourites in this list. I, for one, will definitely be exploring some of the works that I am not familiar with.
And I just have to say that “Always Marry An April Girl” contributed by AC (#14) is now on my list of personal favourites. So fun and simple and elegant.
Great list. As what I’ve noticed, people tend to overlook Home by Edgar Guets’s “Home” andEdmund Vance Cooke’s “How did you die?” This two are really geat works… Here They Are:
How did you die?
Edmund Vance Cooke
Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it.
And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?
You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what’s that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It’s nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there — that’s disgrace.
The harder you’re thrown, why the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts;
It’s how did you fight and why?
And though you be done to death, what then?
If you battled the best you could;
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the Critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he’s slow or spry,
It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,
But only, how did you die?
Home by Edgar Guest
It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home,
A heap o’ sun an’ shadder, an’ ye sometimes have t’ roam
Afore ye really ‘preciate the things ye lef’ behind,
An’ hunger fer ‘em somehow, with ‘em allus on yer mind.
It don’t make any differunce how rich ye get t’ be,
How much yer chairs an’ tables cost, how great yer luxury;
It ain’t home t’ ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o’ wrapped round everything.
Home ain’t a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;
Afore it’s home there’s got t’ be a heap o’ livin’ in it;
Within the walls there’s got t’ be some babies born, and then
Right there ye’ve got t’ bring ‘em up t’ women good, an’ men;
And gradjerly as time goes on, ye find ye wouldn’t part
With anything they ever used—they’ve grown into yer heart:
The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore
Ye hoard; an’ if ye could ye’d keep the thumb-marks on the door.
Ye’ve got t’ weep t’ make it home, ye’ve got t’ sit an’ sigh
An’ watch beside a loved one’s bed, an’ know that Death is nigh;
An’ in the stillness o’ the night t’ see Death’s angel come,
An’ close the eyes o’ her that smiled, an’ leave her sweet voice dumb.
Fer these are scenes that grip the heart, an’when yer tears are dried,
Ye find the home is dearer than it was, an’ sanctified;
An’ tuggin’ at ye always are the pleasant memories
O’ her that was an’ is no more—ye can’t escape from these.
Ye’ve got t’ sing an’ dance fer years, ye’ve got t’ romp an’ play,
An’ learn t’ love the things ye have by usin’ ‘em each day;
Even the roses ’round the porch must blossom year by year
Afore they ‘come a part o’ ye, suggestin’ someone dear
Who used t’ love ‘em long ago, an’ trained ‘em jes t’ run
The way they do, so’s they would get the early mornin’ sun;
Ye’ve got t’ love each brick an’ stone from cellar up t’ dome:
It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home.
Kiwiboi: This is really weird. There is a new girl at my job, she is I believe around 21 or so. Anyway, we were working the other day and she needed to go to the back to get something and as she was walking away she said BRB. I laughed my ass off, I told her well I know you spend a lot of time on the internet!!
Thats the first time I have ever heard anybody use internet speak in the real world like that.
Ok now on to the list
It is Wonderful and has intrigued me enough to want to try to learn more about poetry, as I was never really able to get interested in it when I was younger.
I like the suggestions for lists on how to read poetry.
Randall: with your awesomely knowledgeable brain I have no doubt you will come up with a way to layout a list that will help those of us that are poetry illiterate learn how to read and understand it better.
Kiwiboi: Thanks also for the links to hear the poets read their poems, seems to be a good way to start.
Lizzie: Are you into music at all? Do you enjoy a good beat in a song? Think of poetry like that. Some of them are waltzes, some strictly 4/4 time et cetera. Some poets lay the beat right out in the open, some you have to look for. Try this: read a poem a couple of times in your head to familiarize yourself with it and then read it out loud, repeatedly. I bet you’ll find the meter that way. I can’t repeat anything over and over again without giving it a beat of some sort, but maybe I’m just weird.
Randall and Kiwiboi: Good luck on devising a list on how to read poety. Maybe something along the lines of progressive poetry, starting with poetry for beginners, then advancing. Or a list with one example of each style of poetry, that way beginners can find a style that they like, or take to more readily.
A poem copied from a 1958 college periodical:
“And So He Died, Quite Alone”
And so he died, quite alone,
and there was no one to pray for him.
Nor would he have cared, I think:
he knew friendship illusory, love
unreal, and ***** an emptiness. But
I should have been there, when he
died; in the rain, that night, I
stood, looking in through the win-
dow, watching: I saw his head fall,
his hand, and then: the gun.
by James Quinlan
Kiwi, thanks for the great list and the facts, too.
Glad there was some honorable mention for Keats, I thought he was a notable omission. I enjoyed the Henley contributed, also.
That April Girl poem was a gem, and I love the Thomas in comment #48.
Oh…and the Housman, and the first Sappho
Souxieq – thanks for the advice. I’ll give that a go.
Randall, I second Stormy’s comment at #130. And I for one would greatly appreciate a ‘how to’ guide.
I have an 1835 edition of Thomas Moore’s works that I intend to start with. Wish me luck.
Stormy, Lizzie, etc.
A poetry list might be easier than the damn wine list I’ve been working on since…. forever. But that’s nearly done now, so what the hell, another daunting challenge… why not?
Randall: if anyone is up to that type of challenge it would be you!!!!
Love the list!
My favorite poem is by John Donne : “The Broken Heart”
Agalloch, album: The Mantle:
Like snowfall, you cry a silent storm
Your tears paint rivers on this oaken wall
Amber nectar, misery ichor
Cascading in streams of hallowed form
For each stain, a forsaken shadow
You are the lugubrious spirit
Etched in the oak of wonder
You are the sullen voice and silent storm
Each night I lay
Awakened by her shivering silent voice
From the shapes in the corridor walls.
It pierces the solitude like that of a distant scream
In the pitch-black forest of my delusion
With each passing day, a deeper grave
Why did you leave me to die?
Why did you abandon me?
Why did you walk away and leave me bitterly yearning?
Her haunting, contorted despair was etched into the wood’s grain
Though fire rages within me, no fire burns fiercer than her desire
The shape whispers my name. . .
I damn this oak
I damn her sorrow!
I damn these oaken corridors
That bear the ghosts of those I’ve thrown away!
Though tempted I am to caress her texture divine
And taste her pain sweet, sweet like brandy wine;
I must burn these halls, these corridors
And silence her shrill, tormenting voice
. . .forever. . .
Like snowfall, you cried a silent storm
No tears stain this dust in my hands
But from this ashen gray, her voice still
Whispers my name. . .
You were the lugubrious spirit
Who haunted the oak of wonder
You were the geist that warned this frozen silent storm
You were but a ghost in my arms..
The above poem/song is copyright The End Records:
All lyrics written by Agalloch
Williams’ poem is an apology to his mother for eating the plums she saved for breakfast. His family was poor, so he felt guilty for eating everyone’s breakfast. He simply could not resist the temptation of the decadent fruit.
“His family was poor, so he felt guilty for eating everyone’s breakfast.”
Buster – heh…which makes the final few lines sound like he’s ungraciously rubbing it in a little :
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
I love this list. I have an Honours English degree, so I have studied most of these poems at length. I do agree with you about Milton, being second to Shakespeare. Shakespeare is my ultimate favourite, and Milton is a very close second.
seethrough – I, too, remember studying many of these at length. After Milton, the one we probably focused upon the most was Spenser’s Faerie Queene
Would have liked to see Keat’s Ode on a Grecian Urn:
John Keats. 1795–1821
Ode on a Grecian Urn
THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 5
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 10
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 15
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 20
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love! 25
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 30
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore, 35
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return. 40
O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 45
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’ 50
If anyone has mentioned -
Love’s Philosophy
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion:
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by law divine
In one another’s being mingle;
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another
No sister flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother:
And sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;
What are all these kissings worth
If thou kiss not me?
- I missed it.
(I first encountered this through music, then it featured in Twin Peaks!)
to joconne6:
Try Desmond Skirrow’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn Summarised”
Gods chase
Round vase.
What say?
What play?
Don’t know.
Nice, though.
To randall:
My students can barely string together a complete, basic sentence. Thanks for the tips, though; I have slightly advanced after-school classes.
My favourite poet is the Australian John Shaw Neilson:
Quietly as rosebuds
talk to thin air,
Love came so lightly
I knew not he was there.
Quietly as lovers creep
at the middle moon,
Softly as players tremble
in the tears of a tune;
Quietly as lilies
their faint vows declare
Came the shy pilgrim:
I knew not he was there.
Quietly as tears fall
on a wild sin,
Softly as griefs call
in a violin;
Without hail or tempest,
Blue sword of flame,
Love came so lightly
I knew not that he came.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, to anyone who has mentioned “The Raven”, try
http://www.cloudnet.com/~renfest/end_of_raven.htm
What a task! to pare down the history of poetry into 20 entries. I’m pleasantly surprised that I think you hit a lot of the highlights, because I think it wouldn’t be all that difficult to write an entire book, of 100 seminal poems, or even 1000. Poetry seems to have an almost mythical power to cement language and create freeze-dried cliches; lines that will be part of culture forever. Just look at the sheer NUMBER of new words that Shakespeare invented, from “puke” to “frugal” to “blood-stained.”
I hesitate to critique, because it’s such a monumental undertaking to try to get a list of just 20, but there are a few I’d have liked to see.
In terms of importance Dante certainly makes the grade, and he defined the modern conception of Hell.
Ozymandias is an absolute classic.
Modern authors seem to be underrepresented. I’d have liked to see Bukowski.
Poe, or anyone representing the Victorian romantic/gothic tradition.
Great post!
For those of you averse to poetry, can I recommend some contemporary poets?
Stephen Dunn
Stephen Dobyns
Mark Strand
Alden Nowlan
Billy Collins
Charles Bukowski
Jane Hirshfield
May Oliver
Sharon Olds
and that’s just a beginning…
Two poems for you to enjoy:
Named
He’d spent his life trying to control the names
people gave him;
oh the unfair and the accurate equally hurt.
Just recently he’d been a son-of-a-*****
and sweetheart in the same day,
and once again knew what antonyms
love and control are, and how comforting
it must be to have a business card -
Manager, Specialist – and believe what it says.
Who, in fact, didn’t want his most useful name
to enter with him,
when he entered a room, who didn’t want to be
that kind of lie? A man who was a sweetheart
and a son-of-a-*****
was also more or less every name
he’d ever been called, and when you die, he thought,
that’s when it happens,
you’re collected forever into a few small words.
But never to have been outrageous or exquisite,
no grand mistake
so utterly yours it causes whispers
in the peripheries of your presence – that was
his fear.
“Reckless”; he wouldn’t object to such a name
if it came from the right voice with the right
amount of reverence.
Someone nearby, of course, certain to add “fool.”
– Stephen Dunn
Wild 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
I’m sorry, but I still *****ing hate poetry.
Some of it was good, but the vast (about 95%) sucked big time.
“I think it wouldn’t be all that difficult to write an entire book, of 100 seminal poems, or even 1000″
Dan – it was an agonising process. I started with around 80 or so works, and whittled this down to a shortlist of 40; and, as you see, the resultant list needed to be a manageable 20. Not surprisingly, many of the suggestions made by list commentators were in the 40. I did try and balance my personal preferences with compiling an accessible list. It was fun though.
“Modern authors seem to be underrepresented”
Indeed. Perhaps a useful topic for another poetry list, if somebody is interested ?
BTW…Dante ? The list was, of course, restricted to English language works (and I felt the Fitzgerald extract met this requirement, as it is the merit of the “translation” – as opposed to the original work – that defines it).
eraserhead (and others) – thanks for the recommendations.
Jordan G. – well, at least you tried
Here is one list of modern stuff: Top 10 American Poems of the 20th Century.
jfrater – heh, I could’ve looked at that list and guessed you had a hand in collating it. Actually, I had not looked at this list before, and – aside from those works that I might have predicted (or expected) – it was good to see Robert Lowell in there. A onetime favourite of mine when it comes to modern American works.
TS Eliot ? Personally, I find it hard to get enthused over his poetry – though many people are obviously big fans. But he certainly made his mark in the field of literary criticism.
kiwiboi: am I so predictable?
I have to admit that the selection was definitely inspired by the poetry I love – not just the greatness of the poets 
“am I so predictable?”
jfrater – not necessarily; I just know you too well
At least your “predictability” produces quality…
Why were you born when the snow was falling?
You should have come to the cuckoo’s calling
Or when grapes are green in the cluster,
Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster
For their far off flying
From summer dying.
Why did you die when the lambs were cropping?
You should have died at the apples’ dropping,
When the grasshopper comes to trouble,
And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble,
And all winds go sighing
For sweet things dying.
Ah, I must’ve missed the ‘English only’ thing when I read the intro, my bad.
Though, you could probably pick any language, and get 20 poems in that language too… I was wondering where Goethe went too. Of course I never did like him all that much, Sturm und Strang was the original Emo, if you think about it.
“you could probably pick any language, and get 20 poems in that language too”
Dan – I agree 100%
pome?
poe-em?
or
poymah?
miss destiny comment 27- i think thats shell silversten. i loved his poetry too when i was little
Ah, John Donne. I love the metaphysical poets!! I don’t know why, but metaphysical poetry just sings to me! I highly recommend ‘To His Coy Mistress’ by Andrew Marvell, and of course, ‘The Sunne Rising’ by John Dunne.
In addition to the beauty of the words and meter, poetry can inspire in ways that straight prose cannot. To that end, here are the names of 3 of my personal favorites – feel free to look them up or include in a list of “Most Inspirational or Uplifting Poems”.
“The House by the Side of the Road”
Sam Walter Foss
“Who Are My People” (or sometimes “My People”)
Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni
“Abou Ben Adhem”
Leigh Hunt
i was under the impression that one of Milton’s daughters was the one that he dictated Paradise Lost to…that is what I learned in all my english classes
Wow, hadn’t seen this list yet. That’s some good poetry, right there. I enjoy Dickinson a lot, like The Courage That My Mother Had, and I always enjoyed memorizing Robert Frost for school.
Not bad, but, I would think “the raven” and “the prolouge” of chaucer (and “the knight’s tale” “the franklin’s tale” and “the wife of bath’s tale”). Maybe beowulf, but I was not a huge fan. Sonnet 116 of shakespeare. Sonnet 50 or 30, can’t remember which one was fire and ice of spencer. They’re are just so many great poems!
Check out Charles Bukowski’s work, if you aren’t already familiar with him. My favorite poem:
Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
*****ed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante’s Inferno will be made to look like a children’s playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter.
Marianne Moore:
wade
through black jade.
Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps
adjusting the ash-heaps;
opening and shutting itself like
an
injured fan.
The barnacles which encrust the side
of the wave, cannot hide
there for the submerged shafts of the
sun,
split like spun
glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness
into the crevices—
in and out, illuminating
the
turquoise sea
of bodies. The water drives a wedge
of iron throught the iron edge
of the cliff; whereupon the stars,
pink
rice-grains, ink-
bespattered jelly fish, crabs like green
lilies, and submarine
toadstools, slide each on the other.
All
external
marks of abuse are present on this
defiant edifice—
all the physical features of
ac-
cident—lack
of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and
hatchet strokes, these things stand
out on it; the chasm-side is
dead.
Repeated
evidence ahs proved that it can live
on what can not revive
its youth. The sea grows old in it.
Heh…this list still gets the occasional comment. Cool!
The best reason why you should enjoy poetry is the Romantics.
Keats, Byron, Shelley, Whitman…etc
May Swenson
NEITHER WANTING MORE [from The Love Poems of May Swenson (1991)
To lie with you
in a field of grass
to lie there forever
and let time pass
Touching lightly
shoulder and thigh
Neither wanting more
Neither asking why
To have your whole
cool body’s length
along my own
to know the strength
of a secret tide
of longing seep
into our veins
go deep … deep
Dissolving flesh
and melting bone
Oh to lie with you
alone
To feel your breast
rise with my sigh
To hold you mirrored
in my eye
Neither wanting more
Neither asking why
I can appreciate the literary value of “Paradise Lost” but I still don’t like it.
Heav’n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib’d, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas’d to the last, he crops the flow’ry food,
And licks the hand just rais’d to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv’n,
That each may fill the circle mark’d by Heav’n:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor’d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul, proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has giv’n,
Behind the cloud topp’d hill, an humbler heav’n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac’d,
Some happier island in the wat’ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky.
- Alexander Pope
The one about the plum makes me really angry. It reminds me of those paintings where the “artist” just throws paint on a canvas and calls it “art”. Or a Green Day song. Read ‘the lesson of the moth’ if you would like a poem with substance.
Really, Mike? I thought the William Carlos Williams poem was delightful. Wonderfully evocative.
Of course, I’ve admired his verse for a long time now but had not come across this one before.
A poem does not necessarily need to be complicated or intricate to be good.
I enjoyed the list hugely, kiwiboi, and the comments as well. I could have wished for some Seamus Heaney, of course, but I guess that’s the Irish in me!
Oh, I forgot. Chunky Lover, I really liked your comment. (#82)
I assume you’re trying to tell us that “malt does more than liquor can to justify God’s ways to man”?
kiwiboi, thanks for the list. About the only poet I've ever enjoyed reading for any reason other than to get a passing grade in some class or other, is Robert Service. In particular, "The Funeral Pyre of Sam McGee" is quoted by quite a few of us geologists – it's great to listen to a recital sitting by a campfire out in the sticks somewhere. "The Ballad of the Ice Worm Cocktail" is another fun one, especially after a few brews! Anyway, thanks for taking the time. Now, I'll have something else to study on besides ListVerse archives.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;
If by Rudyard Kipling
Nice list! Enjoyed some in the comments too.
Poetry is life. Enjoy life,there’s no time to wait.
I agree – I love many of the poems in the comments. Several mentioned W B Yeats – my favourite is:
HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams
really i like all the poets and there poetrey.