Hey there. As a lover of verse, I feel compelled to start this topic, wherein any passerby may share their favorite poetry. You may notice that there are a few options. If you don't mind explaining why you do or don't like poetry that's halal as well.
I'll post what is probably my favorite poem (though having favorite poems is like having favorite cheesecakes) and is written by W.B. Yeats, and Irishman who was for a time a member of the Golden Dawn and involved in the political machinations in Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century. He could be classified as a Symbolist, he once noted that by the point of this collection (The Wind Among the Reeds) he had refined his symbols so much that they had a life of their own.
Yeat's first love was Maud Gonne (pronounced 'Mode Gun' I think) and often in his poems the 'lady' or 'woman' is either her or based on her. She was involved in the beginning of the IRA, which he opposed.
"The Song of Wandering Aengus*"
I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing, 5
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame, 10
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran 15
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands; 20
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
*Aengus is the name of the old Irish god of love.
The 'golden apples of the sun' was a line that captivated Ray Bradbury (and thus the name of the book he wrote.)
As for my answer, I'm a writer of verse myself, all of which can be discovered by a curious soul. I do not, however, actively share my poetry.
From Shakespeare, a sonnet for people who hate sonnets:
"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red thean her lips' red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes there is more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare."
A dark alleyway.
Man with a knife in his hand.
Making a sandwich.
*giggles*
I wish I were a good poet or a writer of any stripe. Sadly, I seem to be in possession of an extraordinary vocabulary and yet lack any ability, compared to others here.
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Quote from Cliff Racer »
If a creeper walked in to my house, I'd either be cowering in a corner or unzipping my trousers.
From Shakespeare, a sonnet for people who hate sonnets:
"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red thean her lips' red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes there is more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare."
He was a cheeky little beggar, that William.
I honestly love sonnets, but when I read Will's I was like, 'wtf!?' so, maybe I like sonnets but I don't like yours, Mr. Shakespeare. If only you had written another Tempest or Merry Wives of Windsor instead.
---
I had another thought for a would-be poet, and that is that you have to find a poet whose poetry you like (at least some of it) and emulate their work for a bit. In order to have poetic freedom of the meaningful sort, i.e. being able to actually say what you want to say in beautiful (ish) verse, you have to first accept the restrictions of the structure of poetry.
When I was in school, I think mostly what I came to understand about poetry was that it rhymes. But then, a lot of poetry doesn't. What I learned later is that rhythm is more essential than rhyme. Sonnets are based mostly on rhythm ('pentameter'.)
Compare
I had run off to go to the store
I was out of toilet paper and needed to get more
With
I ran my way off to the store
No toilet paper! I needed more.
Haiku is really awesome for teaching one's self to say things shortly and within a certain pattern of syllables.
To the store I went
For toilet paper was sent
To brave mire and rain.
The only other thing that seems to be important is imagery, and haiku as the Japanese supposedly practice it enforces a kind of 'it must be about nature' rule. Now, I've read some Haikus that are decidedly not so, but it is a good practice to stop fitting prose into a syllable mold and actually painting with words.
Alliteration, consonation and patterning are good too. Speaking of sonnets, or sonnet-like things anyhow:
When You are Old
WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
When chance brings heartache's burden near
we do ourselves play puppeteer
and strings of heart as well as mind are pulled in hope of one to find
who makes the whole of separate souls
and fills the void of kin and kind.
In moving onward war does wage within a life so young in age
but not by any smaller force from hopeless cause our hearts divorce.
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You are totally thinking about this signature right now. Read a book.
When chance brings heartache's burden near
we do ourselves play puppeteer
when strings of heart as well as mind are pulled in hope of one to find
who makes the whole of separate souls
and fills the void of kin and kind.
In moving onward war does wage within a life so young in age
but not by any smaller force from hopeless cause our hearts divorce.
It is reminiscent of English sonnet with that couplet on the end.
Well I just put some poems in the Day Chat before this thread opened. Bad timing :<
Here, I dug it up. The creepy and dark one that I need help finishing :happy.gif:
Yesterday the woman’s heart was pierced
By a knife, my friends, by a knife
Broken body rotting away
Where, I cannot say
Today the husband returns
On a plane, business class
A detour is made, to the ground
A loose end, tied
Tomorrow the investigation begins
But it is a flashlight with dead batteries
And the room is black, pitch black
May I offer:
'And who will bring the light back?'
Sometimes it helps to use some rhetorical forms, especially in a ballad type poem. The generic form is 'Invention -> Arrangement -> Elocution' Invention in this case is the death of the woman; arrangement is what follows that and what results from it, and the elocution is what may be said because of this. The trick is making the elocution not 'literal' in the sense of the poet telling you 'how it is'.
In that poem I shared at the beginning, there is a clear rhetorical cycle going on;
the fire in the head, -> berry on the thread
glimmering girl -> long wandering
two loops of invention -> arrangement
and then elocution with 'and I will kiss her lips and take her hands..' but it is in the mouth of Aengus, not the poet...
Also check out this trainwreck of a poem!
The Last Hero, by G K Chesterton
The wind blew out from Bergen from the dawning to the day,
There was a wreck of trees and fall of towers a score of miles away,
And drifted like a livid leaf I go before its tide,
Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride.
The heavens are bowed about my head, shouting like seraph wars,
With rains that might put out the sun and clean the sky of stars,
Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above,
The roaring of the rains of God none but the lonely love.
Feast in my hall, O foemen, and eat and drink and drain,
You never loved the sun in heaven as I have loved the rain.
The chance of battle changes -- so may all battle be;
I stole my lady bride from them, they stole her back from me.
I rent her from her red-roofed hall, I rode and saw arise,
More lovely than the living flowers the hatred in her eyes.
She never loved me, never bent, never was less divine;
The sunset never loved me, the wind was never mine.
Was it all nothing that she stood imperial in duresse?
Silence itself made softer with the sweeping of her dress.
O you who drain the cup of life, O you who wear the crown,
You never loved a woman's smile as I have loved her frown.
The wind blew out from Bergen to the dawning of the day,
They ride and run with fifty spears to break and bar my way,
I shall not die alone, alone, but kin to all the powers,
As merry as the ancient sun and fighting like the flowers.
How white their steel, how bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave,
Cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave.
Yea, I will bless them as they bend and love them where they lie,
When on their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky.
The hour when death is like a light and blood is like a rose,-
You never loved your friends, my friends, as I shall love my foes.
Know you what earth shall lose to-night, what rich uncounted loans,
What heavy gold of tales untold you bury with my bones?
My loves in deep dim meadows, my ships that rode at ease,
Ruffling the purple plumage of strange and secret seas.
To see this fair earth as it is to me alone was given,
The blow that breaks my brow to-night shall break the dome of heaven.
The skies I saw, the trees I saw after no eyes shall see,
To-night I die the death of God; the stars shall die with me;
One sound shall sunder all the spears and break the trumpet's breath:
You never laughed in all your life as I shall laugh in death.
I have this going on in my head when I play minecraft... >=)
There we were, shivering in a dark room, lit by a blue tint. In a bed that was far to large for us. We curled up for warmth, face to face, with our breath streaming down on each others held huddle hands, under a seemingly seamless blanket.
I say to you, "You know, someday, I might not be here to comfort you."
"Why would we ever be apart?"
"For what cruel reason I would ever be prayed from your hands, I do not know." I pause too find the words.
i love love love poems
and haikus and generally all lyricals
rhyming poems that still sound great are my favorite
till death do we unite
to ascend into the pillar of light
to bind us together
forever
to escape from the woes
to a land that glows
with beauty and love
symbolized by a dove
from which the land we abscond
family, friends, their chains unbond
their scorn grows deeper, we do not care
he runs from the earth with his maiden so fair
to the promised land
they journey hand in hand
smiling the whole way
in a manner one may call "oh so fey"
the woman looks to him
holding onto him with a lanky limb
he stares at her
her face as soft as velvet fur
soft smiles crease their faces
and soon they quicken their paces
the gates will close soon enough
but they walk quickly on the clouds of fluff
the golden gate is what they stand before
told of only in promising lore
the gatekeeper glances at a book
why was he taking the time he took?
mumbling an apology, he headed inside
and said with a face that appeared quite snide
"We can't allow you entry, you are too impure"
the woman gasped and asked "Are you sure?"
but without a word, the gate lock clicked
fallen tears were what the clouds licked
the two shoved their bodies together
and they walked away from the promised land
forever.
But, one should be careful about sharing one's poetry.
Speaking of visions of paradise. How about --
Kubla Khan by S. T. Coleridge
IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But O, that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced;
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she play'd,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me,
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Oh Coleridge, please share with us some of your special stash!
Every time I see a teenager write "poetry" with no rhyme, meter, or anything else that defines poetry, and it's about how much they hate everyone and about how their "true love" of 3-weeks ripped their heart out, I want to punt red pandas with a steel-toe boot.
Every time I see a teenager write "poetry" with no rhyme, meter, or anything else that defines poetry, and it's about how much they hate everyone and about how their "true love" of 3-weeks ripped their heart out, I want to punt red pandas with a steel-toe boot.
This, plus "funny" randomness and old memes, is basically the Creative Writing club at my high school.
Seeing into a red river
Tripped with ripples,
Always showing the sun's reflection,
Two trout swim by
In an orderly fashion, Just
Coming and going
Only then did it disappear,
Now I see its darkest floor
Two minutes later, It returns, Now it ripples
Horribly violent, It
Ends with the water with a bit more red than it had been before
The trout reappear, But one is carried back, A
V shape splashes into the maroon water and takes the other
I'll post what is probably my favorite poem (though having favorite poems is like having favorite cheesecakes) and is written by W.B. Yeats, and Irishman who was for a time a member of the Golden Dawn and involved in the political machinations in Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century. He could be classified as a Symbolist, he once noted that by the point of this collection (The Wind Among the Reeds) he had refined his symbols so much that they had a life of their own.
Yeat's first love was Maud Gonne (pronounced 'Mode Gun' I think) and often in his poems the 'lady' or 'woman' is either her or based on her. She was involved in the beginning of the IRA, which he opposed.
The 'golden apples of the sun' was a line that captivated Ray Bradbury (and thus the name of the book he wrote.)
As for my answer, I'm a writer of verse myself, all of which can be discovered by a curious soul. I do not, however, actively share my poetry.
"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red thean her lips' red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes there is more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare."
He was a cheeky little beggar, that William.
A dark alleyway.
Man with a knife in his hand.
Making a sandwich.
*giggles*
I wish I were a good poet or a writer of any stripe. Sadly, I seem to be in possession of an extraordinary vocabulary and yet lack any ability, compared to others here.
But I'm no good at this either.
I honestly love sonnets, but when I read Will's I was like, 'wtf!?' so, maybe I like sonnets but I don't like yours, Mr. Shakespeare. If only you had written another Tempest or Merry Wives of Windsor instead.
---
I had another thought for a would-be poet, and that is that you have to find a poet whose poetry you like (at least some of it) and emulate their work for a bit. In order to have poetic freedom of the meaningful sort, i.e. being able to actually say what you want to say in beautiful (ish) verse, you have to first accept the restrictions of the structure of poetry.
When I was in school, I think mostly what I came to understand about poetry was that it rhymes. But then, a lot of poetry doesn't. What I learned later is that rhythm is more essential than rhyme. Sonnets are based mostly on rhythm ('pentameter'.)
Compare
I had run off to go to the store
I was out of toilet paper and needed to get more
With
I ran my way off to the store
No toilet paper! I needed more.
Haiku is really awesome for teaching one's self to say things shortly and within a certain pattern of syllables.
To the store I went
For toilet paper was sent
To brave mire and rain.
The only other thing that seems to be important is imagery, and haiku as the Japanese supposedly practice it enforces a kind of 'it must be about nature' rule. Now, I've read some Haikus that are decidedly not so, but it is a good practice to stop fitting prose into a syllable mold and actually painting with words.
Alliteration, consonation and patterning are good too. Speaking of sonnets, or sonnet-like things anyhow:
Glorious!
Yes! Great fun.
They called me a square
But not just I, the whole world
Is clean cut and stacked.
My arm never tires
As I move the underground
To my magic bag.
The glint of bright teal
In this dark groaning cavern
An arrow whistles.
Sherwin Williams
Paints the world, but with my pail
I wash it away.
The little green men
Come from the dark to find me
So quiet, so loud.
:smile.gif:
love.
When chance brings heartache's burden near
we do ourselves play puppeteer
and strings of heart as well as mind are pulled in hope of one to find
who makes the whole of separate souls
and fills the void of kin and kind.
In moving onward war does wage within a life so young in age
but not by any smaller force from hopeless cause our hearts divorce.
It is reminiscent of English sonnet with that couplet on the end.
Here, I dug it up. The creepy and dark one that I need help finishing :happy.gif:
Yesterday the woman’s heart was pierced
By a knife, my friends, by a knife
Broken body rotting away
Where, I cannot say
Today the husband returns
On a plane, business class
A detour is made, to the ground
A loose end, tied
Tomorrow the investigation begins
But it is a flashlight with dead batteries
And the room is black, pitch black
May I offer:
'And who will bring the light back?'
Sometimes it helps to use some rhetorical forms, especially in a ballad type poem. The generic form is 'Invention -> Arrangement -> Elocution' Invention in this case is the death of the woman; arrangement is what follows that and what results from it, and the elocution is what may be said because of this. The trick is making the elocution not 'literal' in the sense of the poet telling you 'how it is'.
In that poem I shared at the beginning, there is a clear rhetorical cycle going on;
the fire in the head, -> berry on the thread
glimmering girl -> long wandering
two loops of invention -> arrangement
and then elocution with 'and I will kiss her lips and take her hands..' but it is in the mouth of Aengus, not the poet...
Also check out this trainwreck of a poem!
I have this going on in my head when I play minecraft... >=)
I say to you, "You know, someday, I might not be here to comfort you."
"Why would we ever be apart?"
"For what cruel reason I would ever be prayed from your hands, I do not know." I pause too find the words.
"Ring ring." And I sit up, clenching my pillow.
"Hello?"
and haikus and generally all lyricals
rhyming poems that still sound great are my favorite
till death do we unite
to ascend into the pillar of light
to bind us together
forever
to escape from the woes
to a land that glows
with beauty and love
symbolized by a dove
from which the land we abscond
family, friends, their chains unbond
their scorn grows deeper, we do not care
he runs from the earth with his maiden so fair
to the promised land
they journey hand in hand
smiling the whole way
in a manner one may call "oh so fey"
the woman looks to him
holding onto him with a lanky limb
he stares at her
her face as soft as velvet fur
soft smiles crease their faces
and soon they quicken their paces
the gates will close soon enough
but they walk quickly on the clouds of fluff
the golden gate is what they stand before
told of only in promising lore
the gatekeeper glances at a book
why was he taking the time he took?
mumbling an apology, he headed inside
and said with a face that appeared quite snide
"We can't allow you entry, you are too impure"
the woman gasped and asked "Are you sure?"
but without a word, the gate lock clicked
fallen tears were what the clouds licked
the two shoved their bodies together
and they walked away from the promised land
forever.
wow i suck at this.
But, one should be careful about sharing one's poetry.
Speaking of visions of paradise. How about --
Oh Coleridge, please share with us some of your special stash!
Her beautiful eyes.
Her flowing hair.
Holding her hand,
In the meadow.
A black tuxedo.
An angry frown.
A sweatdrop on his head,
In the meadow.
A crowd gathered.
A shrieking microphone.
A nation lusting for blood,
In the meadow.
Thousand feet stepping.
Tanks rustling by.
Treadmarks engraved,
In the meadow.
Gunshots ring out,
Generals shout.
Good men lost,
In the meadow.
Thousand crosses laid out,
The same flowing hair.
Tears down her cheeks,
In the meadow.
Yes i know it's bad. Im not the master.
Need better vocabulary.
cardgame likes. :3
This, plus "funny" randomness and old memes, is basically the Creative Writing club at my high school.