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Your Favourite Poems
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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In light of the Favourite Book thread, what are your favourite poems/poets?
Here's some of my favourites:
"Not Waving, but Drowning" by Stevie Smith
"How we Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix" by Robert Browning
"Lovesong" by Ted Hughes
"Three Graves" by Charles Lamb
but my all time favourite has to be "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester" by Rupert Brooke which moves me and makes me laugh at the same time - just a shame that Jeffrey Archer is also such a fan that he now lives in the house it's written about 
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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If by Kipling
Had this read out at hubby's funeral as when he was at school he read this out and won a prize
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
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By *B9 QueenWoman
over a year ago
Over the rainbow, under the bridge |
One poem that is sure to get me emotional is Dylan Thomas's 'Do Not Go Gentle'. And that is the poem my mum chose for me to read out at my dad's funeral.
Fuck knows how I got through it.
I do love 'The Horses' by Edwin Muir and 'The Good Town' also by him. I think he is a sadly underrated poet - and he also gave us Kafka in translation!
Can't beat Shakespeare - his sonnets certainly - but some of the long speeches in his plays are a testament to his sheer genius. Ones which stand out are John of Gaunt's speech in Richard II, Henry V's speeches (Harcourt one - 'Once more unto the breach' - and the Agincourt one - 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers'). But the one which I think is an absolute masterclass in rhetoric is Mark Antony's speech after Caesar's death (Julius Caesar) - 'Friends, Romans, countrymen'. I go back to it time and again just to read that section! Bloody marvellous.
Love a lot of Seamus Heaney's, Carol Ann Duffy's too (our first female Poet Laureate).
And, of course, the great Wilfred Owen. |
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By *phroditeWoman
over a year ago
(She/ her) in Sensualityland |
I love this one for it is so simple, by Erich Fried....
What it is
It is madness
says reason
It is what it is
says love
It is unhappiness
says caution
It is nothing but pain
says fear
It has no future
says insight
It is what it is
says love
It is ridiculous
says pride
It is foolish
says caution
It is impossible
says experience
It is what it is
says love.”
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I love 'Dulce et Decorum Est' by Wilfred Owen. Those words paint a harrowing picture.
I also love 'Someone' by Dennis O Driscoll. So thought provoking.
someone is dressing up for death today, a change of skirt or tie
eating a final feast of buttered sliced pan, tea
scarcely having noticed the erection that was his last
shaving his face to marble for the icy laying out
spraying with deodorant her coarse armpit grass
someone today is leaving home on business
saluting, terminally, the neighbours who will join in the cortege
someone is paring his nails for the last time, a precious moment
someone’s waist will not be marked with elastic in the future
someone is putting out milkbottles for a day that will not come
someone’s fresh breath is about to be taken clean away
someone is writing a cheque that will be rejected as ‘drawer deceased’
someone is circling posthumous dates on a calendar
someone is listening to an irrelevant weather forecast
someone is making rash promises to friends
someone’s coffin is being sanded, laminated, shined
who feels this morning quite as well as ever
someone if asked would find nothing remarkable in today’s date
perfume and goodbyes her final will and testament
someone today is seeing the world for the last time
as innocently as he had seen it first
Em x |
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"John cooper clarke was always my fave poet, kung fu international being the best.
Or ode to my gold fish.
Oh
wet pet...
I loved his poem 'I wanna be'.
"
I seem to be living his poem Chicken Town.
On the short, amusing front there's always this gem about train travel from John Hegley:
From Bradford in Yorkshire to Bristol Temple Meads,
You don't have to change your underwear, but you have to change at Leeds. |
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This one for me. When serving always carried it with me.
The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
By Rupert Brooke |
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I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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I love the comical value of Don Paterson’s ‘On Going to Meet a Zen Master in the Kyushu Mountains and Not Finding Him’, which consists of nothing but a blank page and the poem title.  |
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By *adybee77Woman
over a year ago
MAMOBA, miles and miles of bugger all (Aberdeenshire) |
WH Auden, Funeral Blues (also known as Stop All The Clocks) (John Hannah reads it in 4 weddings)
Edward Lears "Owl and the Pussycat" - my nana used to quote it to me at bedtime when I was young (she died when I was 5 and its one of the few memories I have of her)
Coleridge's Kubla Khan brings back fond memories of an english teacher in school. |
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By * Jay69Man
over a year ago
Bridgwater - Somerset |
"I love 'Dulce et Decorum Est' by Wilfred Owen."
Many by Spike Milligan
"I must go down to the sea again
To the lonely sea and the sky
I left my pants and socks there
I wonder if they're dry?"
And loads of Les Barker's poems, mostly the humorous ones.
Disaster at Sea
It was a calm, still day in Yarmouth,
The channel clear and wide,
As the last of the timber sailing ships
Sailed out on the evening tide.
They never saw that ship again;
They searched when it was light,
But that fine old timber vessel sank
That clear and peaceful night.
No one knows what happened
On that night in 1910;
But the crew and her cargo of woodpeckers
Were never seen again.
Les Barker - 2005 |
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William Cowper, Symptoms of Love.
Would my Delia know if I love, let her take
My last thought at night, and the first when I wake;
With my prayers and best wishes preferred for her sake.
Let her guess what I muse on, when rambling alone
I stride o'er the stubble each day with my gun,
Never ready to shoot till the covey is flown.
Let her think what odd whimsies I have in my brain,
When I read one page over and over again,
And discover at last that I read it in vain.
Let her say why so fixed and so steady my look,
Without ever regarding the person who spoke,
Still affecting to laugh, without hearing the joke.
Or why when the pleasure her praises I hear,
(That sweetest of melody sure to my ear),
I attend, and at once inattentive appear.
And lastly, when summoned to drink to my flame,
Let her guess why I never once mention her name,
Though herself and the woman I love are the same. |
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"This Be The Verse by Larkin.
'They fuck you up your mum and dad...'
Love it.
'They don't mean to, but they do.'"
Love that one
They give you all the faults they had and add some extra just for you!
Sorry if I misquoted my memory fails me sometimes. |
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"I also like Jenny Kissed Me By Leigh Hunt
Jenny kiss'd me when we met
Jumping from the chair she sat in
"
OMG I completely forgot about that one! My first granddaughter is Jenny and I used to read it to her. Thank you so much for reminding me. |
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"I also like Jenny Kissed Me By Leigh Hunt
Jenny kiss'd me when we met
Jumping from the chair she sat in
OMG I completely forgot about that one! My first granddaughter is Jenny and I used to read it to her. Thank you so much for reminding me. "
A pleasure.
This thread has reminded me of lots of poems I'd forgotten about and introduced me to some new ones. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Aubade by Philip
Larkin:
I work all day, and get half-d*unk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die. |
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"Aubade by Philip
Larkin:
I work all day, and get half-d*unk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die."
He was a miserable fucker! |
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There's a quote in the front of a book I read recently and I have no idea where it comes from it starts
"but when memory embraces the night
I see those days long since gone
like ancient light of extinguished stars
shining still but travelling on"
anyone know where it comes from? again I might have misquoted a bit  |
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By *B9 QueenWoman
over a year ago
Over the rainbow, under the bridge |
"There's a quote in the front of a book I read recently and I have no idea where it comes from it starts
"but when memory embraces the night
I see those days long since gone
like ancient light of extinguished stars
shining still but travelling on"
anyone know where it comes from? again I might have misquoted a bit "
I can find only one reference on Google - in Google books. It's used as a quote from The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England by Iam Mortimer. He attributes it as being from 'Ghosts' Acumen 24, page 17. That's all I managed to find. |
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"There's a quote in the front of a book I read recently and I have no idea where it comes from it starts
"but when memory embraces the night
I see those days long since gone
like ancient light of extinguished stars
shining still but travelling on"
anyone know where it comes from? again I might have misquoted a bit
I can find only one reference on Google - in Google books. It's used as a quote from The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England by Iam Mortimer. He attributes it as being from 'Ghosts' Acumen 24, page 17. That's all I managed to find."
Thank you, that explains where I originally read it at least.  |
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By *abioMan
over a year ago
Newcastle and Gateshead |
since you all know me as a happy cheery person... I am sure you can guess mine...
it was a close 2nd... waiting at the window by a.a milne...
my favourite is the raven my edgar allen poe..... always loved it |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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I have never been a big poetry lover. I did read this out at my nan's funeral and it always makes me cry.... which is ironic considering the sentiment.
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die. |
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Thank you, maybe you'll have luck where I didn't
