Awesome Poetry

August 24, 2005 5:56 PM

I'm a normal dude, so obviously I think poetry is lame. It's something that I've never understood. Post some good poetry or links to specific pieces that can help a 'normal dude' appreciate the art form - if you dare!
posted by parallax7d to media & arts (72 comments total)

I guess one of my favorites, Maya Angelou's Phenomenal Woman, is out.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:02 PM on August 24, 2005 [2 favorites]

Funeral Blues - W.H. Auden
Dulce et decorm est - Wildred Owen

Two obvious faves.
posted by Jimbob at 6:04 PM on August 24, 2005

I've always loved Robert Browning's poems.
posted by meta87 at 6:06 PM on August 24, 2005

How can a normal dude not love the poetry of Charles Bukowski? I know I do, and I'm mostly a normal dude (on my better days).
posted by psmealey at 6:07 PM on August 24, 2005

Oh, just to show I'm "hip" and down with "it", the Saul Williams part, in the middle of this Blackalicious track is some of the best modern poetry that I've seen. Warning: Lyrics site, you know the drill. Search for the recording if you know what's good for you.
posted by Jimbob at 6:09 PM on August 24, 2005

I'm a normal dude, so obviously I think poetry is lame.

Millions of normal dudes like hiphop. Rap counts as poetry in my book, and some of it's really good. Check it out sometime.
posted by mullingitover at 6:10 PM on August 24, 2005

On preview: Saul kicks ass! I'll second that one.
posted by mullingitover at 6:11 PM on August 24, 2005

Some quick and easy ones:
ee cummings
Dylan Thomas
Some decent Yeats
posted by arruns at 6:15 PM on August 24, 2005

UPON JULIA'S CLOTHES.
by Robert Herrick


WHENAS in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free;
O how that glittering taketh me!
posted by caddis at 6:24 PM on August 24, 2005

Richard Brautigan is a good place to start for those manly, burly type poems for normal dudes like you.

15%

she tries to get things
out of men
that she can't get
because she's not
15% prettier


All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammels and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.


I've Never Had It Done So Gently Before

The sweet juices of your mouth
are like castles bathed in honey.
I've never had it done so gently before.
You have put a circle of castles
around my penis and you swirl them
like sunlight on the wings of birds.


We Stopped at Perfect Days

We stopped at perfect days
and got out of the car.
The wind glanced at her hair.
It was as simple as that.
I turned to say something--


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
You might also like to look through the archives here. I found this poem that I've always liked:

My Voice

Within this restless, hurried, modern world
We took our hearts' full pleasure - You and I,
And now the white sails of our ship are furled,
And spent the lading of our argosy.

Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,
For very weeping is my gladness fled,
Sorrow has paled my young mouth's vermilion,
And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.

But all this crowded life has been to thee
No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell
Of viols, or the music of the sea
That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.

~Oscar Wilde
posted by iconomy at 6:24 PM on August 24, 2005

JABBERWOCKY
Lewis Carroll

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

. . . .
posted by caddis at 6:26 PM on August 24, 2005

Philip Larkin.
posted by tellurian at 6:31 PM on August 24, 2005

William Carlos Williams - This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
posted by rxrfrx at 6:31 PM on August 24, 2005 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure of its value as poetry, but Ethan Coen has written some fabulous stuff.

Mao was constipated.
Sometimes they had to reach in
To pull out the Chairman's stool.
Jesus,
What a job.
Mentally,
He was not constipated.
The Cultural Revolution.
He thought that one up.
Maybe his wife helped.

With the Cultural Revolution, I mean.

Jesus.
posted by selfnoise at 6:35 PM on August 24, 2005

One I like a lot:

Buddha In Glory

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet--
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

--Rainer Maria Rilke

(and I don't do religion.)
posted by Finder at 6:35 PM on August 24, 2005

The Congo, by Vachel Lindsay. It has a hell of a beat.
posted by devilsbrigade at 6:36 PM on August 24, 2005

On a slightly more serious note, I really like Gerald Manley Hopkins for some reason. Not sure why. I'm not even Christian.

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
posted by selfnoise at 6:37 PM on August 24, 2005

My favorite:

Beowulf, 8th century

...
Eagerly watched
Hygelac's kinsman his cursed foe,
how he would fare in fell attack.
Not that the monster was minded to pause!
Straightway he seized a sleeping warrior
for the first, and tore him fiercely asunder,
the bone-frame bit, drank blood in streams,
swallowed him piecemeal: swiftly thus
the lifeless corse was clear devoured,
e'en feet and hands.
...
posted by caddis at 6:41 PM on August 24, 2005

Try Gwen Brooks.

we real cool.
we left school.
we lurk late.
we strike straight.
we sing sin.
we thin gin.
we jazz june.
we die soon.
posted by GaelFC at 6:47 PM on August 24, 2005

This is no good; it's like trying to learn to appreciate wine by having 25 different wine barrels from different parts of the world dropped on your head.

You should read Sound and Sense by Laurence Perrine. But don't pay $55 for it; pick it up used near a university campus. It's a ubiquitous textbook and it has lots of examples of great poetry; the analysis is gentle and sort of points you in the direction of ways of reading in order to get more enjoyment.

The title comes from an Alexander Pope poem about how to write poetry:

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence:
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

posted by ikkyu2 at 6:50 PM on August 24, 2005 [1 favorite]

Some men really like Robert W. Service's poetry.

And I've never met anyone with a sense of humor who couldn't appreciate Ogden Nash. Sample Nash poems, in their entirety:

My Dream
This is my dream,
It is my own dream,
I dreamt it.
I dreamt that my hair was kempt.
Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it.

Further Reflections on Parsley
Parsley
Is gharsley.
posted by cerebus19 at 6:57 PM on August 24, 2005

Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker
posted by phrontist at 6:59 PM on August 24, 2005

From The Kiss, by Anne Sexton:

My mouth blooms like a cut.
I've been wronged all year, tedious
nights, nothing but rough elbows in them
and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby
crybaby, you fool!
posted by Savannah at 6:59 PM on August 24, 2005

go go the gland gringos
for the gonad a-go-go age of compulsory cunnilingusa

John Cooper Clarke. There are samples on this site and you need to listen to this guy to fully appreciate him.
posted by tellurian at 7:00 PM on August 24, 2005

I hope you find something out there that speaks to your heart. There is so much richness of words, I am sure that some poem somewhere, will give you shivers and say what you've felt, but never known.

This is one of those that speaks to me?

W.B. Yeats
The Song of Wandering Aengus


I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
posted by Savannah at 7:03 PM on August 24, 2005

Ikkyu2 is on the money--I'm not sure that just having a bunch of poetry, some good, some not good, thrown at you is going to help you appreciate it.

I'd buy an anthology of great poems, find some poet you like, then buy a book of poems by that poet. My favorite poet is W. B. Yeats, so here are four of his. The first one was the first poem that made me sit up and say 'wow'--I was fourteen.

I'll add: reading these on Metafilter is lame. You need to read them aloud to yourself slowly and rhythmically. This is really important. Even the best poems can lose all of their interest and power if they are read silently and casually. You need to read aloud, with intensity and concentration.

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The Collar-Bone of a Hare

Would I could cast a sail on the water
Where many a king has gone
And many a king’s daughter,
And alight at the comely trees and the lawn,
The playing upon pipes and the dancing,
And learn that the best thing is
To change my loves while dancing
And pay but a kiss for a kiss.

I would find by the edge of that water
The collar-bone of a hare
Worn thin by the lapping of water,
And pierce it through with a gimlet, and stare
At the old bitter world where they marry in churches,
And laugh over the untroubled water
At all who marry in churches,
Through the white thin bone of a hare.

The Stare's Nest by My Window

The bees build in the crevices
Of loosening masonry, and there
The mother birds bring grubs and flies.
My wall is loosening; honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty; somewhere
A man is killed, or a house burned.
Yet no clear fact to be discerned:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

A barricade of stone or of wood;
Some fourteen days of civil war:
Last night they trundled down the road
That dead young soldier in his blood:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare,
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

Long-Legged Fly

That civilisation may not sink,
Its great battle lost,
Quiet the dog, tether the pony
To a distant post;
Our master Caesar is in the tent
Where the maps are spread,
His eyes fixed upon nothing,
A hand under his head.

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.

That the topless towers be burnt
And men recall that face,
Move most gently if move you must
In this lonely place.
She thinks, part woman, three parts a child,
That nobody looks; her feet
Practise a tinker shuffle
Picked up in the street.

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
Her mind moves upon silence.

That girls at puberty may find
The first Adam in their thought,
Shut the door of the Pope's chapel,
Keep those children out.
There on the scaffolding reclines
Michael Angelo.
With no more sound than the mice make
His hand moves to and fro.

Like a long-leggedfly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.
posted by josh at 7:05 PM on August 24, 2005

This is one of those that speaks to me?

That wasn't meant to be a question, but rather, a statement.
posted by Savannah at 7:05 PM on August 24, 2005

uh huh
by Billy Davidson

my head feels loose
with the heat of if
and the music plays
just fine
but the musk of your words
rip flesh from
stone
and i can
only wonder
how did i do something right
posted by LadyBonita at 7:15 PM on August 24, 2005

I like Brautigan too. This is a guy sort of poem and this is a prose poem that I like also by him.

When I think "guy poetry" I generally think of the beats. So

I Am Waiting (Lawrence Ferlinghetti)

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
[more]

and

Last Night I Drove a Car (Gregory Corso)

Last night I drove a car
not knowing how to drive
not owning a car
I drove and knocked down
people I loved
...went 120 through one town.

I stopped at Hedgeville
and slept in the back seat
...excited about my new life.

My other two favorites:

On Being Asked To Write A Poem Against The War In Vietnam (Hayden Carruth)

Well I have and in fact
more than one and I'll
tell you this too

I wrote one against
Algeria that nightmare
and another against

Korea and another
against the one
I was in

and I don't remember
how many against
the three

when I was a boy
Abyssinia Spain and
Harlan County

and not one
breath was restored
to one

shattered throat
mans womans or childs
not one not

one
but death went on and on
never looking aside

except now and then
with a furtive half-smile
to make sure I was noticing.


Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front (Wendell Berry)

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
posted by jessamyn at 7:15 PM on August 24, 2005

Smile! by Denise Duhamel
posted by hyperizer at 7:21 PM on August 24, 2005

You are right, poetry is lame. That's because it is easy to do. Not quite as easy as posting photos on flickr, but pretty close.

The only non-lame poetry is the poetry you write yourself and even that, on occasion, will appear lame to you.
posted by hifimofo at 7:32 PM on August 24, 2005

My dad's an awesome tough guy former police officer with a sensitive poet inside, and he has the coolest taste in poetry. One of our shared favorites:

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
by Randall Jarrell

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 the 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.

posted by Eamon at 7:41 PM on August 24, 2005

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
posted by SPrintF at 8:08 PM on August 24, 2005

Beetlejuice by the Beet

Beetle is as best as can
And he Knows He's the Best

He knows what he knows
And he Knows what he gets
And he knows
He gets
Better.
posted by snsranch at 8:11 PM on August 24, 2005

The trick is HEARING some poetry; surely that must come before you’ll be willing or even able to read it ALOUD even in private. My room-mate in college had a sure-fire seduction routine: dinner, wine, and he’d bring the Dylan Thomas records; worked almost everytime...at least as he told it. Shit, it nearly worked on ME.

Even TSEliott is a stunner when heard reading his own stuff.

But for the easiest fling with fiery verse, check out SLAM (the movie) and introduce yourself to Saul Williams face to face. Spoken/Smoken! Plus, much of it takes place in hard-time prison, so you KNOW it ain't about wusses.
posted by dpcoffin at 8:29 PM on August 24, 2005 [1 favorite]

For some reason the last line of this one by Edna St Vincent Millay always makes my eyes sting. A happy carefree couple, in love with each other and the world around them, suddenly touched in the midst of their joy by compassion. To me it expresses a rare greatness of heart.

Recuerdo

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen on each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold.
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
posted by mono blanco at 8:41 PM on August 24, 2005 [1 favorite]

Hard to go wrong with anything by Carl Sandburg, either, and yes, hearing him read them is outstanding.

BUTTONS
I HAVE been watching the war map slammed up for
advertising in front of the newspaper office.
Buttons--red and yellow buttons--blue and black buttons--
are shoved back and forth across the map.

A laughing young man, sunny with freckles,
Climbs a ladder, yells a joke to somebody in the crowd,
And then fixes a yellow button one inch west
And follows the yellow button with a black button one
inch west.

(Ten thousand men and boys twist on their bodies in
a red soak along a river edge,
Gasping of wounds, calling for water, some rattling
death in their throats.)
Who would guess what it cost to move two buttons one
inch on the war map here in front of the newspaper
office where the freckle-faced young man is laughing
to us?
posted by GaelFC at 8:57 PM on August 24, 2005

I can't resist adding Billy Collins to this list -
Here's one of my favorites -

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never
even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a
bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

--Billy Collins

BIGSNAP has some of his poems and links to some others, tho some of the links are dead. Enjoy
posted by judybxxx at 8:58 PM on August 24, 2005

Richard Corey - 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.
posted by icontemplate at 9:00 PM on August 24, 2005

Check out Russell Edson's A Historical Breakfast. Also, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T. S. Eliot is great. John Berryman's Dream Songs are often fun. Of course, there is always Basho's The Old Pond haiku, but beware of the translation. Finally, try Digging by Seamus Heaney.
posted by luckypozzo at 9:24 PM on August 24, 2005

Another one by Brautigan:
Shit, she doesn't love me anymore and I walk around the house feeling like a sewing machine that has just finished sewing a turd to a garbage can lid. -- Richard Brautigan

My favorite Sandburg poem is Ossawatomie
posted by forrest at 9:32 PM on August 24, 2005

Edson's poem is, ugh, here.
posted by luckypozzo at 9:38 PM on August 24, 2005

Try Cavafy.
posted by dhruva at 9:39 PM on August 24, 2005

I always thought I was poetry "deaf" as well. The trick, as others have pointed out, is to hear the poems, rather than read them. Most libraries have a spoken work section, check them out.

As for authors, don't miss Edgar Allen Poe.
posted by Marky at 9:43 PM on August 24, 2005

"I am a winter fly on the ceiling of the house of arachnids."

charles simic
posted by mecran01 at 10:07 PM on August 24, 2005

I have to say, as "easy" poetry goes, I'm a sucker for Robert Pinsky's "The Night Game." I couldn't tell you why.


The emerald
Theater, the night.
Another time,
I devised a left-hander
Even more gifted
Than Whitey Ford: A Dodger.
People were amazed by him.
Once, when he was young,
He refused to pitch on Yom Kippur.

posted by thethirdman at 10:49 PM on August 24, 2005

Robert Service, mentioned above is great man's man poerty. My favorite is The Cremation of Sam McGee, the story of two Alaskan travelers in the olden days and then one dies...it's funny, really.
posted by slimslowslider at 11:43 PM on August 24, 2005

The thing about poetry, though, that makes it special and mysterious and loved and hated is that is has the ability to overcome you in a visceral way that normal prose can't. It's really hard to say what is going to affect you, as compared to anyone else in the world, but if you are truly interested, keep reading until you find the writer who seems to see you from the inside, and you'll get what the fuss is.
posted by slimslowslider at 11:47 PM on August 24, 2005

somewhere i have never travelled
by e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands
posted by kirkaracha at 12:06 AM on August 25, 2005

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
by Randall Jarrell

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 the 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.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:07 AM on August 25, 2005

John Hannah does a great rendition of "Funeral Blues" in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:11 AM on August 25, 2005

I never liked poetry until I realized that I should either read it aloud, or sound it out in my head. Read the poems people posted out loud.
You can also check out video clips of some poems, generally including the poets' voices themselves, here. I especially recommend the Elizabeth Bishop (page includes autoplay .mov).
(This is somewhat of a self-link; I work(ed) on the site.)
posted by mistersix at 12:56 AM on August 25, 2005

This one is a real pleasure to read.

"High Flight"

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
posted by dazed_one at 1:00 AM on August 25, 2005

poetry doesn't surrender itself to this sort of channel-surfing attitude. buy yourself a good anthology, and open it if and when you feel a certain thirst for words. i am of the (admittedly rather cynical and bloomsian) attitude that if you haven't acquired a love of reading verse by now, the odds are against you ever doing so.
posted by ori at 1:31 AM on August 25, 2005

Dulce et decorum est (see Jimbob's answer above) and Naming of parts are great examples of war poetry.
Listening to the first might at least help you reduce the strength of the connection between poetry and lameness.
posted by yetanother at 1:46 AM on August 25, 2005

Another vote for Philip Larkin. Some highlights -

Aubade
Church Going
High Windows
Sad Steps
At Grass
Poetry of Departures
A Study of Reading Habits
An Arundel Tomb
Mr Bleaney
The Whitsun Weddings (his masterpiece)

If you can find a copy of his unifinished poem "The Dance," that is definitely worth a read.

Tony Harrison is another good British poet. He's probably best known for the controversy over the broadcast of "V."

Listening to poetry and reading it aloud are good ways to better appreciate it.
posted by fire&wings at 2:43 AM on August 25, 2005

Ever done any construction work?

If so, (and even if not), you might like Jobsite Wind, by Mark Turpin. one of the very few poems I've liked.
posted by Meatbomb at 4:14 AM on August 25, 2005

If we dare?

Normal dude (will that word never die?) poetry might include tough guys like Kipling and Homer. Good stuff. Lots of fighting and killing.
posted by IndigoJones at 4:29 AM on August 25, 2005

Lots of good stuff here. And some not so good, but there's no accounting for taste. Anyway, I think you should get over the notion that normal "dudes" don't appreciate poetry. That's something your older brother told you because he didn't want you to think for yourself. Anyway...

I'll suggest a couple more, Alan Dugan and James Wright, selected for their more macho sensibilities. OK, Dugan has slightly macho sensibilities. Here's a typical Dugan poem, Prayer.

God, I need a job because I need money.
Here the world is, enjoyable with whiskey,
women, ultimate weapons, and class!
But if I have no money, then my wife
gets mad at me, I can’t drink well,
the armed oppress me, and no boss,
pays me money. But when I work,
Oh I get paid!, the police are courteous,
and I can have a drink and breathe air.
I feel classy. I am where the arms are.
The wife is wife in deed. The world
is interesting! Except I have to be
indoors all day and take shit, and make
weapons to kill outsiders with. I miss
the air and smell that paid work stinks
when done for somebody else’s profit, so I quit,
enjoy a few flush days in air, drunk, then
I need a job again. I’m caught in a steel cycle.
posted by bricoleur at 5:59 AM on August 25, 2005

Rainer Maria Rilke, "Lament"

Everything is far
and long gone by.
I think that the star
glittering above me
has been dead for a million years.
I think there were tears
in the car I heard pass
and something terrible was said.
A clock has stopped striking in the house
across the road...
When did it start?...
I would like to step out of my heart
and go walking beneath the enormous sky.
I would like to pray.
And surely of all the stars that perished
long ago,
one still exists.
I think that I know
which one it is -
which one, at the end of its beam in the sky,
stands like a white city...




Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias"

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 6:00 AM on August 25, 2005

One of my favourite modern poets: Anne Carson. Autobiography of Red is great, and her translations of Sappho (old Greek poet, called the Tenth Muse by Plato) are wonderful.
posted by louigi at 6:51 AM on August 25, 2005

There once was a man from Nantucket
Whose dick was so long...
Ah, you know the rest.
posted by klangklangston at 7:24 AM on August 25, 2005

I really like Harry Crosby. This one is from Transit to Venus:

Lost things
Were warm with beauty
Birds of the
Birds of the have nests
Her charming gestures and her breasts
Hurtle in the darkened room,
So soft, so hushed
So soft the birds in nests,
So soft her breasts.
posted by Invoke at 8:49 AM on August 25, 2005

The One before the Last by Rupert Brooke

I dreamt I was in love again
With the One Before the Last,
And smiled to greet the pleasant pain
Of that innocent young past.

But I jumped to feel how sharp had been
The pain when it did live,
How the faded dreams of Nineteen-ten
Were Hell in Nineteen-five.

The boy’s woe was as keen and clear,
The boy’s love just as true,
And the One Before the Last, my dear,
Hurt quite as much as you.

Sickly I pondered how the lover
Wrongs the unanswering tomb,
And sentimentalizes over
What earned a better doom.

Gently he tombs the poor dim last time,
Strews pinkish dust above,
And sighs, “The dear dead boyish pastime!
But this—ah, God!—is Love!”

—Better oblivion hide dead true loves,
Better the night enfold,
Than men, to eke the praise of new loves,
Should lie about the old!

Oh! bitter thoughts I had in plenty.
But here’s the worst of it—
I shall forget, in Nineteen-twenty,
You ever hurt a bit!


Body Of A Woman by Pablo Neruda

Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,
you look like a world, lying in surrender.
My rough peasant's body digs in you
and makes the song leap from the depth of the earth.

I was alone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,
and night swamped me with its crushing invasion.
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,
like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.

But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.
Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.
Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!
Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad!

Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!
Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows
and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.


Epitaph On A Hare by William Cowper

Here lies, whom hound did ne’er pursue,
Nor swifter greyhound follow,
Whose foot ne’er tainted morning dew,
Nor ear heard huntsman’s halloo;

Old Tiney, surliest of his kind,
Who, nursed with tender care,
And to domestic bounds confined,
Was still a wild Jack hare.

Though duly from my hand he took
His pittance every night,
He did it with a jealous look,
And, when he could, would bite.

His diet was of wheaten bread
And milk, and oats, and straw;
Thistles, or lettuces instead,
With sand to scour his maw.

On twigs of hawthorn he regaled,
On pippins’ russet peel,
And, when his juicy salads fail’d,
Sliced carrot pleased him well.

A Turkey carpet was his lawn,
Whereon he loved to bound,
To skip and gamble like a fawn,
And swing his rump around.

His frisking was at evening hours,
For then he lost his fear,
But most before approaching showers,
Or when a storm drew near.

Eight years and five round rolling moons
He thus saw steal away,
Dozing out all his idle noons,
And every night at play.

I kept him for his humour’s sake,
For he would oft beguile
My heart of thoughts that made it ache,
And force me to a smile.

But now beneath this walnut shade
He finds his long last home,
And waits, in snug concealment laid,
Till gentler Puss shall come.

He, still more aged, feels the shocks,
From which no care can save,
And, partner once of Tiney’s box,
Must soon partake his grave.
posted by xpermanentx at 9:17 AM on August 25, 2005

Another vote for Sound and Sense; here's a cheap edition.
posted by kimota at 10:31 AM on August 25, 2005

There's nothing abnormal about a guy thinking poetry isn't dumb.
posted by agregoli at 11:13 AM on August 25, 2005

I'm a normal dude, so obviously I think poetry is lame. It's something that I've never understood.

Why? Maybe you're right. I don't care for it much myself, it seems more like vainglorious posturing than anything else.
posted by tetsuo at 11:14 AM on August 25, 2005

Seamus Heaney's North is one of my favorite books of poetry. Bog sacrifices! Totally manly! (seriously, check out Punishment (self-link, sorry, it seems to be the only page that has the text online, even though I know I ganked it from somewhere else when I made the post).

I'm also a big fan of Yeats, in particular his middle-to-late work, like Easter 1916 and Byzantium. And Leda and the Swan, too.
posted by eilatan at 11:52 AM on August 25, 2005

If you're going the anthology route, I recommend Hayden Carruth's The Voice That Is Great Within Us; my only complaint is that he includes virtually nothing of his own work, which is some of the best of recent decades.

Even TSEliott is a stunner when heard reading his own stuff.

Huh? I've rarely heard such a poor reader: dry and prosaic. I'd never think his poetry was any good from hearing him read it. But maybe you heard a recording made when he was drunk or pretending to be Yeats or something.
posted by languagehat at 2:55 PM on August 25, 2005

himoflo, you are kidding, right? You do know that when the Vogon Constructor Fleet came through on a reconnaissance mission many years ago that there was a fair amount of fraternisation between the crew and earthlings, don't you? My poetry would convince you that I am (like many others) 99% Vogon.
posted by tellurian at 4:34 PM on August 25, 2005

I have a video up of a fanatastic poet name Joshua Beckman reading a poem called "The Karate Chop Of Love". It's fantastic, and even more importantly, short. See if you like it.

http://www.machineproject.com/readings/joshbeckman/karate.mp4
posted by puppy kuddles at 10:22 PM on August 25, 2005

I don't care for [poetry] much myself, it seems more like vainglorious posturing than anything else.

Maybe. But all art is pretence. Aren't actors and musicians (especially pop musicians) vainglorious posers, too? And dancers? And painters? I almost wonder if your problem with poetry isn't precisely the opposite: It isn't flashy and pretentious enough.
posted by bricoleur at 8:57 AM on August 26, 2005