Recommend poetry to me?

[swan_tower]

So here’s the thing: I read very little (basically no) poetry. When I find a thing I like, I really like it . . . but the rest of it more or less bounces off my skull without leaving a mark. Result is that I don’t read much poetry, because the odds of me finding one of those things that will embed itself in my brain instead of poinging off my cranium are too low to make it worth the effort.

But! I have an internet at my disposal!

So those of you who are lovers of poetry: please recommend things to me that you think I would like. To assist in narrowing down that field, here are things I know I like in poetry:

* Narrative, because brain likey story.
* Aural devices, such as meter, rhyme, alliteration, and so forth. (With exceedingly rare exceptions, I bounce hardest of all off free verse.)
* Generally a darker mood; not sure why, but poems about how happy somebody is tend to draw less of my attention.
* Allusions to things I know about, be it mythology or pop culture or what have you.

I would also be interested in seeing the poetically-minded among you ramble on about why you like poetry: how you read it, what you think about when you consider a poem, etc. Theoretically we had a “poetry appreciation” segment in my high school English classes, but, well. High school.

I’ll put specific examples of what I like behind the cut, for space reasons.

I like “The Raven,” because it’s very aural; I like “Of the Awful Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles, Together with Some Account of the Participation of the Pugs and the Poms, and the Intervention of the Great Rumpus Cat” for the same reason, though that one’s pretty goofy. I appreciate a good classical Japanese haiku or tanka (uh, in translation; I don’t read well enough for the original), though I usually need footnotes to explain to me all the nuances — haiku and tanka are just about the only semi-decent poetry I’ve ever written, for which I blame credit the L5R game I’m running. To pick something more modern, I like Steven Eng’s “Storybooks and Treasure Maps.” I like Neil Gaiman’s “Instructions,” but mostly because I have a recording of him reading it; that doesn’t really register on me as poetry so much as a piece of interesting flash fiction.

This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calmed — see here it is —
I hold it towards you.

I encountered this verse of Keats’ in Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, and it put shivers down my spine that have never gone away.

“And this is the word of Mary,
The word of the world’s desire:
‘No more of comfort shall ye get,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.'”

That’s from G.K. Chesterton’s Ballad of the White Horse, and again, it hits the “shivers down the spine” note for me — especially if I quoted the whole bit leading up to it, but I’m trying not to type up too much stuff here.

I should note that I’m leaving out Shakespeare’s blank verse, partly because Shakespeare, duh, and partly because the context of a play means I don’t relate to that stuff primarily as poetry.

(I’m also leaving out all Latin poetry because a lot of that relies on being able to tie your word order into knots.)

And if you’ve read this far — basically, the reason I’m posting this is because I’m still thinking thinky thoughts about description in prose, and I suspect my ability on that front might be improved by a greater poetic sensibility. Which I am unlikely to develop spontaneously, so I’m hoping that more extensive exposure to poetry will help me along . . . but to do that as anything other than a pointless chore, I need to find more poetry I like.

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[okrablossom]

Carrie Jerrell's After the Revival [dark and musical]

Jenny Factor's Unraveling at the Name [musical, a little dark]

Richard Wilbur's Anterooms [musical, sometimes dark]

Mary Alexandra Agner's The Doors of the Body [sometimes dark, musical]

While not always musical nor always dark, I was greatly impressed by the poems in Raising Lilly Ledbetter, both for the huge range of poetic voices but also the range of topics.

[chomiji]

Maybe The Ballad of the Harp Weaver by Edna St. Vincent Millay?

Also, perhaps some of the longer portion of Housman's "A Shropshire Lad." For instance, LXII. Terence, this is stupid stuff (which is also wonderfully meta on the subject of poetry and why some subjects appeal to the writer, if not the reader).

[tipitiwitchet.livejournal.com]

Browning's My Last Duchess - dark story, sharply written, with loads of dark humor.

Dorothy Parker.  So witty.

Kim Addonizio. Modern and feminist.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

"Ash Wednesday" by T.S. Eliot is one of my favorites. Sharp images, deep, deep resonance.

John Donne is acutely aware of human foibles, passions, and exalted states, and handles the language gorgeously.

Modern: my hands down favorite is "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver.

[cgbookcat1.livejournal.com]

Eliot also has some wonderful images in parts of his Four Quartets. I particularly like "Little Gidding."

Yes to the Mary Oliver!

[alessandriana.livejournal.com]

I would recommend absolutely everything by Edna St Vincent Millay (The Ballad of the Harp Weaver that chomiji recommended is a great place to start). I'm in your boat, I don't always like poetry, but I adore all of hers. Some other good ones: Elegy Before Death, Dirge Without Music, Journey.

Others:

On Death, Without Exaggeration by Wislawa Szymborska
The Old Astronomer to His Pupil by Sarah Williams
And Yet the Books by Czeslaw Milosz
A Wanderer's Song, John Masefield
Sea Fever, by John Masefield
Ode, Arthur O’Shaughnessy
THE FINAL CONNECTION, John M. Ford
Against Entropy, John M. Ford
The Explorer, Rudyard Kipling

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, on Eliot. Figured I'd mention one, and hope she likes it enough to explore!

[bloodstones.livejournal.com]

This Be The Verse by Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

If I were to describe my taste in poetry it wouldn't be that far from what you describe, but of my top 5 poems, this is the only one that really fits your criteria.

Two other favorites that don't fit your criteria at all (free verse), but have very powerful images are Tattered Kadish by Adrienne Rich (http://uwspoetry.blogspot.com/2007/05/three-poems-by-adrienne-rich.html) and Sex Without Love by Sharon Olds (http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/sharon_olds/poems/19521).

[sovay]

To assist in narrowing down that field, here are things I know I like in poetry

I may not be able to help very much, because most of the English-language poets I like best (outside of some obvious and strong exceptions like Housman and Kipling) are more in the direction of free verse than formal poetry, but I'll send you a raft of poems when I get back to my apartment this afternoon and see if any of them stick.

(I don't keep a list of favorite poets. Usually I just glance at my bookshelves. My bookshelves are presently in storage, so this will be interesting.)

This is a diagnostic question rather than an ego-fluff: do you like my poetry? Because if so, that increases the chances that you'll enjoy some of the people I consider influences or who I think do similar things to my own work.

[landofnowhere]

I am going to second the Edna St Vincent Millay recommendation.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Question: what's the difference between poetry and song? Like a story-poem and a ballad?

Stuff I liked:

Tolkien (Gimli's chant in Moria, Galadriel's lament ("I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold their grew")

Poe's Annabel Lee

John Donne.

Andrew Marvell (To His Coy Mistress, The Garden)

I haven't plumbed them much, but Pope, Dryden, and Kipling seem promising.

Metrical translations of Homer, e.g. from Chapman, Pope, and Dryden, or later ones, likewise.

[landofnowhere]

Recommend poetry! This is a thing I can do!

I've had this anthology A Poem A Day since I was 12, and for several years as a teenager I would read it daily. Here are some recommendations, courtesy of my angsty teenage self:

(And see also this friends-only entry, which has a lot of overlap)

One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop (absolute favorite, villanelle, so highly structured, dark mood, tells a story. If you like the form, you should seek out other vilanelles. She also wrote "Casabianca", not to be confused with the earlier poem of the same name, which it references.)

Richard Cory, by Edwin Arlington Robinson (dark, has characterization nad story, memorable but not a favorite)
The opening to Endymion by Keats (the anthology cuts off after "from our dark spirits", which I think is about the right point to cut off before getting Keats overdose. The first line is a cliche now, but the bit that comes right after is great!)

The Way We Live, by Kathleen Jamie: modern, doesn't rhyme, but really fun to read aloud.

Accidents of Birth, by William Meredith: kind of similar to the above.

Archibald McLeash! Ars Poetica is the one in my anthology, and the one everyone knows, but I prefer "You, Andrew Marvell"

Gerard Manley Hopkins: a little hard to get into, because he uses alliteration more than rhyme, but much fun to read. Lots in the anthology, including "The Windhover", but "Spring and Fall" is the one that sticks with me most; it's actually a sonnet, also my grandfather loved it.

("Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; /And yet you wíll weep and know why.")

The book just fell open to "Harp-Song of the Dane Women" by Kipling, which I don't remember beyond the first line "What is a woman that you forsake her", but which you'd probably like.

Dover Beach, by Matthew Arnold (I actually discovered this first by reading Fahrenheit 451). Deservedly famous, though I find the first verse a bit dull, but it increases in intensity as it goes.

William Butler Yeats: lots of stuff, but I'll suggest When You Are Old (translation of a longer poem).

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I second the general recs A. E. Housman, also definitely "My Last Duchess." You might also like John Donne.

A few specific recs; these aren't all narrative, exactly, but they're at least about specific things. I picked them because they rhyme and they have (for me) that "shiver down my spine" quality that comes from a combination of the meaning and the language. I think a lot of my favorite poems don't rhyme and/or don't tell stories, so I will think more about some that do both.

Thomas Nashe, "A Litany in Time of Plague."
http://www.bartleby.com/101/167.html

William Ernest Henley, "Invictus."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/51642

Housman, "To an Athlete Dying Young."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46452

Millay, "Recuerdo." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/14404

W. H. Auden, "Stop All the Clocks": http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems/auden.stop.html

ETA: And I can talk about why I like these, but it would probably make more sense if you've already read them. Let me know if you read any and I'll explain why I like it. These are all fairly short.

[geminiwench.livejournal.com]

I am going to throw up some poetry performances that might be inspiring. I know my main trouble with poetry is that I must be in the right place in my mind, the right place in my heart, to open myself up to poetry sometimes... or especially to specific poems. However, I find live performances will draw you to the moment, their personal cadence will drag you under, and the writer resonating with their abstractions and trying to shake you too... most can tumble you deep until you forget to look for a way out and you simply stop breathing air and start soaking in pure truth.

Buddy Wakefield - "Hurling Crowbirds at Mockingbars"
Poem starts at just after 2 min. mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9wUoVhdN0A

Gemineye - "Penny for your Thoughts"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCmnTUGPdXA

Mary Lambert - "I Know Girls"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7tlFfKCESg
She is a singer, songwriter, and she is a poet... this is a poetry piece while she accompanies herself on piano,.. no a song, but nearly sounds like one.

Josh Ritter - "Thin Blue Flame"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcy9qdmca3E
Josh is also a singer, songwriter, and a poet. His novel "Bright's Passage" is full of WONDERFUL prose. This video is a song,(song starts a little after 1 min) but it is also one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry full of serious truth about war, about the war that gets brought home, and what in the world god may (or may not) have to do with war in general. There are so many evocative landscape lines,.. "trees were a fist shaking themselves at the clouds" "the lake was a diamond in the valley's hand" and from there it falls into a world of feeling and fighting.

Joanna Newsom - "Monkey Bear"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thAunSuinVc
Joanna is a songstress unlike anything you've ever heard. I cannot tell you how much I LOVE Newsom. I have been listening to her for 7 or 8 years and.... she just gets better and better, and her in concert? Mind = blown. Also, you said you like narratives.. and she does WONDERFUL narrative stories set to music. Please try her. If you want to hear more.. try the songs "Book of Right-On" and "Emily" after that.. listen to the whole "Have One On Me" album because O SO GOOD!! She does not write songs in the normal Western-style ballad, she does verse compositions.

I read St. Vincet Millay because SHE IS WONDERFUL, but I also have a deep love of Tennyson, and I recently discovered a book of poetry by Ray Bradbury "When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" which is SO WONDERFUL and mostly about memory. He was such a smooth writer, that reading his verse felt like reading his books, and only on inspection you can see it is actually a very strict set of rhyming verse but its so smooth, the cadence comes out totally natural. No forcing. I love reading Rumi (of course!) and also have a few books of James Whitcomb Riley's work. I've had some tastes of James Baldwin which I enjoyed *a lot* and especially like picking up and browsing "Poetry in Praise of Practically Nothing" by Samuel Hoffenstein, because I like his impudence and humor.

I like audio, and there is a great free recording from librivox of Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" which makes me cry at the end EVERY TIME! Its a good 40+ minutes long and SO worth it!

If you like reading prose (and not just poetry) if you haven't already tried Nabokov, please do. NOT "Lolita"... but "Pale Fire" is HILARIOUS and so is "Invitation to a Beheading" which was my first introduction to his writing and made me fall in love with his sense for words and cadence. O god. So good. I am re-reading "Invitation..." right now and it is even BETTER than I remembered... LOVE this book. So DAMN good.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I love that bit of "A Shropshire Lad" and should have thought to include it in my list of poetry I like. :-D

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Addonizio is new to me; I'll look her up. Parker I don't think I've ever read at any length above a brief quotation -- so she is eminently quotable, but I should look into what she says when she's using more than four lines. :-) Browning I like off and on. (Ditto the Romantics.)

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I think I need to read the Four Quartets some day, just so I can better understand the ending of Fire and Hemlock. :-P

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I think I've read "Ash Wednesday," but I don't remember it.

I'm not sure I know any Donne poem other than the one Diana Wynne Jones used in Howl's Moving Castle, which I am incapable of reading as anything other than the curse the Witch of the Waste placed on Howl. <lol> We read some other Donne in high school, I think, but that class was pretty bad and I ejected it from my memory.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the list! That gives me quite a bit to hunt down and think about.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

My criteria are not a straitjacket; they're just a way of saying "the odds are higher in this direction." The Keats poem I quoted has only meter going for it, of all the aspects I said I liked, and yet it's one of my favorite poems I've ever read.

Thanks for the links! I read all three of the Rich poems on that page, as well as the Olds; none of them were insta-love for me, but they gave me good things to think about.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I would be very grateful for a raft of poems! (As noted above, I adore the "Terence, this is stupid stuff" portion of "A Shropshire Lad," though I'm not sure I've read much more Housman than that. It's another data point.)

My response to your poetry is similar to my response to a great many other poems, which is that I find individual turns of phrase beautiful, but the poem itself leaves me feeling like I'm sliding over the surface, never quite figuring out how to sink into it and see the shape the whole thing makes together.

(That is one of two failure modes of poetry for me. The other is where I read it and think, "there's no there there." A lot of poems fail to convince me there even is a shape that would be meaningful, if only I could figure out how to get inside it. Whether or not this is because those are all objectively bad poems, I don't feel qualified to speculate.)

[brooksmoses]

Have you read Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate?

It's ... well, it's not typical poetry, because it's at novel length, but it's also sonnet-form stanzas. And it's sort of a "literature"-genre story, about Silicon Valley, and kind of about bittersweetness of relationships changing as life happens. So, by the numbers, it pegs the meter on three of your four criteria and seems reasonably good on the last.

I quite like it, but I also know a number of people who've bounced off of it. (I'm not entirely sure I know anyone else who's liked it, come to think of it!) In any case, if it works for you it might be an interesting middle ground between prose and poetry for description, since it's doing poetic descriptions but the larger structure is prose-like.

[landofnowhere]

I'm somewhat mixed on Donne, but like Batter My Heart, three-person'd God. (It's easy to forget by the end that it's supposed to be about Christianity.)

[sovay]

I would be very grateful for a raft of poems!

Well, my attempt to leave some of my favorites by Rudyard Kipling mystifyingly blew out the character limit. I have edited heavily.

Despite reading his prose as a child, I didn't really engage with Kipling as a poet until 2006, when I discovered him through the folk settings of Peter Bellamy. Many of the qualities which make his poetry such a good candidate for singing are in fact the same reasons I enjoy him as a poet: his sense of rhythm and resonance, his play with assonance and alliteration, and his knack for either pinpointing an evocative phrase ("Beneath whose awful hand we hold / Dominion over palm and pine") or going with gusto for the heroic epithets ("Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas"). When his poetry fails for me, it tends to fall completely flat, and I'm certainly not saying that all of it's good. Some of it hasn't aged well, some of it was just kind of meh to begin with. I love many of the Barrack-Room Ballads, but your reading mileage may vary depending on your tolerance for eye dialect. But the good stuff is strong and singing and I might as well see if we have any overlap. He is also one of the best poets of the sea in the English language, which you will see unsurprisingly reflected in my recommendations.

"Anchor Song" (The Seven Seas, 1896) is a modern chantey about the technicalities of working a tall ship out of harbor, plus a shout-out to Mother Carey, so of course I adore it. I don't love any other poem in this collection entirely except perhaps "The Sea-Wife," but there are pieces in several others that I think are really good: stray lines in "The Coastwise Lights," the second half of "The Song of the Dead," the first stanza of "The Deep-Sea Cables." I like the voice of "The Liner She's a Lady," although like most of his dialect poems it works better performed than read. He's very good at quick character sketches and they work even for inanimate objects.

[To be continued.]

[sovay]

I feel like the reputation of "Gentlemen-Rankers" (Barrack-Room Ballads: First Series, 1892) precedes it and ditto the Barrack-Room Ballads in general, so I've winnowed out the ones I really like: "Danny Deever," "Tommy," "The Widow at Windsor," (despite gloriously inaccurate geography) "Mandalay," "Troopin'," "Ford o' Kabul River," "Shillin' a Day," "Back to the Army Again," "That Day," and "Follow Me 'Ome." They are not uncritically the greatest hits of Empire, which is one of the reasons they interest me. I don't like "Mary, Pity Women!" much for itself, but Bertolt Brecht adapted it into both "Surabaya-Johnny" and "Polly's Song," which I only figured out about seven years ago.

The following is a pretty random assortment of other Kipling I enjoy, from various collections. Feel free to ask about any: "The Bell Buoy," "The Derelict," "The Dutch in the Medway," "Eddi's Service," "Frankie's Trade," "Harp Song of the Dane Women," "My Boy Jack," "Philadelphia," "Poor Honest Men," "Puck's Song," "Recessional," "Rimini," "The Roman Centurion's Song," "Seal Lullaby," "A Tree Song (Oak, Ash & Thorn)," and "With Drake in the Tropics."

[Tbc.]