Favorite poem?

[Albion]

I am reminded of the pianist, Arthur Rubinstein's, reply to a journalist who asked him to name his favourite piece. "Favourites are for amateurs", he replied dismissively.

One ought to be reticent in blazoning any particular poet or writer because ones knowledge, even in today's literate society, cannot embrace the totality of all literature. Furthermore, one may choose a poet or writer as one's favourite but one should not necessarily assume that he or she wrote one's favourite work. It is possible that a minor poet or writer has, exceptionally, written a work exceeding any of those in the favourite's canon.

Nonetheless, I confess to being an unrepentant amateur and have my favourites. In poetry, it is Tennyson, whose 200th anniversary it is this year, 2009. Unfortunately, with such a huge output as his, I cannot maintain that I like all his works; but I admire him for his facility with words and his ability to conjure mood and atmosphere from imagination. However, my favourite poem must be Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind". What lyrical flights does that portray! What limitations to mankind!

My favourite author is George Eliot. I am reasonably well read (but only in European literature and with many gaps) but consider even Tolstoy's "War and Peace", often proclaimed as the worlds greatest novel, inferior to her "Middlemarch" (a case of my favourite author writing my favourite book). This is a novel weaving at least four stories into one with deep psychological insight together with love, death and resolution.

I would also like to nominate Richard Wagner. He is known as one of the greatest composers but the fact that he set texts written by himself is often overlooked. Many disparage his efforts but I suspect they have not read his works as poetry. Each music drama offers huge lengths of great poetic text far beyond the achievement of most poets. Even great playwrights such as Shakespeare (another favourite) were not always able to write poetry throughout their plays; and Wagner not only wrote consistently throughout a particular work but also varied his style to suit each piece.

These are personal choices which may be disparaged by others, particularly since I prefer 19th century works to any others. But, in accordance with my observation above, I do not claim that other periods or continents cannot offer better examples. Indeed, I recommend absorbing modern writers: we cannot live constantly in the past but should look forward to new creations. In particular, we cannot be forever immersed in 19th century music, much as I love it: but that is matter for another forum.

[Natalia Andria]

Thanks for this fantastic idea , it makes me read several poems for the first time .
Really my favorite poem is " There is a certain slant of light " by Emilly Dickinson :

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons--
That opresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes--

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us--
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the meanings are--

None may teach it--Any--
'Tis the Seal Despair--
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air--

When it comes, the Landscape listens--
Shadows--hold their breath--
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death--

-- Emily Dickinson

[Pryderi Agni]

Thanks for this fantastic idea , it makes me read several poems for the first time .
Really my favorite poem is " There is a certain slant of light " by Emilly Dickinson :

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons--
That opresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes--

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us--
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the meanings are--

None may teach it--Any--
'Tis the Seal Despair--
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air--

When it comes, the Landscape listens--
Shadows--hold their breath--
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death--

-- Emily Dickinson

WOW. That is inspirational, not to mention wonderful. Dickinson is just the best for these kinds of poems.

[The Comedian]

I listen to Edward Hirsch's "Wild Gratitude" almost daily, like a favorite song, on my way to work.

[rimbaud]

Ophelia by Rimbaud made me cry and stare into space for a good long while the first time that I ever read it, but you have to get the right English translation which I can't find on the internet and I can't find my book to copy it right now. I remember that the one that I like starts off:

Where the stars sleep in the calm black stream,
like some great lily, pale Ophelia floats,
slowly floats, wrapped in her veils like a dream.
Half heard from the woods, halloo's from distant throats.

i love that one, it's definitely one of my favorites
also you can find every poem by Rimbaud on www.mag4.net in both english and french

[isidro]

I confess myself far more interested in "that Latin stuff" than in Pound.

Browning "My Last Duchess" and "Porphyria's Lover" are definitely up there as well as anything by William Blake and am currently studying Dante in the original tongue and terza rima. Good stuff.

[D.P.Trottier]

personally Ill always be a fan of Arthur Rimbaud:

Departure

Enough seen. The vision has been met in every air.
Enough had. Distant sounds of cities, in the evening,
and in the sun, and always.
Enough known. Life's injunctions. O sounds and visions!
Departure in new affection and new noise.

[Hurricane]

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

-William Ernest Henley

Simple, but says it all.

[soundofmusic]

I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

Thank you for the reminder of this wonderful poem; a favorite of mine since childhood.

[sadparadise]

Do not go gentle into that good night by. Dylan Thomas

The first time I encountered this poem was while listening to a radio program. The program was a live to air from Toronto a day or so after the assassination of John Lennon. It was a candlelight vigil. One of the readers was Long John Baldry and he read the best version that I have ever heard of Do not go gentle into that good night. It was fantastic! I wish I could get a copy of that.


Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I also loved Ode to a mouse by Robbie Burns. My grandfather use to recite it to me when I was a wee lad . I thought it was a horror story! I guess I was too young to understand the language e.g Wee sleekit cowrin tim'rous beastie. Too funny!!!

[Olympia]

There are great the poets that I like, especially Spanish speakers, since still I can´t read well in other languages and believe that the poetry ... loses with the translations.

Between the poets of my country, Spain, that I recommend... the great Lorca, Miguel Hernández, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Leopoldo Maria Panero, Pedro Salinas...

Out of my Language I give up myself to Poe, Rilke, Paul Valery, Rimbaud and Baudelaire among different many...

A Francisco
Suave como el peligro atravesaste un día
con tu mano imposible la frágil medianoche
y tu mano valía mi vida, y muchas vidas
y tus labios casi mudos decían lo que era el pensamiento.
Pasé una noche a ti pegado como a un árbol de vida
porque eras suave como el peligro,
como el peligro de vivir de nuevo.

L. Mª Panero

Posesión del miedo

¿A qué fuerza convoco, yo que un tiempo hice brotar
los tallos con mi aliento y ahuyenté las sombras?
Hoy esta sal en los labios, ¿de qué mar la traigo?
¿De dónde este temblor que me desarma?
Conozco tu perfil: eres el miedo
que vive agazapado en la quimera.

Y llamo al amor, a sus huestes de plata, a sus naves
de fuego que surcan seguras
las aguas encrespadas de un espejo.
Voy a hacer el amor con mi miedo,
a inventarle un cuerpo firme, a penetrarlo
a hacerle gemir de deseo.

Quiero al miedo desnudo, rendido, tendido en el suelo,
excitado, sudoroso, imberbe.
Quiero una fiesta de carne con el espíritu aterido,
el intruso que ciega las ventanas.
Que se vuelva boca abajo y se ofrezca
rogando fuerza en su flaqueza.
Entrar y salir. Dentro y fuera. Dar y amagar con quitar
y que la auténtica paz sea la guerra.
Y liberar mi alma prisionera
con gritos de placer en sus entrañas.

De "La posesión del miedo" 1996

I´m sorry, I suppose that is difficult to many of you to read spanish

[isidro]

Me gusta espanol! LOL! And Dylan Thomas is awesome!

[Dr Jekyll]

I am a big fan of Thomas Dylan

"Never and never, my girl riding far and near
In the land of the hearthstone tales, and spelled asleep,
Fear or believe that the wolf in the sleepwhite hood
Loping and bleathing roughly and blithely shall leap,
My dear, my dear
Out of a lair in the flocked leaves in the dew dipped year
To eat your heart in the house in the rosy wood.

Sleep good, for ever, slow and deep, spelled rare and wise,
My girl ranging the night in the rose and shire
Of the hobnail tails: no gooseherd or swine will turn
Into a homestall king or hamlet of fire
And prince of ice
To court the honeyed heart from your side before sunrise
In a spinney of ringed boys and ganders, spike and burn,

Nor the innocent lie in the rooting dingle wooed
And staved, and riven among plumes my rider weep.
From the broomed witch's spume you are shielded by fern
And flower of country sleep and the greenwood keep.
Lie fast and soothed,
Safe be and smooth from the bellows of the rushy brood."

[bsbdesja]

Tintern Abbey is one of my favourite poems as well! It's so powerfully emotional, even now having read it many times and memorised it, I can still feel its pull.

I also really like Yeat's 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' (it reminds me a little of Thoreau's philosophy of life in 'Walden' which I have just finished); Thomas Hardy's 'The Darkling Thrush' which always cheers me up; 'Ode to a Nightingale' by Keats; and another of Wordsworth's which makes me ache in sympathy with his grief--'Surprised by Joy'.

[Arwenstar]

Not thou but I by Philip Bourke
Anyone likes this poem? Or has anyone got an opinion- positive or negative- about that?