Poetry anyone?

[Rogar]

On cold and dark winter evenings I like to settle into a little good poetry occationally. To me, fiction novels are to poetry much like fast food or restaurant eating is to home cooking. I can read a decent novel once, but can come back to savor a good poetry collection many times. Not my main reading venue, but a great diversion.

I think my favorite is Ted Kooser, who was the national poet laureate a couple of years ago. I have a few collections of Robert Service, including a first edition. Service is generally light hearted and fun reads, like the classic, The Cremation of Sam McGee. Jim Harrison is great. And a few collections of the various old classics. A recent PBS special has got me interested in W.S. Merwin, another recent poet laureate. I may have to pick up one of his books.

Anyone one else share this affliction, or is it a dying art? Favorites?

[catherine]

Rogar,
I used to love poetry in my teens, and then paid no attention to it for decades, and am coming around again. Maybe because my son is a songwriter and his strength is his lyrics--which made me more attuned to less prosaic styles.

My introduction to Mary Oliver by nuns at Stella Maris retreat house in New Jersey last spring really pulled me in a little more. I VERY much connect with her. I also am rediscovering Walt Whitman, T.S. Eliot, William Blake.

After being a self-help book junkie, I may just be getting sick of the standard "how life should be lived in three easy steps" types of books and now am really finding life lessons more beautifully and meaningfully expressed in poetry.

[Sad Eyed Lady]

"I was hanged for living alone,
For having blue eyes and a sunburned skin,
Tattered skirts, few buttons,
A weedy farm in my own name,
And a surefire cure for warts."

Oh yes, and breasts,
and a sweet pear hidden in my body.
Whenever there are talk of demons
These come in handy."

This poem has been something of late that has really moved me and stayed with me. I find myself sharing it with people who probably don't really care about poetry, but I do it anyway. It is a portion of a poem by Margaret Atwood called "Half Hanged Mary".

I enjoy some poetry, used to write some myself as did my DH. Every now and then one will strike me, as this one has.

[kally]

thanks for introducing me to Ted Kooser. I looked up his site and watched his video presentation. What a wonderful poet.

[Rogar]

A Winter Morning

A farmhouse window far back from the highway
speaks to darkness in a small, sure voice.
Against this stillness, only a kettle's whisper,
and against the starry cold, one small blue ring of flame.

A short sampler of Ted Kooser

[Greg44]

I have not been a huge poetry person, but loved to listen to a good poem read - particuarly by it's author. I like how in a few short lines a brilliant picture is painted.

[JaneV2.0]

Thank you for posting that, Shalom_Poet. It certainly touches a chord with me.

[lizii]

On cold and dark winter evenings I like to settle into a little good poetry occationally. To me, fiction novels are to poetry much like fast food or restaurant eating is to home cooking. I can read a decent novel once, but can come back to savor a good poetry collection many times. Not my main reading venue, but a great diversion.

I think my favorite is Ted Kooser, who was the national poet laureate a couple of years ago. I have a few collections of Robert Service, including a first edition. Service is generally light hearted and fun reads, like the classic, The Cremation of Sam McGee. Jim Harrison is great. And a few collections of the various old classics. A recent PBS special has got me interested in W.S. Merwin, another recent poet laureate. I may have to pick up one of his books.

Anyone one else share this affliction, or is it a dying art? Favorites?

[lizii]

I have a few collections of Robert Service, including a first edition. Service is generally light hearted and fun reads, like the classic, The Cremation of Sam McGee...

I love Robert Service poems. My dad had memorized them and used to entertain me with them.

[puglogic]

I am a huge poetry fan and love many things, from Rumi to Robert Service.

I was just re-reading this one by Billy Collins today so thought I'd share it. Here's the author reading it aloud:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-a8ELOVig4

Forgetfulness - Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

[puglogic]

This poem too, gives me goosebumps all over my body:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM7q_DUk5wU