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Favorite Poet?


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My favourite poet is Giuseppe Ungaretti. This is one of my favourite poems by him:

 

Soldiers

 

There we are

like leaves on

trees, in Autumn

 

He wrote that in the trenches during WW1. I think that in those three verses he managed to explain so thoroughly how soldiers feel when in war.

 

I am entirely with you on this one, I find Ungaretti's poems so powerful.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have always loved Baudelaire as I feel he is a poet I came to by myself.

 

I also love W. B Yeats and mapping his poetry into his political and spiritual life. 

 

I have well thumbed editions of both poets with random notes and sticky tabs all over them. 

 

One of my favourites is Edward Thomas, who I think is overlooked a great deal.  My favourite poem is Rain by Edward Thomas

 

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.      

 

And finally, Louis MacNeice.  His poem Snow was the first to make me sit back and comprehend the power of language in poetry.

 

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes -
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands -
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.
 

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  • 2 weeks later...

John Donne is without a doubt my favourite.

 

I love how deliciously cheeky he was with his typography and innuendo! And his divine poetry is simply breathtaking. It might sound morbid, but I'm definitely having 'Death be not proud' read at my funeral.

Edited by Cumberbabe
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  • 4 weeks later...

I think Kathleen Jamie’s poetry is beautiful and she's probably my favourite poet at the moment. My favourites are the Wishing Tree (from The Tree House, 2004) and The Overhaul (from The Overhaul, 2012).  She is preoccupied with how we relate to the natural world. The poems are hopeful and tender, although alert to threat and shadow. Here's a link to the Wishing Tree:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19557

Edited by Brook
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Thanks for reminding me about her nature writing Chesilbeach - I've been meaning to read some for ages as I have only read her poetry so far. I will get hold of one of the above soon.

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  • 2 months later...

Hello

Still finding my feet here and came across this post

 

Dylan Thomas is one of my favourites especially Under Milkwood

Hilarious

 

Pleased to meet you by the way :smile:

I loved Under Milkwood too, Philip.  The opening lines are just wonderful '“It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobbledstreets silent and the hunched courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.”  

 

And welcome :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Definitely Thomas Hardy

I like Hardy's poem, The Darkling Thrush.

 

One of my favourite poets is Emily Dickinson.  I especially like her nature poems.  Other favourites:  D. H. Lawrence (Snake), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Hiawatha), E. Pauline Johnson (Thistle-down), Percy Bysshe Shelley (Love's Philosophy), Christina Georgina Rossetti (What is Pink?) - to name just a few.

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I like Shakespeare writing.

I've read some of Shakespeare's poetry, but sometimes the language defeats me.  One of my goals is to be able to understand and enjoy his plays and sonnets more.  I've recently found a wonderful website that is very helpful.  http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com

 

from Sonnet XXXIII

 

Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;

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I like composing my own things based on casual thoughts.

They seem to be unimportant but once you collect them, after a while, they became valuable for you.

Also it's interesting how they can reflect different "eras" you are going through . . .

 

Virtual People

 

 


sometimes I read fiction

before sleep

or listen to radio drama

 

and than I have a dreams

in a sleep

about what I've just red

or what I've just heard

before sleep

 

than I weak up

and I don't know

if it was real

before sleep

or it was dream

in a sleep

 

and I speak with people

and don't know

if that happend

or if it was just fiction

before sleep

 

so maybe some things

never happend

but I think

they did

 

and who cares?

 

---

And I've got more on my blog ☞  http://www.ismolik.com/tagged/poem

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  • 7 months later...

by the way, I wanted to get in this thread and point out Elizabeth Barrett Browning, woman is amazing! If you really want to get into some good reading material for poetry, I'd suggest anyone give her 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' a read. I think its a cycle of 40 some sonnets written during her courtship with her husband to be at the time, and she didn't show them to him until after they married, had kids. She kept them from him until one day when his mother died, she gave them to him to lift his spirits. And what's more interesting is that the title 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' was a ruse, pawning them off as translations of Portuguese poems, in order to throw the public off the notion that they could ever be her originals and could therefore possibly be about her and Robert Browning's courtship or love life.

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I noticed Sylvia Plath was mentioned, I also enjoy reading her poetry. Her imagery is wonderful.

I'm also a fan of Anne Sexton, I find her poems to be raw, and about the nitty gritty parts of life.

 

I've started listening more to performance poetry after listening to Sarah Kay on TED:

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JQgz2AhHaQg

 

I love how her expressions and body gestures contribute to the poem and make it real for the rest of us.

Edited by Angury
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wow! that link to the Sarah Kay spoken word was great! i was in tears by the end of it, and am still a little touched by it. That is what it's all about!

 

thanks for sharing, meant a lot Angury, you know

Glad you liked it. :)

 

This is my favourite spoken word poetry though:

 

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