Make New Friends, But Keep the O-old…
February 6, 2009
…one is silver and the other gold! Anyone else sing that song in Girl Scouts? Well, I think it applies just as well to poems as friends. And after reading Frances Mayes’ The Discovery of Poetry: a Field Guide, I’ve definitely discovered some new favourite poems. I thought it’d be nice to share links with you all, as well as the first two lines to get you interested. (Of course, I’m always on the look-out for more great poems, so feel free to link to your favourites in the comments!)
- “A Blessing” by James Wright
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.- “XIII (Dedications)” by Adrienne Riche
I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office- “Chanson Innocente” by e.e.cummings
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-- “Saying Things” by Marilyn Krysl
Three things quickly – pineapple, sparrowgrass, whale -
and then on to asbestos. What I want to say tonight is- “Gloire de Dijon” by D.H. Lawrence
When she rises in the morning
I linger to watch her;- “Question” by Maw Swenson
Body my house
my horse my hound- “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.- “The Elder Sister” by Sharon Olds
When I look at my elder sister now
I think how she had to go first, down through the- “Atomic Pantoum” by Peter Meinke
In a chain reaction
the neutrons released- “Effort at Speech Between Two People” by Muriel Rukeyser
: Speak to me. Take my hand. What are you now?
I will tell you all. I will conceal nothing.- “The Colonel” by Carolyn Forche
What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar.- “Free Union” by Andre Breton
My wife with the hair of a wood fire
With the thoughts of heat lighting- “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;- “Harlem Sweeties” by Langston Hughes
Have you dug the spill
Of Sugar Hill?- “I’m Explaining a Few Things” by Pablo Neruda
You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
And I can’t leave out my old favourites, who I’ve loved for years:
- “The Saddest Poem” by Pablo Neruda
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars,- “L’Invitation au Voyage” by Charles Baudelaire (link includes English translation)
Mon enfant, ma soeur,
Songe à la douceur- “Hope” by Emily Dickinson
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,- “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe- “Honey at the Table” by Mary Oliver
It fills you with the soft
essence of vanished flowers, it becomes- “Just Once” by Anne Sexton
Just once I knew what life was for.
In Boston, quite suddenly, I understood;- “i like my body when it is with your body” by e.e.cummings
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.- “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:- “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height- “The Blacksmith” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;- “He Loved Three Things in Life” by Anna Akhmatova (the first Russian poem I memorised; scroll down to read it)
He loved three things in life:
evensong, white peacocks,- “Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein (the first poem I remember loving!)
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
and before the street begins,- “Sonnet #18″ by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:- “Fog” by Carl Sandburg
The fog comes
on little cat feet.- “Child in Red” by Rainer Maria Rilke
Sometimes she walks through the village in her
little red dress
Have your own favourite poem? Please share!!
Such good poems! The Yeats (The Second Coming) is one of my all-time favorites. The first of the new-to-me poems I read from this post was the Adrienne Rich. LOOOOVE it. Thanks for sharing these, Eva! I can’t wait to read some more.
I’m not a big poetry chick (I plan on tackling some of this issue in April), but I always love Christina Rossetti’s poems when I read them. You should give her a try!
Lezlie
Great post–I so want to spend more time with it later! I love the few Pablo Nerudo poems I’ve read, thanks for the reminder that I should seek out more.
Such great choices! The poem I always think of when I’m asked this questions is…
Sonnet 17 – Pablo Neruda – http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/N/NerudaPablo/17Idonotlove.htm
The last two stanzas get me every time.
If you’re fond of Neruda, try “Ode to My Socks” — http://www.forks.wednet.edu/FHSMAIN/LangArts/sanchez/Ode%20to%20My%20Socks.htm — you might want to look for other of his “Elementary Odes,” which are by far his most playful and delightful poems; they were written specifically for newspaper publication (hence the long, narrow format designed to fit within a single newspaper column) in the 1950s and 60s following the completion of his huge 400-page epic poem “Canto General.”
Poems thus far have been a strange beast to me, but there are some lovely ones in your list. :)
That is the only song I remember from Girl Scouts!
You picked some great poems. Have you read the anthology Good Poems? It’s edited by Garrison Keillor and is filled with some lovely poetry.
One of my favorite poems is “Hummingbird” by Raymond Carver. I once posted it on my blog.
http://1330v.blogspot.com/2008/06/read-thon-mini-challenge-hour-13.html
Here are links to several more of Neruda’s “Odes”:
My personal favorite, “Ode to the Onion” — http://foodmuseum.typepad.com/food_museum_blog/2004/07/pablo_nerudas_o.html
Here are links to several others; for some reason, these are all food-related although the majority of his “Odes” aren’t: — http://sunsite.dcc.uchile.cl/chile/misc/odas.html
Awesome list! I’m reading a poetry anthology right now (slowly but surely) and I”m loving the experience. Thanks for these recommendations…
So many wonderful poems; some faves already, some new. You have reminded me that I need to read more Neruda, for starters.
Thanks!
HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS!!!! Oh Emily Dickenson, I would have come and visited with, and taken tea in your dark room and not commented on the dingy curtains.
The best poem of my life, which I will reproduce for you here in full, is by W C Williams.
This is Just to Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
ALSO, look up ‘This Living Hand’ by John Keats. One of my profs threw it up on the overhead to make some point or other, and I forget because I was so distracted by the HAUNTING TERRIFYINGNESS of the poem.
i carry your heart with me by e.e. cummings
probably the most touching thing i’ve ever read in my entire life.
What a fun list. Thanks for this.
Rilke is my favorite poet, overall. “The Moon And The Yew Tree” is my favorite Plath poem. I also love “Locking Yourself Out, Then Trying to Get Back In,” by Raymond Carver. A lot of people aren’t familiar with his poetry…and “Somewhere I Have Never Traveled” by e.e. cummings definitely gets my vote for most romantic poem.
Here are several others I frequently recommend:
“A Display of Mackerel” by Mark Doty — http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/698.html
“Life Is Beautiful” by Dorianne Laux –
http://www.pshares.org/issues/article.cfm?prmArticleid=4985
“The Hummingbird: A Seduction” by Pattiann Rogers –
http://www.spirituallyfit.com/volume2/issue4/stories/pattiann_rogers.htm
“Fast Break” by Edward Hirsch —
http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/109.html
The Colonel” by Carolyn Forche is when I became a Forche fan. I had purchased a copy of the The Country Between Us not knowing the poet. After reading her, I’ve shared several copies to friends.
Thanks, Eva. I love poetry, don’t read enough of it.
“I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great” by Stephen Spender
I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
Wonderful lists, Eva! One of my favorite poems is posted on my blog right now, being read by one of my second graders!
I love poetry, and I’m happy someone else enjoys Neruda as much as I do! My absolute favorite poem is ee cummings’ “in Just”:
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonman whistles
far
and
wee
It reminds me of Spring and makes me really happy. :)
“Optimism” by Jane Hirshfield
More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another.
A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs–all this resinous, unretractable earth.
____________________
“Tea” by Carol Ann Duffy
I like pouring your tea, lifting
the heavy pot, and tipping it up,
so the fragrant liquid streams in your china cup.
Or when you’re away, or at work,
I like to think of your cupped hands as you sip,
as you sip, of the faint half-smile of your lips.
I like the questions – sugar? – milk? –
and the answers I don’t know by heart, yet,
for I see your soul in your eyes, and I forget.
Jasmine, Gunpowder, Assam, Earl Grey, Ceylon,
I love tea’s names. Which tea would you like? I say
but it’s any tea for you, please, any time of day,
as the women harvest the slopes
for the sweetest leaves, on Mount Wu-Yi,
and I am your lover, smitten, straining your tea.
ee cummings:
you shall above all things be glad and young.
For if you’re young,whatever life you wear
it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever’s living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love
whose any mystery makes every man’s
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time
that you should ever think,may god forbid
and(in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation’s dead undoom.
I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
Andi, thanks! Isn’t that Rich poem awesome? I’ve always really liked her when I came across her. :)
Lezlie, thanks for the suggestion-I’ll do that!
Ali, Neruda makes me want to learn Spanish. :D
Lu, thanks for sharing! That is a truly beautiful sonnet. *sigh* I assume you’ve seen Il Postino, which feautures Neruda as a character?
Hedgie, thanks! That poem was a ton of fun-I loved the image “two long sharks/of lapis blue/shot/with a golden thread,”
Olga, poetry has never been my ‘thing’ either-that’s why I’m making more of an effort this year!
Vasilly, it’s the only song I remember from Girl Scouts too. That anthology sounds great-I’ll see if my library has it. I remember reading that poem during the read-a-thon: it’s a great one!
Hedgie, thanks for every more of them! :)
Rebecca, no problem. Which anthology are you reading?
DS, you’re welcome!
Raych, I feel the same way. ;) I love the poem you shared!! Of course, now I want to go eat a plum right now. Instead, I’m off to look up the Keats. Ok, I’m back, and that is SO CREEPY. In an awesome way!
Lena, I think cummings and Neruda wrote the best love poetry ever. I would seriously melt if a guy ever sent me one of their poems.
Priscilla, thanks for sharing your favourites! My favourite part of the Plath poem was “It drags the sea after it like a dark crime;”. How powerful! And the last lines of the cummins were breathtaking. :)
Hedgie, thanks for even more links!! :D
Susan, I definitely want to read more Forche.
Gavin, that’s how I’ve always been. This year, I want to read more poetry. AND I want to memorise more!
Frances, that one was in Discovery of Poetry! It’s a powerful one. :)
Robin, thanks for letting me know!
Jessi, that’s one of my new favourites too. :D I’m an April baby, and Spring is such a great season!
Dark Orpheus, thanks for sharing-I loved them both, but especially “tea.” I have to memorise that one.
Claire, so many cummings fans! He was incredible. :D I love how this poem begins; what a good life philosophy.
I like pouring your tea, lifting
the heavy pot, and tipping it up,
so the fragrant liquid streams in your china cup.
Or when you’re away, or at work,
I like to think of your cupped hands as you sip,
as you sip, of the faint half-smile of your lips.
I like the questions – sugar? – milk? –
and the answers I don’t know by heart, yet,
for I see your soul in your eyes, and I forget.
Jasmine, Gunpowder, Assam, Earl Grey, Ceylon,
I love tea’s names. Which tea would you like? I say
but it’s any tea for you, please, any time of day,
as the women harvest the slopes
for the sweetest leaves, on Mount Wu-Yi,
and I am your lover, smitten, straining your tea