Introduce me !

I think this is my first post ever in this section of the Forum.
Having turned twenty, I finally feel old enough for poetry :D.
I'm ashamed to say how little poetry I've read so far, and lacking any introduction, I don't know where to start...I feel a bit overwhelmed by the myriad of poets and their works, and need your help for a first orientation :).

So far I've read into Shakespeares sonnets (about 20 of them), and a bit of Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost and Seamus Heaney (maybe 5 each :blush: ... oh boy ! :D).

Please introduce your favourite poets to me!
If you can, please note down as well why they are special to you.
If one is handy, it would also be helpful if you could include a poem you like by your favourite.
I'm particularly interested in those still alive and those still writing, but the classics will be more than welcome, too :nod:.

Thank you very much & looking forward to your choices :).

I gotta say I've always really liked Walt Whitmans' poetry .

Until very recently I had no idea Thomas Hardy wrote poetry.

And Sir Walter Scott's "Lady of the Lake" is a classic :)

I once wrote poem when I was the same age as you.
but, later, I give up the poem because it can not offer me a rescue.
but I remain cherish the time when i was a poet in my young.
god will bless you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Logos

And Sir Walter Scott's "Lady of the Lake" is a classic :)

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Oh, I forgot, I've read that one, and Paradise Lost by Milton.
I absolutely loved the latter, whereas I found the former... well, :yawnb:.

But Walt Whitman and Thomas Hardy sound good, thanks, Logos :).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gold's tears

I once wrote poem when I was the same age as you.
but, later, I give up the poem because it can not offer me a rescue.
but I remain cherish the time when i was a poet in my young.
god will bless you.

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Thank you for the blessing, Gold's tears :nod:.
Alas, I don't feel like attempting to write my own poetry at the moment, I feel I first should start reading it :).

WHy not xheck out J.M.Synges poems on this site. Or Good old Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Wordsworth etc.

Schoky, John Keats, William Butler Yeats, and William Wordsworth are good places to start. Challenging poets but not too difficult for a beginner.

well Keats' shorter poems..( the odes??) Blake, John Donne, wordsworth... Kipling. some of John Betjeman, Pam Ayres for comic relief....

:D

There is a poet called Billy Collins, who was, i beleive, the poet laureate of the US. He writes some of the most beautiful freeverse I have ever seen. It's an extremely challenging genre, very hard not to mess up, but his stuff is AMAZING. the book i have is called "Sailing Alone Around the Room".

Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins


I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide


or press an ear against its hive.


I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,


or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.


I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.


But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.


They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mir

There is a poet called Billy Collins, who was, i beleive, the poet laureate of the US. He writes some of the most beautiful freeverse I have ever seen. It's an extremely challenging genre, very hard not to mess up, but his stuff is AMAZING. the book i have is called "Sailing Alone Around the Room".

Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins


I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide


or press an ear against its hive.


I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,


or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.


I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.


But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.


They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

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It's one of my favourite poems. :D

My advice is not to try to read a lot of poets, but find a few that appeal to you. Reading the poems aloud and repeatedly is good, of course, but also memorizing poems, I've found, gives me a much greater appreciation for poetry.

Personally, I most like Shakespeare, Coleridge, Blake, Whitman, Frost, William Carlos Williams and Leonard Cohen (his songs more than his written poems).

Also, I've found that the poems a writer is best known for are not, in my opinion, their best: I think many times the poetry that many authors write after their most famous work, as they get older, is often much more subtle, mature, beautiful and wise.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Daniel A. C.

My advice is not to try to read a lot of poets, but find a few that appeal to you. Reading the poems aloud and repeatedly is good, of course, but also memorizing poems, I've found, gives me a much greater appreciation for poetry.

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That is very wise advice, thanks, Daniel :nod:. Indeed I've taken to read poems aloud (not on the bus, obviously :D), after all, musicality and sound is where poetry issued from. I should do the memorising as well...

In addition, I would suggest hand writing out the poem. They are usually short enough and the writing out by hand subtly puts you into the head of the author.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Virgil

In addition, I would suggest hand writing out the poem. They are usually short enough and the writing out by hand subtly puts you into the head of the author.

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Only if the author has a really big head. :p
Virgil is absolutely right with this though, writing does help to appreciate the poem better.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AimusSage

Virgil is absolutely right with this though, writing does help to appreciate the poem better.

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Good idea, thanks ! Will do :nod:.

Actually thatsnot such a bad idea... the only poems I know off by heart are the ones Ive written and they are always 'visting' me when I least expect it...:nod:

EDIT I lie I know some poems off by heart simply because Ive read them so many times and love them so much.

Here's a very short one for you by Vicky Feaver. It's one of my favourites.

Cold

Sometimes I have wanted
to throw you off
like a heavy coat.

Sometimes I have said
you would not let me
breathe or move.

But now that I am free
to choose light clothes
or none at all

I feel the cold
and all the time I think
how warm it used to be.