Who Is Your Favorite Poet?

[PandoraGlitters]

Because probably you have never heard of BJ Ward or Renee Ashley, I just want to share one poem each with you.

The Animals Below by Renee Ashley

It was never just the animals:

it was your opossum aunt strung​

with her ridiculous Paris silk scarves,

it was the balloon man with the mustache​

thick as bear fur, then it was the dog

who followed you home, the gray dog who looked​

like the sorry mutt that followed your father

home, the dog with the one blank eye that roamed​

the way your teacher's eye drifted left

when you were ten, and wild with impatience, always​

left, towards the window, the ravaged poplar,

the wasps' nests--you would have gone with it​

if you could. No it was never just

the animals. Somewhere in keeping track,​

the lines got crossed; the hybrid species

that is your mind confused you, addled your​

perceptions. No wonder you don't know

the difference. Look, the way I see it,​

out there it's only faces--and when God

runs out of faces He repeats Himself.​

That woman in Reno who, unequivocally,

is not your chinless coast-of-France aunt,​

is so like hershe should be; there she is,

your sliver-faced aunt, three-dimensional and​

smelling of the sea, ready with the others,

your past and your future, in your mind.​

You see, God's got this funny sense

of humor. It's all the same to Him:​

three orange cats in heat, six bankers, a lost

dog, your opossum aunt, the animals below.​

And Next, a little BJ Ward.

Gravedigger's Birthday by BJ Ward

We had only dated for three weeks
but there I was, burying her cat.
To top things off, it was my birthday,
but I knew the cat's death trumped it
so into the ground I went,
never having dug a grave before
but knowing I should know how.
Such an ancient, simple action,
as if our bodies evolved to do such work--
opposable thumb to dig and dig
deeper into the earth, and standing erect
to toss soil from our graves. I remembered
something from somewhere--boy scouts
or horror movie--delve deep enough
so racoons can't stir up the corpse.
I did it all quietly with a sudden solemnity
not for the cat--I barely knew it--
but for the motion, the first ancestral thing
I had done in years, aware this was traffic
with old gods. The indifferent stars pinned
the lips of the grave open, and I lifted up
that solid eggplant of a body, and lowered her
carefully into the soil, as if the cat could feel it,
or the earth could. Ridiculous.
Then I lifted up that shovel, again
knowing what to do--load upon load
into the earth, back onto that body,
returning it but also casting it out
of my modern life where I would soon take
the short walk from the grave to the house,
eat some meat without thinking
of eating the meat, get in bed
next to my new, warm, mourning girlfriend
on a mattress imported from far away, some speck
of the grave's dirt rising behind a fingernail
as I lie awake, the faint next click
of my life's odometer there in the darkness,
living and dying at the same time,
thinking how so much motion and instinct
lies inert in the earth next to the swing set,
and how the ground's new toothless mouth
settled into closure without pomp,
temporary and permanent at once.

 

[Smackdab]

Favorite Poet

My favorite poet is Wilfred Owen. He served in World War I but tragically died right before the war ended. His most famous poem was Dulce et Decorum Est--it is about a mustard gas attack. Very powerful message!

 

[Angeline]

I couldn't sleep so....

I've often said that my favorite poet is WB Yeats, and it's true that I derive great pleasure from reading certain poems of his over and over. I think he was a brilliant poet whose poems, though written over 100 years ago, I find very accessible. However the other poet I read over and over, whose poems I respond to so viscerally that they often make me cry, is Forough Farrokhzad. She was an Iranian poet who, as a Muslim woman writing in Iran in the mid-twentieth century, was considered brave and (perhaps) that country's first feminist. She died tragically in a car accident when she was only 32. Most of her poems one can find online are not particularly good translations. There are also many of her poems online in her native Farsi, and they may be better (though I sure wouldn't know it), but even in rather poor translation (like the ones here), her brilliance and authenticity shine through for me.

Here is a very good translation of a poem she wrote in the early 1960s, when many believe she was at the peak of her writing maturity:

Another Birth
Translation by Ismā'il Salāmi

My entire soul is a murky verse
Reiterating you within itself
Carrying you to the dawn of eternal burstings and blossomings
In this verse, I sighed you, AH!
In this verse,
I grafted you to trees, water and fire

Perhaps life is
A long street along which a woman
With a basket passes every day
Perhaps life
Is a rope with which a man hangs himself from a branch
Perhaps life is a child returning home from school
Perhaps life is the lighting of a cigarette
Between the lethargic intervals of two lovemakings
Or the puzzled passage of a passerby
Tipping his hat
Saying good morning to another passerby with a vacant smile

Perhaps life is that blocked moment
When my look destroys itself in the pupils of your eyes
And in this there is a sense
Which I will mingle with the perception of the moon
And the reception of darkness

In a room the size of one solitude
My heart
The size of one love
Looks at the simple pretexts of its own happiness,

At the pretty withering of flowers in the flower pots
At the sapling you planted in our flowerbed
At the songs of the canaries
Who sing the size of one window.

Ah
This is my lot
This is my lot
My lot
Is a sky, which the dropping of a curtain seizes from me
My lot is going down an abandoned stairway
And joining with something in decay and nostalgia
My lot is a cheerless walk in the garden of memories
And dying in the sorrow of a voice that tells me:
"I love
Your hands"

I will plant my hands in the flowerbed
I will sprout, I know, I know, I know
And the sparrows will lay eggs
In the hollows of my inky fingers
I will hang a pair of earrings of red twin cherries
Round my ears
I will put dahlia petals on my nails
There is an alley
Where the boys who were once in love with me,
With those disheveled hairs, thin necks and gaunt legs
Still think of the innocent smiles of a little girl
Who was one night blown away by the wind
There is an alley which my heart
Has stolen from places of my childhood

The journey of a volume along the line of time
And impregnating the barren line of time with a volume
A volume conscious of an image
Returning from the feast of a mirror

This is the way
Someone dies
And someone remains
No fisherman will catch pearls
From a little stream flowing into a ditch

I
Know a sad little mermaid
Dwelling in the ocean
Softly, gently blowing
Her heart into a wooden flute
A sad little mermaid
Who dies with a kiss at night
And is born again with another kiss at dawn

 

[AnonAndAnon]

Favorite Poet

Mine would have to be Isaac Watts. I'm not at all religious, but I still find the words really pretty, and when set to music they're almost always a whole lot of fun to sing (witness Joy to the World).

Here's one I like:

There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign,
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides,
And never withering flowers:
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
This heav'nly land from ours.

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green:
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.

But timorous mortals start and shrink
To cross this narrow sea;
And linger, shiv'ring on the brink,
And fear to launch away.

O could we make our doubts remove,
Those gloomy thoughts that rise,
And see the Canaan that we love
With unbeclouded eyes!

Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o'er,
Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood,
Should fright us from the shore.

 

[CheekyGiRL07]

Poe, without a doubt

 

[trysail]

William Blake

"...Tyger, tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry..."

 

[trysail]

C. Fox Smith
"What The Old Man Said"

"... Them was the days, sonnies,
Them was the men,
Them was the ships,
As we'll ne'er see again.

Oh, but it was somethin'
Then to be alive—
Thrashin' under royals,
South o' Forty-Five!"

 

[The Mutt]

So many of my favorite poets have written poems that I really don't like.

Forced to choose, I'd have to say my favorite poet is me. Wait! I meant Shakespeare.

 

[Hooper_X]

Shakespeare, but more for poetical soliloquies from his plays than for his sonnets, e.g.

Now, until the break of day,
Through this house each fairy stray.
To the best bride-bed will we,
Which by us shall blessed be;
And the issue there create
Ever shall be fortunate.
So shall all the couples three
Ever true in loving be;
And the blots of Nature's hand
Shall not in their issue stand;
Never mole, hare lip, nor scar,
Nor mark prodigious, such as are
Despised in nativity,
Shall upon their children be.
With this field-dew consecrate,
Every fairy take his gait;
And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace, with sweet peace;
And the owner of it blest
Ever shall in safety rest.
Trip away; make no stay;
Meet me all by break of day.

 

[CharleyH]

Okay, I listened to Senna Jawa when he told me this and I have been reading many of my favorite poems.

Now, ya'll need to give me a hand - let me know who you think are 'truely' great poets and which are their great poems. If you have the time and the inclination, please tell me why you believe as you do.

Thanks, in advance, for your feedback.

First things first? Don't listen to Senna Jawa.

 

[twelveoone]

Bogusbrig liked "September 1, 1939" by W.H.Auden, while to me that poem is artistic garbage, which has nothing to do with poetry.

My god! How I love artistic garbage!
Really Senna, rumour has it your fav has always been Pat Sajak.

But to answer, despite his many limitations my favourite poet has always been...

myself.
It is the only poet I've ever slept with...

since WickedEve turned me down.

 

[annaswirls]

{grabbing twelveoone and tethering him to something sturdy (looking around... finding nothing and just holding tight) }

I was JUST thinking about you!!!!! Hi!!!

 

[twelveoone]

{grabbing twelveoone and tethering him to something sturdy (looking around... finding nothing and just holding tight) }

I was JUST thinking about you!!!!! Hi!!!

and as always,
my sweet,
I think about you!

this tethering thing has my interest

 

[annaswirls]

and as always,
my sweet,
I think about you!

this tethering thing has my interest

tether

it has been too long. I forgot how to do this.

Sorry for hijacking this thread

 

[bogusagain]

Bogusbrig liked "September 1, 1939" by W.H.Auden, while to me that poem is artistic garbage, which has nothing to do with poetry.

Bogusbrig here.

What a conservative and myopic comment but then, western culture is full of masterpieces that have been dismissed by artistic conservatives in such a way. Such comments are more a reflection on the people that make them than the works in question being commented on. If you really thought Auden's poem had no merit, I'm guessing you wouldn't have commented on it but you did and I suggest you did because it challenges your conservative views on poetry. If such conservatism was allowed its head, we would all still be living in caves.

I suppose Adrian Mitchell's comment was aimed at conservatives like you when he said ''Most people don't like most poetry because most poetry doesn't like most people.

I remember once you dismissed Marval's poem Dover Beach as just showy because you can't see the lights of France from there. Well, I'm either blind or I've got a similar imagination to Marvell because I've sat on the quayside at Dover and watched the lights from France. Apart from that, in Marvell's time, shining lights across the channel was one of the ways of communicating.

Oh well, so much for my little rant. Auden's poem is still good and is probably all the better for being dismissed by artistic conservatives.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Bogusbrig here.

Hey, long time no see! (sea? )

 

[oggbashan]

John Donne

Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed
by John Donne


Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe oft-times, having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing, though they never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glistering
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear
That th'eyes of busy fools may be stopped there:
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you that now 'tis your bed time.
Off with that happy busk, whom I envy
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown's going off such beauteous state reveals
As when from flowery meads th'hills shadow steals.
Off with your wiry coronet and show
The hairy diadem which on you doth grow.
Off with those shoes: and then safely tread
In this love's hallowed temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes heaven's angels used to be
Received by men; thou Angel bring'st with thee
A heaven like Mahomet's Paradise; and though
Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know
By this these Angels from an evil sprite:
They set out hairs, but these the flesh upright.


License my roving hands, and let them go
Behind before, above, between, below.
Oh my America, my new found land,
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned,
My mine of precious stones, my Empery,
How blessed am I in this discovering thee.
To enter in these bonds is to be free,
Then where my hand is set my seal shall be.


Full nakedness, all joys are due to thee.
As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be
To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use
Are as Atlanta's balls, cast in men's views,
That when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem
His earthly soul may covet theirs not them.
Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made
For laymen, are all women thus arrayed;
Themselves are mystic books, which only we
Whom their imputed grace will dignify
Must see revealed. Then since I may know,
As liberally as to a midwife show
Thyself; cast all, yea this white linen hence.
Here is no penance, much less innocence.


To teach thee, I am naked first: why then
What need'st thou have more covering than a man.

 

[bogusagain]

Hugo Claus. It's debatable whether he is my favourite. I've known of him for a long time but I've only recently got seriously into him. He was nominated quite a few times for the Nobel prize but never won, maybe because he was quite open about wanting the money more than the prize. Below is a good translation but as usual, the original language is best.


April in Paris
(in 1951,
when Charlie Parker was still alive)

The undulating bars of Avenue des Champs

oh high pale fields
there a child dances losing
helplessly all winter notes of sorrow and
death and hunger Goodbye hello grey days
among the plaster notes oh song of the parks

yes we are lost we want
rain and hail
not to return to that slow land
of oxen and potato fields and when I was in the polders
I would set fire to three villages there
and plant a tree there and build a house
and go to live there and blow on a horn
so the crows passed it on
so the ravens on fire flew out of the trees
so the young wood split and the land
trembled in furrows but I am in the light
you see me come and say hello
April day

Élysées and the street ends in a calm river
ends as one: hello Charlie how are you?

as if the summer comes without suspicion without
safe hands
not curbed not prevented by
– I already know I knew it I have
the whole time (time with hips and organs) known it –
the safe hands of knowledge and memory and
premature death and
so I was no more there tomorrow in the summer

yes ends as a: hello Charlie go and lie in the sand
the king drinks oh corals and ores
in me spattered apart

élysées

lower now and tender as the cobweb the slime of the hay-spider
like the coloured spotted pupil of a strong green animal

ah a hundred shrubs
blossoming edge of things
while in

élysées

– hello Charlie blood-stained goshawk high voice
that stalks my passages and causes me to walk with a new face
with an animal look through the summer evening street –

the three women of the morning clamber on each other
and the lanterns go out
while in the golden plain
the grey night-woman flees from the gardens
and the cardinal pees into the hedges

and yes listen
we greet each other
hello king
hello prince

and the conversation of the royalists lights up
our sleeping house and day takes cover
in the stumbling stones

the president will die
so does the very first newspaper vendor call to us
this too then we will survive once more

the night is a woman
oh a hundred thousand lips
and with the morning two identical mournful Chinamen
enter our waking house
and say unheard sentences with their hands
about castles or prisons
(they look through the bars of their fingers)

and we in this white and everyday Paris
we become water and flow open
and all at once have moved houses
and no longer find the morning and think Chinese
and dive under bridges and are the Seine

supposing the morning was Oriental
supposing cheng-wa now was: the sun rises
or was: the sun sets
or was: a large fish or fishfeed
or was: we want bread and have sleep

the hit-sick fingers of the day
stroke the face of the streets open

the day is a second woman
oh a hundred thousand lips.


also the original Flemish

April in Paris
(in 1951,
toen Charlie Parker nog leefde)

De golvende tralies der Avenue des Champs

o hoge bleke velden
daar danst een kind en verliest
onmachtig alle wintertonen van verdriet en
dood en honger Vaarwel dag grijze dagen
tussen de pleistertonen o zang der parken

ja wij zijn verloren wij willen
regen en hagel
niet meer wederkeren in dat traag land
van ossen en aardappelvelden en als ik in de polders was
ik stak er drie dorpen in brand
en plantte er een boom en bouwde een huis
en ging er wonen en blies op een horen
zodat de kraaien het overbrachten
zodat de raven doorvlamd uit de bomen vlogen
zodat het jonge hout spleet en het land
in voren beefde maar ik ben in het licht
gij ziet mij komen en spreken dag
April dag

Élysées en de straat eindigt in een kalme rivier
eindigt als een : dag Charlie hoe vaart gij?

zo de zomer komt zonder achterdocht zonder
veilige handen
niet geremd niet gehinderd door
– ik weet het al ik wist het ik heb het
de hele lange tijd (tijd met heupen en organen) geweten –
de veilige vingers van kennis en geheugen en
voortijdig sterven en
zo ik er morgen in de zomer niet meer was

ja eindigt als een: dag Charlie ga liggen in het zand
de koning drinkt o koralen en ertsen
in mij uit mekaar gespat

élysées

lager nu en teder als het rag het slijm der hooispin
als de gekleurde gevlekte pupil van een sterk groen dier

ah honderd heesters in palen in de straat en
ontbloeide rand der dingen
terwijl in

élysées

– dag Charlie bebloede havik hoge stem
die mijn gangen gaat en mij met een nieuw gelaat met
een dierenblik door de zomeravondstraat doet lopen –

de drie vrouwen van de morgen op mekaar klimmen
en de lantaarnen doven
terwijl in de gouden geschramde vlakte
de grauwe nachtvrouw uit de tuinen vlucht
en de kardinaal in de hagen watert

en ja hoor
wij groeten mekaar
dag koning
dag prins

en het gesprek der koningsgezinden verlicht
ons slapend huis en de dag gaat schuilen
in de struikelstenen

de president zal sterven
zo roept ons de allereerste dagbladventer tegen
ook dit zullen wij dus nog eens overleven

de nacht is een vrouw
o honderdduizend lippen
en met de morgen komen twee gelijke treurige Chinezen
in ons wakkerwordend huis
en zeggen ongehoorde zinnen met hun handen
over kastelen of gevangenissen
(zij kijken door de tralies van hun vingers)

en wij in dit wit en dagelijks Parijs
wij worden water en vloeien open
en zijn ineens verhuisd
en vinden de morgen niet meer en denken Chinees
en duiken onder bruggen en zijn de Seine

indien de morgen Oosters was
indien cheng-wa nu was : de zon gaat op
of was : de zon gaat onder
of was : een grote vis of vissenvoedsel
of was : wij willen brood en hebben slaap

de trefzieke vingers van de dag
strelen het gelaat der straten open

de dag is een tweede vrouw
o honderdduizend lippen.

 

[The Mutt]

"License my roving hands, and let them go
Behind, before, above, between, below."

Pervert.

 

[PrisonTeacher]

The 2 that matter

1. William Shakespeare

2. Emily Dickinson


All Western poetry flows from these two.

.

(Wow. Hundreds of poets named in this thread and Shakespeare is mentioned separately by only four?)

 

[champagne1982]

1. William Shakespeare

2. Emily Dickinson


All Western poetry flows from these two.

.

(Wow. Hundreds of poets named in this thread and Shakespeare is mentioned separately by only four?)

There's only one hundred... such exaggeration!

Welcome to the poetry forum.

 

[PrisonTeacher]

There's only one hundred... such exaggeration!

Welcome to the poetry forum.

Thanks, Champagne!

One hundred... such time on your hands to count!

All yours (after a fashion),

PT

 

[bogusagain]

1. William Shakespeare

2. Emily Dickinson


All Western poetry flows from these two.

Shakespeare I get but Emily Dickson?

Could you expand on this thesis?

 

[PrisonTeacher]

bogusagain:

I'm throwing down my favorites, so I'm prejudiced to be sure! I'm glad you agree with Shakespeare. Not just his intended works (published material like "Venus and Adonis"), but also his "prose" (plays) is an entire body of unmatched poetry.

Emily? The first, great English female poet of impact--and what an impact!

 

[eagleyez]

Gary Snyder is high on my list. His east-west melded path has resulted in a breadth and scope of writings, from the tiniest of chanting verse to essays on sustainability on the "Earth House Hold," with a body of poetry laid down for 6 decades. Hey, he's outlived the beat gang, of which he was a charter member.
His travels with Jack, his Letters to Allen, all intertwined in the time they spent together.

Snyder hails from the pacific northwest and the San Francisco bay area, which I share in common with him. The color of the mud, the stain of the grasses, the ocean in the air-I can physicalize these as I read his works. Local knowledge paying off.

I saw Snyder read once. In a Junior High School hall, circa 77, in Berekely. We got tickets by chance at a bookstore that day. It was the year after Turtle Island was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, but that element was abasent from the event. It opened as a benefit for his wife's dance school, The Balawarsi school of Dance, and Ms. Snyder performed Indian dance with a few others, as the crowd filled in readily. Seated down the row from my gang was Gov. Jerry Brown, a long time friend of Snyder's, accompanied by Linda Ronstahdt and some rather large but friendly men.

Snyder began by sitting on the floor in fron the of the dance stage, cracked an Olympia tall beer, (its a west coast thing) and proceeded to read from notes, books and memory. The scope of the material and the humor and ad libs made for a truly memorable night, topped off when one of the governors friends passed a half empty pint of Candian Mist our way, and we toasted the show with the gov, but didnt think it would do to send our herb back his way, in public that is. The whole night was a gas.

Here is one by Snyder that Ive always loved, especially now living ii Maine.




Old Bones

Out there walking round, looking out for food,
a rootstock, a birdcall, a seed that you can crack
plucking, digging, snaring, snagging,
barely getting by,

no food out there on dusty slopes of scree—
carry some—look for some,
go for a hungry dream.
Deer bone, Dall sheep,
bones hunger home.

Out there somewhere
a shrine for the old ones,
the dust of the old bones,
old songs and tales.

What we ate—who ate what—
how we all prevailed.