trying to get a sense of what you like

Hi ehBeth
It's hard for me to say exactly what type of poetry I like.
I can say that I don't generally like very long poems (although Tennyson's, 'In Memorium' is an exception) but I otherwise like almost all types. Their are some POETS I don't like much, such as Ezra Pound, and Wallace Stevens who I find to be hyperintellectualized (the former) and
(inaccessible) the latter.
Poets I LIKE include: Dickinson, Auden, Frost, Yeats, E.Bishop, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Christina Rossetti, Stanley Kunitz, Anna Akhmatova and others.

I like Kipling most of the time and can get along with Poe. Some really great stuff in Childe's Ballads, but you won't pin down an author.

oops! I forgot a couple other favorites:
Thomas Hardy, Philip Larkin and Gerard Manley Hopkins

thanks for the input roger and jjorge. jjorge, i don't know Hopkins. Can you get us a sample or a link to something you like of his?

ehBeth
Here is a GM Hopkins poem:


"Spring and Fall"


Márgarét, áre you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Thank you, jjorge. That's wonderful. I'll have to find out more about Hopkins.

EhBeth
here is a link for more info on Hopkins.
http://www.bartleby.com/122/
I have also posted another Hopkins poem ('Pied Beauty') on this forum

jjorge - thanks for the link - i'll try to find the book of his poems when i cruise the used book shops

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,
And who hoarded from the spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre.
Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

.... Stephen Spender

Thanks, Mr. D.




now where did i leave that poll?

where the heck did that poll go? it was there earlier today!

So wasn't

so - when did you get rid of it?

I get all the blame! Sigh!

it was there - i saw it after i had it done. it took FOREVER!

I never saw it. But don't take my word for it! Ask if anyone else did!

Sorry wasn't looking

I looked, and sadly, against my preferences, I have to agree with Craven.

No poll.

Who stoll the poll?
Sweet Bethie's poll?
Of Bethie's soul
They took a toll!

I wonder who,
With soul so grue
And black and blue
This thing could do?

Could he be here?
Was it de Kere?
So insincere?
Without a tear?

Sweet Beth console
Yourself, I'll hol'
Him down till sole
Of boot take toll!