The poetry thread

[Thrudr]

I noticed there wasn't a poetry thread yet, so here it is. Post your favourite poetry or prose here, in text or links if it's a very long one. I'll start with a few of my favourites.

'Sometimes I cry' by Shane Koyczan. Both funny and beautiful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf5e9db8Fqc

I like many of his spoken word poems. They are often empowering or have a strong message in them. He uses a lot of humor as well.

This sexy poem by E.E. Cummings called 'May I feel said he' (made even sexier by Tom Hiddleston reading it )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eVBJJUNiCc

I think a lot of you know this beautiful poem. It's called 'Annabel Lee' by Edgar Alan Poe.

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

And neither the angels in Heaven above

Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

[iris]

Re: The poetry thread

Have you got the lovebook app? There's lots of tom reding poetry on that 'may I feel said he' is one of my favourites too.

I love 'to his coy mistress' by andrew marvell https://youtu.be/JDJwycpIfRQ (here also read by hiddleston)


Pretty much anything Shakespeare, sonnet 130 is both funny and beautiful. and read by alan rickman:

https://youtu.be/xP06F0yynic

'The raven' by Poe is a favourite too http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178713

I could go on forever! I love w.b. yeats, John Keats and Christopher Marlowe too, to mention a few.

[Thrudr]

Re: The poetry thread

Have you got the lovebook app? There's lots of tom reding poetry on that 'may I feel said he' is one of my favourites too.

I love 'to his coy mistress' by andrew marvell https://youtu.be/JDJwycpIfRQ (here also read by hiddleston)


Pretty much anything Shakespeare, sonnet 130 is both funny and beautiful. and read by alan rickman:

https://youtu.be/xP06F0yynic

'The raven' by Poe is a favourite too http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178713

I could go on forever! I love w.b. yeats, John Keats and Christopher Marlowe too, to mention a few.

Yes! I have the lovebook app as well There's so many good poems on there and I love listening to the ones that are read.
I know these poems too. The Raven was made into a song by one of my favourite pagan bands, Omnia (or at least half the poem). Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzR4cyTL2Gc

They've done a great job at it.

[iris]

Re: The poetry thread

Yes! I have the lovebook app as well There's so many good poems on there and I love listening to the ones that are read.
I know these poems too. The Raven was made into a song by one of my favourite pagan bands, Omnia (or at least half the poem). Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzR4cyTL2Gc

They've done a great job at it.

It's a brilliant app
oh, that's a really good version! I think that's a hard poem to do justice to, but they've done it. Litsened to some of their other stuff too. Beautiful.

[Näre]

Re: The poetry thread

A couple of poems by Karin Boye.

The Star
Sparklingly frosty
with frozen light
the Milky Way's waves wash
stars like gravel tight.
One only is mine.
She is known to my thought -
my fate's light of eternity,
my life and my lot.

In immense strength she rose,
when dark me did cloak.
When defenceless I fell, me
to star-life she woke.
With silver nails my soul
to a star was bound.
Thus wanders free its given way
my being's kernel and ground.
Who intends to choose me
must woo the star.
In her dwells my worth,
my will in her.
In her is my home,
From her my law on high.
O star, o my deed
and my goal, you are I!

The Sea Prayer
Sea swell, come washing,
let me taste that sound's round, salty flow,
the sound that was given me
as primordial name aeons and aeons ago!
Words that no mortal
lips can tell
lie hidden
in the fresh, cold swell. Long, too long
I starved on human words too easily told.
I want to rise up,
I want to satisfy my mouth at my mother's board.
Like a child in loathing's remorse
lost far away to roam,
I turn hungrily round
to the songs of my home. Let me drink
the speech of speech from a dull roar that never abates.
Let me clear
to your resting depth of light that creates.
Within soul and spirit
I hear your song.
Rise in my blood, and flower
in my tongue!

[daveydwb]

Re: The poetry thread

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburn'd brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay;
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows;
And others' feet still seem'd but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write."
- Sir Philip Sidney

[Jembru]

Re: The poetry thread

Now this is timely. I was just talking to a friend about my experiences with White Horse and my second world. She said it made her think of a poem by Mary Oliver. It was really lovely, and I wondered if I could find an excuse to share it on pf. Then I sign in and this thread is top of the activity stream... guess I'm meant to share then...


Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.