Share your favourite poems

[Jerzy_S]

Here is my fovourite poem. I wish you all were able to read it in original version. It's much better 

The day after -- without us

The morning is expected to be cloud and foggy.
Rainclouds
will move from the west.
Poor visibility.
Slick highways.

Gradually as the day progresses
high pressure fronts from the north
make local sunshine likely.
Due to winds, though, sometimes strong and gusty,
sun may give way to storms.

At night
clearing across the country,
with a slight chance of precipitation
only in the southeast.
Temperatures will drop sharply,
while barometric readings rise.

The next day
promises to be sunny,
altough those still living
should bring umbrellas.

  - Wisława Szymborska

[Sunflower]

Wow, what a great thread!  I wish I'd spotted it sooner.

I'm going to share a couple of my favorites -- though just one in this first post.  It's fairly long, so I'm just going to quote excerpts.  Here's the full version: http://ag.arizona.edu/~steidl/Liberation.html

Manifesto:  The Mad Farmer Liberation Front 
by Wendell Berry
[I like this even though, or maybe because, I work in the computer software industry...]
 
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 millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

[...]

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.
 

[Sunflower]

I studied Latin in college, and became particularly fond of the poetry of Catullus, a fellow who no doubt would have become a Stephen Sondheim-esque songwriter in modern times. 

This is #8 (untitled) -- or rather, VIII in the collection of his surviving poems.  Scholars think he wrote it about his on-and-off girlfriend, Clodia, a married Roman aristocrat.
The limping rhythm of the Latin version emphasizes the mood of obsessive heartbreak.

Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,
et quod vides perisse perditum ducas.
fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles,
cum ventitabas quo puella ducebat
amata nobis quantum amabitur nulla.
ibi illa multa tum iocosa fiebant,
quae tu volebas nec puella nolebat.
fulsere vere candidi tibi soles.
nunc iam illa non vult: tu quoque, impotens, <noli,>
nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser vive,
sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura.
vale, puella. iam Catullus obdurat,
nec te requiret nec rogabit invitam:
at tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla.
scelesta, vae te! quae tibi manet vita?
quis nunc te adibit? cui videberis bella?
quem nunc amabis? cuius esse diceris?
quem basiabis? cui labella mordebis?
at tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura.

My translation:

Poor old Catullus, stop playing the fool,
And when you've lost something, consider it gone for good.

Once the sun shone brightly on you,
When you used to go wherever the girl led.
She was loved as nobody has ever been loved.
Back then you had so many joys,
Anything you wanted, and she wasn't unwilling.
Truly, the sun shone brightly on you then.

Now she doesn't want you; you shouldn't want her either, poor fool --
Don't tag along after her, nor live in misery,
But endure, make up your mind to hold firm.

So long, girl.  Now Catullus is standing fast. 
He won't ask after you or seek you against your will.
But you'll be sorry, when nobody comes asking for you.
You heartbreaker!  What kind of life can you still have? 
Who will visit you now?  Who will think you're pretty?
Who will you love now?  Whose will you be called?
Who will you kiss?  Whose lips will you bite?
...Wait.  You, Catullus, need to hold firm. 

[Sunflower]

OK, one more Catullus poem.  He could be humorous, too.  Here he's publicly shaming someone in his social circle with a little kleptomania problem.  (In 1st-century BC Rome, people brought their own napkins to dinner parties, and a nice linen napkin could be expensive.)

I picture Marrucinus as looking kind of like Bobby Moynihan on "Saturday Night Live."

Marrucine Asini, manu sinistra
non belle uteris: in ioco atque vino
tollis lintea neglegentiorum.
Hoc salsum esse putas? Fugit te, inepte:
quamvis sordida res et invenusta est.
Non credis mihi? Crede Pollioni
fratri, qui tua furta vel talento
mutari velit - est enim leporum
differtus puer ac facetiarum.
Quare aut hendecasyllabos trecentos
exspecta, aut mihi linteum remitte,
quod me no movet aestimatione,
verum est mnemosynum mei sodalis.
Nam sudaria Saetaba ex Hiberis
miserunt mihi muneri Fabullus
Et Veranius; haec amem necesse est
ut Veraniolum meum et Fabullum.

My translation:
Marrucinus Asinus, with your left hand
You did something tacky.  While we were all drinking and having fun,
You stole the napkins of anyone too drunk to notice.
Did you think that was funny?  Far from it, you dork.
That was about the lamest thing you could have done.
If you don't believe me, believe your brother Pollio,
Who'd pay a fortune to make your thefts go away --
And he's a good kid, bright and charming enough to make up for you.
So expect a curse in 300 lines of 11-syllable poetry to be shamed on social media
Unless you return my napkin.  Which didn't cost that much,
But it was a souvenir my friends Fabullus and Veranius
Sent me from Spain, so it's dear to me.
[Lots of sentimental emojis]

[Róisín]

You know, Sunflower, I sincerely hope that we will at some point have the chance to meet in real life! It is said that you can tell a great deal about the nature of a person by their taste in poetry, and your choices suggest to me that we would get on very well indeed. Wendell Berry and Catullus, heh!

What do you think of the work of Judith Wright?

[Sunflower]

You know, Sunflower, I sincerely hope that we will at some point have the chance to meet in real life! It is said that you can tell a great deal about the nature of a person by their taste in poetry, and your choices suggest to me that we would get on very well indeed. Wendell Berry and Catullus, heh!

What do you think of the work of Judith Wright?

Aww, that's very kind of you to say!  I have often thought the same thing.  Maybe someday my travels will take me to Australia.  I've already had a couple of Minnions here to visit.

I confess, I have never heard of Judith Wright.  I could Google her, of course, but maybe you could share some of her poetry?

[Lazy8]

Ooooooooooh yes, I remember Catullus. Not a big fan of his love poems, but I do remember he could be quite the snarker. (He wrote some pretty dirty stuff too, if memory serves. )

[Juniper]

Maybe because I had the last stanza of it as my signature for a while I could share 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost, because it is pretty great. Frost is where it's at ~

Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

I'm trying to find this one poem about Echo and Narcissus but I can't seem to find it anywhere. Which is a shame, I thought it was really cleverly written where it would have a line of dialogue, and then the line after that would be Echo echoing that line back but only using select words and sounds from the previous line so that her line had a completely different meaning.

[Róisín]

Juniper, I remember once seeing such a poem; I think the author was Fred Chappell? I don't have a copy, but given his name you might be able to find it?

[Yuuago]

Grammar Lesson
by Richard Wagamese

There's a silence words
leave in their wake
once they're spoken
that's the true punctuation
of our lives

like
when I said "I love you"
the full colon stop
made my heart ache
until you continued
the phrase and said
            dash
"I love you too"

period

[urbicande]

We need a little Shakespeare!

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

[Anna]

I'm trying to find this one poem about Echo and Narcissus but I can't seem to find it anywhere. Which is a shame, I thought it was really cleverly written where it would have a line of dialogue, and then the line after that would be Echo echoing that line back but only using select words and sounds from the previous line so that her line had a completely different meaning.

Is it this one you're looking for?

"Narcissus and Echo" by Fred Chappell

Shall the water not remember   Ember
my hand’s slow gesture, tracing above   of
its mirror my half-imaginary   airy
portrait? My only belonging   longing,
is my beauty, which I take   ache
away and then return as love   of
of teasing playfully the one being   unbeing.
whose gratitude I treasure   Is your
moves me. I live apart   heart
from myself, yet cannot  not
live apart. In the water’s tone,   stone?
that shining silence, a flower   Hour,
whispers my name with such slight  light:
moment, it seems filament of air,  fare
the world become cloudswell.   well.

[Guizguiz]

This topic seems a little bit deserted but I'd like to share my favorite poem too!

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid

It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishements the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.

W. E. Henley

But my favorite poet is W. H. Auden

[Ana Nymus]

Wow, I forgot we had a thread like this! My favorite short poem:

Fog
by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

[Róisín]

Ana, that's one of Sandburg's better poems.

And Guizguiz: Hooray, Invictus. I love that poem. It could be my theme song.