Who is your favorite poet?

[tigereye]

Just curious about people's poetry tastes. This should probably be divided into time periods, styles or languages, or when we English majors went to college, but this is just one thread.

Some others might be: Lorca, ee cummings, Marge Piercy, Robert Frost, Keats , Nikki Giovanni, Edmund Spenser, Chaucer, Milton, etc. Feel free to lambaste me for any I have forgotten. :)

[mark414]

1. i can't decide!

mostly between langston hughes and yeats...ugh it's difficult. but since i'm an irishman i will cast my vote for yeats.

[tigereye]

3. It isn't really fair to make this a choice,

I guess. Just list who you like!

[mark414]

5. well in that case

langston hughes, yeats, ee cummings, baudelaire, allen ginsburg, keats, etc...

[tigereye]

8. ah yes, Baudelaire and Ginsburg!

maybe we need threads for every genre of poetry. Let's just fill up the board with poetry threads! :)

[GOPisEvil]

2. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a favorite.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner is his best known work.

He is also the source of the quote in my sig. line.

[gottaB]

4. Allen Ginsberg

consider yourself lambasted

;)

[mark414]

6. i saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness

starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix

[On the Road]

12. Angelheaded Hipsters

burning for the ancient connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.

(His best line ever)

[gottaB]

15. jinx!

[gottaB]

13. angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection

to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night--

yeah, that's the guy

[baby_bear]

39. Carl Sandburg - one for me and one for GWBush

This stanza I have loved since I was 15 years old:

If I should pass the tomb of Jonah
I would stop there and sit for awhile;

For I was swallowed one time deep in the dark
And came out alive after all.


I never really appreciated the second stanza until now.
Remind anyone of Bush?

If I pass the burial spot of Nero
I shall say to the wind, “Well, well!”—
I who have fiddled in a world on fire,
I who have done so many stunts not worth doing.

Except he has insufficient insight or self-examination to even realize it.


s_m

[tigereye]

9. I know

hangs head in shame :)

[baby_bear]

7. The list is way too short

I would suggest you just ask people to name their top three favorite poets and see what sort of diversied response you get.

Could be interesting.

s_m

[tigereye]

14. okay I will!

[DBtv]

10. Langston Hughes is my fave of those listed

but the greatest American poet IMNSHO is Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

<http://www.citylights.com/CLlf.html>

[tigereye]

25. you could say that most of the Beats

should have their own beautiful category.

[tigereye]

61. well in honor of Ferlinghetti

here is a poem from his site appropriate to the times.

WHITE HORSE

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Put the wine back in the bottle
Before the crystal glass is broken
The party is over
Goodbye
A new party has taken over
A new breed of men
as Henry Miller said
long time ago
A breed of barbarians
who didn’t come through the gates
but grew up inside
They’ve made the White House
into a White Horse
their Trojan Horse
full of civilian soldiers
with weapons of crass destruction
which is a new name for their brains
or what might be diagnosed as
their pathological personalities
These masterminds
of the twenty-first century
and their Project for the New Century

And I heard the Learned Astronomer
tell the tale of the stars
in which the constellations conspired
to kill us all
out of pure hubris
and Territorial Imperative
since we were opposing
their total domination of the universe
And they hired these earthlings
In a White Horse
to do it for them!


Copyright © 2003 City Lights Books

[The Flaming Red Head]

78. Lawrence Ferlinghetti

And a vast paranoia sweeps across the land
And America turns the attack on its Twin Towers
Into the beginning of the Third World War
The war with the Third World
And the terrorists in Washington
Are drafting all the young men
And no one speaks
And they are rousting out
All the ones with turbans
And they are flushing out
All the strange immigrants
And they are shipping all the young men
To the killing fields again
And no one speaks
And when they come to round up
All the great writers and poets and painters
The National Endowment of the Arts of Complacency
Will not speak
While all the young men
Will be killing all the young men
In the killing fields again
So now is the time for you to speak
All you lovers of liberty
All you lovers of the pursuit of happiness
All you lovers and sleepers
Deep in your private dreams
Now is the time for you to speak
O silent majority
Before they come for you

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

[Kellanved]

11. Goethe

Simply unmatched.

[AverageJoe]

16. Charles Bukowski

Great collections:

The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills
Burning in Water Drowning in Flame
Mockingbird Wish Me Luck
You Get So Alone at Times that It Just Makes Sense

And so many more....

[Screaming Lord Byron]

17. Murray Lachlan Young for modern, John Donne for the classics.

[tigereye]

19. I love Donne

the other gentleman is someone you mentioned before... I'll have to check that out.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

21. Can I change him to Richard Brautigan?

Here's MLL.
http://www.theblisspages.com/cms.php?id=39

[tigereye]

26. change what ever you like, Byron...

thanks!

[barb162]

63. the pre-Raphaelites

the Rosettis etal.

[rbnyc]

18. How nice to find my favorite on your list.

Wallace Stevens

[tigereye]

20. Stevens is one of my very favorites

we read him a lot at home and my son really likes his poems. They are so visual, wordy, cerebral and colorful.

[rbnyc]

22. The Idea of Order at Key West is my very favorite...

...but he is just a genius. That's my favorite period for poetry as well. I'm also a big HD fan.

[tigereye]

27. Hilda Doolittle

remembered her from the recesses of my brain - beautiful. Thanks.

Sea Poppies

Amber husk
fluted with gold,
fruit on the sand
marked with a rich grain,

treasure
spilled near the shrub-pines
to bleach on the boulders:

your stalk has caught root
among wet pebbles
and drift flung by the sea
and grated shells
and split conch-shells.

Beautiful, wide-spread,
fire upon leaf,
what meadow yields
so fragrant a leaf
as your bright leaf?

[tigereye]

28. 13 Ways of Looking At a Blackbird is mine

but he wrote so many good ones. The Man With the Blue Guitar. Emperor of Ice Cream. etc.

[Endangered Specie]

23. Anyone but Edgar Allan Poe.

[PragMantisT]

24. e e cummings

[Mrs. Venation]

29. I Love Poetry

I have four favorite poets: Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost and Maya Angelou.

I enjoy Lawrence Ferlinghetti , ee cummings, TS Eliot, and Robert Penn Warren.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle did a fabulous job of putting poetry and music together in the 60's. I think my favorite was "Richard Corey."

[tigereye]

62. hi kp

[Mrs. Venation]

75. Hi tigereye!

:hi: :hug: How ya doing?

[mitchum]

30. Eliot....I wouldn't want him at my dinner table, but I certainly want...

him in my library
also:
Lorca
Sexton
Marlowe

[alarcojon]

31. Cummings and Lorca

and I am blessed to be able to read both in their native language.

[Obamarama]

32. Edna St. Vincent Millay...

The woman rocked

[tigereye]

33. thank you all for reminding me of so many other great poets!

[psychopomp]

34. LKJ

Linton Kwesi Johnson

Linton Kwesi Johnson was born on 24 August 1952 in Chapelton, a small town in the rural parish of Clarendon, Jamaica. He came to London in 1963, went to Tulse Hill secondary school and later studied Sociology at Goldsmiths' College, University of London. Whilst still at school he joined the Black Panthers, helped to organise a poetry workshop within the movement and developed his work with Rasta Love, a group of poets and drummers. In 1977 he was awarded a C Day Lewis Fellowship, becoming the writer-in-residence for the London Borough of Lambeth for that year. He went on to work as the Library Resources and Education Officer at the Keskidee Centre, the first home of Black theatre and art.

Johnson's poems first appeared in the journal Race Today. In 1974 Race Today published his first collection of poetry, Voices of the Living and the Dead. Dread Beat An' Blood, his second collection, was published in 1975 by Bogle-L'Ouverture and was also the title of his first LP, released by Virgin in 1978. That year also saw the release of the film Dread Beat An' Blood, a documentary on Johnson's work. In 1980 Race Today published his third book, Inglan Is A Bitch and there were four more albums on the Island label: Forces of Victory (1979), Bass Culture (1980), LKJ in Dub (1981) and Making History

LKJ, Johnson's own record label, was launched in 1981 with two singles by the Jamaican poet Michael Smith, Mi Cyaan Believe It and Roots. During the 1980s he became immersed in journalism, working closely with the Brixton-based Race Today collective. His 10-part radio series on Jamaican popular music, From Mento to Lovers Rock, went out on BBC Radio 1 in 1982 and was repeated in 1983. From 1985-88 he was a reporter on Channel 4's The Bandung File. He also toured regularly with the Dennis Bovell Dub Band and produced albums by the writer Jean Binta Breeze and by jazz trumpeter Shake Keane.
-more

http://www.lkjrecords.com/lkj.html

[tigereye]

52. he has always been a favorite of mine

I love his voice and what he says.

We need a dub poets section as well. Thanks for the info.

[Mr. Blonde]

35. Bob Dylan?

Seems like he should be included on anyones list. Although it wouldn't surprise me if he then won hands down.

[montana_hazeleyes]

50. I say yes a thousand times over to Bob Dylan!

I went down the posts to see if anyone added him and if not I was going to.

[PittPoliSci]

36. HOMER!

Gotta love the Greeks.

[DemBones DemBones]

38. Doh! And nobody mentioned Sappho yet.

Or Dante. Or Blake. Or Basho.

Don't think I saw Whitman mentioned, either, and he's usually on these lists. For twentieth century, what about Pound? Ferlinghetti? Denise Levertov? Charles Olson? Gary Snyder? Can you tell I was a lit major in the sixties? ;-)

[tigereye]

54. Basho and Blake are on the other poetry thread I posted

as are some of the others... that is the point of a thread like this, I suppose to show how many great poets there are. And hello fellow English major!

[DemBones DemBones]

66. Missed the other poetry thread.

Hello back, fellow English major! :hi: Did you get a degree in English? I started out as a literature major but my degrees are in biology. Too many interests!

[tigereye]

53. there is a bad joke in here somewhere.

See, literature is worth paying attention to!

[DemBones DemBones]

64. Yes, and I, ahem, made a bad joke of it.

See first word of my previous post. :evilgrin:

[Whoa_Nelly]

37. Kahlil Gibran

eom

[jdj]

40. Gwendolyn Brooks was the Eminem of the last 50 years.

She is the Goddess of rhyme, but used it in a positive way, predicted the whole gangsta-rap culture with "We real cool"

Read "The Ballad of Pearl May Lee" or "The Ballad of Percie and Brucie"...hell read anything she's ever written...it's an abomination she's not on your master list.


edit: here's the poem, I had to put it in

We Real Cool
Gwendolyn Brooks


THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.



We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

[tigereye]

56. well I had Nikki on there

there just wasn't enough room.

[samplegirl]

41. Steven Jones Javan

If there must be pain
Then let it be my pain
For it would be easier to bear
Any pain that you might give
Then the pain I would feel
In knowing
I had hurt you

[Thurston Howe IV]

42. Antonin Artaud

Although Artaud has been called an essayist, I've always read his work as poetry -- and he's my favorite:

Excerpt from "Shit to the Spirit"

When I see Claudel
calling upon the spirits at the outset of the century for help,
I am still able to get up a chuckle,
but when I see the word spirit in Karl Marx or Lenin,
like an old invariable value,
a reminder of that eternal entity
back to which all things are brought,
I tell myself there's scum and crud abroad
and god has sucked Lenin's ass:
and that's the way it's always been,
and it isn't worth talking about anymore,
it doesn't matter, it's just another fucking bill to pay.

[democracyindanger]

43. e.e. cummings

[Christof]

44. Edgar Allan Poe.

Of course. :)

[Spider Jerusalem]

45. Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Bukowski, Ginsberg, Shakespeare, and Robert Lowell.

I like them all for different reasons, so I can't really pick ONE favourite.

[MissMarple]

46. Shakespeare,

just Shakespeare. I like others, perhaps more, but,... he is the best.

[JSJ]

47. brautigan, richard n/t

[The Great Escape]

48. Robert Burns....

and I'm not even a Scot

[PassingFair]

55. Aye..

He's my own bonnie favorite laddie, too. He truly spoke of and for the common humanity of us all.

[enigmatic]

49. Charles Bukowski

I discovered him when I was 17 many, many years ago; he made me become a writer. It's hard to pick a favorite poem, but I've always loved "The Genius Of The Crowd"

He got me thru some rough, rough years of my life; I don't really believe in the concept of Heroes, but he's mine.

And I'm drinking a Schiltz to you right now, Hank.

[murielm99]

51. Randall Jarrell

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner


From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

[Surf Cowboy]

57. James Tate

and STC--Gotta love that Kubla Khan...

[NashVegas]

58. William Carlos Williams

THE WIDOW'S LAMENT IN SPRINGTIME



Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.
Thirtyfive years
I lived with my husband.
The plumtree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly, today I notice them
and turned away forgetting.
Today my son told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance, he saw
trees of white flowers.
I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.

[peach720]

59. Tennyson.....

also Bryon, T.S. Elliot, ee cummings and Dylan Thomas

[kodi]

77. Tenneyson too

"I am a part of all that I have met"

[Carson]

60. Stephen Dobyns

Two great books of his: "Cemetary Nights" and "Red Dog, Black Dog"

Dobyns is the author of the poem "Pursuit":

Each thing I do I rush through so I can do
something else. In such a way do the days pass -
a blend of stock car racing and the never
ending building of a gothic cathedral.
Through the windows of my speeding car, I see
all that I love falling away: books unread,
jokes untold, landscapes unvisited. And why?
What treasure do I expect in my future?
Rather it is the confusion of childhood
loping behind me, the chaos in the mind,
the failure chipping away at each success.
Glancing over my shoulder I see its shape
and so move forward, as someone in the woods
at night might hear the sound of approaching feet
and stop to listen, then, instead of silence
he hears some creature trying to be silent.
What else can he do but run? Rushing blindly
down the path, stumbling, struck in the face by sticks;
the other ever closer, yet not really
hurrying or out of breath, teasing its kill.

[Mizmoon]

65. penelope scambly schott

THE MILLINER'S DREAM

Imagine, you ladies whom I have made lovely, imagine this:

To stand like a fence post or a weathered snag or even a wide ceramic pot of withered marigolds, collecting the falling snow on the top of my head.

First the snow would catch in the ends of my hair and it might even melt a little from the heat of my scalp, but then there would begin to be a white blanket. It would start to mound up.

To stand abandoned like a broken garden stool. To become an old scarecrow with a crownless straw hat. To age among white furrows. To accumulate falling flakes.

To be still as a rock. To remain so absolutely still that the snow neither shifts nor blows, only compacts a little under its own flocked weight.

To wait here beyond slow dark until the snow clouds part and a shiver of moonlight casts blue shadows across the crusting field.

To hold my head straight and steady.

Now, that will be such a hat, a magnificence, to wear in the Church of Beauty Unnameable. When at last I bow down at the altar, my bared head will glitter. Ladies, it will flame.

[tigereye]

67. that is really nice!

I have never heard of her.

[Mizmoon]

68. She has a new book length poem coming out

in the next few months. It's called "The Pest Maiden". I'll post a link to it on Amazon when it comes out.

[knitter4democracy]

69. Wow, contentious poll!

For Americans, my personal fave is Jane Kenyon. For Russian poets, it's Anna Akhmatova in a heartbeat. For top poet, I can't decide between those two.

[Bridget Burke]

70. Yeats, of course.

But many others, as well--Cavaliers, Beats, the old Saxon who wrote The Wanderer. Garcia Lorca's poetry finally convinced me to begin studying Spanish seriously; and he was a friend of Neruda.

Slightly off topic--Irish Property News is featuring Thoor Cottage, Thoor Ballylee, Gort, County Galway. It's a 19th century cottage adjacent to the poet's Tower. Feel free to inquire about the price--don't think I can afford it this year.



http://www.irishpropertynews.com/property_search/galway/property-galway-0004.html

[praxiz]

71. Charles Bukowski

He tha man! :)

[liontamer]

72. others

Sharon Olds, ee cummings, sappho and ovid

[tigereye]

73. well it looks like there are many many poets

and people who love them. That makes me feel very, very good.

[NoBorders]

74. Verlaine

[Cats Against Frist]

76. What? No John Fucking Ashbery?

Has anyone read any American poetry since 1950? We're still out here, you know...

Try:

Jorie Graham
Heather McHugh
Susan Wheeler
James Tate
James Galvin
Dean Young
Lisa Jarnot
Rae Armantrout
James Merrill
Marianne Moore
Spencer Short
Ben Doyle
Joshua Clover
Olena Davis
Donald Revell
Bernadette Mayer