Favorite Poetry

[Juniper]

I am taking a poetry class.

I have what you might call "poem anxiety", the way some folks have "math anxiety." Well, I have math anxiety too.

It's getting better, though. I think.

Anyway, I stumbled across this poem in my book today, and really liked it. Maybe y'all could post your favorites here too.

Marks
by Linda Pastan

My husband gives me an A
for last night's supper,
an incomplete for my ironing,
a B plus in bed.
My son says I am average,
an average mother, but if
I put my mind to it
I could improve.
My daughter believes
in Pass/Fail and tells me
I pass. Wait 'til they learn
I'm dropping out.

[Sundae]

I see your aversion to free verse is abating!
I like that one too.

For more Dwellars' favourites try here and here.

[Juniper]

Oops, I missed those threads; figured there would be at least one or two, but I admit I didn't look that hard.

Oh well.

[Sundae]

Not to worry - there's enough threads about Sarah Palin - I'm much happier to have another poetry one!

[Urbane Guerrilla]

How about picking out a few perennials among the great English sonnets?

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies
Whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that the sculptor well those passions read,
Stamped on these lifeless things.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'I am Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

--Shelley.

From memory. It's been worth keeping inside, unpapered, to reel it out every once in a while. Two I have not memorized but should are Saul's Death by Saberhagen, and John Evereldown, to which I am composing a pipe tune.

[smoothmoniker]

W.H. Auden, "September 1, 1939" - one of my favorites. Read the whole thing here.

A few choice selections:

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.


...

For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.


...

We must love one another or die.

Auden actually went back and edited the poem late in laugh, and made it considerably darker. He changed that last line to "We must love one another and die." which is so heartbreakingly perfect.

[morethanpretty]

Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Chops"
because that was the name of his dog
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and a gold star
And his mother hung it on the kitchen door
and read it to all of his aunts
That was the year Father Tracy
took all the kids to the zoo
And he let them sing on the bus
And his little sister was born
with tiny toenail and no hair
And his mother and father kissed a lot
And the girl around the corner sent him a
Valentine signed with a row of X's
and he asked his father what the X's meant
And his father tucked him in bed at night
And was always there to do it

Once on a white paper with blue lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Autumn"
because that was the name of the season
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and asked him to write more clearly
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because of its new paint
And the kids told him
that Father Tracy smoked cigars
And left the butts on the pews
And sometimes they would burn holes
That was the year his sister got glasses
with thick lenses and black frames
And the girl around the corner laughed
when he asked her to go see Santa Clause
And the kids told him why
his mother and father kissed a lot
And his father never tucked him in bed at night
And his father got mad
when he cried for him to do it

Once on a paper torn from a notebook
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Innocence: A Question"
because that was the question about his girl
And that's what it was all about
And his professor gave him an A
and a strange steady look
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because he never showed her
That was the year that Father Tracy died
And he forgot how the end
of the Apostle's Creed went
And he caught his sister
making out on the back porch
And his mother and father never kissed
or even talked
And the girl around the corner
wore too much make-up
That made him cough when he kissed her
but he did anyway
because that was the thing to do
And at three AM he tucked himself into bed
his father snoring soundly

That's why on the back of a brown paper bag
he tried another poem
And he called it "Absolutely Nothing"
Because that's what it was really all about
And he gave himself an A
and a slash on each damned wrist
And he hung it on the bathroom door
because this time he didn't think
he could reach the kitchen.

-from "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"
by Stephen Chbosky


BTW my name is from this book

[Trilby]

Ok....but, isn't it a bit...(dare I?) self-indulgent? I see how it progresses, but it's rather NORMAL progression,isn't it? we can't all go round slitting our wrists coz mommy and daddy don't pay us as much mind as they once did...not critizing your poem,MTP, just wondering at some of it. Is this ok or "not the place for it?" I'll bow to democratic vote, or, just do what Sundae tells me.

Here's one:

Anne Sexton, My Friend, My Friend

Who will forgive me for the things I do?
With no special legend of God to refer to,
With my calm white pedigree, my yankee kin,
I think it would be better to be a Jew.

I forgive you for what you did not do.
I am impossibly quilty. Unlike you,
My Friend, I can not blame my origin
With no special legend or God to refer to.

They wear The Crucifix as they are meant to do.
Why do their little crosses trouble you?
The effigies that I have made are genuine,
(I think it would be better to be a Jew).

Watching my mother slowly die I knew
My first release. I wish some ancient bugaboo
Followed me. But my sin is always my sin.
With no special legend or God to refer to.

Who will forgive me for the things I do?
To have your reasonable hurt to belong to
Might ease my trouble like liquor or aspirin.
I think it would be better to be a Jew.

And if I lie, I lie because I love you,
Because I am bothered by the things I do,
Because your hurt invades my calm white skin:
With no special legend or God to refer to,
I think it would be better to be a Jew.



Here's

[morethanpretty]

I don't mind the question Bri. I think part of the reason I liked it is b/c it is sorta a normal progression. Our slow disillusionment as we grow and how things change. But its an overreaction in the end, the guy's inability to cope and find the positive. No we can't all go slitting our wrists, but we all struggle to cope. We all struggle to find the positive. And it breaks some of us.

[ZenGum]

Love's Philosophy

P B Shelley

The Fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and 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 disdain'd its brother:
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea -
But what be all these sweet works worth,
If thou kiss not me?


One for the romantic types to keep memorised. I have not used it "cold" (i.e first date/ first kiss) but I've recited this to established partners, and it worked then. I reckon, in the right place and the right time, it'd bridge that little gap of personal space.
If anyone tries it, do report back.

[Trilby]

Oh, it'll work, ZenGum, it'll work.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Love's Philosophy

P B Shelley

The Fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and 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 disdain'd its brother:
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea -
But what be all these sweet works worth,
If thou kiss not me?


One for the romantic types to keep memorised. I have not used it "cold" (i.e first date/ first kiss) but I've recited this to established partners, and it worked then. I reckon, in the right place and the right time, it'd bridge that little gap of personal space.
If anyone tries it, do report back.

I kept that in a book I had of poems and quotes I collected back in my teenage years, then revisited it when I studied the romantic poets in college.

[Juniper]

Poem of the Day....

a/k/a what my poetry assignment was based upon.

Not Writing
by Jane Kenyon

A wasp rises to its papery
nest under the eaves
where it daubs

at the gray shape,
but seems unable
to enter its own house.

[ZenGum]

Re: Juni's poem.

I'm a bit doubtful about that one. Can you suggest a meaning beyond what is on the surface (which isn't a good one because the wasp is not building its own house but a nursery/larder for its young, but I don't think that's the point, this being poetry and all).

What did you say about it?

[Trilby]

Baby Witch


Baby-witch,
my daughter,
my worship of the Goddess
alone
condemns you to the fire. . .

I blow upon
your least fingernail
& it flares cyclamen & rose.
I suck flames from your ears.
I touch your perfect nostrils
& they, too, flame gently
like that pale rose
called "sweetheart".

Your eyelids are tender purple
like the base of the flame
before it blues.

O child of fire,
O tiny devotee of the Goddess--

I wished for you
to be born a daughter
though we know
that daughters
cannot but be

born for burning
like the fatal
tree.

© Erica Mann Jong

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Copyright ©1997-2008 Erica Mann Jong