Poets

[CrashBang]

So I'm currently training to become a high school English teacher. This has given me the urge/need to read a lot more classic novels (currently reading To Kill A Mockingbird and it is fantastic) and poetry. But I'm not that well versed on poets. The only ones I'm very familiar with are Edgar Alan Poe and Seamus Heaney.

So, Escapists, could you please recommend me some poets so I can go get some anthologies. War poetry, romance, sonnets, haikus, whatever. What poets are you a fan of? Gimme!

 

[JesterRaiin]

Let me present the Mighty Four :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ernest_Henley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dh_lawrence

Good luck !

As a side note : just by reading their biographies one becomes 100% more manly.

 

[Korolev]

A mountain's giddy height I sought,
Because I could not find
Sufficient vague and mighty thought
To fill my mighty mind;
And as I wandered ill at ease,
There chanced upon my sight
A native of Silurian seas,
An ancient Trilobite.

So calm, so peacefully he lay,
I watched him even with tears:
I thought of Monads far away
In the forgotten years.
How wonderful it seemed and right,
The providential plan,
That he should be a Trilobite,
And I should be a Man!

And then, quite natural and free
Out of his rocky bed,
That Trilobite he spoke to me
And this is what he said:
'I don't know how the thing was done,
Although I cannot doubt it;
But Huxley - he if anyone
Can tell you all about it;

'How all your faiths are ghosts and dreams,
How in the silent sea
Your ancestors were Monotremes -
Whatever these may be;
How you evolved your shining lights
Of wisdom and perfection
From Jelly-Fish and Trilobites
By Natural Selection.

'You've Kant to make your brains go round,
Hegel you have to clear them,
You've Mr Browning to confound,
And Mr Punch to cheer them!
The native of an alien land
You call a man and brother,
And greet with hymn-book in one hand
And pistol in the other!

'You've Politics to make you fight
As if you were possessed:
You've cannon and you've dynamite
To give the nations rest:
The side that makes the loudest din
Is surest to be right,
And oh, a pretty fix you're in!'
Remarked the Trilobite.

'But gentle, stupid, free from woe
I lived among my nation,
I didn't care - I didn't know
That I was a Crustacean.*
I didn't grumble, didn't steal,
I never took to rhyme:
Salt water was my frugal meal,
And carbonate of lime.'

Reluctantly I turned away,
No other word he said;
An ancient Trilobite, he lay
Within his rocky bed.
I did not answer him, for that
Would have annoyed my pride:
I merely bowed, and raised my hat,
But in my heart I cried: -

'I wish our brains were not so good,
I wish our skulls were thicker,
I wish that Evolution could
Have stopped a little quicker;
For oh, it was a happy plight,
Of liberty and ease,
To be a simple Trilobite
In the Silurian seas!'

By May Kendall

 

[Korolev]

Samuel Taylor Coleridge also created this gem:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

 

[Spacewolf]

alfred lloyd tennyson is always good for abit of reading

 

[Spaghetti]

If you want something dark (with some cursing thrown into boot), Philip Larkin is a great poet. Many of his more famous poems are very negative, dealing with issues like the fear of death, missing out on life and day-to-day problems. The great thing about Larkin though is that many of his poems are easy to read, but have a great deal of depth to them and it's easy to relate.
Two of my favorites are "This Be The Verse" and "Annus Mirabilis"

Spoiler: This Be The Verse

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.

Spoiler: Annus Mirabilis

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

Robert Browning is my personal favourite poet. His monologues ('My Last Duchess' and 'The Laboratory') are great stories, and a lot of fun to follow - as well as being a premier example of heroic couplets.

But you MUST read Dante's Inferno (I suggest the Dorothy L. Sayers' translation - although not as literal as some others, it retains his use of terza rima and rythme, which makes it glorious to read aloud), and Paradise Lost. They're both quite long (and PL a bit too long...), but immensely gratifying.

EDIT: just to say as well. You only really need one anthology, and that is the Norton Anthology of Poetry (5th edition currently). It has a very broad and great selection of poetry from Chaucer to Carol Ann Duffy.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Umm, today is Robert Burns night. Read his stuff.

 

[CrashBang]

Robert Browning is my personal favourite poet. His monologues ('My Last Duchess' and 'The Laboratory') are great stories, and a lot of fun to follow - as well as being a premier example of heroic couplets.

But you MUST read Dante's Inferno (I suggest the Dorothy L. Sayers' translation - although not as literal as some others, it retains his use of terza rima and rythme, which makes it glorious to read aloud), and Paradise Lost. They're both quite long (and PL a bit too long...), but immensely gratifying.

EDIT: just to say as well. You only really need one anthology, and that is the Norton Anthology of Poetry (5th edition currently). It has a very broad and great selection of poetry from Chaucer to Carol Ann Duffy.

Brilliant, thanks! And thanks to everyone else, I've jotted down and Amazon'd a bunch of suggestions.

 

[peruvianskys]

Some great modern poets from the 50's on include:

Charles Bukowski
Jim Carroll
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Allen Ginsberg
Denis Johnson
Yusef Komunyakaa
Billy Collins
Tony Hoagland
Philip Levine
Philip Whalen
Jack Kerouac
Terrance Hayes


All of these poets would be of interest to high school students as they are generally looser and more interesting (even scandalous!). There is a book titled The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry that is an absolutely incredible anthology of some lesser-known American poets, all of whom would be great to get teenagers interested in the subject. Check it out on Amazon!

 

[Realitycrash]

So I'm currently training to become a high school English teacher. This has given me the urge/need to read a lot more classic novels (currently reading To Kill A Mockingbird and it is fantastic) and poetry. But I'm not that well versed on poets. The only ones I'm very familiar with are Edgar Alan Poe and Seamus Heaney.

So, Escapists, could you please recommend me some poets so I can go get some anthologies. War poetry, romance, sonnets, haikus, whatever. What poets are you a fan of? Gimme!

Read Paradise Lost by John Milton. It's a must for anyone wishing to teach English.

 

[manic_depressive13]

John Donne is essential
William Wordsworth
Samuel Coleridge

Mind you, they're not very enjoyable. Donne in particular was considered extremely clever and innovative for his time. The problem with classical poetry is that poetry is really about appreciation of language and expression, but the archaic language and contextual differences make any emotive response virtually impossible. Like Shakespeare, while you can appreciate the clever writing and innovation for their time, it's nothing but a technical appreciation born of clinical analysis.

 

[SmoothGlover]

Have a look at 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Colleridge. Its fairly long, but it has a strong narrative and for the most part rhymes quite nicely (which I like).

I found it a good one to start off with when I decided that I wanted to try and start reading some poetry.

 

[El Presidente]

Not much one for classic poetry, but Scroobius Pip is a superb poet in my opinion. Some of it's done through spoken word, some of it as hip-hop music and I know he's made at least one book.

 

[Esotera]

Alfred Tennyson is my favourite, but that's mainly because I lived very near to where he used to live so was surrounded by his inspiration. John Donne is also very good, although it can be hard to understand.

 

[NightHawk21]

I would suggest the Divine Comedy, specifically the translation by John Ciardi. Its not an English poem, but he does a good job of following the structure well enough, and it is so heavily laced with symbolism that it is probably the best book to illustrate that concept that I've read.

Quite honestly though, if its just high school, poetry isn't that important. It's mostly grammar and teaching the kids comprehensive writing. In my schools we did only about 1-2 weeks on poetry and its usually laid out in the curriculum which ones you do. Not to mention, from my time amongst the kids during these two weeks a year, no one really likes poetry (even if its a good poem), because the stuff they make you do while studying it make that entire part of the course terribly boring and tedious.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Edgar Allen Poe - The Raven
Spike Milligan
The Sausage is a cunning bird,
With feathers long and wavy;
It makes its nest in a frying pan,
And swims around in gravy.
Michael Rosen
The seagulls think we live at the seaside:
the tower blocks are their cliffs,
they swoop for fish in the gutter
but happy that it?s last night?s fried rice.
They stand about talking on the pavement beach
and ride the sea-breezes pumped out by the cinema air-conditioning.
They hover over the waves of cars
and if you stare at them
wondering what they?re doing so far from home
they stare back:
?This is our home now.
That kebab
Is a crab.?
Joe Duggan
Time
Time, the thief of life,
Time, an unwinnable fight,
Time, brings the work of death,
Time, brings a newborn?s breath.

Time, brings couples together,
Time, keeps love going forever,
Time, an instrument of healing,
Time, it can be revealing.

Time, brings us wrongs and rights,
Time, brings all humans fright,
Time, can be good or bad,
Time, makes us happy and sad?
Time, ?tis what gives life meaning,
Time, 'tis oh so demeaning,
Time, our memories it will rinse,
Time, for it?s the world?s balance.
Ezra Pound, ee Cummings, Jeremy Lloyd, Stephen Fry, Roger McGough, Maya Angelou...

Many names, many fields, many poems.