Poetry

Liam

Administrator
You've never read Emily Dickinson, Dan? Christina Rossetti? Elizabeth Bishop? Sylvia Plath? Those would be my top choices in English. Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva in Russian. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz in Spanish. Of the living ones, check out Mary Oliver: simplicity and profundity combined in one poet.
 

JCamilo

Reader
I would add another Emily, the Bronte one. Her sister aren't bad either. Elizabeth Barrett is the "queen of victorian poetry", her Sonnets are great. I like Florbela Espanca as well.
 

Liam

Administrator
Emily probably had the most unique voice out of all the Brontes (the sisters had a brother who also wrote, which very few people are aware of). Her poetry is the strongest, and I find myself rereading Wuthering Heights, something I haven't done with either Jane Eyre or Villette (just haven't felt compelled to).
 

JCamilo

Reader
Poetry wise, Charlotte is the less impressive. She didnt had Emily mysticism and strength neither Anne softness presence. As prose, of course, Wuthering Heights was way advanced for her time, dabbling with the psychological novels that the russian would yet produce and of course, Heathcliff is a strong character, that can play with our imagination all the time. Charlotte seemed to agree that Emily poetry was stronger, as Emily kept it hidden from her family, and when she showed they felt like hit by a strong blow. But still, all 3 Bronte girls were impressive minds, watever was in the water of that family should be give anywhere.

Of course, Brandwell is more famous for his portraits of the sisters, but I supposed the lack of "Propaganda" of his works is due the lack of quality if compared to his sisters and a bit, a counter-effect to the whole argument he was the writer beyond their works. He also teammed with Charlotte in the juvenile storytelling plays, while Emily and Anne were the other team (Gondal stories i think for them and Angria for Charlotte and Branwell) and we have to addmit the other team seems to be the stronger one. Anyways, hard as it is sometime to find, here one of his poems

I sit, this evening, far away,
From all I used to know,
And nought reminds my soul to-day
Of happy long ago.

Unwelcome cares, unthought-of fears,
Around my room arise;
I seek for suns of former years
But clouds o'ercast my skies.

Yes--Memory, wherefore does thy voice
Bring old times back to view,
As thou wouldst bid me not rejoice
In thoughts and prospects new?

I'll thank thee, Memory, in the hour
When troubled thoughts are mine--
For thou, like suns in April's shower,
On shadowy scenes wilt shine.

I'll thank thee when approaching death
Would quench life's feeble ember,
For thou wouldst even renew my breath
With thy sweet word 'Remember'!
 

Daniel del Real

Moderator
Here's a question to poetry readers: when you purchase a Complete Poems volume by a certain author, how do you start reading it?
Chronologically?
Random?
The most celebrated book of poems?

I use to do it chronologically, but I've realized sometimes their earlier poems are not very good and it immediately puts you off what's next, which sometimes can be quite remarkable.
Anyway, I'd like to read your approach.
 

SpaceCadet

Quiet Reader
I've never purchase a 'Complete Poems volume' but I do own a collection of poems (Seamus Heaney) covering a certain period of time in his writing career. I first tried to read it chronologically (the way it is presented in the book) but I soon realized it did not worked out well with me. Be it that specific book or any other book of poetry, I usually prefer reading it when I feel like it and it definitely will be at random.
 
Last year i bought two volumes of collected poems of Czesław Miłosz (ca. 1000 p.) and Zbigniew Herbert (600p). First, I read their most well-known books. Later on I started reading books in chronological order, from time to time reading individual poems from other periods, which drew my attention or I want to get familiar with.
 

JCamilo

Reader
Well, sometimes I just buy and open anywhere in the middle of the book, looking for familiar poems or trying to get surprised by some, but if I get set to read the entire book, I prefer to just follow the order they were organized, but chronological order is more interesting. True, you can start with bad poems, but having that in mind, it is interesting to see the author moving foward, his experiences, the repetition of themes and styles until there is finally an unique poem and somehow, you also see when the author is somehow tired, not able to add anything fresh and even if his technique, style, etc is all there, there is the lack of some spark.

However, sometimes the experience is different. Borges complete works here is organized in 4 books (i think it is also how it is organized in spanish, not sure) and, despite having somehow a chronological order, the last book is kind for non-fictional texts such as prefaces, essays, speeches. And when you start to get closer to the end of the third volume (Borges repeats his themes a lot already since the 50's, reading his complete work is a bit like watching a some sort of serene aging process) and you get in the books published in 80's, you kind feel like he is welcoming death's approach every word. So, when you get in the fourth book (even having read some of those works before), you kind read with Borges dead already, but some of his non-fictional works are the most lively stuff he did after the 60's.
 

Daniel del Real

Moderator
Thanks for your comments everyone. As I said before, I used to do it chronologically, that's how I read the complete poetry of José Emilio Pacheco and also Borges and it flowed quite well.
However, in my latest attempts it wasn't the same. Late last year I tried to read Seferis complete poetry and after the first book, I was put off. Right now I'm at the same with Pizarnik and her first book didn't spoke to me at all. Probably I'll jump to her most celebrated ones and continue from there.
 

Liam

Administrator
Some people prefer to do it in order, some people dip in and out. A poetry collection is not a novel so doesn't need to be read consecutively, unless of course it's a stand alone volume (like Sylvia Plath's Ariel, in which the poems are arranged in the order she wants the reader to read them). But if we're talking about Collected or Complete Poems of any one poet in particular, the only reason to read them chronologically would be if you were writing a book about them--that way you could trace the poet's journey from beginning to end. But if you're reading poetry for yourself, that is, for pleasure, absolutely, just dip in and out as you see fit.
 

peter_d

Reader
Some people prefer to do it in order, some people dip in and out.

And some do both. I bought Tomas Tranströmer's collected poems and I dip in and out. But in order to be sure I will see them all, I am also going through the book in the order they are organized, which is chronologically.
 

SpaceCadet

Quiet Reader
I've never purchase a 'Complete Poems volume' but I do own a collection of poems (Seamus Heaney) covering a certain period of time in his writing career. I first tried to read it chronologically (the way it is presented in the book) but I soon realized it did not worked out well with me. Be it that specific book or any other book of poetry, I usually prefer reading it when I feel like it and it definitely will be at random.

Just to contradict myself... I recently have started reading a collection of poems (written by five different poets), tried to dip in an out as I would usually do, but this time, that did not work well and I've found it was better to read it from start to end... (never say never!)
 

Liam

Administrator
Reading Christina Rossetti's Complete Poems at the moment (very slowly, no more than 2-3 pieces before bed each time): SO many good ones despite her intense religiosity (sometimes bordering on insanity, LOL), and I am enjoying her darkness and her sense of aloneness.

from "Memory":

I shut the door to face the naked truth,
I stood alone--I faced the truth alone,
Stripped bare of self-regard or forms or ruth
Till first and last were shown.


I'll post some of the more memorable pieces later--but for now, does anyone else around here like/enjoy reading the Rossettis? :)
 

JCamilo

Reader
oh, she is great. People overlook her due the Goblin Market fame (which still a nice tale) and perhaps her brother not so great fame...
 

Straw

Member
Resurrecting this thread with a poem about resurrection, fittingly enough:

Sing we Osiris dead, lament the fallen head;
The light has left the world, the world is grey.
Athwart the starry skies the web of darkness lies;
Sing we Osiris, passed away.
Ye tears, ye stars, ye fires, ye rivers shed;
Weep, children of the Nile, weep – for your Lord is dead.


I found this poem, The Lament for Osiris, in an interesting way. I originally stumbled upon it when reading about Dorothy Eady (also known as Omm Sety), and then tracked it to The Poetical Works of Andrew Lang, Volume IV. Lang in turn cites it as being from Haggard's Cleopatra. I remain uncertain as to whether this is a legitimate piece of Egyptian religious poetry, or merely an invention of Haggard. It is certainly at least based in Egyptian rites. Interestingly, the original poem contains one difference from the poem above: instead of "Athwart the starry skies the web of darkness lies", the original has "Athwart the starry skies the web of darkness flies". I chose to include the modified version above because, in my opinion, it makes the poem slightly stronger.
 

Ben Jackson

Well-known member
An old thread to visit.

In my childhood days, I always shifted from poetry because I found it boring. But in my teenage years, discovering more poets from different countries, even as far as Syria, I was able to enjoy/appreciate poetry just because of its language. And now I'm a fan of poetry and I wholly enjoy it.

Favourite poets, there are so many but I'll list these few names, their works having influenced me:

Africa:

Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
Breyten Breytenbach (South Africa)
Christopher Okigbo (Nigeria)
Leopold Senghor (Senegal)
Tchiya U'm Tamsi (Congo)
Dennis Brutus (South Africa)
Dambudzo Marechara (Zimbabwe)
Kofi Awoonor (Ghana)
Tade Ipadeola(Nigeria)
Uche Nduka (Nigeria)
Jean Joseph Rabarievelo (Madagascar)

Latin America/Carribean:
Octavio Paz (Mexico)
Pablo Neruda (Chile)
Carlos Drummond (Brazil)
Derek Walcott (St Lucia)
Aime Cesaire (Martinique)
Jose Lezama Lima (Cuba)

Asia/Australia:
Les Murray (Australia)
Bei Dao (China)
Basho (Japan)
Adonis (Syria)

Europe:

England
Thomas Hardy
Auden
Robert Graves (especially his poems from after the second world war)
Thomas Gunn
Byron
Keats

France:

Andre Brenton
Rene Char
Apollinaire
Rimbaud
Laforgue
Baudelaire

Italy/Spain:
Montale
Ungaretti
Dante
Lorca
Alexandrie
Cernuda
Juan Ramon Jimenez
Antonio Machado

Russia/Germany:
Brodsky
Akhmatova
Pasternak
Tsvateava
Blok
Celan
Tarkl
Peter Huchel


Other Parts of Europe:
Dylan Thomas
Elytis
Seferis
Transtromer
Henri Michaux
Nelly Sachs
Milosz
Kaplinski
Zagajewski
Derek Mahon
Vladimir Holan
Yiannis Ritsos


America:
T.S. Eliot
Wallace Stevens
Ezra Pound
Hilda Doolittle
Robert Lowell
Amy Lowell
Plath
Dickinson
Ashbery
James Merrill
George Oppen
Edna Vincent Millay
Charles Simic
 

Ben Jackson

Well-known member
Here is list of poets who was shortlisted for the Nobel Literature Prize between 1901---1972 but failed to get it (years that has been revealed). I'm posting this list to expand reading horizons:

??????? Thomas Hardy (1910, 1913, 1923)
?? Stefan George (1929)
?? Kostas Palamas (1926)
??????? Algernon Charles Swinburne (1908)
?? Angelos Sikelianos (1948)
?? Konstantin Balmont (1926)
?? Robert Frost (1961)
??????? John Masefield (1935)
?? Carl Sandburg (1953)
Paul Valery (1931, 1937, 1944 and 1945)
Paul Claudel (1926, 1937, 1955)
??????? Robert Graves (1961, 1962)
??????? W H Auden (1963---1968, 1971)
?? Anna Akhmatova (1965)
?? Gottfried Benn (1956)

Rumoured Candidates that made the shortlist (some of these candidates has been confirmed by some Swedish Academy members; but since the years hasn't be revealed yet, we're not certainly sure):

?? John Ashbery
?? Yiannis Ristsos
?? Inger Christensen
?? Henri Michaux
?? Zbigniew Herbert, Adam Zagajewski
?? Hans Magnus Enzensberger
?? Edouard Glissant
Aime Cesaire
?? Leopold Sedar Senghor
?? Bei Dao
?? Jaan Kaplinski
?? Anne Carson
??/?? Charles Simic
?? Adonis
Rene Char
?? Lars Gustafsson
?? Mario Luzi
?? Vladimir Holan
?? Rafael Alberti
?? Les Murray
?? Gennady Ayggi
 

Leseratte

Well-known member
I don´t read much poetry these days., but here are some of my favorites, at risk of leaving out many others:
João Cabral de Melo Neto ( Morte e Vida Severina)
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Frederico García Lorca
Juan Ramón Gimenez (Platero and I)
Paul Celan

Enjoyed also the few poems by Adonis I read.
 
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