Share your favourite poems

[Guizguiz]

Ròisìn (the accent are not in right way but I don't know how to make them right with a french keyboard): me too! I know it by heart and recite it in my head when I need confidence (which is always)

[JoB]

(the accent are not in right way but I don't know how to make them right with a french keyboard)

[stops himself from going into another rant about how to type in special characters varies between various OSes and language settings while transmitting and displaying them has been effectively standardized with Unicode]

... use your mouse to mark one of the "Róisín"s in/alongside her own post, copy, paste ...

[Róisín]

Thanks, JoB, I didn't know that (not very computer literate, I'm afraid!)

[Guizguiz]

thanks I'll do that in the future ^^

[Iceea]

On a "standard" Windows keyboard and PC, Róisín is R-Alt162->ó-i-s-Alt161->í-n. (To get the alternate characters hold the Alt key down and use the keypad)
Méluse is M-Alt130->é-l-u-s-e

Though as Job so succinctly points out, copy and paste works just fine also. Probably quicker

[Olga Veresk]

I'm not sure about if I can post Russian poems here. As for the poems on any other languages, I love several of them, but now I can remember that one which I particularly love because of rhythm.

A Man of Words and Not Deeds

A man of words and not of deeds
Is like a garden full of weeds
And when the weeds begin to grow
It's like a garden full of snow
And when the snow begins to fall
It's like a bird upon the wall
And when the bird away does fly
It's like an eagle in the sky
And when the sky begins to roar
It's like a lion at the door
And when the door begins to crack
It's like a stick across your back
And when your back begins to smart
It's like a penknife in your heart
And when your heart begins to bleed
You're dead, and dead, and dead indeed.

[Róisín]

That looks like a strange version of 'The Man of Double Deed', a rhyme I heard as a child. Ah, the folk process! I have to go and tutor someone shortly, but I'll come back later if I can find it.

[Sunflower]

Ooh, fun!  These are all great choices.  I was familiar with most of them (especially the Robert Frost -- I had the great good luck to take a class on his poetry with Joseph Brodsky before he became Poet Laureate).  But I had never even heard of Fred Chappell, much less read the wonderful "Narcissus and Echo."

I will try not to spam this thread.  How to narrow down to just one choice?  I'll make it "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" by farmer-poet Wendell Berry, which I love even though (or maybe because) I work in an industry that is all about "creating a window in your head" through data analytics.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

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....

[The poem continues for another 3 1/2 stanzas:  https://bookpeopleblog.com/2011/04/05/poem-of-the-day-manifesto-the-mad-farmer-liberation-front/]

[Sunflower]

And on a more cheerful note, "The Lobster Quadrille," by Lewis Carroll, in a musical setting by Carly Simon (the '70s pop singer) and her sister Lucy Simon (composer of the musical "The Secret Garden").

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"The further off from England, the nearer 'tis to France!
So turn not pale, beloved snail,
But come and join the dance!"

[Glory]

For me, it's gotta be "Invictus" by Wiliiam Ernest Henley.

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 punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.


The last two lines always send shivers down my spine....for me, this poem always represented my ideal human spirit, and those final lines just ram home that message so perfectly. Just amazing.

[Róisín]

Glory, that's a favourite poem of mine! And of Guizguiz's too.

[Guizguiz]

Yes Invictus!
It helped me go through difficult times, it's just that powerful for me

[thorny]

I think I'm just going to drop a link here, to the last thing posted on Ursula Kroeber LeGuin's blog.

http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Blog2017.html#New

[Róisín]

Oh, thorny. That made me cry, in a good way.

[Iceea]

As one who will be looking at their 70th year in a few weeks, that resonates very deeply on many levels. But then Ursula k LeGuin's writing always did have that quality.

Thank you thorny, thank you indeed.