|
 Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
by Walt Whitman.
EDITOR'S COMMENT:
I highly recommend this magnificent poem to anyone who is interested in exploring the
world of poetry or to any poetry reader who has not yet encountered the poem. In it,
Whitman reaches out to us across the centuries and with palpable force connects the poet's
experience to our own. It is one of my very favorites.
Do you
have a favorite poem of Emily Dickinson or another famous or less
known poet? Share it with us. Here is Emily Dickinson's
Success is counted
sweetest. Then read a more hopeful poem from the cultivated
recluse, Dickinson's
"Hope" is the thing with feathers. The positive tone is carried on in
I dwell in
Possibility.
Don't neglect the poetry of the world,
when there are such great translations available like Coleman Barks's
versions of Rumi or
Stephen Mitchell's collections of Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry.
Here we have Mitchell's version of Rilke's
You Who Have Never Arrived.
One of the most moving poems about the Holocaust is Paul Celan's
Night Ray
as he finds some solace in memory and searches for affirmation in
Lateland. Read more of Celan's poetry at the
Art of Europe site. The estimable
Michael Hamburger is a major
translator of Celan's work.
Leila Rosen from New York. NY writes, “I am a high school
English teacher in NYC. I love the following poem by Eli Siegel
(1902-1978), which describes so kindly what the important Welsh poet
Dylan Thomas likely felt. Through the philosophy he founded, Aesthetic
Realism, which is taught now in New York City, Mr. Siegel made it
possible for all people to see each other with deep comprehension."
Read Eli Siegels
To Dylan Thomas at
aestheticrealism.net.
Petrarch (Francesco
Petrarca), the 14th century humanist, was the major figure of the
early Italian Renaissance, and is sometimes known as the "first
modern man." Here is a poem from his canzoniere,
You who
hear within my scattered verse. To see how different
translations can change the meaning of a poem, compare this version
to those at these two sites:
Petersadlion.com and
Humanistictexts.org.
 Go to www.poets.org to read W.H.
Auden's great poem written at the beginning of World War II,
September 1, 1939, where Auden searches for
affirmation in a world gone mad: ". . . the points of
light . . . wherever the Just exchange their messages."
Byron had his head on straight and knew what motivates a man in
All for Love, although he did not practice what he preached.
Fit as an anthem for all those who have suffered the pain of broken
romance is Thomas Wyatt's
Tangled I Was in Love's Snare as appropriate now as in the 16th
century.
Here is a
selection of poems from A Child's Garden of Verses by
Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous author of such novels as
Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Of course every country has the right to guard against unregulated
immigration, but at this time of controversy the world should be
reminded of America's true mission as voiced by Emma Lazarus in her
poem The New
Colossus and as typified by the monument on our Eastern shore.
The beautiful aspects of the world and the passage of time led
Hungarian poet Mihály Babits' to ponder and ask a
Question at Night.
The poetry of Babits (1883 - 1941)
inspired a generation of Hungarian urbanite poets.
A lovely thing to see:
through the paper window's hole,
the Galaxy.
Issa. (1762-1826).
Here is a selection of Japanese haiku by some of
the masters:
Haiku.
Among the great Russian poets of the 20th
century, a group that includes Osip Mandelstam and Anna Akhmatova is certainly Marina Tsvetaeva.
For aspiring poets out there, let this simple poem of hers be a blessing
to you:
For My Poems.
Pablo Neruda looks at the experience of writing poetry in
Poetry Arrived.
Turkish-Greek Poem.
“We've drawn knife on blood /
Yet a love lies hidden in us.”
This is an inspirational poem written by Bulent Ecevit, Turkish
poet, journalist, and politician, who served as prime minister of
Turkey during the 1970’s and later from 1999 to 2003.
It expresses faith in the potential for true friendship between two
nations that have so much in common, yet experienced so much
hostility throughout their history. If
you know any poems of this nature seeking peace between old enemies,
please share them with us.
One poet whose poetry has become popular in America is the 13th
century Sufi Mystic, Jelaluddin Rumi. His insights and open-minded mystical musings
transcend the precepts of any particular religious doctrine. Known throughout the Eastern
world, his popularity here is largely attributable to the translations of Coleman Barks,
who was featured on Bill Moyers's PBS broadcast, The Language of Life.
Whoever Brought Me Here
In "Whoever Brought Me Here Will Have to
Take Me Home," Rumi addresses the great questions, "why are we here"?
and "what is the source of our being"? Rumi addresses his
identity in I am
Not.
We recommend Bill Moyers's book based on
the PBS program,
The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets. It includes interviews and selections from the work of some
of today's leading poets.
The whole wide ether is the eagle's way:
The whole earth is
a brave man's fatherland
Euripides
|
|
POETS.ORG
Poetryfans is not able to publish many
contemporary or modern poets because of copyright restrictions, but if
you visit Poets.org
you can read a sampling of many poets. One of the very best poems you will
find there is A.R, Ammons's
In View of the Fact, the poets experience of aging.. When you read
the poem you will find the painful and sad become the beautiful and
powerful and you will know something of the magic that poetry is capable of
producing.
The Municipal
Gallery Revisited. What a deep and stirring tribute to friendship.
Poetry lovers do yourself an immense favor and order
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats from Amazon.com or another
bookseller or get it from a library. Yeats is truly one of the greats.
A John Millington Synge poem,
The Prelude,
is the source of a quote in the Yeats poem.
The early death of
John Keats denied
the world one destined to be among
the greatest of English literary voices. Perhaps a foreboding inspired
Keats to concentrate his powers.
Despite his youth, he was able to write
several poems that rank with the best in the English language. One of
the best is
Ode to a Nightingale.
Another Keats favorite suggested by Mary Henry, a teacher from
Peabody, MA is
Bright Star,
where Keats looks for certainty in human love.
Poetry 101
Are you interested in
writing poetry? If so, we recommend that you study the style of the
esteemed Russian poet, Anna Akhmatova,
in
I Have
Learned to Live Simply. There are no wasted words, just pinpoint
imagery conveying mood and the essence of her experience.
Do you have a destination? Do you think you will ever get there?
Federico Garcia Lorca looks at life's journey in his
Song of the Horseman.
Ancient Greek poet Sappho wondered about
the meaning of her love life in
Will None Say of Sappho
in this version by Canadian poet Bliss Carman
(1861-1929).
Carman also has a translation of Sappho's
You Ask How Love Can Keep the Mortal Soul.
Then we have Carman's own poem about the divine structure of nature,
Earth Voices.
One of the great
poems of the 20th century is
Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens. It poses some great questions
whether you are a person of faith, an agnostic, or an atheist.
“What
is divinity if it can come only in silent shadows and in dreams.”
(see stanza 2) and
“Is there no change of death in paradise”? (see
stanza 6). Ponder the compelling thoughts and dazzling ambiguities
of this masterwork.
William Blake questions whether
we can live happily within our own experience, gleefully unaware of
the world's injustice:
The Price of Experience (an excerpt from "The Four Zoas").
In The Garden of Love, he takes on the repression of dogmatic religion.
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
Emily
Dickinson
We have two poems by
Robert W. Service, the poet of the Yukon. He writes about the travails
of the worker in his poem
The Song of the Wage-Slave and of the "passion to be free" in
A Rolling Stone.
No man is an island.
Any man's death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Read the poet John Donne′s famous
meditation.
There is no keeping the human being down, with
some divine intervention of course, in 17th
century poet, George Herbert's
The World.
Read Rudyard Kipling′s advice to his son about how to live in
his inspirational poem If.
Our identities are
formed early by those closest to us, our families. Whether or not
they are alive, their imprints are indelible, as the death defying
child insists in Wordsworth's
We Are Seven. Finally, we have Wordsworth's
My Heart
Leaps Up
(“the child is father to the man”).
Harriet Monroe was the founder and first
editor of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, which began publication
in 1912. Her magazine championed the experimental work of such poets
as William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, and T.S. Eliot.
Poetry is still today the country's premier poetry journal. We have two
of Harriet Monroe's own poems,
A Farewell and
Blue Ridge.
Keep me away from the wisdom
which does not cry,
the philosophy
which does not laugh
and the greatness
which does not bow before children
Kahlil Gibran
Men. You love her. Come to know her. Robert Browning
searches for the soul of his beloved in
Love in Life.
In
Playthings,
Rabindranath Tagore compares adult life to the games of children.
Another Indian poet, the "Indian
nightingale," Sarojini Naidu, who
was the first woman president of the Indian National Congress,
contrasts memory with that which is yet unknown in
Past and Future.
Submit one
of your favorite poems and tell us something about it or why you like
it. A poem that has meant something to you can benefit another. Send
your poem to
editor@poetryfans.com or use the Poetry Submission Form.
Be like
Alfonso Guillén Zelaya
and add your strophe to the poem of the world. |
