Favorite poem?

[Dubliner]

I suppose it's a bit of an old guy's poem, really, but as I 'mature', a favourite short poem of mine is W B Yeats' 'Politics', which was written towards the end of his life, at which time, although an important political figure of the day, he reflected on what he considered to be the true significance of the situations he was encountering.

HOW can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics?
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms!

[dmm]

Pessoa is a must for everyone who loves poetry:


"Autopsychography"

The poet is a fake.
His faking seems so real
That he will fake the ache
Which he can really feel.


And those who read his cries
Feel in the paper tears
Not two aches that are his
But one that is not theirs.


And so in its ring
Giving the mind a game
Goes this train on a string
And the heart is its name.


(translation by Keith Bosley)

This is one of his most notable and known poems. But to have the slightest idea about the difficulty to translate poetry, you may visit http://www.disquiet.com/thirteen.html, where there are thirteen versions of this poem in english.
By the way, thank you, Fontainhas. I was very, very worried before reading ten forum-pages without finding any mention about Pessoa. How it comes? His poems are so beautiful, so real:
(i have a spanish laptop, so forget the grammar)

Vem dos lados da montanha
una cançao que me diz
que, por mais que a alma tenha,
sempre há-de ser infeliz.

O mundo nao é seu lar
e todo que ele lhe der
sao coisas que estao a dar
a quem nao quer receber.

diz isto? Nao sei. Nem voz
ouço, música, à janela
onde me medito a sós
como o luzir de uma estrela.

here it comes my terrible translation:

From the side of the mountain
comes a song saying to me
that, as much as the soul has got
unhappy always has to be

this world is not its home,
and everything offered to it,
are things given
to one who wants not to receive

does it says this? Neither voice
nor music
comes to my open window,
where i meditate alone,
like the shine of a star

Does this translation means something for english readers? I missed both rime and rhythm. Please, let it me know if so.

One last thing: Has anyone here read "Itaca" (C. Cavafis)?

Okay.... here it goes:

Onda que enrolada tornas, pequena
Ao mar que te trouxe.
E ao recuar te transtornas
Como se o mar nada fosse.

Porque é que levas contigo
só a tua cessação?
E ao voltar ao mar antigo
não levas meu coração?

Á tanto tempo que o tenho
que me pesa de o sentir
Leva-o no som sem tamanho
Com que te oiço fugir!

You're going to have to wait awhile until I get this translated though.

[dmm]

dont you like Marina Tsvietáieva (sorry, translated name in spanish her "letter to the horsewoman (and other french writings)" is one of the best poetic-prose texts i have ever read!

And "Hooligan's confession", "To the Kachalov's dog", "A letter to mother", "The golden grove has ceased to speak...", "The unspoken, blue, tender..."

[dmm]

i didnt know this poem, which is very beautiful, and reminds me of a couple Pessoa´s poems, although i only have the spanish version. But if you like this poem, ill recommend you to read "Alberto Caeiro´s poems" (one of Pessoa´s pseodonyms)

I suppose it's a bit of an old guy's poem, really, but as I 'mature', a favourite short poem of mine is W B Yeats' 'Politics', which was written towards the end of his life, at which time, although an important political figure of the day, he reflected on what he considered to be the true significance of the situations he was encountering.

HOW can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics?
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms!

[Kayrose]

I think one of my favoite poets right now is Carol Ann Duffy. I like the fact that almost all of her poems are sexual in nature....but that it's a more classy kind of sexualness. My favoite from her right now is

Stuffed!

I put two yellow peepers in an owl.
Wow. I fix the grin of Crocodile.
Spiv. I sew the slither of an eel.
I jerk, kick-start, the back hooves of a mule.
Wild. I hold the red rag to a bull.
Mad. I spread the feathers of a gull.

I screw a tight snarl to a weasel.
Fierce. I stitch the flippers on a seal.
Splayed. I pierce the heartbeat of a quail.

I like her to be naked and to kneel.
Tame. My motionless, my living doll.
Mute. And afterwards I like her not to tell.

[Silas Thorne]

Yes, that is an excellent poem, and the imagery in it is very erotic. I must admit, I was at first disturbed by the last stanza. I didn't realise that the speaker in the poem was also a woman.

I love this one, among others:
Dylan Thomas, 'The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower'

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

from http://www.fen.bilkent.edu.tr/~tanatar/theforce.htm

[Kayrose]

Yeah almost all of her poems are like that in nature... I like the poem you posted by the way.

[Moshu]

My favorite right now is by Edna St Vincent Millay... "The Dirge Without Music." Although, my favorite changes quite often and drastically. I have such a love for classic poetry.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

I think that says so much; and her words are so enchandting to read aloud.

[Stargazer86]

My very favorite poem is Ryme of the Ancient Mariner by S.T. Coleridge
But for more modern works, I enjoy the works of Allen Ginsberg.

"A Supermarket in California"

"What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the
streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit
supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles
full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! --- and you,
Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the
meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price
bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and
followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting
artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does
your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel
absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to
shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in
driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you
have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and
stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?"

[kelby_lake]

http://englishhistory.net/byron/poems/dead.html

[pokefreak]

My favorite poem is one by T.S. Eliot called "Whispers of Immortality"


Webster was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.

Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.
Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense;
To seize and clutch and penetrate,
Expert beyond experience,

He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone.

Grishkin is nice: her
Russian eye is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.

The couched Brazilian jaguar
Compels the scampering marmoset
With subtle effluence of cat;
Grishkin has a maisonette;

The sleek Brazilian jaguar
Does not in its arboreal gloom
Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing-room.

And even the Abstract Entities
Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls between dry ribs
To keep our metaphysics warm.

[Nightshade]

I have anew favourite poem, and ok I only know it from a beer ad ( maybe they wrote it? ) but its a GOOD poem or maybe I just like it?anyone copyright being what it is, Im not posting it sepratley but rather linking straight to the ad on youtube.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7fKmx0Fhfk

[amarna]

maggie and milly and molly and mae

e.e. cummings

maggie and milly and molly and mae
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

mae came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

[Skipetyboo]

II

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied

Who told me time would ease me of my pain!

I miss him in the weeping of the rain;

I want him at the shrinking of the tide;

The old snows melt from every mountain-side,

And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;

But last year's bitter loving must remain

Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.

There are a hundred places where I fear

To go, — so with his memory they brim.

And entering with relief some quiet place

Where never fell his foot or shone his face

I say, "There is no memory of him here!"

And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

- Edna St Vincent Millay

[Seraphina]

probably my favourite poem is Whoso List To Hunt? by Thomas Wyatt, because some of the imagery is beautiful.

Whoso list to hunt? I know where is an hind!
But as for me, alas! I may no more,
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore;
I am of them that furthest come behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer; but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow; I leave off therefore,
For in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt
As well as I, may spend his time in vain!
And graven with diamonds in letters plain,
There is written her fair neck round about;
'Noli me tangere; for Caeser's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.'