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Poetry
- Thread starter Gem
- Start date
Stewart
Active Member
Kenny Shovel
Active Member
I wouldn't profess to be an expert but here are some of my favourite poets:
Anna Akhmatova
Charles Baudelaire
Alexsandr Blok
Charles Bukowski
Lord Byron
Wilfred Owen
Sylvia Plath
Pushkin
Siegfried Sassoon
Wislawa Szymborsa
Maria Tsvetaeva
W.E. Yeats
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
My least favourite is probably Pablo Neruda.
Anna Akhmatova
Charles Baudelaire
Alexsandr Blok
Charles Bukowski
Lord Byron
Wilfred Owen
Sylvia Plath
Pushkin
Siegfried Sassoon
Wislawa Szymborsa
Maria Tsvetaeva
W.E. Yeats
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
My least favourite is probably Pablo Neruda.
Kookamoor
New Member
Gem
kickbox
Thank you for the link Stewart - Morgan is definetly unique. He has a huge collection of work, of which i've read very very little, but One Cigarette comes to mind. I will eventually get a copy of From Glasgow to Saturn.
Kenny, that is one, if you'll excuse the expression, hellava list. I've only read poems by about six of those. After following your links, of the others Yevtushenko seems strangely appealing. But i think i'll wait untill i'm sufficiently tanked up on caffiene before i venture into Russian territory again(i used to be addicted to Russian history - it wasn't a pretty time for my friends and family - but i'm thinking that if i fall off the wagon then i might get some alone time at Christmas).
You don't like Pablo Neruda? i think i like you more and more Kenny. A good friend of mine is enamoured with his work and finds him to be very passionate, but to me his work seems very 'teenage boy in the midst of his first crush'.
Kookamoor, I'm just ambling through Robert Frosts work and absolutely loving it, undecided on a favourite yet. (ps. the new outfit is great)
Kenny, that is one, if you'll excuse the expression, hellava list. I've only read poems by about six of those. After following your links, of the others Yevtushenko seems strangely appealing. But i think i'll wait untill i'm sufficiently tanked up on caffiene before i venture into Russian territory again(i used to be addicted to Russian history - it wasn't a pretty time for my friends and family - but i'm thinking that if i fall off the wagon then i might get some alone time at Christmas).
You don't like Pablo Neruda? i think i like you more and more Kenny. A good friend of mine is enamoured with his work and finds him to be very passionate, but to me his work seems very 'teenage boy in the midst of his first crush'.
Kookamoor, I'm just ambling through Robert Frosts work and absolutely loving it, undecided on a favourite yet. (ps. the new outfit is great)
Libre
Member
I'm no expert, but...
Ozymandius is one of the greates poems ever written. And it's so applicable.
My favorite of all might be The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner - about 500 times the length of Ozymandius, though.
William Blake; Robert Frost; Kipling, Emmerson, Emily Dickenson, Edna St. Vincent Millay.
It takes a REALLY great poem to catch my attention though - unlike a book which can really be schlock and I might still like it.
Ozymandius is one of the greates poems ever written. And it's so applicable.
My favorite of all might be The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner - about 500 times the length of Ozymandius, though.
William Blake; Robert Frost; Kipling, Emmerson, Emily Dickenson, Edna St. Vincent Millay.
It takes a REALLY great poem to catch my attention though - unlike a book which can really be schlock and I might still like it.
KristoCat
New Member
Kenny! Baudelaire... yesssssssss 
Have you read it in the French or just in translation?
I also LOVE T.S. Eliot. "The Waste Lands" is just indescribable in its beauty and depth. Here's my favorite passage:
"'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence."
I like Adrienne Rich too. Her revision of John Donne's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" (which is also good) is really interesting. Here's a part of it:
"I want you to see this before I leave:
the experience of repetition as death
the failure of criticism to locate the pain
the poster in the bus that said:
my bleeding is under control."
Have you read it in the French or just in translation?I also LOVE T.S. Eliot. "The Waste Lands" is just indescribable in its beauty and depth. Here's my favorite passage:
"'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence."
I like Adrienne Rich too. Her revision of John Donne's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" (which is also good) is really interesting. Here's a part of it:
"I want you to see this before I leave:
the experience of repetition as death
the failure of criticism to locate the pain
the poster in the bus that said:
my bleeding is under control."
Kenny Shovel
Active Member
As he was to Shostakovich who used a number of poems by Yevtushenko to form the heart of his Thirteenth Symphony:Gem said:
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2005/09/shostakovich_sy.php
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...r=11-1/ref=sr_11_1/002-4254134-9535264?n=5174
If you're interested enough to want to root out some of his stuff then this is a good place to dip your toe. Sergo may or may not be able to give further guidence from a Russian point-of-view, I seem to remember he has some scars from learning Russian Poetry at school!
I'm a fairly straight forward, straight talking guy, and Neruda is just too 'hedgehog explosion against unicorn rainbow' for my tastes...Gem said:
I have a couple of English translations, one by Walter Martin for Carcanet Press and one by James McGowen for Oxford World Classics; both have the French originals on the oposite page to the English versions. It's interesting to compare the two English translations against each other.Kristocat said:
I also used to have versions of a few favourite poems in Russian given to me by a Ukrainain friend, as well as her translations of them into English.
Regards,
K-S
mehastings
Active Member
I don't care for "traditional" (ie verse) poetry outside of the occasional sonnet. I do, however, like weird bits of prose poetry like Letters to Wendy's (which I would love a copy of) and stuff by Russell Edson.
Gem
kickbox
Thank you Libre 
It sure is a monumental poem.
here's a link to it if anyone else is interesed (as you can see i have no idea how to hide the link)http://swarthmore.edu/~apreset1/docs/if.html
It sure is a monumental poem.
here's a link to it if anyone else is interesed (as you can see i have no idea how to hide the link)http://swarthmore.edu/~apreset1/docs/if.html
Libre
Member
Oh yeah - I don't know why I didn't think of posting the link instead of just the first 2 lines - but sometimes the most obvious solution to a problem is the one I think of last. I would have just pasted the whole poem into my post - but I'm unclear about whether we are allowed to do that. I'm pretty sure it must be public domain (Kipling died in 1936) but who knows?
Another poem I must recommend is Hamatreya by Emerson.
http://www.rwe.org/poems_of_RWE/Hamatreya.htm
You may have to read it a few times to "get it". I mean no offense if the meaning is crystal clear. But I had to chew on it a bit.
Another poem I must recommend is Hamatreya by Emerson.
http://www.rwe.org/poems_of_RWE/Hamatreya.htm
You may have to read it a few times to "get it". I mean no offense if the meaning is crystal clear. But I had to chew on it a bit.
Gem
kickbox
Thank you Libre, I'm just grateful for the help.
I've never really read any Emerson before, so i had no idea what to expect.
I loved the language, and the simple truth of the poem made me sigh - I come from a family of farmers - all of whom have passed away,but the land and fields they tilled are still there.
The following passage was the highlight of the poem for me ;
"Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds:
And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.
Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave."
Thank you for the recommendation Libre
I've never really read any Emerson before, so i had no idea what to expect.
I loved the language, and the simple truth of the poem made me sigh - I come from a family of farmers - all of whom have passed away,but the land and fields they tilled are still there.
The following passage was the highlight of the poem for me ;
"Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds:
And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.
Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave."
Thank you for the recommendation Libre
Libre
Member
Yes - that passage is the highlight.
If you come from a family of farmers, perhaps you've meditated on this before. Anytime there is a dispute about who owns some land - be it a little plot or a whole country, I think about how land ownership is a total illusion. It's as impossible to truly own land as it is to own a person. Maybe more so. Nothing in literature says it as well as Emerson does in that poem.
If you come from a family of farmers, perhaps you've meditated on this before. Anytime there is a dispute about who owns some land - be it a little plot or a whole country, I think about how land ownership is a total illusion. It's as impossible to truly own land as it is to own a person. Maybe more so. Nothing in literature says it as well as Emerson does in that poem.
Libre
Member
Here, in my humble opinion, is one of the greates poems EVER WRITTEN. It has some of the same moral point as Hamatreya, written with incredibly beautiful art and skillful imagery.
It was published in 1818 so I think I'm pretty safe as far as public domain and copyright goes.
Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley
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 shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is 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.
It was published in 1818 so I think I'm pretty safe as far as public domain and copyright goes.
Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley
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 shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is 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.