Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Following on from the conversation about poetry in the short stories topic, I've created this thread for us to discuss poetry further.

Does anyone read poetry on a regular basis? Have any favourites? Or are you as apprehensive as me in tackling this form of literature?

I don't read on a regular basis but I love Robert Frost and Robert Burns. I tend to get nervous about poetry but some is very easy for me to read.

Thanks Pink, perhaps this will prove to be a spark that becomes a small flame. I have no background and have very few poems. I have been reading Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass off on over the last two years. I have enjoyed some of his poems, but for a lot of them I'm just reading the words. It is discouraging and usually ends my reading for a couple of months.

The only poem that has stood the test of time for me was written by Robert Frost. I can't recall the name nor can I recite it by heart. It's about a traveler coming to a fork in the road and it has always stuck with me.

I hope I might learn something here.

It's "The Road Not Taken" Bob. It's one of my favorite poems :)

That's one my favorites also Sarah. Another great Frost poem is "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".

That is a really good one. I also love "Fire and Ice". For such a short poem, it packs a serious punch :)

Sarah wrote: "That is a really good one. I also love "Fire and Ice". For such a short poem, it packs a serious punch :)"

It does indeed.

One of my Favorites is I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth. You can read it here (and many other places too): http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/...

That has very vivid imagery. I love the lake and the daffodils. It sounds like a lovely place to spend time.

I don't think I've read any poetry by Frost. I have read some Wordsworth and Burns, but struggled with both. Over the past couple of years I've tried a few different poetry collections, old and new, as I've been trying to get to grips with this format. However, if anyone looks through my poetry shelf they'll see a lot of 1 and 2 star rated books, even Shakespeare, which is sacrilege! I didn't get on very well with T.S. Elliot, John Donne, Tennyson, or Emily Dickinson, even though I found some of their individual poems brilliant.

I seem to get on better with more recent poets. I love Sylvia Plath and after delaying reading him for years I finally tried Ted Hughes and thought he was fantastic. I've also liked some poetry by Maya Angelou, and Langston Hughes, especially those that dealt with issues of race.

This past week I've read The Hunting of the Snark which is a nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll and I really enjoyed it. I'm sure I missed lots of the hidden meaning though.

I think it helps to study, or at least discuss poetry and I guess that's why I struggle to understand the meaning, especially in older poems. Or perhaps I'm just too simple minded!

Pink, I think you're right, if you read poetry by yourself it's so much more difficult! I've read a few older poems with a college class and really got them, but when I read William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, there was a lot in the second half that I just didn't get - and not because he was harder to understand than what we'd read in that class.

Of what I've read, I really loved Shakespare's Mine Eye hath played the Painter. Such a gorgeous sonnet.

Just last week I finally received my version of the complete Emily Dickinson poems - The Poems of Emily Dickinson Reading Edition. I highly recommend it, as apparently it's the only version of her work that hasn't been altered for publication. For instance other versions remove most of her dashes and other little things that (in my world at least lol) can make a huge difference. I haven't begun it yet though, only looked through it, it kinda scares me!

I'm with Pink in doing better with modern poets. I read enough classic Romantic poetry in school and it's not my thing. I enjoyed reading Plath years ago and would like to take another look at her work. This year I read Ballistics by Billy Collins who was a poet laureate of the US at one time. These poems were pretty bleak but at least understandable to me. And from what I read it isn't considered his best work, so I would like to read more of his poetry.

I was never interested in poetry, reading it or exploring it. Thanks in part to my joining this group and beginning to read classics, it has broadened my horizons. I have realized many things including my appreciation for just plain good writing and writers who 'have a way with words'. Reading Mrs Dalloway, which was tough, really touched me by just how beautiful and lyrical VW'S writing was, even when I struggled grasping the meaning.

I came across House Of Light, a book of poems by Mary Oliver, in another group here. She is an American poet, very well known (not to me!), awards and all. Just so happens she writes a lot about nature so that clicked and I jumped in!

If you are interested, there is another group here that posts a poem every Monday which I joined specifically for that, and poems.com posts a daily poem, which I get through my Twitter feed. I'm now listening to some poems by Mary Oliver and really enjoying it...and trying not to be intimidated in this new endeavor.

My most newbie observation so far is birds are used...a lot...for imagery and symbolism, which being a birder is a very happy discovery!

ETA: It also looks like we might be starting a little something here... :)

Mary Oliver is one of my favorites. I really liked The Leaf And The Cloud: A Poem.

I read poetry pretty regularly, but I should be reading more. Some of my other favorite poets are: Elizabeth Bishop, Yusef Komunyakaa, James Dickey, Carolyn Forché, Louise Erdrich, John Wieners and May Swenson.

I love coming across a poem that makes me think - I've felt that! That exact feeling, I've felt that before!

This poem by E.E. Cummings, my favorite love poem, does that for me: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/9240/

The emotion is strong, clear and beautiful. I have no idea what isters are. I think it's just something cummings made up, but within the context of the poem, it feels perfectly right.


I'm a big fan of metaphor. I like the way the act of comparison can lead me to new levels of understanding.
Another short poem: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/be...

I like how Howard Nemerov compares the difference between prose and poetry to what a meteorologist would call "a light wintry mix." This poem does a great job of using metaphor to make a nuanced response to a complex, subjective question in just a few words.

Here's another one of my favorite short poems by Louise Erdrich: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/...

I didn't know Erdrich did poetry. So the own in Love Medicine was probably written by her. I like this Windigo poem and I should definitely look for more.

Sarah wrote: "It's "The Road Not Taken" Bob. It's one of my favorite poems :)"

Thanks Sarah, It must have struck a cord with me, its been at least 40 years since I read this. No wonder poetry has power, 40 years is a long time to remember something only read once.

That is. It's funny how things stick with you.

Susie, I've never heard of Mary Oliver, but that isn't surprising for me.

Nathan, thanks for posting about your favourite poets and poems. I'll take a look at them now. The link to the E.E. Cummings poem doesn't work, which one of his was it?

Growing up I got an impressions that poetry was boring and vain. Maybe this was influenced by the way it was teached or sometimes generally hostile attitudes to learning and higher culture in particular by my classmates. I remember associating all "higher culture" with classical music, it was something I did not understand and I had to still learn. I remember learning some music theory (I guess scales and modes) purely by memorizing how to draw them and never understanding a bit how it related to anything when I was around 10 years old. I got good grades but learned to hate classical music and everything I associated it with.

I read something every now and then trough my teens, but couple of years ago I kind of got hooked to books. Then I wanted to know about classical books, and decided to read Harold Bloom's "The Western Canon". The way he writes about poetry with genuine enthusiasm got me interested in poetry and so I decided to try reading poetry.

Understanding what was written was really hard at first (and for some reason I decided to start with Blake and Baudelaire), but searching some notes on the Internet and reading the poems multiple times really helped me to get started. Now looking back at my education, biggest regret for me is not fighting enough in high school to get to French classes (which were full and they decided to only give them to older pupils before absolutely stopping to give them).

Just like Nathan, I love poems that make me think. It is really hard to explain as English is not my native language, but some poems give these really strong "mental images" to me that I associate with feelings and memories. For example Rimbaud's Marine got me back at my home town to time when I was a kid, looking at sailing ships at the port and running at the large fields near our home. Love poems of Pablo Neruda got me thinking about my current relationship and also instantly brought back some great memories. I think that to like love poems one needs to have experiences with love though, I for one would have been left cold even just couple of years ago. "Carrion" by Baudelaire was quite a discomforting read, but for some reason it was so powerful it punched itself into my memory. Memories evoked were not happy, but common and basic, that of disappointment in love and realization of the limits of my own life.


The poems I talked about:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/a...
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/9920/ever...
http://writinghorrorfiction.blogspot....

Miikka, I think you've explained very well how poems make you think and feel. It's a shame you didn't have good experiences with literature and music when you were younger, but I think that's quite common. Classical music and poetry can be seen as 'higher culture' but of course they can be enjoyed by anyone, even if they're not fully understood. I'm glad that you've returned to them now and your enthusiasm shows. Thanks for posting links to the poems you've mentioned, I haven't heard of them, so it's nice to discover something new, I'll take a look now.

I am very new to reading poetry but those 3 you listed Miikka, are very powerful and incredibly different! They provoke an immense range of thoughts and feelings and are a great example of what I am discovering...so much amazing poetry and poets to sample!
I have taken to reading 2-3 poems a day, trying to let them just wash over me and see where they take me. Some have been incredibly moving and touch me deeply, other completely baffle me and some do nothing for me, but I am enjoying the discovery!

Pink, I had never heard of Mary Oliver either til I came across one of her books that was a monthly read for another group here...but I guess it was time!

Miikka, thank you for sharing those wonderful poems.

The last line of the Neruda poem is wonderful - saucy and sweet.

"Carrion" does an excellent job of evoking multiple senses - the sound...ew.

Susie, 2-3 poems a day is a great goal. I need to discipline myself to do something like that too. My reaction tends to be like yours - some of them really click for me, some give me something but I can't articulate what and some just seem like random word salad.

Thanks, for the poems that here were shared,
Some I enjoyed, others not so much.
I still feel a dunce, for not understanding much.
Some made good sense, others not so much.
I will struggle to try, and do better till I die.
But poetry, may prove to be, too much.


I am enjoying this thread.

I'm enjoying it too Bob. I particularly liked Every day you play by Neruda (thanks Maarrit) and I read a few more of his poems. They are very romantic and loving, which isn't usually my thing, but they were very beautiful.

Nathan wrote: "Miikka, thank you for sharing those wonderful poems.

The last line of the Neruda poem is wonderful - saucy and sweet.

"Carrion" does an excellent job of evoking multiple senses - the sound...ew.
..."

Nathan, I snooped around your Poetry shelf a little and you've given me another resource to explore some different poets... :)

A link came across my twitter feed from Poetry Daily today. It is an article about poetry and politics in Iran, in view of the potentially momentous deal reached today in Vienna between Iran and the '5 +1' group.
There is a lot of history discussed and examples of where poetry has been used during the current negotiations. It is a very interesting read.

Because this is a very sensitive issue for many folks, I hope it's ok to post...if not let me know and I will delete it.

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...

Susie, I think that's fine to post, but the link doesn't work for me.

Susie wrote: "Nathan, I snooped around your Poetry shelf a little and you've given me another resource to explore some different poets... :) "

Cool! I hope you end up finding some new poets you really like.

Pink..try this one...

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...

I opened it from this link so hope it works now!

Interesting article, Susie. I don't know anything about Persian poetry and really didn't know that they had such a long history of poetic tradition. It kind of sad to see that new forms of poetry have been seen as very threatening to some Iranians.

Susie, that link worked fine, thanks. An interesting article about a rich and complex culture. I don't think I've read any Persian poetry before, but then I haven't read much poetry outside of the Western world. I should probably change this.

As you may already know I don't like poetry that much.
The only poems I've got a connection to are those I had to learn by heart as a child. I've tried to find English translations and here they are:
http://johnmaynard.net/TayEnglish.pdf
http://ingeb.org/Lieder/werreite.html
http://blog.ac-rouen.fr/clg-montesqui...

Phil, at least you try! Thanks for posting the links :)

I also prefer the ones which tell a story.

Thank you for posting the links, Emily!

Yesterday evening I found another one
http://germanstories.vcu.edu/schiller...

My favourite poem at the moment has only four lines. I found a page which gives three translations. The second is horrible and the third I like best. None is perfect, but I think the third conveys the message best.
http://myweb.dal.ca/waue/Trans/Eichen...

It's a rainy morning. A quick look at GR and back to work. And I find this very nice thread about poetry. I think about Oscar Wilde enthralling description of a morning in The Picture of Dorian Gray and decide to share this nice poem that he wrote. Good morning whenever/wherever you wake up. :)

The sky is laced with fitful red, 
The circling mists and shadows flee, 
The dawn is rising from the sea, 
Like a white lady from her bed. 

And jagged brazen arrows fall 
Athwart the feathers of the night, 
And a long wave of yellow light 
Breaks silently on tower and hall, 

And spreading wide across the wold 
Wakes into flight some fluttering bird, 
And all the chestnut tops are stirred, 
And all the branches streaked with gold.

by Oscar Wilde

Thanks for sharing the poem :)

Thanks for sharing, Milena. I wish the sunrise looked like that where I am today. It's a gray rainy morning here with the first snow of the season mixed in. :/

My coffee is delicious though!

Thanks for sharing the links everyone.
I think I will check each one slowly.

I enjoyed poem in high school when studying them was part of my curriculum. But then, I stopped reading them, as it was not required anymore . Mostly because I loved novels and I thought I did not enjoy poems .
Doing the Bingo last year with this group helped renew my intersest in them.
For the poem square I read Collected Poems of Robert Burns and had fun reading about him and the translation of his poems. I loved his voice in my head.esp. the scottish words.
Some poems I really enjoyed and made me think.

For this years Bingo, I am reading The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson and enjoying them.I am trying to read at least 5 poems a day.she was rec to me by Loretta. (Thanks Loretta!).
I also , hope to read Keats: Poems and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Poems this year as part of my Challenges.

Last year , I also enjoyed The Odyssey and The Golden Gate which are stories in verse.

I remember enjoying The highwayman from high school.very haunting.we enjoyed it as a class, if I am remembering correctly.
I also remember loving The solitary reaper and a poem about life having seven stages I dont remember the title .Shakespeare sonnet?

Lovely poem Milena.
Thanks.

Kathy wrote: "One of my Favorites is I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth. You can read it here (and many other places too): http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/..."

Beautiful poem Kathy.
Lovely imagery .I can see the daffodils dancing in the air and them spread out beside a lake.
A cheerful , happy picture .
And the diary entry by Dorothy Wordsworth was beautiful too.

My favorite poem is "Cliff Klingenhagen" by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Cliff Klingenhagen had me in to dine
With him one day; and after soup and meat,
And all the other things there were to eat,
Cliff took two glasses and filled one with wine
And one with wormwood. Then, without a sign
For me to choose at all, he took the draught
Of bitterness himself, and lightly quaffed
It off, and said the other one was mine.

And when I asked him what the deuce he meant
By doing that, he only looked at me
And smiled, and said it was a way of his.
And though I know the fellow, I have spent
Long time a-wondering when I shall be
As happy as Cliff Klingenhagen is.

For longer poems, the mock-epic "The Rape of the Lock" by Alexander Pope is tops with me:

What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things...

siriusedward wrote: "Thanks for sharing the links everyone.
I think I will check each one slowly.

I enjoyed poem in high school when studying them was part of my curriculum. But then I never read anything more after t..."

Oh my goodness siriusedward, you're welcome! I'm so glad you're enjoying them! :)

I love poetry although I don't read it often enough. I need to rectify that! :)

I'm so glad to see new posts here.
Pink had a good idea to create this thread.
I enjoyed every poem that was posted and it's good to see that I'm not the only one. :-))

I have been reading a lot of poetry lately, mainly for challenges, but I have found myself thoroughly enjoying the poems. They are so personal and touching and find it refreshing to read a book of poems instead of a book before bedtime. I have recently read:
Gwendolyn Brooks and Joy Harjo. The work of Jacquelyn Woodson is poetic in nature. And someone recommended Warsan Shire. I am hoping to find ideas here.

I have always loved poetry and when I was young, even toyed a bit writing some of my own - not very good, sadly.

I particularly have a thing for the Elizabethan poets - Spenser, Marlowe and Donne, especially Donne. Also the Romantics - Blake, Wordsworth. I also love Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson. Perhaps my favorite poem of all is by Dickinson:

HOPE is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I ’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Pamela wrote: "I have always loved poetry and when I was young, even toyed a bit writing some of my own - not very good, sadly.

I particularly have a thing for the Elizabethan poets - Spenser, Marlowe and Donne..."


I love that too..

And

.A Book
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul

- Emily Dickinson

siriusedward wrote: "Pamela wrote: "I have always loved poetry and when I was young, even toyed a bit writing some of my own - not very good, sadly.

I particularly have a thing for the Elizabethan poets - Spenser, Ma..."

Oh, yes! What wonderful imagery!

Back to high school. We were given an assignment of memorizing and reciting a poem to the class. I was horror struck. No way was I going to be able to memorize a poem. Yet, I had to come up with something. Somewhere in that book of poetry was the poem for me. After carefully turning through the pages I found the perfect poem.

I have forgotten a couple of lines over the years, but I remembered most of the poem. The surprising thing I learned was that most of my class felt the same way I did. My guess is that at least 90% of the class recited the same poem. Here is the little gem that got me an extremely rare “A” in English class.

THE DUCK by Ogden Nash

Behold the duck.
It does not cluck.
A cluck it lacks.
It quacks.
It is specially fond
Of a puddle or pond.
When it dines or sups,
It bottoms ups.

I think the gap between the short poem and the poetic long form is far greater than between the short story and the novel. You absolutely expect a tingling in your spine from a short poem, and nothing else will do. But it's an effect that is so totally unpredictable!

As for the long form, it's much closer to the prose long works. You still may get a breathless feel from Eugene Onegin in many places, but it's very nearly the same that you get from The Master and Margarita.