A Little Poetry From The Pros

[Theologian in Training]

I have been missing my life and love of poetry recently. Of course, since I still have poet's block, I am trying to be inspired by some of my favorite poets. Therefore, this thread is reserved for your favorite professional poet. Professional in as much as it is not you or your friend, or your friend's friend who wrote the poem. Genuine poets.

That said, the following are two good poems by one of my favorite poets. Incidentally, he was a poet laureate for the United States for a time.

Billy Collins

On Turning Ten

Marginalia

The following are a few poems by another favorite of mine.

Li-Young Lee

Nativity

The Father's House

One of my all-time favorite poets. Yes, he was both a communist and an atheist, but his poetry is what inspired me to write.

Pablo Neruda

The following poem inspired me for years, and was the basis for many of my poems. This was pre-seminary days, of course.

Tonight I Can Write

Leaning Into The Afternoons

I Like For You To Be Still

Actually, this man was phenomenal...I recommend reading them all. Pablo Neruda

Have at it...what poets have inspired you?

God Bless

[Theologian in Training]

BUmp

Whether you like poetry or not, I highly recommend checking out these poets!

God Bless

[VeraMaria]

:o

those are amesome.

i had never eard of many of them.

thanks theo!

:cool:

[cathgirl]

These are some from Emily Dickinson

I have not told my Garden Yet

I have not told my garden yet,

Lest that should conquer me;

I have not quite the strength now

To break it to the bee.

I will not name it in the street,

For shops would stare, that I,

So shy, so very ignorant,

Should have the face to die.

The hillsides must not know it,

Where I have rambled so,

Nor tell the loving forests

The day that I shall go,

Nor lisp it at the table,

Nor heedless by the way

Hint that within the riddle

One will walk to-day!

Dear Bee

Bee, I’m expecting you!

Was saying yesterday

To somebody you know

That you were due.

The frogs got home last week,

Are settled and at work,

Birds mostly back,

The clover warm and thick.

You’ll get my letter by

The seventeenth; reply,

Or better be with me.

Yours,

Fly.

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chilliest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet never, in extremely,

It asked a crumb of me.

All I have to bring Today

It’s all I have to bring today,

This, and my heart beside,

This, and my heart, and all the fields,

And all the meadows wide.

Be sure you count, should I forget--

Some one the sum could tell--

This, and my heart, and all the bees

Which in the clover dwell.

I Started Early

I started early, took my dog,

And visited the sea--

The mermaids in the basement

Came out to look at me,

And frigates in the upper floor

Extended hempen hands--

Presuming me to be a mouse

Aground, upon the sands,

But no man moved me till the tide

Went past my simple shoe--

And past my apron and my belt,

And past my bodice too,

And made as he would eat me up

And wholly as a dew

Upon a dandelion’s sleeve--

And then I started too.

And he--he followed close behind;

I felt his silver heel

Upon my ankle-- then my shoes

Would overflow with pearl.

Until we met the solid town,

No one he seemed to know--

And bowing with a mighty look

At me, the sea withdrew.

Dear March

Dear March, come in!

How glad I am!

I looked for you before.

Put down your hat--

You must have walked--

How out of breath you are!

Dear March, how are you?

And the rest?

Did you leave Nature well?

Oh, March, come right upstairs with me,

I have so much to tell!

I got your letter, and the birds’--

The maples never knew

That you were coming--I declare,

How red their faces grew!

But, March, forgive me--

And all those hills

You left for me to hue--

There was no purple suitable,

You took it all with you.

Who knocks? That April!

Lock the door!

I will not be pursued!

He stayed away a year, to call

When I am occupied.

But trifles look so trivial

As soon as you have come,

That blame is just as dear as praise

And praise as mere as blame.

I Could not Stop for Death

Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves

And immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,

And I had put away

My labor, and my leisure too,

For his civility.

We passed the school where children played

At wrestling in a ring;

We passed the fields of gazing grain,

We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed

A swelling of the ground;

The roof was scarcely visible,

The cornice but a mound.

Since then’t is centuries; but each

Feels shorter than the day

I first surmised the horses’ heads

Were toward eternity.

I Shall not Live in Vain

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

[VeraMaria]

emily dickinson rox!!!!!!!

:cool:

[Theologian in Training]

Finally, people who appreciate poetry

Keep those poems coming, this is great!!!!

[cathgirl]

Can I have permission to post just ONE poem written by a teen. I don't know them, but they were in a book that my sister got for her Confirmation??????? It's helped me think of topics when I've had poet/writers block!!!

:mellow: :mellow: :mellow: :mellow: :mellow: :mellow:

PLEASE....... :D

[VeraMaria]

The Lady Poverty

by Alice Maynell

The Lady Poverty was fair:

But she has lost her looks of late,

With change of times and change of air.

Ah slattern! she neglects her hair,

Her gown, her shoes; she keeps no state

As once when her pure feet were bare.

Or—almost worse, if worse can be—

She scolds in parlours, dusts and trims,

Watches and counts. O is this she

Whom Francis met, whose step was free,

Who with Obedience carolled hymns,

In Umbria walked with Chastity?

Where is her ladyhood? Not here,

Not among modern kinds of men;

But in the stony fields, where clear

Through the thin trees the skies appear,

In delicate spare soil and fen,

And slender landscape and austere.

[cathgirl]

That's a really good poem!!!

[Theologian in Training]

Can I have permission to post just ONE poem written by a teen. I don't know them, but they were in a book that my sister got for her Confirmation??????? It's helped me think of topics when I've had poet/writers block!!!

:mellow: :mellow: :mellow: :mellow: :mellow: :mellow:

PLEASE....... :D

There are about three or four threads floating around specifically for poetry by either ourselves or others.

....sigh...

If you must, then have at it

God Bless

[VeraMaria]

Go right ahead, cathgirl :D

(sheesh, theo, ur grumpy )

[cathgirl]

Yay!!!!

It doesn't have a title.

I walked with George the other day,

And this is what he had to say:

“If this is what its come to, then

I’m glad that I’ve passed on.

For the foundation laid so long ago

apparently is gone.

What nation kills it’s future!?

bloodshed they call a choice,

they passed this law in Satan’s den,

these children had no voice!

I’ll now return from whence I came

this place to never see again.

For we who tried to make things just

were of the thought in God We Trust”

Abe Lincoln wept so silently as we

looked out onto the open sea.

And when his tear-streaked face did turn

to me, he asked, “Was nothing learned?

Dred Scott called them nonpersons too;

the law was evil, wrong, untrue!

The price we paid for that grievous error

was a blood-soaked land filled with terror.

The dread now fills me to the core

for my beloved land, now Satan’s whore.

For those who kill the ones most pure,

his wrath will come, of this I’m sure.

Turn now from this shadowed land

where once they held their Father’s hand.

For the freedoms that we fought for

exist now more within this place

when you sanction murder of the defenseless in our race.

The redwoods stood before us;

their beauty touched the skies.

As Roosevelt struggled up from his chair,

a silk hankie dabbed his eyes.

“It’s hard for me to understand this

evil in you midst.

Have freedoms been so distorted that

all reasoning had been eclipsed?

You see it was not so much the Japanese

or Hitler that we fought;

rather their beliefs within our world

and the evil that they wrought.

But this--this slaughter they call a choice--

have people tread so far

from the one we looked to,

the one born beneath the magi’s star?

With foreboding in my very soul,

I now must turn away

from this Sodom and Gomorrah

that’s been raised within your day.”

“For the great day of their wrath has come,

and who is able to stand?” (Revelation 6:17).

This became the unanswered question

And though I see the reality

of how far we’ve tread from thee,

I take solace in your beloved son

And His infinite mercy.

- Joselle M. Kohler

Admit it, it's not good, it's GREAT!!! :D :D :P

[Theologian in Training]

Another very powerful poet, who recounts in graphic detail the horrors and tragedy of war.

Bruce Weigl

NOTE: The poem "What Saves Us," though incredibly beautiful with a redeeming value, has a less than pure introduction.

Another one from, former poet laureate, Billy Collins

Forgetfulness

BTW, if you can find it, I highly recommend Li-Young Lee's poem "My Father in Heaven" from his book, "The City in Which I Love You"

[VeraMaria]

:cool:

Oh how i LOOOVE poetry!!

:wub:

[Theologian in Training]

Oh how i LOOOVE poetry!!

:wub:

Me too, Thank God I have found someone who appreicates it as much as me :)