Poetry // Favourite Poems + Authors

[takeitdoen 10,627]

Since Violet has been released, I've noticed a lot of people are actively discussing poetry and sharing poems.

I'd love to read some of your favourites, so use this thread to discuss works and artists in the medium!

My favourites:

• Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell by Marty McConnell
• Wine by Raymond Carver

Lookin forward to it!

[Flowerbomb 65,594]

Buddhist New Year Song by Diane di Prima https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54974/buddhist-new-year-song

 

Resume by Dorothy Parker https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44835/resume-56d2241505225

 

Gloire de Dijon by D. H Lawrence https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47353/gloire-de-dijon

 

Ulalume by Edgar Allan Poe https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44889/to-ulalume-a-ballad

[IanadeIrey 62,021]

Love this idea! Some of my favourites:

 

A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47660/a-supermarket-in-california

 

Blackberrying by Sylvia Plath - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49004/blackberrying

 

Not Waving But Drowning by Stevie Smith - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46479/not-waving-but-drowning

[LosAlamos 44]

Okay, great idea for a thread!

 

Tristia by Osip Mandelstam

 

 

I have studied the Science of departures,
in night’s sorrows, when a woman’s hair falls down.
The oxen chew, there’s the waiting, pure,
in the last hours of vigil in the town,
and I reverence night’s ritual cock-crowing,
when reddened eyes lift sorrow’s load and choose
to stare at distance, and a woman’s crying
is mingled with the singing of the Muse.

Who knows, when the word ‘departure’ is spoken
what kind of separation is at hand,
or of what that cock-crow is a token,
when a fire on the Acropolis lights the ground,
and why at the dawning of a new life,
when the ox chews lazily in its stall,
the cock, the herald of the new life,
flaps his wings on the city wall?

I like the monotony of spinning,
the shuttle moves to and fro,
the spindle hums. Look, barefoot Delia’s running
to meet you, like swansdown on the road!
How threadbare the language of joy’s game,
how meagre the foundation of our life!
Everything was, and is repeated again:
it’s the flash of recognition brings delight.

So be it: on a dish of clean earthenware,
like a flattened squirrel’s pelt, a shape,
forms a small, transparent figure, where
a girl’s face bends to gaze at the wax’s fate.
Not for us to prophesy, Erebus, Brother of Night:
Wax is for women: Bronze is for men.
Our fate is only given in fight,
to die by divination is given to them.

 

 

 

 

Once The World Was Perfect by Joy Harjo

 

 

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

 

 

 

 

 

To Make A Prairie by Emily Dickinson

 

 

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,

One clover, and a bee.

And revery.

The revery alone will do,

If bees are few.

 

 

 

 

[Flowerbomb 65,594]

Love this idea! Some of my favourites:

 

A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47660/a-supermarket-in-california

 

I've always loved this one

[rightofjupiter 16,594]

Song by Brigit Pegeen Kelly

 

The Nude Swim by Anne Sexton

[takeitdoen 10,627]

Argh so many poems and poets I've never heard of. These selections are beautiful, thanks everyone! 

[ileftthisacchoneys 479]

okayyy, time to praise the king, carlos drummond de andrade!

 

here's a free translation of my favorite poems by him:
 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

the original ones:

http://www.horizonte.unam.mx/brasil/drumm1.html

https://contobrasileiro.com.br/verbo-ser-poema-de-carlos-drummond-de-andrade/

[BluebirdXO 7,679]

Most of my favorite poems are about death, so I decided to stay positive this time:

 

Learn To Live - Cora Coralina

Spoiler

I don’t know... If life is short
or too long for us.
But I know that nothing we endure
makes sense, if we don’t touch people's hearts.

Most times it’s enough to be:
the receptive shoulder
enveloping arm
comforting word
respectful silence
infectious joy
flowing tears
caressing look
gratifying wish
encouraging love.

And this is not something from another world.
It’s what gives meaning to life.
It's what makes life
neither short
nor too long.
But it would be intense
true, pure...
While it lasts.

 

Consolation at the Beach - Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Spoiler

Come on, don´t cry…

Childhood is lost.

Youth is lost.

But life is not lost.

 

The first love is over.

The second love is over.

The third love is over.

But the hurt goes on.

 

You have lost your best friend.

You haven´t tried any traveling.

You won no house, ship, or land.

But you look at the sea.

 

You haven´t written the perfect book.

You haven´t read the best books

Nor have you love music enough.

But you own a dog.

 

A few harsh words,

In a low voice, have hurt you,.

Never, never have they healed.

But what about humor?

 

There is no resolution for injustice.

In the shadow of this wrong world

You have whispered a timid protest.

But others will come.

 

All summed up, you should

Throw yourself — once and for all — into the waters.

You are naked on the sand, in the wind…

Sleep, my son.

 

Song of the Wind and My Life - Manuel Bandeira

Spoiler

The wind swept away the leaves
The wind swept away the fruits
The wind swept away the flowers
          And still my life was left
          Fuller than ever
          Of flowers fruits and leaves.

The wind swept away the lights
The wind swept away the music
The wind swept away the perfumes
          And still my life was left
          Fuller than ever
          Of perfumes star and songs.

The wind swept away my dreams
And swept away too my friends…
The wind swept away my women…
          And still my life was left
          Fuller than ever
          Of loves and women.

The wind swept away the months
And swept away too your similes…
The wind swept all away!
          And still my life was left
          Fuller than ever
          Of everything.

 

The Gates of Midnight - Cecília Meireles

Spoiler

The angels come to open the gates of midnight,

at the very moment when sleep is deepest

and silence most pervasive.

 

The gates wheel open and unexpectedly we sigh.

 

The angels come with their music,

their tunics billowing with celestial breezes,

and they sin in their fluid incomprehensible tongue.

 

Then the trees burst forth with blossoms and fruit,

the moon and the sun intertwine their beams,

the rainbow unwinds its ribbons

and all the animals appear,

mingled with the stars.

 

The angels come to open the gates of midnight.

 

And we understand that there is no more time,

that this is the last vision,

 

that our hands are already lifted for goodbyes,

that our feet at last are freed form the earth,

freed for that flight, announced and dreamed

since the beginning of births.

 

The angels extend us their divine invitations.

And we dream that we are no longer dreaming.

 

[Flowerbomb 65,594]

Bumping this thread 

 

Song in a Minor Key by Dorothy Parker

Spoiler

    There's a place I know where the birds swing low,
        And wayward vines go roaming,
    Where the lilacs nod, and a marble god
        Is pale, in scented gloaming.
    And at sunset there comes a lady fair
        Whose eyes are deep with yearning.
    By an old, old gate does the lady wait
        Her own true love's returning.

    But the days go by, and the lilacs die,
      And trembling birds seek cover;
  Yet the lady stands, with her long white hands
      Held out to greet her lover.
  And it's there she'll stay till the shadowy day
      A monument they grave her.
  She will always wait by the same old gate, —
      The gate her true love gave her.

 

The Garden by Moonlight by Amy Lowell

Spoiler

A black cat among roses,

Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon,

The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock.

The garden is very still,   

It is dazed with moonlight,

Contented with perfume,

Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.

Firefly lights open and vanish   

High as the tip buds of the golden glow

Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet.

Moon-shimmer on leaves and trellises,

Moon-spikes shafting through the snow ball bush.   

Only the little faces of the ladies’ delight are alert and staring,

Only the cat, padding between the roses,

Shakes a branch and breaks the chequered pattern

As water is broken by the falling of a leaf.

Then you come,

And you are quiet like the garden,

And white like the alyssum flowers,   

And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies.

Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies?

They knew my mother,

But who belonging to me will they know

When I am gone.

 

Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe

Spoiler

Gaily bedight,

   A gallant knight,

In sunshine and in shadow,   

   Had journeyed long,   

   Singing a song,

In search of Eldorado.

 

   But he grew old—

   This knight so bold—   

And o’er his heart a shadow—   

   Fell as he found

   No spot of ground

That looked like Eldorado.

 

   And, as his strength   

   Failed him at length,

He met a pilgrim shadow—   

   ‘Shadow,’ said he,   

   ‘Where can it be—

This land of Eldorado?’

 

   ‘Over the Mountains

   Of the Moon,

Down the Valley of the Shadow,   

   Ride, boldly ride,’

   The shade replied,—

‘If you seek for Eldorado!’

 

[Flowerbomb 65,594]

I discovered a poem by Sylvia Plath a few nights ago. I've always liked her poetry but for some reason I never read her most famous one.

 

'Daddy'

 

Spoiler

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time—-
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You——

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two—-
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

 

I like how this poem tells us she tried to find her father in her husband. It sort of reminds me of Text Book 

[Edelweiss 183]

I Am Vertical. Sylvia Plath

But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
Sucking up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.

 

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and the flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them --
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.

[MagicalTrancePotion 1,675]

On 12/6/2021 at 8:18 AM, Arcadia said:

I discovered a poem by Sylvia Plath a few nights ago. I've always liked her poetry but for some reason I never read her most famous one.

 

'Daddy'

 

  Hide contents

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time—-
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You——

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two—-
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

 

I like how this poem tells us she tried to find her father in her husband. It sort of reminds me of Text Book 

 

Have you ever listened to the audio of her reading this one? I think you should be able to find it on youtube.

[drugmunny 8,880]

love this thread.

my all time fave: porphyrias lover by robert browning

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46313/porphyrias-lover

[cherrytropico 11,076]

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond - e.e. cummings

───── ♡ ─────

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, 

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

 

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers, 

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

 

or if your wish be to close me,i and 

my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

 

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals 

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

 

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

[one time beauty queen 18,411]

Leonard Cohen - Full Employment (excerpt)

 

I see you in windows
that open so wide
there’s nothing beyond them,
and nothing inside.

 

You take off your sandals
you shake out your hair,
your beauty dismantled
and worn everywhere.

 

The story’s been written.
The letter’s been sealed.
You gave me a lily,
but now it’s a field.

[The Sun Also Rises 5,572]

39 minutes ago, cherrytropico said:

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond - e.e. cummings

───── ♡ ─────

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, 

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

 

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers, 

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

 

or if your wish be to close me,i and 

my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

 

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals 

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

 

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

 

What a coincidence! I literally took out my vintage ee cummings book and re-read this one today! It is beautiful, one of my favourites too 

[Stoned Mary in the Garden 6,787]

Spoiler

 

[cunt 8]

Emily Dickinson is one of my all time favorite poets. I have other poems that I like better, but the Master letters remind me a lot of Lana. Here's a snippet:

Quote

 

"I will never be tired —

I will never be noisy

when you want to be

still — I will be

your best little girl —"

 

Really reminds me of Lana — "I promise you'll barely even notice me / Unless you want to notice me".

 

[Cult Leader 5,273]

The Garden of Proserpine by Algernon Charles Swinburne  - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45288/the-garden-of-proserpine