First Loves

[The Comedian]

So which poet was the first one to really knock your verbs off? Yeah, maybe you've moved on to Dante now, but which poet was the first one to really get your heart meter going?

Mine's Longfellow -- "The Fire of Driftwood", "The Blacksmith". . .and I'll post some more soon. When I teach poetry to freshmen/sophomores, I still use a lot of his work, though it has gone out of critical fashion do so. And he still pulls even some of the most reluctant poetry readers in -- like the gateway drug of verse.

[YesNo]

I assume you mean The Fire of Drift-wood, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173898, and The Village Blacksmith, http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1218/

The first poems I enjoyed were those from Mother Goose. The first non-nursery rhyme one I actually memorized and can still recite was Hopkins, To a young child, http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/hopkins/section4.rhtml

[Buh4Bee]

Eek... Comedian, I know you aren't looking for this response, but I loved Shel Silverstein- Where the Side Walk Ends.

But this poem by Ezra Pound has often stuck with me:

A Girl
by Ezra Pound

The tree has entered my hands,
The sap has ascended my arms,
The tree has grown in my breast-
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms.
Tree you are,
Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child; so high; you are,
And all this is folly to the world.


I read this after I read Hemingway's A Movable Feast. I read several of Pounds poems, but have not taken the time to read more extensively. To me, he is a very enjoyable read, as far as poetry goes. I think this, for the simple reason, that the language is more modern, although he still has a touch of classical language. "Bear" with me, if I am not using the correct terms to describe the writing. Anyway, I really enjoy Pound and should probably read more of his poetry.
Nice thread!

[Sea]

Shelley and Blake. But now I think quite differently of them. Haha.

[The Comedian]

Thanks for the edit. Yeah, I meant the "Fire" not "first". I was trying to get this post off with my kid buggin' me to get of the computer. :-)

[Buh4Bee]

I hate when I kid does that! Every freakin' time.

[MorpheusSandman]

Milton for me. He remains my favorite as well.

[qimissung]

Oh! Nursery rhymes, of course! The rhythm, the rhyme, and the odd, outrageous topics:

Tom, Tom, the piper's son,
Stole a pig and away he run!
The pig was eat, and Tom was beat,
And Tom went roaring down the street.



And the incomparable Robert Louis Stevenson:

When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
to dig the sandy shore.
My holes were empty like a cup,
In every hole the sea came up
Till it could come no more.

And last, the magical Christina Georgina Rossetti:

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you;
But, when the leaves hang trembling,
the wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I;
But, when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

It still sends shivers down my spine to read it.

Runners-up: Walter de la Mare, and really mention must be made of "The House that Jack Built" which is like crack for kids.

When I got older I would have to say Spring and Fall: To a Young Child by Gerard Manley Hopkins.


"Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?"

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Seuss along with selected poems and nursery rhymes from a children's literature book my siblings and I were weaned on.
One favorite is:

"I saw a ship a-sailing,
a-sailing in the sea
And it was deeply laden
with pretty things for me

There were comfits in the cabin
And apples in the hold
The sails were made of satin
And masts were made of gold.

The four and twenty sailors
That stood above the decks
Were four and twenty white mice
With chains about their necks

The captain was a duck
With a packet on his back
And when the ship began to move
The captain said, "quack quack."

When I was about 11 or 12 I discovered Oliver Goldsmith among my Grandfather's books.
To this day The Deserted Village remains at or near the top of the list of my favorite poems.
Another poem I discovered when young that struck a chord with me, is Sir Edward Dyer's My Mind to Me A Kingdom Is.

.

[YesNo]

When I got older I would have to say Spring and Fall: To a Young Child by Gerard Manley Hopkins.


"Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?"

That is definitely one of my favorite poems.

I also remember reading Dr. Seuss with pleasure. Soon after that I started listening to the radio.

[ladderandbucket]

I remember enjoying Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott from my schooldays. When I started reading poetry as an adult it was Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach.

[qimissung]

Seuss along with selected poems and nursery rhymes from a children's literature book my siblings and I were weaned on.
One favorite is:

"I saw a ship a-sailing,
a-sailing in the sea
And it was deeply laden
with pretty things for me

There were comfits in the cabin
And apples in the hold
The sails were made of satin
And masts were made of gold.

The four and twenty sailors
That stood above the decks
Were four and twenty white mice
With chains about their necks

The captain was a duck
With a packet on his back
And when the ship began to move
The captain said, "quack quack."

When I was about 11 or 12 I discovered Oliver Goldsmith among my Grandfather's books.
To this day The Deserted Village remains at or near the top of the list of my favorite poems.
Another poem I discovered when young that struck a chord with me, is Sir Edward Dyer's My Mind to Me A Kingdom Is.

.

That is adorable, Gilliatt. And Dover Beach, yes, a favorite of mine, but I didn't discover it until quite a bit later.

[Byronic]

As my name would suggest, my first love was Byron - one of his lesser known poems which really caught me.

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went-and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light;
And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings-the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those which dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch;
A fearful hope was all the world contained;
Forests were set on fire-but hour by hour
They fell and faded-and the crackling trunks
Extinguished with a crash-and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them: some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food;
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again;-a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought-and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails-men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the drooping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress-he died.
The crowd was famished by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heaped a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage: they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects-saw, and shrieked, and died-
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-
A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped
They slept on the abyss without a surge-
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perished! Darkness had no need
Of aid from them-She was the Universe!

It's quite a strange poem to have captured the imagination of an eleven-year old girl, but I was really moved by the apocalyptic images of despair. There was a time when I knew it off by heart but ten years on I can't recite it perfectly.

[stlukesguild]

It was definitely Baudelaire. I was fascinated with the sensuality (even eroticism) of the poems... as well as his blurring of the senses. I was knocked out by the contrast between the decadence of the work and the classical formal structure. He was the poet who opened the door to my love of poetry... and still remains a favorite.

[Dreamwoven]

Byron is a favourite of mine too: The Prisoner of Chillon - I learned whole stanzas off by heart.