Last poem you read that meant something to you?

This is the place for readers of poetry. Discuss poetry and literary art. You can also discuss music here, including lyrics. Also, you can discuss poets themselves, in addition to poetry.
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Fran
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Re: Last poem you read that meant something to you?

Post by Fran »

Jesska6029 wrote:"The Hangman" by Maurice Ogden. This poem gives me chills every time.
Truly chilling - reminds me of The Ballad Of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde
We fade away, but vivid in our eyes
A world is born again that never dies.
- My Home by Clive James
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Circling Turtle
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Post by Circling Turtle »

XIV (pity this busy monster, manunkind) by E. E. Cummings. I have always loved his work, but after having to conduct a close analysis on this poem recently I developed an even deeper respect and appreciation for the way in which he layers various poetic devices to contribute towards a deeper understanding of the themes he explores. He is a true poetic genius, and this piece, which is a critical observation of the futility of humanity's soulless pursuit of progress, is even more relevant today than when it was written. I find lines of the poem playing in my head when I watch the news.
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deftlyspeaking
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Post by deftlyspeaking »

Love's Philosophy by Percy Byshee Shelley "...and the sunlight clasp the earth and the moonbeams kiss the sea, what are all these kissings worth if thou kiss not me." That poem means EVERYTHING to me as it currently describes my present love situation. If I am meant to be happy with someone why do I feel so lonely, single? If all things are meant to be paired why am I the odd one left out of the pairing ceremony?
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Post by StevenLW »

Louise Glück's A Summer Garden, which perfectly captured my growing sense of a future loneliness -- not just growing old, but also of friends and family members dying before me, divorce, the kids moving out and on into the world to build their own lives and gardens.

She looks back and sees the past still, quiet in her mind's eye ... "like an afternoon in Pompeii." That's the line/metaphor that drove it all home for me.

Glück is an American treasure.
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Post by LuciaBall »

My aunt introduced me to Pablo Neruda several years ago, and I fell head-over-heels for his work. His descriptions and metaphors are breath-taking, and he seems to speak to your soul in a language that is familiar yet distant -- like a language you knew as a child but have long since forgotten.

I bought a little volume of "Twenty Love Poems And A Song of Despair", which is a small compilation of some of Neruda's poems, during my sailing travels on the East Coast. My then-fiance and I would read them to each other during our off-watches, and we felt that one in particular spoke to us. We even had the aunt that introduced Neruda to me read the original Spanish version at our wedding, with my cousin reading it in English right after her. I've pasted it below, and I hope you enjoy it.

Here I Love You
by Pablo Neruda

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.

Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.
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DATo
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Post by DATo »

Sonnet 116
“I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed reading accident. I hit a book mark and flew across the room.”
― Steven Wright
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LuciaBall
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Post by LuciaBall »

DATo wrote:Sonnet 116
That's my favorite Shakespearean sonnet as well! I committed it to memory, and even had one of my theater friends from high school recite it at my wedding. So many of his sonnets are exquisite, but that one does seem to have something special.
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Post by Circling Turtle »

Sonnet 116 is definitely my favourite Shakespearan sonnet. I also love Sonnet 73: "That Time of Year Thou Mayst in me Behold".

I've been reading some of Helen Moffett's poetry lately, she is one of the best contemporary South African poets I've come across. 'Mined' is a favourite of mine ("Loving me must be like visting the Balkans...").
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Post by malutka »

Scholar Gypsy by Matthew Arnold. I think anyone who has spent significants amount of time in school can identify.
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Post by kitsune1997 »

It was a Greek one, Ο Κρητικός or in English The Cretan by Solomos. I can't really explain it, but I loved it and it meant much to me as there were mentions of the sacrifices they had to make to survive.
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
Jorge Luis Borges
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Post by KAM101 »

"Three Questions" by Lang Leav.

What was it like to love him? Asked Gratitude...What was it like to be loved in return? Asked Joy...What was it like to lose him? Asked Sorrow...
Sara MCR
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Post by Sara MCR »

The Albatross by Charles Baudelaire
I recognized myself a bit...
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vpace74
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Post by vpace74 »

"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" Dylan Thomas
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Post by Neiha_onthego »

Hey .. I am new here. but the poem, or rather a two-liner that touched me is by Rumi.
He says:
Why struggle to open the door between us,
when the whole wall is an illusion.....

just a simple line but sooo much of depth behind those.....
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Post by DennisK »

I am not much when it comes to poetry, but this one caught me:

Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911)

One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bellwethers always do.

And from that day, o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made,
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh —
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet.
The road became a village street,
And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare,
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed that zigzag calf about,
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They follow still his crooked way,
And lose one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.
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