Favourite Poems and Poets....

[Claire]

I only dabble a bit in reading poetry. I don't think I'm quite up to a detailed discussion of a specific book - but I'd love to know what other people's favourite poems and poets are, and a bit about why you like them.

Who knows, you might get me started on something I wouldn't otherwise have tried - that would be cool!

[BrumB]

Frost at Midnight - Coleridge. Has everything - weather, home,a new baby, a new father, philosophy, musings - the lot! Every time I read it it's as if it's a new poem.

[Claire]

Sounds well worth a look - I shall go and seek it out. The only Coleridge I know is Kubla Khan - which I love. It's like the beginning of the most wonderful, exotic fairy tale you've ever heard, set in the most enchanted kingdom. Plus it's all the more intriguing because it's unfinished.

(Ok, I also enjoy it for the part it plays in "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" by Douglas Adams - very funny :D )

[BrumB]

I love Kubla Khan too. Will look at the Douglas Adams book - loved Hitchikers Guide. For a love poem try The Sun Rising by John Donne. The thing is poetry is so personal and often tied into the reader's own experience. Why don't you just get the Oxford Book of English Verse and go with the flow. While you're at it there are lots of modern poets to like as well.

[Granny weatherwax]

I don't really have a favourite poet but there are quite a few poems I like, for example.

The Remorseful day by AE Housemann
My dear and loving husband by Anne Bradstreet
The soldiers at lauro by Spike Milligan
If by Rudyard Kipling
Why did I dream of you last night by Philip Larkin

[Claire]

Cool, Granny Weatherwax! What do you like about them?

Why don't you just get the Oxford Book of English Verse and go with the flow. While you're at it there are lots of modern poets to like as well.

I've got something similar right by our loo, (or is that "too much information"!?) - I've found the best way of finding new poems is in the car, though! I've got a couple of audio books of poetry collections, "The Nations Favourite....." type things - and if something catches my attention, I go away and look it up!

[BrumB]

Good idea but I hope you have a second loo for people waiting!

[Claire]

Nah, I just make them queue up ;)

My favourites at the moment:

Bits and pieces of Emily Dickenson. Especially There's a Certain Slant of Light (http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Dickinson/ThereIs.htm) and Tell the Truth but Tell is Slant (http://nongae.gsnu.ac.kr/~songmu/Poetry/TellAllTheTruthButTEllItSlant.htm) - they give me such shiver of recognition, somehow.

I love The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock (http://lucien.blight.com/~sparkle/poems/pruf.html) as well. That's one I first heard in the car - and the line:

"In the room the women come and go,
Talking of Michaelangelo."

just intrigued me to bits - and I had to keep listening to it again and again until I worked out what on earth the rest of the poem was about! Well worth it - but much of the rest of TS Elliot sails way over my head *shrugs*

[Slowreader]

Like many people I first studied poetry at school and thankfully Eliot was on the syllabus! I don't pretend to understand all that he wrote, as this would be a life's study in itself. Many of his poems work on a literal level or with a little understanding of some of his references.

I particualrly like his 'heavy metal' stuff - 'The Waste Land' and 'The Hollow Men', early poems like 'Prufrock', 'Portrait of a Lady' and 'Preludes' and some of his minor poems such as 'Eyes That I Last Saw in Tears' and 'Landscapes'

Oh,and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats :)

[megustaleer]

The thing is poetry is so personal and often tied into the reader's own experience. .

'Timothy Winters' by Charles Causley has been my favourite poem for years...probably because I used to work with deprived and disturbed children. That may also be the reason that I like 'Lies' by Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

I find that I am in danger of setting out on quite a long list here, so will recommend two smaller anthologies: 'Poetry Please', and 'More Poetry Please', both being favourites from the radio 4 programme of the same name.

[purplebongowoman]

I remember "Timothy Winters". I came across it again a few years ago and read it to my kids, and almost burst into tears. I think it's the matter of fact way it describes his life.

I also like Wilfred Owen:
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
-Only the monstrous anger of the guns (Anthem for Doomed Youth)

He sums up the horror of war for me.

[purplebongowoman]

A good site for reading Wilfred Owen's poetry is:
http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/jtap/warpoems.htm

[Claire]

I find that I am in danger of setting out on quite a long list here, so will recommend two smaller anthologies: 'Poetry Please', and 'More Poetry Please', both being favourites from the radio 4 programme of the same name.

I love Poetry Please - I didn't realise they had published anthologies. I can never seem to find the program on the Radio 4 Listen Again thing, though - which perplexes me. :confused:

[megustaleer]

[QUOTE=purplebongowoman "I think it's the matter of fact way it describes his life" [/QUOTE]

Yeah, 'So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
And slowly goes on growing up.'

[winterwren]

One of my favorites is Hiawatha. I love the rhythm of it. I actually think that the rhythm of it is the stuff of genius. "By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shinning Big Sea Water," I also like Evangeline and The Wreck of the Hesperus.

I love poetry. Usually, I like the way it captures a certain truth clearly in a few words or in a phrase. Sometimes the poet just describes something in a way that you see in your mind's eye and the power of the vision is palatable.

I like Robert Frost's The Road Less Traveled (I always think of it when I see two a fork that breaks into a new path) and Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening. I like The Daffodils by William Wordsworth. I love Tennyson's Fragment and Said the Rose by George Miles. Loves Philosophy by Shelley, Love by Roy Croft, Friendship by Dinah Craik, If by Kipling, Outwitted by Markham. I like Edgar Guest.

There is one by Robert Browning, I think about a woman who gets strangled by her lover with her own hair. I like that one.

I like the Raggedy Man by James Whitcomb Riley. I like Robert Louis Stevenson, Robertson Jeffers, Robert Browning, Emily Dickens and oh SO many others.

And then of course there is UNKNOWN - quite often I find a piece I really like that was written and found with no one to credit it too! AND don't forget Mother Goose!

[Claire]

One of my favorites is Hiawatha. I love the rhythm of it. I actually think that the rhythm of it is the stuff of genius. "By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shinning Big Sea Water,"

The rhythm is absolutely hypnotic, isn't it. Amazing stuff. There's some wonderful spoofs of it out there too, using the same pattern. Have you come across any of them? One about a wedding photographer sticks in my mind - I wonder if I can drag it up on the net somewhere....

[Claire]

Here you go - hadn't realised it was by Lewis Carroll.

Hiawatha's Photographing (http://www.netpoets.com/classic/poems/013015.htm)

[Jassie]

WH Auden 'As I walked out one evening' (http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=1397) is one of my favourites. Briefly its about love and death, of course those two poetry classics. No matter how much you love someone and want to be with them, death will part you and life will go on. I suppose it is a sad poem but I love its imagery and the change from feeling the warmth of love and summer to coldness and winter through the stanzas. I could go on but I agree poetry is personal as are interpretations.

[winterwren]

Thanks for sharing the link to the Lewis Carroll spoof on Hiawatha! That was a giggle!!

I enjoyed it!

Trudy

[Adrian]

Gotta be David Herbert:

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

[Lei-Lei Jayenne]

I'm a big fan of WW1 poetry, particularly this;
http://home.tiscali.be/ericlaermans/cultural/owen/strange-meeting.html

[Seraphina]

I'm not that into poetry, but I do love Yeats 'He wishes for the cloths of heaven'. It's my favourite love poem I think. Or 'When you are old', it's really sweet.

Shakespeare's sonnets have a lot of truth in them, I feel as if I can really connect to them. I know some people think Shakespeare's a bit overrated, but I think he's just as relevant today as ever.

[Granny weatherwax]

I mentioned earlier in this thread about some poems I like, here is another of my favourites.

Tommy by Rudyard Kipling (http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/2722/)

[megustaleer]

Kipling has been rather out of favour in recent years (apart from'If'). There are several of his I like, especially 'The Glory of The Garden', bits of which I have written out on pieces of old roofing slate dotted around my garden.

[Adrian]

Kipling may be out of flavour, but I don't see how that can detract from his greatness. I couldn't separate him from Wilfrid Owen or DH Lawrence as Number One.

But I would like to mention George Crabbe as another English Great. I got into him from the opera Peter Grimes, but Crabbe's poetry is truly wonderful. He's as English as Turner or Constable's paintings, and just as beautiful.

I have no love for Shakespeare the playwright, but some of his sonnets aren't too bad. Should I invest time in Will the poet?

[Trish]

Love Slyvia Plath, favourite poem The Moon & the Yew Tree - favourite line - 'The trees of the mind are black'........

On a lighter note - I like Swinburne for romantic over the top stuff.

Don't tend to stick to one person/genre - like to try a bit of everything really

[Claire]

Hi Trish, I haven't read any of Sylvia Plaths poems - though I've read her one novel, the Bell Jar, which was quite an intense experience. (Am I right in thinking it was a novel, rather than autobiographical? - I'm suddenly not sure which it was.)

I've just been lent "Birthday Letters" by Ted Hughes, by a friend who highly recommends it. Anyone else read it and like to comment on what they thought?

[Trish]

Hi Claire - have left you rather a long reply on the other thread!

The Bell Jar is semi-autobiographical - a lot of those things did happen to Plath - she spent one summer work experience on a magazine - where similar events happened.

It is heavy - as is a lot of her poetry obviously. Ariel is definitely her work of genius & one I would thoroughly recommend.

Have written responses re: Birthday Letters on other thread!

[belinda]

I'd like to add Robert Graves into the discussion. He is one of the few writers, in my opinion who can do both novels and poetry.

His war poems are fantastic so is his love poetry.

Amother interesting poet is ee cummings - the first time I came across his work I was blown away by it as it was so different from anything else I had read. Just realised that ee cummings also manages both.

Also if you have children and want to get them into poetry try Michael Rosen and his 'There are an awful lot of wierdos in our neighbourhoold' collection. I hated reading stories aloud and much preferred reading them poems.

[belinda]

The rhythm is absolutely hypnotic, isn't it. Amazing stuff. There's some wonderful spoofs of it out there too, using the same pattern. Have you come across any of them? One about a wedding photographer sticks in my mind - I wonder if I can drag it up on the net somewhere....

On poems with rhythm would like to recommend Hilaire Belloc's 'Do you remember an inn Miranda'

Link here for those of you who might be interested
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/6194/

[Claire]

Hi belinda,

I'm never sure what I make of e e cummings. Some bits people have quoted to me have made me go Wow! - but I can never find those bits myself, and he tends to leave me a bit non-plussed. Might go back and have another look, though.

Like you, I love reading poetry to my kids as well. They tend to like even the grown up stuff, if it's short enough, and either easy to follow, or very vivid in it's images, or very rhythmic. They have to be in the right mood, though - and I tend to give them a bit of a precis first, to help them get a better grasp on what's going on! (I sometimes wish someone would do that for me, to be honest!)

[Elfstar]

Well, started on modern poets and now everyone is off discussing their faves. How about Roger Mcgough, he has a brilliant poem about milk bottles outside a honeymooning couples door...unfortunately I cant find it! His "Let me die a youngmans death" is also worth a look.

Wendy Cope, short, pithy ,witty poems. She was born in 1945 so very last half of the twentieth century.

I do love more traditional stuff too, Andrew Marvell's "To his coy Mistress", Yeats, Thomas Wyatt (Those supposely written about Anne Boleyn).etc and Wilfred Owen.

But probably my most copied poem is Jenny Joseph's Warning makes a great 40th birthday present!! Its featured in another thread on here as well.

Just realised I have my threads crossed still it can stay here as it will fit as well as elsewhere. And those interested seem to cross threads all the time!

[Sara]

I don't read a lot of poetry. Most of the poems I end up reading are war poems in school. We studied Yeats last year but I can't stand his later poetry because he seems so self important and ignorant of how other people live.

One of my favourite poems is "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae because it's beautifully written and it has a great rhythm and sound. Sassoon is a great poet too but I haven't read much of his work.

[Hilary]

Frost at Midnight - Coleridge. Has everything - weather, home,a new baby, a new father, philosophy, musings - the lot! Every time I read it it's as if it's a new poem.

I studied this for part of my degree and wrote about it at length in my exam. I'm yet to really get into poetry of any sort and found the poetry parts of the studies the hardest to get into but ~ I did quite like this poem and was surprised to find it was the first one mentioned on this thread. I don't remember what I said about it now ( I can be forgiven for that, I was very pregnant in the exam!) but I do remember what a lot there was to draw on in it, and a lot of little bits I could quote. And despite my lack of love for poetry, it was my highest mark... so thank you Coleridge, much obliged.

edited to add, I've just checked in my books and I wrote about it in conjunction with A Mother To Her Waking Infant by Joanna Baillie.



(hello Claire!)

[Hilary]

I tell you what though, I may get shot down for this but my favourite poetry currently is on a cassette I borrowed from the library for the kids to listen to on the 7 hour journey down to South Wales last week. It was Dirty Beasts by Roald Dahl. We are all still quoting funny bits from it, even my 6 and 4 year olds. And it has actually increased their vocabulary somewhat ~ Mum, what's a porcupine? What does 'jump a foot in the air mean?' Does cow pat mean cow poo? Roald Dahl is great!

[Claire]

Roald Dahl is fab! Didn't know he had written poetry though - other than the bits and pieces that appear in his stories. I'd love to read them.

My kids learnt a lot about cow pats on holiday too - but not from a poem :rolleyes: ;)

[Hilary]

It's funny, we had a cassette about Thunderbirds, a Pirate story and a story called The Emporer's Underpants as well and the poetry pipped them all to the post, every time.

ps I did post a more serious post above the one about Dirty Beasts!

[Claire]

I did spot your other post - but I felt much more qualified to comment on Roald Dahl and cow pat than on Coleridge, so I thought I'd leave that for someone more knowledgable!

I have some tapes in the car with "proper grown up poetry" on them and surprisingly often the kids will ask to have them on. It's got some narrative poems about famous battles, and highway men and trains and stuff like that on, (can't remember the titles, but they are all famous ones!) and my six year old can follow enough of them to enjoy the story and he seems to like the music in the language as well. Both of them love McCavity the Mystery Cat, as well. That's their favourite.