• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Fav Poem

Master Vigil

Well-Known Member
What is everyones favorite poem, or favorite kind of poem? I personally love sonnets. I love Death be not Proud, by John Donne.
 

Lightkeeper

Well-Known Member
I'm a big fan of Haiku. When done right they say so much in very few words and are a moment of connection and enlightenment.

Here is an old old Haiku from one of the masters. It translated to:

On the temple bell
has settled, and is fast asleep,
a butterfly.

There are so many layers to this. It's spring. The butterfly is totally at peace and is unaware the bell may disturb it's sleep. There is a feeling of beauty and impermanence. We can identify with the butterfly in that we need to relax even though we never know what is around the corner. The butterfly has chosen a "temple bell" for it's refuge.
 

Master Vigil

Well-Known Member
I love haiku as well, for the same reason. It is also the reason I love sonnets. They are short, and are able to sum up alot in little words. I think I like sonnets more because of the rhyming scheme. I love rhyme, I just don't seem to like poems that don't rhyme too much. Some are good, very good. But there is just something about a rhyming scheme that just lets a poem flow like music.
 

pegan

Member
Call me inoriginal, but I love things without forms or definite patterns. Poems that flow, without the predictability or the stress of form.

~*Pegan*~
 

Master Vigil

Well-Known Member
Another thing I like about rhyming schemes and meter schemes is it makes poetry like a puzzle. Like any kid can sit down and just rant out words. But a good poet can fit those words together beautifully and make them rhyme and flow and sound beautiful while making it sound like the schemes aren't present.
 

pegan

Member
Yet at the same time, if someone gets too hung up on rhyming words and fitting patterns, sometimes the meaning is completely overlooked. I love rhyming poems by poets who can make a form work, but at the same time, I'm all for the meaning.

~*Pegan*~
 

Lightkeeper

Well-Known Member
I studied and wrote poetry for several years. Even lyrical poets practice formal poetry forms and rhyme schemes. Because, within a good unrhymed poem is meter and deep attention to word usage. Many poets use internal rhyme, etc. An good unrhymed poem is highly structured.
 

pegan

Member
True, even I realize that. I've been writing poetry for several years now. I just can't stand people getting so stuck on wording that they completely skip over the meaning of their own poetry.

I do love many forms of poetry, rhyming or no. :love:

~*Pegan*~
 

pegan

Member
My poetry links me to my mysterious first name. Which shall never be revealed. I'm paranoid, you could say. Even though I have about six different places in the Google search. :mad:

So I shall read other poetry, and remain just Pegan. :lol:

~*Pegan*~
 

Master Vigil

Well-Known Member
Yes, all I'm saying is that I hate when people just try to slop down some words and call it poetry. It takes a good poet with good writing skill to make a poem work. Form and meaning.

I also really like poetry where the meaning is hidden. Then you have to study it and actually do some work to find it. It makes the meaning all the more meaningful.
 

pegan

Member
That I agree with. I don't believe that poetry has to have form, but slopping down words on paper for the hell of it pisses me off as much as the next person.

Putting:
Apples make
me
smile on
rainy days.

does not make ANYONE a poet. However, I don't think that anyone should be bound by form.

~*Pegan*~
 

Master Vigil

Well-Known Member
Well no, form does not bind anyone. Only sharpens them. And once one is proficient at form, one creates their own form.

I have yet to find a good contemporary poet that is good at trochaic or anapestic meter. That stuff is hard. I tried once, but it cut me short at 80 lines. I was stuck after that. Poe was good at trochaic. One of the best I would say.
 

Lightkeeper

Well-Known Member
Master Vigil said:
Another thing I like about rhyming schemes and meter schemes is it makes poetry like a puzzle. Like any kid can sit down and just rant out words. But a good poet can fit those words together beautifully and make them rhyme and flow and sound beautiful while making it sound like the schemes aren't present.

And many times the meaning of the poem is a mystery to the poet, because it comes from great depths. I have heard published poets discuss this.

I agree with you on studying form and meter. It's like studying scales and theory in music. You write better when you know the basics. Elton John was a classical musician.
 

Green Gaia

Veteran Member
I don't know about my favorite poem, but I do like this one by Amy Lowell:

Diya {original title is Greek, Delta-iota-psi-alpha}


Look, Dear, how bright the moonlight is to-night!
See where it casts the shadow of that tree
Far out upon the grass. And every gust
Of light night wind comes laden with the scent
Of opening flowers which never bloom by day:
Night-scented stocks, and four-o'clocks, and that
Pale yellow disk, upreared on its tall stalk,
The evening primrose, comrade of the stars.
It seems as though the garden which you love
Were like a swinging censer, its incense
Floating before us as a reverent act
To sanctify and bless our night of love.
Tell me once more you love me, that 't is you
Yes, really you, I touch, so, with my hand;
And tell me it is by your own free will
That you are here, and that you like to be
Just here, with me, under this sailing pine.
I need to hear it often for my heart
Doubts naturally, and finds it hard to trust.
Ah, Dearest, you are good to love me so,
And yet I would not have it goodness, rather
Excess of selfishness in you to need
Me through and through, as flowers need the sun.
I wonder can it really be that you
And I are here alone, and that the night
Is full of hours, and all the world asleep,
And none can call to you to come away;
For you have given all yourself to me
Making me gentle by your willingness.
Has your life too been waiting for this time,
Not only mine the sharpness of this joy?
Dear Heart, I love you, worship you as though
I were a priest before a holy shrine.
I'm glad that you are beautiful, although
Were you not lovely still I needs must love;
But you are all things, it must have been so
For otherwise it were not you. Come, close;
When you are in the circle of my arm
Faith grows a mountain and I take my stand
Upon its utmost top. Yes, yes, once more
Kiss me, and let me feel you very near
Wanting me wholly, even as I want you.
Have years behind been dark? Will those to come
Bring unguessed sorrows into our two lives?
What does it matter, we have had to-night!
To-night will make us strong, for we believe
Each in the other, this is a sacrament.
Beloved, is it true?
 

Irenicas

high overlord of sod all
My favourite poet is Coleridge, and I think his best is his poem Kubla Khan:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
 
pegan said:
That I agree with. I don't believe that poetry has to have form, but slopping down words on paper for the hell of it pisses me off as much as the next person.

but dont you think that sometimes the meaning/raw emotion can be lost when you try to fit things into typical phrasing... i know the really good poets can do it without harm but for the rest of us... :)
 

Feathers in Hair

World's Tallest Hobbit
My favorite used to be "Ryme of the Ancient Mariner..."
We were supposed to write a school paper on defining non-concrete concepts, and I did mine on redemption. Good ol' "Ryme" was used a lot. Mind you, so was "Lethal Weapon."
I was an odd little child.

Wish I could find some of my more recent poems to post. They usually start out with the 'no form' and then find one of their own as they go along.
 

Quoth The Raven

Half Arsed Muse
'It is an ancient mariner and he stoppeth one of three...' Love that poem. My favourites until I was about 14 or so were just about everything by Lewis Carroll.

A boat,beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July -

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear
PLeased a simple Tale to hear -

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me,phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet,the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream -
Lingering in the golden gleam -
Life, what is it but a dream?

It's an acrostic, using Alice's full name. I discovered Sylvia Plath when I hit around 14, and a dozen other poets. There's not a lot I don't like.
 
Top