# Most admired Poet ?



## Sneaky (Nov 15, 2003)

As the poetry section in this board is rather big, i`d like to know whom you like best as a writer of Poetry. Mine is Omar Khayyam:

Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Promise go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!


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## The Admiral (Nov 15, 2003)

Shakespeare is my favorite, but I love Tolkien's poetry also.


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## hollyoake (Nov 20, 2003)

William Blake... Jasmine Foxflame... and the stuff i find on the toilet walls are sometimes quite good!

and of cause i like most of my own work


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## Penelope (Nov 20, 2003)

Ogden Nash - William Blake (Tyger Tyger) - Dr. Suess - Rudyard Kipling (If) - Pauline E. Johnson (Canadian) - Robert Service (The Cremation of Sam Magee) - an ancient Irish poem with an unknown author - etc - etc - etc.  I'd have trouble picking a favourite.


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## Sneaky (Nov 20, 2003)

Tyger Tyger burning bright
in the forest of the night

love that one too


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## AdamR (Nov 20, 2003)

William Blake
Emily Dickenson
Shakespeare

Probably my favorite poem is by Robert Lewis Stevenson:
It truly grasps the concept of a child's imagination.

The Land Of Nod

From breakfast on through all the day 
At home among my friends I stay, 
But every night I go abroad 
Afar into the land of Nod. 

All by myself I have to go, 
With none to tell me what to do -- 
All alone beside the streams 
And up the mountain-sides of dreams. 

The strangest things are there for me, 
Both things to eat and things to see, 
And many frightening sights abroad 
Till morning in the land of Nod. 

Try as I like to find the way, 
I never can get back by day, 
Nor can remember plain and clear 
The curious music that I hear.


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## darkheartedwanderer (Jan 1, 2004)

My favourite poets would have to be:

Auden, Shakespeare and Poe....

~ Wayne Ser ~


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## ferretheader22 (Apr 23, 2004)

I would have to say that my favorite is Edgar Allen Poe.  I love the poems "The Raven" and "Eldarado."


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## Kitten Courna (Apr 23, 2004)

My Most Admired Poet is He who speaks his poems only, never to write them down.

-Kitten-causes-trouble


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## Lily (Apr 24, 2004)

William Blake . . . 

To see a world in a grain of sand,
and heaven in a wildflower
to hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour


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## Aevin (Apr 24, 2004)

While I'm mostly indifferent to poetry, there are some poets who are undeniably great.  My personal favorites are . . .

Wordsworth, ("We Are Seven")

Robert Browning ("Porphyria's Lover," "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came")

Elizabeth Barret  Browning ("The Cry of the Children")

Alfred, Lord Tennyson ("The Lotus Eaters")

Poe, ("The Raven")

In short, I think all the ancient poets--especially Victorians--are better than modern poets.  Though I've yet to read TS Eliot, I know I'll love his poetry.

I'm supposed to choose one, eh?  I suppose I'd have to go with Robert Browning.  He's extremely morbid.  Porphyria's Lover, is probably my favorite; it seems like a standard love poem gone horribly wrong.  And "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" is the poem that inspired Stephen King's Dark Tower series.

Browning is the poet I most admire, I guess.

EDIT:  Today, I read Yeats for the first time, and especially enjoyed his "The Stolen Child," which is quoted in the movie _Artificial Intelligence_:

Come away, O human child,
To the waters and the wild,
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.


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## Guest (Jun 10, 2004)

Sonia Sanchez

_Poem No. 3_

i gather up
each sound 
you left behind
and stretch them
on our bed.
              each nite
i breathe you
and become high.

I also admire Maya Angelou for being a strong, independent woman.
Rumi or Jelaluddin Balkhi is very inspiring.


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## Csira (Jun 10, 2004)

I love all of Edgar Allan Poe's poems. He is the first poet who inspired me and influenced me greatly with his writing. I think he is a genius sometimes. ^^; I also admire Emily Dickinson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats (of course, we share the same birthday hehe), and William Shakespeare.


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## blindeyes (Jun 24, 2004)

Blake- "augeries of innocence"
doctor seuss
arthur rimbaud
ginsberg- "howl" "america"

...for example


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## blindeyes (Jun 24, 2004)

Blake- "augeries of innocence"
doctor seuss
arthur rimbaud
ginsberg- "howl" "america"

...for example


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## blindeyes (Jun 24, 2004)

Blake- "augeries of innocence"
doctor seuss
arthur rimbaud
ginsberg- "howl" "america"
...also if you consider lyricists poets, then i would say bob dylan, and everyone should check out ian curtis and shannon hoon

...for example


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## Lara (Jun 24, 2004)

Yeats. Dark Aevin "The Stolen Child" was the first poem by Yeats that I read

"Where dips the rocky highland,
of Sleuth wood in the lake
There lies a leafy island...."

The first poetry book I ever owned was a book of Selected Yeats poems when I was studying poetry in school, it is now quite a battered and old looking book probably due to the amount of times I have picked it up to read from it. 

I have the benefit of living in Ireland so have been able to see some of the place Yeats has talked about. I went on a boat trip once in Sligo and the man quoted Yeats poems. It was brilliant. I think he started off by quoting The Lake Isle of Innisfree

"I will arise and go now..."

I am also obsessed with the history of Ireland especially the Easter Rising in 1916. I am quite intrigued by Yeats' changing ideals towards politics. I think thats all we focused on when we studied Yeat's poetry at school.

My fvaourite poems are... "When you are old", "Easter 1916"  and "the Wild Swans at Coole"

Other poets I like:
Worsworth
Blake
Lorca
Walter de la Mare, I asked my parents to read me this poem every night before I went to bed when I was younger:

The Listeners
"Is anybody there?" said the Traveler, 
    Knocking on the moonlit door; 
And his horse in the silence chomped the grasses 
    Of the forest's ferny floor. 
And a bird flew up out of the turret, 
    Above the traveler's head: 
And he smote upon the door a second time; 
    "Is there anybody there?" he said. 
But no one descended to the Traveler; 
    No head from the leaf-fringed sill 
Leaned over and looked into his gray eyes, 
    Where he stood perplexed and still. 
But only a host of phantom listeners 
    That dwelt in the lone house then 
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight 
    To that voice from the world of men: 
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair 
    That goes down to the empty hall, 
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken 
    By the lonely Traveler's call. 
And he felt in his heart their strangeness, 
    Their stillness answering his cry, 
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, 
    'Neath the starred and leafy sky; 
For he suddenly smote the door, even 
    Louder, and lifted his head:-- 
"Tell them I came, and no one answered, 
    That I kept my word," he said. 
Never the least stir made the listeners, 
    Though every word he spake 
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house 
    From the one man left awake: 
Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, 
    And the sound of iron on stone, 
And how the silence surged softly backward, 
    When the plunging hoofs were gone.


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## Farror (Jun 24, 2004)

Yes, I've always enjoyed the poem written above.

Also, I'm supprised that Robert Frost was not mentioned once.

"The woods where lovey, dark and deep"


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## Myuuchi (Jul 4, 2004)

Pablo Neruda is my absolute favorite poet, followed by Poe and Wordsworth.

My favorite Neruda poem is "I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You." From Poe, it's "Eldorado" or "The Raven." From Wordsworth, definately "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud."

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You
I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.


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## Deadally (Jul 30, 2004)

E. E. Cummings and Robert Frost are 2 poets I admire.  Perhaps it is because Eric Whitacre has created some of his best music already from their poetry.


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## SallytheRagDoll (Jul 30, 2004)

Shakespeare, John Keats, Poe, and Emily Dickinson are my favs. Right now I'm reading 'Leaves of Grass' by Walt Whitman. It's really good so far!!


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## Revo1 (Aug 5, 2004)

Although I have not had a great deal of experience with other poets, I myself would say Nikki Giovanni is my alltime favorite. Sonia Sanchez is dope too.


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## Lupin3 (Aug 5, 2004)

I find the representation of Shakespeare and Poe on this thread to be positively reassuring!

For me:
  Shakespeare's Sonnet cycle
  Poe
  Coleridge
  W.S. Merwin
  Leonard Cohen (not quite in the same level, but I really enjoy his lyrics)
  Basho
  Chaucer


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## feushin (Sep 27, 2004)

Several, actually.  In no particular order:

Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, Sylvia Plath, e. e. cummings, William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, William Shakespeare.


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## Pawn (Sep 27, 2004)

Thread ressurection? Surprised I missed this the first time around.

I won't bother adding another mention of either Poe or Shakespeare. I'm a sucker for that great triumvirate of Byron, Keats and Shelley. I also love the work of Philip Larkin, Pablo Neruda, Oscar Wilde and Raymond Carver.


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## pharseer (Sep 28, 2004)

Blake is good, but ee cummings is the best:

she being Brand 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
she being Brand
-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having

thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.

K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried and

again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my

lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity

avenue i touched the accelerator and gave

her the juice,good

(it
was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on
the

internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and

brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.

stand-
;Still)


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## Balgair (Oct 27, 2004)

I have to comment on the poets.  I love Poe of course, and Tennyson is also one of my favorites (he is also my 6 year old son's favorite).  But my I would have to say that my favorite poet is Percy Bysshe Shelly.  Love's Philisophy is one of the most romantic poems ever:


*Love's Philosophy*
The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by law divine
In one another's being mingle;--
Why not I with thine? 

See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another
No sister flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;
What are all these kissings worth
If thou kiss not me?


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## Pawn (Oct 27, 2004)

Gorgeous poem. It's Shelley, not Shelly, by the way.


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## Malaika (Oct 28, 2004)

Shakespeare? I suppose he had a few rather good monologues, but all in all I think he was mediocre. He had a tendency to regurgitate the same lines again and again in different plays. Still, Hamlet has some rather cunning lines.

I love Edgar Allan Poe, and Rudyard Kipling's IF was excellent. It doesn't take a genius to figure out I also love Byron (my signature)- Mannfred was simply brilliant. I think he was better than Keats and Shelley.

One of my favourite poems of all time though would have to be The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A sad, gothic and all-in-all hopeless poem that touched me deeply.


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## stelmosfire (Oct 28, 2004)

Simply one of many:

"Attack of the Squash People"


And thus the people every year 
in the valley of humid July 
did sacrifice themselves 
to the long green phallic god 
and eat and eat and eat. 
They're coming, they're on us, 
the long striped gourds, the silky 
babies, the hairy adolescents, 
the lumpy vast adults 
like the trunks of green elephants. 
Recite fifty zucchini recipes! 

Zucchini tempura; creamed soup; 
sauté with olive oil and cumin, 
tomatoes, onion; frittata; 
casserole of lamb; baked 
topped with cheese; marinated; 
stuffed; stewed; driven 
through the heart like a stake. 

Get rid of old friends: they too 
have gardens and full trunks. 
Look for newcomers: befriend 
them in the post office, unload 
on them and run. Stop tourists 
in the street. Take truckloads 
to Boston. Give to your Red Cross. 
Beg on the highway: please 
take my zucchini, I have a crippled 
mother at home with heartburn. 

Sneak out before dawn to drop 
them in other people's gardens, 
in baby buggies at churchdoors. 
Shot, smuggling zucchini into 
mailboxes, a federal offense. 

With a suave reptilian glitter 
you bask among your raspy 
fronds sudden and huge as
alligators. You give and give 
too much, like summer days 
limp with heat, thunderstorms 
bursting their bags on our heads, 
as we salt and freeze and pickle 
for the too little to come.

Marge Piercy


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## Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor (Oct 28, 2004)

I find Shakespeare to be an outstanding poet and writer.  I find the repitition of lines in different plays makes reading them more interesting.  You can compare and contrast in your mind.

Poe's "The Raven" obviously makes him a brilliant poet.  The tidbits of Robert Frost I've been exposed to have been enjoyable.


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