Author Topic: Poems that move you  (Read 17231 times)

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Poems that move you
« on: July 19, 2018, 01:02:14 AM »

Offline greece66

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Last thread I start before the current form of the forums closes down.


Some guidelines - no need to follow them in full, but I think they will facilitate a smooth running of the thread.


i/ quality beats quantity


ii/excerpts are welcome esp. if the whole poem is quite long


iii/ non-Eng lang poems welcome, but please provide a good translation by a professional


iv/ a short intro on why you chose the poem could be very useful






Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #1 on: July 19, 2018, 01:09:21 AM »

Offline greece66

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I start with Robert Frost. His poems made me understand New England better and I love his use of simple, everyday language.


The Death of the Hired Man (1905/06, excerpt)

But Warren, please remember how it is:
He’s come to help you ditch the meadow.
He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him.
He may not speak of it, and then he may.
I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud
Will hit or miss the moon.’

                                      It hit the moon.
Then there were three there, making a dim row,
The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.

Warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her,
Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.

‘Warren,’ she questioned.

                                     ‘Dead,’ was all he answered.



Full poem here

Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #2 on: July 19, 2018, 02:43:12 AM »

Offline saltlover

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Written by e e cummings over 90 years ago, this sonnet feels as current as ever.

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more. what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2018, 03:40:17 AM »

Offline colincb

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One never knows...

Richard Cory
BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2018, 03:52:14 AM by colincb »

Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2018, 05:38:46 AM »

Offline greece66

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Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes (1938)

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2018, 05:49:31 AM »

Offline gouki88

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Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45392/ulysses

This excerpt in particular:

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
'23 Historical Draft: Orlando Magic.

PG: Terry Porter (90-91) / Steve Francis (00-01)
SG: Joe Dumars (92-93) / Jeff Hornacek (91-92) / Jerry Stackhouse (00-01)
SF: Brandon Roy (08-09) / Walter Davis (78-79)
PF: Terry Cummings (84-85) / Paul Millsap (15-16)
C: Chris Webber (00-01) / Ralph Sampson (83-84) / Andrew Bogut (09-10)

Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #6 on: August 20, 2018, 06:09:35 AM »

Offline greece66

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Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45392/ulysses

This excerpt in particular:

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Such optimism from a poet who was a deeply sad person.

Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #7 on: August 20, 2018, 06:18:21 AM »

Offline gouki88

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Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45392/ulysses

This excerpt in particular:

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Such optimism from a poet who was a deeply sad person.
Definitely part of the appeal to me, for some reason
'23 Historical Draft: Orlando Magic.

PG: Terry Porter (90-91) / Steve Francis (00-01)
SG: Joe Dumars (92-93) / Jeff Hornacek (91-92) / Jerry Stackhouse (00-01)
SF: Brandon Roy (08-09) / Walter Davis (78-79)
PF: Terry Cummings (84-85) / Paul Millsap (15-16)
C: Chris Webber (00-01) / Ralph Sampson (83-84) / Andrew Bogut (09-10)

Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #8 on: August 20, 2018, 10:25:26 AM »

Offline positivitize

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Prufrock is my favorite of all time: ( https://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html ), too long to share in full.

"After great pain, a formal feeling comes" by Dickinson is amazing for the ending ( https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47651/after-great-pain-a-formal-feeling-comes-372 ) :

"This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –"


and finally, I've been tonguing "The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens in my mind like a wisdom tooth hole.

"One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is."

My biases, in order of fervor:
Pro:
Smart, Brown, Hayward, Tatum, Kemba, Grant Williams, Sleepy Williams, Edwards!

Anti:
Kanter, Semi, Theis, Poierier

Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #9 on: August 20, 2018, 10:29:25 AM »

Offline arctic 3.0

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Last thread I start before the current form of the forums closes down.


Some guidelines - no need to follow them in full, but I think they will facilitate a smooth running of the thread.


i/ quality beats quantity


ii/excerpts are welcome esp. if the whole poem is quite long


iii/ non-Eng lang poems welcome, but please provide a good translation by a professional


iv/ a short intro on why you chose the poem could be very useful
Thanks Greece, what a way to send out the forum.
Also TP for the full transcription of Langston Houghes. Haven’t read that in years.

Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #10 on: August 20, 2018, 11:21:32 AM »

Offline Spilling Green Dye

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I start with Robert Frost. His poems made me understand New England better and I love his use of simple, everyday language.


The Death of the Hired Man (1905/06, excerpt)

But Warren, please remember how it is:
He’s come to help you ditch the meadow.
He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him.
He may not speak of it, and then he may.
I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud
Will hit or miss the moon.’

                                      It hit the moon.
Then there were three there, making a dim row,
The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.

Warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her,
Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.

‘Warren,’ she questioned.

                                     ‘Dead,’ was all he answered.



Full poem here

TP for the refreshing topic here, and for the Robert Frost poem.  I've read some of his poems, but had never read this particular one so I followed the link and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Thank you!

Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #11 on: August 20, 2018, 11:54:53 AM »

Offline liam

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Poetry

 it
takes
a lot of
desperation
dissatisfaction
and
disillusion
to
write
a
few
good
poems.
 
it's not
for
everybody
either to
write
it
or even to
read
it.

-Charles Bukowski 

Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #12 on: August 20, 2018, 12:41:07 PM »

Offline fairweatherfan

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Always liked this Dylan Thomas poem. I try not to overthink my enjoyment of things like poetry, but it makes me think of renewal and the transcendence of human experience.


Light breaks where no sun shines

Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter’s robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.

Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics die,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.

Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #13 on: August 20, 2018, 01:48:41 PM »

Offline Redz

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Poetry eludes me.  I’m impatient and literal.  I do a have a soul though, so there’s hope.

I signed up for a poetry class this summer that a friend was teaching.  As I type, I’m sitting in a seat where the class was taught.

Life got in the way.  Once again no time for poetry.

At least I’m writing something from this space.

He’d be proud.
Yup

Re: Poems that move you
« Reply #14 on: August 20, 2018, 02:02:33 PM »

Offline liam

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Poetry eludes me.  I’m impatient and literal.  I do a have a soul though, so there’s hope.

I signed up for a poetry class this summer that a friend was teaching.  As I type, I’m sitting in a seat where the class was taught.

Life got in the way.  Once again no time for poetry.

At least I’m writing something from this space.

He’d be proud.

What you just wrote could be a poem and a pretty good one.

The beauty of poetry is that it doesn't have to be anything just some words presented in any way you wish....