Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Victor E. Franklin on November 9, 2012 at 1:38pm

Hands down, my favorite poet is Robert Frost.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

A Line-Storm Song

The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be my love in the rain.

The birds have less to say for themselves
In the wood-world’s torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.

There is the gale to urge behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
From which to gather your gown.
What matter if we go clear to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.

Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea’s return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dan P. on November 9, 2012 at 5:05pm

Less of a suggestion but more of an awe inspiring story about memorized poetry. This story comes from one of my undergrad professors, who studied at Vanderbilt in the fifties or sixties (the chronology of the whole thing isn't that clear to me).

In any case, the story goes that Allen Tate (a great poet in his own right, perhaps a few lines from his Ode to the Confederate Dead might be a good candidate for memorization) was once visiting some of his old friends at his alma mater. A rumor started going around that Tate would be attending the graduate student and faculty party that night. These parties were somewhat notorious due to the fact that each guest was handed a personal 750 of Jack Daniels when they walked through the door.

Sure enough, that evening Allen Tate showed up and commenced to drink from his bottle of Jack Daniels. Well, my professor, at that time a lowly grad student, had the good fortune of placing his marked bottle in the kitchen right next to Mr. Tate's bottle and as such was able to keep track of exactly how much Tate had to drink.

Many people asked Tate to "say"/recite one of his poems, but he resolutely refused. As the night wore on Tate's bottle continued to empty, until it was replaced with a second which also began to drain.

At this point, a bottle and a half of Jack Daniels down, Tate was again asked to say one of his poems. He did not refuse directly this time, instead he said, "Well folks, I think I'll do one of Tom's." At which point he proceeded to recite T.S. Elliot's The Wasteland in its entirety without missing a single word.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Liam S. on November 9, 2012 at 5:12pm

One of my favorites to begin with would be Dylan Thomas: 

"Do not go gentle into that good night"

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

The villanelle format helps memorize - I love more contemporary poetry, but the lack of formal structure can make it difficult.

For yolks too, it is hard to go wrong with memorizing Carroll's Jabberwoky or Walrus and the Carpenter - if for not other reason than that the ability to keep a room full of young children entertained for a few minutes will win you many parents as friends. 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by JonEdanger on November 9, 2012 at 6:32pm

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on November 9, 2012 at 7:14pm

Well, this is kind of an old post, so not sure if you're around to read this. Like some of the others, I do think memorizing some poetry can aid your intellectual and emotional edification. The only problem is your audience. When and where do you recite it without appearing like a pompous ass? Perhaps only at a wedding or funeral, if then.  

I have perhaps twoi dozen poems memorized, with my most ambitious poem being "The Raven" by Poe. But I have done so for my personal enjoyment only, and I recite them to no one, except within my own head. 

IMO, you should choose some classics, some contemporary ones, and above all poems that appeal to you personally. Still, Shakespeare's sonnets are a good start:

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
    If this be error and upon me proved,
    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Some Edgar Allan Poe:

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Something humorous is nice too, like this one by Ogden Nash:

A Drink With Something In It

There is something about a Martini,
A tingle remarkably pleasant;
A yellow, a mellow Martini;
I wish I had one at present.
There is something about a Martini,
Ere the dining and dancing begin,
And to tell you the truth,
It is not the vermouth--
I think that perhaps it's the gin.

Or the incomparable Dorothy Parker:

Thought for a Sunshiny Morning

It costs me never a stab nor squirm
To tread by chance upon a worm.
“Aha, my little dear,” I say,
“Your clan will pay me back one day.”

And another short and funny one by W. H. Auden:

As the poets have mournfully sung

As the poets have mournfully sung,
Death takes the innocent young,
The rolling-in-money,
The screamingly-funny,
And those who are very well hung.

This is a rather famous though depressing one by Edward Arlington Robinson:

Richard Corey

 

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. 

Okay, only one more. This is by Ben Jonson, a contemporary of Shakespeare. This first stanza is perhaps one of the best ever written in poetry ever, imho, being both poignant and concise:

Karolin's Song

THOUGH I am young, and cannot tell,
Either what love, or death is well,
Yet I have heard, yet both bear darts,
And both do aim at human hearts:
And then again, I have been told
Love wounds with heat, as death with cold;
So that I fear, they do but bring
Extremes to touch, and mean one thing.

As in a ruin, we it call
One thing to be blown up, or fall;
Or to our end, like way may have,
By a flash of lightning, or a wave:
So love's inflamed shaft, or brand,
May kill as soon as death's cold hand;
Except love's fires the virtue have
To fright the frost from out the grave.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Joey R on November 12, 2012 at 8:54pm

Yes, I'm still around, thanks for the poems.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Michael D. Denny on November 9, 2012 at 7:21pm

Roses are red.

Poetry sucks.

Beer.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Michael D. Denny on November 9, 2012 at 7:24pm

Okay, to be more serious. 

 The poetry begins at 4:39, but you should watch it all the way through from beginning to end.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Native Son on November 10, 2012 at 10:23am

While everyone so far has posted up some excellent poems, in a fit of whimsy, here are three of my favorites:

The Cremation of Sam Magee (Robert W. Service)

Ulysses (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

and this little ditty,

"All my life I've labored long,

 for honor and for riches.

 But on my corns too long you've tread,

 You fine haired son of b*****s!

            -Black Bart the Po8"

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Justin on November 13, 2012 at 6:53am

Head to your local library. There you will find many books of poetry. Check out several. Find the poetry that mostly speaks to you and memorize that. The only poem I've ever memorized was Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, because I had to for speech class in high school. I hadn't read much poetry until I joined AoM. There are some great poems on this site.

Having said that I'm fond of:

Donald Hall (after he made a visit to my high school to read a couple of his works)

Psalms

and Rumi

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on November 19, 2012 at 12:46am

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Eric Ragle on November 25, 2012 at 1:30pm

Excellent topic! I suggest the usual favorites like Robert Frost and Poe. But also look into Anne Sexton and Maya Angelou.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page