People's Poets

Kipling has been my favorite poet for many years.  Service was my favorite as a kid.  Both men wrote in a wonderful vernacular.  The clipped meter and clear, recognizable rhymes always feel coincidental.  Try telling the stories of their poems in any other language and you realize that the economy of their verse is so perfect that the presentation simply feels natural.  The People's Poets indeed.  In this way, they were like Shakespeare.  Though the style was extremely different, the full understanding of the human heart and experience matched the father of the modern English language quite well.

Consider this passage from Kipling's Danny Deever (my favorite of his works):

They are hangin' Danny Deever, you must mark 'im to 'is place,
For 'e shot a comrade sleepin' - you must look 'im in the face;
Nine 'undred of 'is county an' the Regiment's disgrace,
While they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.

Service's famous Yukon poems all give a great sense of time and place.  You can feel the cold wind blow as you read.  But his work remains timely to this day.  A heroic man who took on the dangerous responsibility of ambulance driver during World War I, Service was an avowed pacifist whose most powerful writing was not one of the Yukon tributes, but his great anti-war verse, The March of the Dead.  Here is a passage:

They left us on the veldt-side, but we felt we couldn't stop
On this, our England's crowning festal day;
We're the men of Magersfontein, we're the men of Spion Kop,
Colenso -- we're the men who had to pay.
We're the men who paid the blood-price. Shall the grave be all our gain?
You owe us. Long and heavy is the score.
Then cheer us for our glory now, and cheer us for our pain,
And cheer us as ye never cheered before.

From Shakespeare to Service and from Kipling to Keats, remember that poetry's reason for existing at all is to be enjoyed.  First and foremost, before any esoteric discussion of culture, it's first purpose is to move us in some way; move us to laughter, to tears, to thought, even to action.  But, somehow, whatever style or verse form is used, poetry should first be enjoyed.

I like the Cavalier poets, Shakespeare's sonnets, what little is left of the poems of Sappho, Dante, Michaeangelo's poems (he was a poet as well was architect, scultor and painter) anf I like the often lyrical phrases of a good authour like Ray Brabury.  I remember the Martian Chronicles as a point well taken.

I like poetry. Even the odd poems of cummings or Pound.  They are reflective of their time and place and as such are important in that context.

Even Jim Morrison's lyrics are poetry. in fact some of the best modern poetry is hidden in song lyrics...Elton John for example.

ExPat,

You are absolutely right about how some of the best modern poetry is set to music.  Many of Bob Dylan's fans acknowledge his atrocious singing voice but insist the poetry of his lyrics is mesmerizing.  When asked who his favorite poets were, Dylan replied Arthur Rhambaud (sp?) and Allen Ginsberg.  Neither of those two happen to be favorites of mine.

In addition to Elton John, I would include Billy Joel as one of today's great musical poets.  He has a clipped rhythm that is similar to Kipling in many respects.

One of todays (today being current) great musical poets is Jack Johnson.  His lyrics are sometimes simple, sometimes complicated, always mesmerizing.  He has developed a large multi generational following.  One of my favorites.

Ahhh poetry, my mother used to recite this to me when she was borderline angry but I'd made her laugh about it instead.

There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead.  When she was good, she was very very good.  But when she was bad, she was horrid.

Anyone else go through sixth grade poetry section in English class and keep anything they wrote?  I did unfortunately and there is a very good reason that I'm not published.  Although I think they could use it as legal torture, it would do any physical damage but I'm sure after one or two verses the inmate would give up everything or commit suicide by swallowing his own tongue.

Da writes the best bad poetry.  He thinks poetry must rhyme, all other requirements fall short.  So he sacrifies rhythm and meter to make them work.  The poems are groaners, but they are great groaners and we all love them.  Yeah, my father is my favorite poet.

Captain Neptune, you should check out a band called Carbon Leaf, especially their album "Indian Summer".  They aren't as happy-go-lucky as Jack Johnson, but you might like Barry's songwriting, its poetic...even if it doesn't always make sense to "normal" people.

Two magnificent songwriters/lyracists/poets are Bruce Springsteen and Mark Knopfler .And I'll fight anyone who'll say a word against them !

OOPS !  Lyracist is spelled lyricist....I shall write it correctly 1,000 times....Damn Franciscans.

David Byrne (formerly of TALKING HEADS ) is another  fine S/L/P. " Say nothing once ? Why say it again ? "

DPR,

 I think it's Rimbaud.

 And somebody should stand up for Bernie Taupin, who wrote the words to most of the songs Elton John has written.

 Speaking of RnR poets, I ran into a couple of guys during my Eurail time who used to use this one on chicks:

The screen door slams

Mary's dress waves

Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely

Hey, that's me and I want you only

Don't turn me home again  I just can't face my self alone again ...

What's interesting is that it is hauntingly familiar, but nobody (much)  recognizes it as the beginning of Bruce Springsteen's THUNDER ROAD. 

How about these guys: http:www.rackett.org/default.html  That would be Paul Muldoon, Poetry editor of the New Yorker, Princeton Professor, Irish Poet and more or less middle aged rocker. 

But it was Kipling we was discussing. Here's a fragment of A GENERAL SUMMARY:

...When they scratched the reindeer bone,

Someone made the sketch his own,

Filched it from the artist-then,

Even in those simple days 

Won a simple Viceroy's praise

Through the toil of other men.

Ere they hewed the Sphinx's visage

favouritism  governed kissage

even as it does in this age

Who shall doubt "the secret hid

under Cheops' pyramid" 

was that the contractor did

Cheops out of several millions

or that Joseph's sudden rise

to comptroller of supplies

was a fraud of monstrous size

on King Pharaoh's swart civilians? 

I recently sent Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night" to my mother.

I've tried to write poems... but they always seem to turn into songs!

On that tip, I consider Joanna Newsom to be one of our foremost poets.  (Say what you like about her singing, people seem to love it or hate it.  But her "harping" is beyond reproach.)

For those unfamiliar with Joanna Newsom, some of my favorite lyrics from the gorgeous "Emily:"

come on home, the poppies are all grown knee-deep by now

blossoms all have fallen, and the pollen ruins the plow
peonies nod in the breeze and while they wetly bow,
with hydrocephalitic listlessness ants mop up-a their brow

and everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour

the butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours

and my clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines

- come on home, now! all my bones are dolorous with vines

Pa pointed out to me, for the hundredth time tonight

the way the ladle leads to a dirt-red bullet of light

squint skyward and listen -

loving him, we move within his borders:

just asterisms in the stars' set order

we could stand for a century

starin'

with our heads cocked

in the broad daylight at this thing

joy
landlocked
in bodies that don't keep

dumbstruck
with the sweetness of being

till we don't be

told; take this

eat this

My sister had this cool Pablo Neruda poem read at her wedding:

XVII (I do not love you...)

I do not love you as if you
were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.



I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.



I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way



than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.



(Translated by Stephen Tapscott)

Ahem, speaking of Dylans, did anyone mention Bob?

But many a king on a first class throne,

if he wants to call his throne his own,

must somehow manage to get through

more dirty work than ever I do...

Mr. Gilbert, as I am sure you all remember. 

Robert Frost

Speaking of Dylans, did anyone mention Bob's namesake,  Dylan Thomas?  Thomas is one of my favorite poets.  The man could use language to accompish any end.  "Fern Hill" has always been there for me anytime I need it.

I am also a big fan of e.e.cummings, Elizabeth Bishop, and William Carlos Williams.

Thank you, Peterman, for mentioning National Poets Day. Poetry does NOT get the appreciation it deserves.  It is a challenging medium to take on, but there are still some of us who stand back and view a great poem as one would a painting, and feel our hearts beat a little faster as we begin to comprehend it's depth and flawless execution by the masters.

Sir John Betjeman, Poet Laureate of England from the late 70's to the mid 80's. He uses language as you or I might -- that is to say conversationally and without contrivance. He doesn't depend on punctuational (is that a word?) trickery or word and line placement that is artificial, yet in every poem elevates daily language. His ubiquitous references to the ordinary and mundane ennobles the everyday and reminds the reader that all life can be art.

Though I've read it hundreds of thousands of times (I'm not exaggerating), his poem "Christmas" still has the power to bring me to tears.

since feeling is first... (VII) by E. E. Cummings
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

In 1989, I went to see the movie, Dead Poets' Society for the first time.  In spite of some rather serious flaws in its plotline, I fell in love with the film and with the idea of a Dead Poets' Society.  I went home and arranged a meeting of a local Dead Poets' Society which met and read poetry every Sunday night.  We read our favorite classics and, of course, wrote our own.  My father had great fun emulating the style of his favorite classic poets.  His Robert Service style piece would take forever (it's over 100 lines) but here is his Kiplingesque Ballad of Kalihar:

It's a quarter after four at some bar in Singapore,
     and I'm workin' on my whiskey to forget the bloody war,
     when my captain from Nairobi come a-walkin' through the door.
And ‘e sez "I haven't seen ya since we crushed the rebs in Kenya,
     and I'm told yer not a soldier anymore."

So I offers ‘im a drink and sez "Cappy don't ya think
     that we aren't quite the men we were before?"
But ‘e swore and ‘e insisted, so the two of us enlisted
     and set out to join the balance of the corps.

Now it's not so very far to the coast of Malabar
     and shorter yet to get to Zanzibar.
We found it fairly easy to traverse the broad Zambesi,
     and passed at last into the Kalihar.

Oh, the Kalihar is sunny and inhabited by funny
     little men who carry deadly throwing spears.
None better at an ambush than a wily little Bushman
     and ‘e don't know nothin' of a soldier's fears.

Sure the fastest way to heaven is an AK-47,
     and the enemy ain't got a single gun.
But ‘e's clever and ‘e's tough and ‘is spears is quite enough
     when ‘is spears outnumber gunners ten to one.

So there's Cappy lyin' dead, with a Bushman at ‘is ‘ead
     and another bleedin' brother at ‘is feet.
And I figure what the hell, I ain't feelin' very well,
     and the time is past to beat a fast retreat.

So I ups and grabs my gear, and an extra bandoleer,
     and I run and dodge the missiles whizzin' by.
When I'm safe I hear a sound, so I turn and look around,
     and the Bushmen they're a-laughin' fit to die.

‘Cause I'm the only one, I'm the only mother's son
     to live to give the tale of Kalihar.
But that was long ago, now no one wants to know,
     and I'm sittin' all alone in this here bar.

Sure it's seven years or more and I'm back in Singapore,
     and I'm workin' on my whiskey to forget that bloody war,
When here come Cappy's ghost and ‘e's ‘eadin' up a host
     of men who fought but will not fight no more.

He sez, "Matey, I been thinkin' that ya oughtta give up drinkin',
     ‘cause yer chance may come to even up the score."
I sez "Cap, ya know full well that I'd follow you through hell,
     but I'll never be a soldier anymore."

THERE ARE SO MANY WONDERFUL POETS THAT IT IS DIFFICULT TO PINPOINT BUT IF I HAD TO PICK JUST ONE, PAST OR PRESENT, IT WOULD HAVE TO BE:  MAYA ANGELOU.   HER SHEER ELOQUENCE SPEAKS VOLUMES TO ME.  HER WIT, INSIGHT, DETERMINATION, AND DESIRE IS BEYOND ANY DESCRIPTION.     

There are others here who have pointed out that poetry does not get the appreciation it deserves.  This is very true.    But, sadly, we live in an age when poetry is in trouble.  Schools are discontinuing it, young adults are ignoring it (or, worse, actively dodging it), and those who write stream-of-consciousness rants are endorsed as poets by an uneducated market.

I have heard diarists at open readings say "Anything can be a poem" and, in so doing, they rob poetry of its very identity.  Even a truly great poet like Russell O'Neal Clay, in an expression of his characteristic humility, has said "I call my work poetry because I don't know what else to call it."  Mr. Clay (for whom I have the utmost respect and affection) does not realize that this statement insults the very form he has mastered, relegating it to a default category. 

But poetry is something specific.  It is not some default genre into which great heaps of undefined writing can be lumped.  It has an identity.  There is - indeed, there must be - a recognizable difference between poetry and non-poetry.  The idea that poetry is some great chasm into which anything can be thrown, to say "anything can be a poem" makes as much sense as saying "anything can be a baseball".

None of this is meant to suggest that poetry is inflexible.  Within the parameters of its identity, poetry is splendidly and infinitely malleable.  And therein lies the fun of writing it.  It is hard to tell which is more foolish; those who insist that poetry has to rhyme or those who demand that free verse is inherently more sophisticated than rhyming and blank verse, which are somehow trite just by virtue of being what they are.  Both contentions are equally foolish and for the same reason.  They would have poetry be pigeonholed in a way that it was never meant to be.

All of this brings us back to the classic question:  What exactly is poetry?  Or better yet:  What is the difference between poetry and non-poetry?

Well, different people will have different answers and many of them will blend fact and opinion.  For myself, I have always felt that poetry is essentially the art of choosing words based more on how they sound than on what they mean.  Consider Coleridge's Kublai Khan.  I've never met anyone who could figure out what it means but doesn't it sound wonderful!  And many of Shakespeare's sonnets could be said much more simply and pragmatically but what would be the point?  It wouldn't sound good.

The most obvious example of this devotion to sound is rhyme but there are others, such as alliteration, rhythm, and sometimes an intangible beauty in how the words roll off the tongue.  And that tongue is important.  Poetry should be read aloud whenever possible.  Was there ever a happier marriage than that of a perfectly chosen word and the human voice?

Nachista - my mother would recite the same thing to me.  She always said, I was so good that she worried, but when it finally happened...wow.

Lyricists can be the greatest of poets. One, already mentioned, is Bob Dylan. Another is Leonard Cohen. Try these two songs out...one from each. I happen to be partial to Madeleine Peyroux versions. She's a wonderful jazz singer of recent years.

Lyrics to You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go :
(Bob Dylan)

I've seen love go by my door
It's never been this close before
Never been so easy or so slow
Been shooting in the dark too long
When something's not right it's wrong
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go

Dragon clouds so high above
I've only known careless love,
It's always hit me from below.
This time around it's more correct
Right on target, so direct,
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go

Purple clover, Queen Anne lace,
Crimson hair across your face,
You could make me cry if you don't know.
Can't remember what I was thinkin' of
You might be spoilin' me too much, love,
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go

Flowers on the hillside, bloomin' crazy,
Crickets talkin' back and forth in rhyme,
Blue river runnin' slow and lazy,
I could stay with you forever
And never realize the time.

Situations have ended sad,
Relationships have all been bad.
Mine've been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud.
But there's no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair,
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go

You're gonna make me wonder what I'm doing,
Staying far behind without you.
You're gonna make me wonder what I'm saying,
You're gonna make me give myself a good talking to.

I'll look for you in old Honolulu,
San Francisco and Ashtabula,
You're gonna have to leave me now, I know.
But I'll see you in the sky above,
In the tall grass, in the ones I love,
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Lyrics to Dance Me To The End Of Love :
(Leonard Cohen)

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove

Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of

Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above

Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn

Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove

Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Andy did your mom also recite "The Song of Hiawatha" every time you drove past a lake or saw an "I Love Lucy" episode? 

If we're listing favorite poetic songs I would like to submit "Love you til the end" by the Pogues.

Nachista,
And if you are not Nachista, Please, just scroll on down.

An example of the lengths to which I have gone to get a chuckle out of our kids and theirs: A fjollet- a Danish term suggesting the amount of talent brought to bear, none, and time taken, almost none.

I HEARD A BLUE JAY IN THE NIGHT
OR MAYBE NOT- SIT TIGHT

I heard a blue jay shrieking in the night and woke to think;
well, that's not right.
Like the sputzie, finch and meadow lark,
he's supposed to sleep when it gets dark.

I held my breath to better hear
He sounded far but, oddly, near.
He did it again and what do you suppose?
It was just a little whistling boogie in your Grandma's nose.

I bet Da's work is looking pretty brilliant all of a sudden, Eh?

"If" is absolutely beautiful.  Should be required reading for parents and children alike.

...of course it does require a disclaimer.  I know Kipling dedicated the poem to his son, but all the "ifs" apply to both men and women.  When I read this poem to my kid, son or daughter, I'll probably change the last line to something like "And happiness you've won."

Kipling'll roll over in his grave. 

Blondie, I am a fan of Dylan Thomas.  Mentioned one of his poems above...

I subscribe to the Writer's Almanac and every day get a poem to read (along with some other info on poets, writers) The poems are great because they are written by a mix of well know poets and lesser known contemporary poets. You can subscribe at www.writersalmanac.publicradio.org.

 Shandonista, thanks for bringing up Leonard Cohen!

My favorite Leonard Cohen lyric: 

This should be the correct link:

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/ 

MissKatie, that is one of my favorite songs...my name is Suzanne

My oldest son, who is a musician, songwriter, and executive at a major record company studied poetry to get a feel for song writing.

There's also poetry in some movies, spoken by the characters themselves.  I'm reminded of the opening narration by the main character in "Apocalypse, Now". Willard starts out saying "Saigon....shit", and then speaks what can only be described as a poetic inner soliliquy.

And lets not forget Omar Khayyam....

Frank Sinatra's song, "It Was a Very Good Year" is a good example of poetry.

Expat, I knew I liked you for a reason...

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread - and Thou
--Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

I have a copy of the Rubaiyat by my bed.

The FitzGerald translation of the Rubaiyat is some of my favourite poetry, the stuff I've best memorized. Numbers 23-26 in the first edition-- brilliant!

I love Byron's Don Juan (but none of his early, brooding poetry). If not for the rhyme scheme, you could mistake this couplet for Omar Khayyam: "Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is passed in sleep."

Those two are my favourites, but I love Fernando Pessoa (especially the Ricardo Reis and Alberto Caeiro heteronyms), Theodore Roethke, and James Dickey.

I don't agree with all this music business being put forward (though I do love Springsteen, especially the Nebraska album); and I can't agree with spoken poetry being the best poetry experience. For me, that would be memorization. The poem becomes as embedded in my consciousness as some trip I took as a child, a teacher I had in high school. It becomes a part of me, and not only some experience to seek out from time to time, like going to the movies.

EvanGG,

I also like Don Juan.  Byron and his friend, Shelley, both had a wonderful talent for writing rhyming verse that sounded like blank verse.  They would put many rhymes mid-sentence so, while clear on the page, they had to be looked for while spoken out loud.  Much of Don Juan shows this nicely, as does Shelley's Ozimanias.

I agree with your assessment of the value of learning poetry (not quite the same as memorizing, which can be forgotten more easily than learning can).  But, whether you hear another reader deliver the verse or deliver it yourself, the beauty of it remains audible when experienced.  The notion of it becoming a part of you is an excellent one but I do feel this can also apply to movies.  Any good art form becomes a part of those who love it and they carry it with them always.  Any good performance (whether of poetry, music, cinema, or what have you) transcends itself and survives in the hearts, minds and souls of its audience long after the ephemeral experience of the actual delivery has passed.

The usual caveats notwithstanding, I enjoy the internal references in this code extracted from the Bible:

B. Obama was enlightened to provide advice,
the exalted one will be compensated,
and from his might will emanate a flute.

"At first, we thought the last phrase, and from his might will emanate a flute, trailed off into baffling, albeit poetic, imagery, but then, we Googled "Obama flute" and discovered several references that may help our understanding of this code.

-- Power Line, February 16, 2008, The Return of Sister Flute

-- The Aspen Times, July 15, 2008, Obama:  America's Rainbow Mood Ring

-- Barack Obama's Official Website, January 16, 2008, The Pied Piper of Truth

[biblecodedigest.com, "Startling Election Codes Continue to Surface"]

It goes on . . . and on . . .

And, for benefit of equal time, here's another code extraction from the Bible:

"Further, in the context of the upcoming elections, God giving a gift and an obligation to McCain could be construed as the gift and obligation of the presidency, or it could refer to the obligation of having suffered as a POW and the resulting responsibilities of representing our country during and after his release.

"In addition, Jacobi notes that the vocabulary and grammar in the Hebrew of this code are perfect, as opposed to being just good or acceptable."

[biblecodedigest.com, "Startling Election Codes Continue to Surface"]

It goes on . . . and on . . .

DreadPirateRoberts,

I didn't mean to put down movies in any way. I don't think poetry is the ultimate art form, or necessarily better than movies. It's more the 'going to the movies' (like going to a poetry reading) part of it I was emphasizing. Even that doesn't have to be bad: it's simply that so many of us (well, not so many to poetry readings) do these things to kill time, to find something to fill the hours.

But wherever you find true learning, I have no quarrel.

Oh, and my use of 'memorization' contained 'learning' (at least it did in my mind). You're right to point out a difference between knowing which words go where and learning what they mean, how they work; I wanted to highlight memorization because I think it's central to the learning we prize, you and I.

Speaking of political poetry, Jean de la Fontaine...

La cigale ayant chanté
Tout l'été,
Se trouva fort dépourvue
Quand la bise fut venue :
Pas un seul petit morceau
De mouche ou de vermisseau.
Elle alla crier famine
Chez la fourmi sa voisine,
La priant de lui prêter
Quelque grain pour subsister
Jusqu'à la saison nouvelle.
Je vous paierai, lui dit-elle,
Avant l'août, foi d'animal,
Intérêt et principal.
La fourmi n'est pas prêteuse :
C'est là son moindre défaut.
Que faisiez-vous au temps chaud ?
Dit-elle à cette emprunteuse.
- Nuit et jour à tout venant
Je chantais, ne vous déplaise.
- Vous chantiez ? J'en suis fort aise :
Eh bien ! Dansez maintenant.

Gee, I was hoping Olivia would internationalize this by quoting French poems.  (I don't speak, read or write it since my one year of high school French was very distracting; I had attractive ladies sitting to each side of me and in front of me...and one had an incredible collection of off-color jokes...)

My primary motivation in letting Olivia 'go first' is that I could then start in with my favorite Spanish poems.  (Please, lady, give me cover!)

Many years ago I took a solo multi-day hike in the Spanish mountains (Cuenca) and carried two books: one on Buddhism, and the other a collection of Spanish poetry.  After seven or eight hours of walking, lowering myself down steep 'declives', wading across rivers, and sleeping next to tiny pools of water at the base of mountains covered in wild rosemary, poetry was 'just the thing' as I sat next to my smoky fire waiting for my rice and sausage dinner to cook.   .... Memories....

Sorry Doc, looks like I beat Olivia to the punch.  That was the first piece of literature that I read and memorized in French and it is the only one that I can remember without help.  Now I could recite a couple of Shakira songs in Spanish if you like.

Peterman is a poet, it is just that his prose doesn't rhyme.

Let us not neglect Hermann's Hermits infamous ode to "Henry VIII" nor Rocky and Bullwinkle's weekly "Poetry Corner".

DPR, Ah-ha! We agree on one more thing!  Service.  I learned to appreciate him from my father-in-law. (I have spoken fondly of my m-in-l often, but I was very fortunate to have had just as wonderful a f-in-l as well)  He was born in 1898 and raised on a Kansas wheat farm so did not have all the advantages of a lot of educational stimulation such as theaters and museums.  He was educated through high school in a one room school house with his 9 brothers and sisters.  However, he was quite educated in English literature (and had the most perfect penmanship I have ever seen).  He had memorized, yes, memorized, Service and then later, simply because he liked him, Robert Frost.  My husband tells of how he would often be shaving or some such inane activity,and apropo to nothing that was apparent, he would start in.."A bunch of the boys were whooping it up..."  He loved the stories Service told.  He loved the meter.  He truly had an appreciation for poetry gained from that country school. When he was getting his BA, he took a public speaking course and couldn't think of a speech for his final, so he got up and recited The Face on the Bar-room Floor.  He did the whole thing from memory and apparently so well that the prof gave him an A.    

Anyone like May Swenson?  I have to put in a plug for another true Aggie.

Some for everyone

plenty

and more coming

Fresh dainty airily arriving

everywhere at once ...

Each building will be a hill

all sharps made round ...

Streets will be fields

cars be fumbling sheep ...

By morning we'll be children

feeding on manna

a new loaf on every doorsill

Roberts gets dibs on first mention of Mr. Zimmerman;

blondie-Heiress gets credit for referencing his namesake

Heiress-I'm with you-Joanna Newsome is so fresh! I do like her singing, too...

ExPat-YES! Omar Khayyam is one of my favorites, along with old Sam Coleridge, Charles Dodgson, Edgar Poe, and Edward Gorey. How's that for eclectic? Also, whoever invented the limerick helped greatly to make the world a wonderful place. I've left out others, in their thousands...

Doc-sorry to let you down. My favorite French poem, which I used to sing to my kids at bedtime, goes something like this *clears throat*

Frere Jacque, frere Jacque, dormez vous, dormez vous?

Sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines,

ding ding dong, ding ding dong (repeat until one of you nods off)

Nachista-great one, and I vote for 'The Irish Rover' if we're referencing my old pals The Pogues. Pogue Mahone!-jk-Oh, wait-'Fairy Tale of New York' is fab too...or, or, darnit!

Here's another one I like:

Mica, mica, parva stella

Miror quaenam sis tam bella

Super terra in caelo

Alba gemma splendido

Mica, mica, parva stella

Miror quaenam sis tam bella

I doubt that I need to translate...

BUT,

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat, how I wonder what you're at

Up above the world so high, like a tea-tray in the sky....wait, that's not quite right. I've eaten something odd, and I feel rather dodgy. Must toddle. Ta...but wait! There's more!

Roberts, I so love your sensitivity, your intensity, your heart right there on your sleeve (and the chip on your shoulder in defense of your loves, ya git!). You're priceless!

And that in no way is meant to overlook the rest of you-my god, my god, how did I get so lucky as to fall in with this passel of lovably clever and sometimes snarky (in the best way) rogues? You are all endlessly entertaining. That being said,

I...I shouldn't have come *sob*

I made the fatal mistake

Of dropping in here while taking a break

From grading papers, and

I know it'll leave a rash

When

I tear myself away.

Mr. Peterman's fondness for discredited poets echos my father's sentiments in almost all things beautiful. He's quite the cowboy. And maybe that's why I have always resisted poetry.

But he did read to us. And he does love beautiful things. I found my first copy of Peterman's Owner's Manual on his desk when I was young. And, ironically, as he is a retired prof, he is skeptical of all things that follow 'the rules' of beauty.

But when I think of poetry that stirs me, it is my memories of his readings to his daughters around the fire. His cadence and engagement with reciting the words.

When we were very little, he would build a fire in the living room, put large pillows on the tile floor and read to us from Uncle Remus. Not poetry, in the traditional sense, but when he read it, it was.

We spent many summers Out West, around campfires. One summer, he picked up a copy of 'True Encounters with Big Foot' at Wall Drug on the way to Wyoming. Thanks to the sheer intensity of his "readings," I will always believe Big Foot really lives in the trees surrounding Colter Bay.

I guess I'm saying that poetry, to me, is more in how something is read, than why it was written. The rhythm and meter.

I think I will have to introduce him to Kipling's _If_. We both share the suspicion of anything taken too seriously. I liked it; I think he will, too.

Thanks, Mr. Peterman.

Oh, and one actual poem that my sisters and I used to recite to make each other laugh, sometimes when one was sad, or sometimes in church when laughing was a very bad idea.

"My hair grows to my toes. I never wears no clothes. I wraps my hair around my bare and down the road I goes." ~ Shel Silverstein

Makes me giggle still. My boys love it. But they think their mother is scandalous.

Oh, does anyone else think Anne Sexton was a fraud? Talk about taking yourself too seriously. Yuck.

Well, she paid for it with her life. But judging by this Sexton tidbit...I might agree.

 When man
 enters woman,
 like the surf biting the shore,
 again and again,
 and the woman opens her mouth in pleasure
 and her teeth gleam
 like the alphabet,
 Logos appears milking a star,
 and the man
 inside of woman

Although it's all here replete with music:

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/cafe/1324/sexton.htm 

I'm really pretty much of a "word to thought to sentence to paragraph to chapter to story" kind of guy. The literary version of meat and potatoes. I respect the power and elegance of poetry but beyond lyrics to a favorite song I seldom take notice of it. Not an apology, it's just the way of me.

Many excellent song writers have already been mentioned. One that I think has been overlooked is Ray Davies, especially on his solo work. Another one whose lyrics have stuck with me is early Steve Miller as in the Steve Miller Band; especially this song

Kow kow calqulator
Was a very smooth operator
Had himself a pet alligator
Kept it in a chrome elevator, yeah

When the sun began to shine
The alligator come outside
Kow kow played the chimes
Together they would go for a ride

As they travelled with a heavy load
They came across a dead horse at the side of the road
With two generals standing at each end
Fighting over whose fault it had been

And all that's left was this war
And they couldn't get things back together like they were before

Well, listen
Turn on your love light
Turn it on, let it shine
Inside your heart
Let it shine, turn it on
Your love light
Turn it on
Turn it on
Let it shine
Inside your mind

So many times kow kow had heard it said before
Oh, don't, lord, don't go near that door
The cause of our evil you'll uncover
Because of our misery you discover
Well, misery seeks it's own company
Kow kow had heard it said

Now he sits there crying
Oh, with his hands across his head
Kow kow calqulator
Oh, a very smooth operator

Get back in your elevator
Kow kow calqulator
Turn on your love light
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Let it shine

It may not be high art, but I likes it.

Enjoy the rest of your poetry today (he says as he crawls back into his cave of sentences and paragraphs and stories; while pulling the stone back into the entrance.

Another cute grandkid story:  My 5 year old grandson and I were having a fairly serious, bonding discussion about books and poetry just the other night. When I asked him to recite a famous nursery rhyme or poem that he knew.  His response was met with with great expectation. We had already visited Mother Goose and I was expecting a continuation of sorts.  He proclaimed wide eyed and eagerly that he knew a great poem:

Jingle Bells, Batman smells
Robin laid an egg
The Batmobile lost a wheel
and the Joker got away

As perplexed as I was, I managed to give positive feedback and encouragement.  He did manage to redeem my faith in the family gene later that same evening when he recited a Christian, inspirational, poem that he had learned in school.  Sorry I can't remember the poem but it was quite beautiful.  He was very passionate as he recited it to me and of course Mimi was blubbering everywhere.  If you have small children in your lives then you will understand the sheer joy of my story.  Just a little light-hearted addition to a rather academic topic.       

Peter! How wonderful. Can you please, PLEASE tell me what Steve Miller meant in 'The Joker' by "I speak of the pompitous of love". Is that what he's saying, oh, Enlightened One? and if so, wtf does it MEAN?

Thanks, in advance...

Your pal

Olivia

I was introduced to the works of Kahlil Gibran at summer camp when I was entering adolescence a million years ago - his writing has stayed with a small group of us who continue to quote The Prophet in birthday cards - at funerals - at weddings - anytime.  Even after we have read the myriad biographical works subsequently published about Gibran, we hark back to our days of innocence and quote him still.  Our favorite poets were all set to music - beginning with Robert Louis Stevenson.  Simpler times, innocent times, and yet, although they are now age 65+, many of the women whom we have known and loved since they were age 7, recall those evenings around a campfire and words we shared - and the love and the tears still flow.

Gia,

I prefer to say that her daughters 'paid for it,' especially when she took her life.
Love the example you posted. Gag.

Lovey,

Oh My GOD. Did you write that? Is that you? Brilliant, tiny girl. Brilliant. Brilliant. One more time. Brilliant. If that's you, and you wrote that for him, you better get the hell over to that side of the pond. I mean it.

Also, thought of you at Target (said with French accent, please) the other day because they have a shiny, animal-friendly, red trench coat for 30 bucks. Run. Get it. Oh, and it's a bit on the short side, like you prefer.

EvanGG,

Your point is good though I wasn't thinking so much of attending formal poetry readings (though I love those too).  I grew up in a household where poetry was a regular routine.  We sat around the living room and read poetry together frequently.  My brother and I both knew The Owl and the Pussycat by heart before we could read or write.  We would suddenly start reciting it at a moment's notice at the most inappropriate times and places.

As a child, we would have bedtime stories but, sometimes, we'd have bedtime poems instead.  There are certain verses that, in my mind and my memory, I find absolutely inseparable from my father's voice.

Olivia,

Kudos on remembering Mr. Zimmerman's real name.

missive:
Yes, indeed those are my words/feelings/face/voice.
And ooh, dashing to the Target [tar-jhay] webstore right now.

Lovey,

First of all, I'm delighted to see you here.  I'm sure the school year is keeping you busy.  Secondly, I enjoyed your writing very much.  But please slow down.  You will do your own work far greater justice by allowing each word to have its own weight.

Thank you for gracing us with your work and trusting us with your image, voice, and feelings.

I can't say I know much about Poetry. I have enjoyed some of Archibald MacLeish's poems. I enjoy Emily Dickinson, & I think Poe's "The Raven" & "Annabell Lee" are my absolute favorites. 

A friend of mine introduced me to a band called the Cruxshadows. theor rendtion of "Annabell Lee" its just HAUNTING, Great For Halloween...

I have never gotten around to reading The Prophit, for some odd reason, wheneve rI would go to book sales for the store though we grab all the copies of it we could, of course they were already sold by the time we got back to WI, as the request list for it was always long.  I should REALLY move it up on my book list.

I don't Barret-Browning's Portuguese Sonnets are the worse thing ever written either, it's just that I don't think the whole idea of poetry really is explored in the schools like DPR stated in one of his early posts. The masses understanding of comes for either very mainstream poems, or obscure Crazy poets who's thinking is too deep for just the Plain 'ole people to understand.  

DPR:
Thank you very much.
I know I need to slow down, but I was crazy nervous [I sound on the verge of tears at some points, it's not at all my real voice].
I tend to write in the style of some of the music I listen to, where the verses are a constant rhyming stream of consciousness; the big picture versus a single line.
I'm much better in person.

The King James Version:
It sounds to me like God.

Olivia,

Do not despair, the answer can be found beneath the sacred tablets, here http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/972/in-steve-millers-the-joker-what-is-the-pompatus-of-love

Now, "won't somebody buy me a cheeseburger"

Lovie,

Just two words for you AWESOME!

You exhibit great courage and spark.

Peterlake:
Awesome is two words now?
Thank you.

Lovey

To answer you in two words, yes.

Be well

Mr. Peterman,  My Congratulations ... With no intent to be redundant, but to express my appreciation, I tell you that I have never before known of anyone who shares the same two favored Poets with me ... and certainly for the same reasons that you so aptly expressed...

Of course there are other Artists that I enjoy, too numerous to mention, but none so earthily plumb as the captioned two ... At times I have wondered , while reading the lines about Sam Jaffe's alter ego, what might have happened if Cutter had ever met up with a gal named Lou ...  There surely would have been fireworks, in the desert or in the frozen North, but fireworks none the less ... And what if, Cutter had swaggered into the midst of the Thugges reciting the moments of Dangerous Dan McGrew instead of Busquing that English ditty?  Would the little snake charmers have been more confused and less apt to grab him, or more enraged because the lilt of the Lines had the little stinkers stymied?  Silly of course, to imagine an omologato of two such Artist's offerings, and they as distant in substance as the locale of the stories were geographically, but temptingly fun with writers who seemed to feel life so much in the same way .......  Shkojach!!!

It has been a long and exhausting day, so I'll just leave a crumb for those who wish to enter the labyrinth of Spanish poetry... Here's a link to Luis de Gongora.  For those who care, if you can read Valle-Inclan or Gongora (and understand) you have truly mastered Spanish.  (Think James Joyce for an analogy...)

Anyway... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_de_G%C3%B3ngora

One of my very favorites who has yet to be mentioned here is A.E. Housman.  He could, of course, be "brooding" but he had a sense of humor as well.  And his tremendous empathy for other human beings rings forth in his work.  Consider this piece that he wrote shortly after Oscar Wilde was sent to Reading Gaol for gross indecency:

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they're taking him to prison for the color of his hair.

'Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his;
In the good old time 'twas hanging for the color that it is;
Though hanging isn't bad enough and flaying would be fair
For the nameless and abominable color of his hair.

Oh a deal of pains he's taken and a pretty price he's paid
To hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade;
But they've pulled the beggar's hat off for the world to see and stare,
And they're taking him to justice for the color of his hair.

Now 'tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet,
And the quarry-gang on Portland in the cold and in the heat,
And between his spells of labor in the time he has to spare
He can curse the God that made him for the color of his hair.

not mine, but glad to know it:

Scintillate, scintillate, object vivific

Often I ponder thy nature specific

High above the ether capacious

like a mineral, carbonaceous. 

and mine, repeated I fear:

Indigo, indigo, indigo indigo

Cobalt and ultramarine

Lapis and Sapphire and Robin's egg, too

and Navy, you know what I mean?

Turquoise, cerulean, aqua and sky

Swimming pool, ocean and ink

Plat-eye, Bar Harbor, and Gainsborough, now

and Cornflower, what do you think?

Royal, petroleum, federal and slate

Granite and Denim and Steel

Smoky and hazy and Prussian and Great

and periwinkle, how does That feel? 

HOW COULD WE LEAVE OFF Lucinda Williams, daughter of a poet and a poet herself:

Drunken angel.

reading won't do, Buy the album ( Car wheels on a Gravel Rd) live in it love in it..  

As she says 2 cool 2 be 4gotten... 

William-I'll second that. Her daddy's Arkansas' poet laureate, or was. He works up to the University in Fayetteville, and we claim his babygirl Lucinda, though she likes to say she's been around...

Peter-Puppetudinous! Thanks!

DPR: that's an amazing poem about the war!

 Shakespear was crazy, genious- granted, but crazy

The annuals we plant each spring,

They perish in the fall

Biennials die the second year

Perennials not at all!

-i believe this was written by Sharon Lovejoy

i've never read a poem by maya angelo, but her book i know why the caged bird sings is so sad

nachista:

Ju m'appelle Sunshine. Je aimes les chocolate mais je nem pas les examens. Ca va?

haha i don't understand French, Are you fluent?

as Jiminy Cricket didn't say, "Good night, and may all your dreams" rhyme....

"Pardon me.  Is this a Private Party or can anyone join?"

I pulled old poems I wrote in the years past out of a storage box tonight to select a couple to share, as I am my favorite poet since mine reflect the emotions nearest and dearest to my own heart (at the time of their writing).  I held back posting the ones I wrote while a Pole Dancer, because I don't think that you could handle those; because I'm more Westside than Eastside, more Italian ices in Oyster Bay than catered affairs in Westchester; and I did not want to be responsible for your hernia surgery if too much giggling on my account wrenches your intestines. So, with kid gloves on, these are offered to you now, although the dancer ones were much more controversial and at the very least I hope not to bore you as I myself can tolerate so many things much better than a bore:

My haiku:          The Sun sizzles, melts,

                And drips bronzed warmth onto the

                      Earth; then evening comes.

An untitled poem I wrote on May 16, 1984:

                        The breeze chills my body,

                  and these thoughts sting my soul---

                        I may never have answers;

                          I may never feel whole.

                          I may never be loved---

                              not feel lonely---

                                     again.                                                                                   

                          I may never hold to me 

                        more than this damned pen.

                        God must not have planted 

                             His flowering seeds

                        in my life; there is nothing

                 that's growing but deep, unmet needs.

                               I sit on this wall,

                        a Spring evening in session,

           with only a rhyme, and some time, and obsession.

                             The clay of my body

                             sings out to the clay.

                          The night of my heartache

                              cries out for its day.

                          My halfness-of-wholeness

                             has caused me to fall, 

                            and still no one answers 

                              my soul's piercing call.  

                                                    - Deborah Robinson, AKA Candle_Light  

TTFN!   

what Peter?

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you        Mr. Cricket

Bienvenue Sunshine, je m'appelle Suzanne et je ne suis pas couramment en francais, (I just break out the old text books and spend a half an hour looking up what I'm going to type!)

Candle Light,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your thoughts and poetry.

Can anyone tell me where this poem comes from?

I'm only wounded
I am not slain
I'll just lie here and bleed awhile
Then rise up and fight again

Here is one that I wrote just now.

My daughter wrote a haiku
She was only ten years old
It spoke of a fall leaf floating
Down a stream so clear and cold

The lines were brief but picturesque
And froze an image in my mind
Of natures peaceful moments
Those of the rarest kind

I took that slip of paper
To keep and never lose
So very precious to this Dad
To read when I should choose

The years went by and the precious words
From my precious girl got lost
My heart grows sad when I think of this Dad
And the poem he loved the most

So please don't be so cavalier
To the gifts your children bring
In time your just left memories
And these tiny childhood things

For Olivia and Ex-Pat... some Omar Khayyam (he's the wine-lover's poet!):

Si
je bois du vin, ce n'est pas pour ma propre satisfaction;

je ne cherche ni le désordre ni à m'abstenir de religion et de moral:

non, c'est pour respirer un moment en dehors de moi-même.

Aucun autre motif ne me sollicite à boire, à m'enivrer.

I also like the bit where the wind pushes the wine over, and he talks to God about punishing the "mal par le mal..." it's quite humorous, really...

Okay, now that the day is gone and we're on to another topic, I've decided to go ahead and post some of my own work.  It's a blank verse piece about the last librarian of the Library of Alexandria:

HYPATIA, MY LOVE

Hypatia, my love was witty and wise, so wise
As all the world has never ever known.
Though I had studied much so long and hard 
And drunk the joy of Euclid in my head,
And warred my thoughts with friends in Greece, yet still
I nothing knew of what remained for minds
Such as the one I hold, forever searching,
Striving to know, to grow, to flourish and
Find truth.  As sacred as the gods is truth
That mind and reason cannot choose but prove.
To Alexandria my spirit flew,
And body followed, there awakening
And opening my eyes to her wise voice,
That voice that taught me all I'll ever know.
And twixt the columns of the lecture hall
Of Alexandria's University,
My brain burned with the all-consuming lust
To learn and know and prove the reasons of the world.

Hypatia, my love was wedded to the truth
And would not bend her heart or her devotion
From the course that she had charted to the stars,
And I was there, prepared to helm the craft
‘Twould take her there, so wealthy was my store
Of love for her and all she knew and shared.
And so enormous was her insight, so
Transparent was my heart that there, one night
She read my soul and answered it in kind.
Not all the fires in great Hephaestas' forge
Glowed half as grand as we, that starry night, 
Discovering the gods within ourselves,
Erupting in delight like high Vesuvius,
And mapping out each other's treasures sweet.
While basking in exquisite ecstasy,
Though I was neither first nor last to burn
The oil that lit the lamp of her desire,
I found that she remained a teacher still,
And lessons learned that night have stayed with me
Far longer, yet, than any I have known.

Hypatia, my love would not run when I begged,
When screams of heresy were flung on her 
By the foul, rabid, unreasoning mob,
They that were Alexandria's disgrace
With chosen blindness worshipping their Gods,
The three yet one all at the cost of thought.
That Cyril, avaricious patriarch
Of Egypt, knew the weak and feeble minds
Of the unlearned followers of faith
And used them to his ends.  He would not be
O'erruled by men, nor gods that were not his.
He turned a spiteful eye and powerful tongue
On all who did not crawl before his might. 
And first within his ire fell my dear love,
The legendary herald of free thought.
And though I begged her ‘scape his dangerous grasp,
She would not leave her library to face
The torch alone. Her university
Would never see the dust left from her feet.
She would not run.  No, no, she would not run.

Hypatia, my love had airy gusts of wind 
Galloping through her waves of honeyed hair
That fateful day she drove her chariot
Up to the steps of her great library,
And there she found the mob, thirsty for blood,
A hundred eyes ablaze in envious hate,
At Cyril's bidding, armed with jagged clubs,
And thus, this beacon of the