Hello, fellow bloggers! My questions are: Do you like poetry? Do you read poetry? Which poets do you favour and how often do you read poetry, and why? I, myself, like poetry very much. I don’t read poetry often, but when I do it’s to pamper myself a little, to think about deep, beautiful things and just to feel sort of special, I guess. I love the beauty of words, phrases, metaphors, similes etc. that poetry can give you in abundance.
I have to say that my favourite poet is Charles Baudelaire. When I first read his collection Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil), I was really captivated by what he had to say. I liked how he made ugly things beautiful and beautiful things ugly. Just to give you a taste of Baudelaire, in case you are not familiar with his poetry:
The Venal Muse (La Muse vénale)
Muse of my heart, you who love palaces,
When January frees his north winds, will you have,
During the black ennui of snowy evenings,
An ember to warm your two feet blue with cold?
Will you bring the warmth back to your mottled shoulders,
With the nocturnal beams that pass through the shutters?
Knowing that your purse is as dry as your palate,
Will you harvest the gold of the blue, vaulted sky?
To earn your daily bread you are obliged
To swing the censer like an altar boy,
And to sing Te Deums in which you don't believe,
Or, hungry mountebank, to put up for sale your charm,
Your laughter wet with tears which people do not see,
To make the vulgar herd shake with laughter.
I just love this guy! I also love to read poetry written by Emily Dickinson, Christina Georgina Rossetti, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Edgar Allan Poe and Lord Tennyson. Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shallot” is one of my favourite epic narrations.
Very recently, I also discovered another poem who really gets to me, and that’s Theodore Roethke. The first poem I read by him was “In a Dark Time”, and it still remains my favourite Roethke poem. I will conclude my post with the last stanza taken from this poem.
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
Feel free to share your thoughts on this post! Feel free to share your favourite poets, poems and lines that you love.
8 comments:
We over at Our Year in Books love poetry. We read it, we even write it (D better than L). D's favorite is John Keats and L's is a toss up between Dickensen and Townes VanZant (yes, he is a musician, but his lyrics are truly just poetry). Check out D's poem on our other blog the Reliquiarium (http://thereliquiarium.blogspot.com/2010/06/cirage-poetique.html). Thanks for the post about poets!
Not a poetry reader. Maybe I just haven't found one that I liked?
I tend to like heroic poems, such as Idylls of the Kings by Tennyson or O Captain, My Captain by Whitman. Although I enjoyed reading poetry in English class, I can't say that I went out of my way to read poetry once I passed the course.
I LOVE poetry. I like to write it to, but it's something that generally I keep to myself. I have a huge anthology of poetry that spans from the middle ages to today, and I like to flick through it. I like to show my favourites through my Poem of the Month feature :)
Poetry to me is one of the most beautiful and difficult forms of literature. On the one hand when you understnad it, the words can create a whole tidal wave of understnding and emotion. On the other hand, when you don't understand it, the words are like a whole jumble and have no meaning. But yes, actually, I love poetry. Great post.
Thank you for your answers! I'm glad to read there are poetry enthusiasts out there, and that some of you even write poetry. That's great!
I read some poetry, not many often, but sometimes I just feel like reading poetry. I like Keats, Heaney, Plath, Frost... The list goes on. :D
Great, list, Milka.;)
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