Kevin's Watch

Who does it for you? Who makes you stand in silent, breathless awe as you read? For me, it's T.S. Eliot. This guy's words strike through my mortal coil, straight to my heart. Only Ikkyu comes close. Both of them really speak to me--a part of me that only I thought I knew. It's amazing.

So, tell us who your favorite poet is, what your favorite works are by him/her! Here's some user-friend samples for Eliot and Ikkyu. Enjoy!

hjem.get2net.dk/civet-cat/poetry-stories/ikkyu.htm

www.cs.umbc.edu/~evans/hollow.html

Wilfred Owen.

Thomas Lux

Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy

For some semitropical reasons
when the rains fall
relentlessly they fall

into swimming pools, these otherwise
bright and scary
arachnids. They can swim
a little, but not for long

and they can't climb the ladder out.
They usually drown -- but
if you want their favor,
if you believe there is justice,
a reward for not loving

the death of ugly
and even dangerous (the eel, hog snake,
rats) creatures, if

you believe these things, then
you would leave a lifebuoy
or two in your swimming pool at night.

And in the morning
you would haul ashore
the huddled, hairy survivors

and escort them
back to the bush, and know,
be assured that at least these saved,
as individuals, would not turn up

again someday
in your hat, drawer,
or the tangled underworld

of your socks, and that even --
when your belief in justice
merges with your belief in dreams --
they may tell the others

in a sign language
four times as subtle
and complicated as man's

that you are good
that you love them,
that you would save them again.

Thomas Lux

That has to be one of the most beautiful poems I have ever read; it resonates very strong with me!

Robert Frost
Maya Angelou
T.S. Eliot
Shakespeare
Keats
Emily Dickenson
Langston Hughes
Tennyson
Dylan Thomas
Robert Browning
JRR Tolkien
e.e. cummings


That's a few...there are lots more, but I'm brain dead at the moment and can't think

Wow, Lord Foul-
You have hit upon my favorite poem, by my favorite poet ever. I first read the hollow men in 8th grade. I didn't get it until my teacher did an interpretive reading for us, and explained some of the meaning. Now I have read, re-read, analyzed, recited it to death, and still feel like I find more insight every time I read it.

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper..........

Still gives me chills......

Another favorite is by Algernon Charles Swineburne:

It's part of a larger work, but this is the part I love the best.......

Second Chorus from Atalanta in Calydon
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time, with a gift of tears;
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite;
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And life, the shadow of death.

And the high gods took in hand
Fire, and the falling of tears,
And a measure of sliding sand
From under the feet of the years;
And froth and drift of the sea;
And dust of the labouring earth;
And bodies of things to be
In the houses of death and of birth;
And wrought with weeping and laughter,
And fashioned with loathing and love
With life before and after
And death beneath and above,
For a day and a night and a morrow,
That his strength might endure for a span
With travail and heavy sorrow,
The holy spirit of man.

From the winds of the north and the south
They gathered as unto strife;
They breathed upon his mouth,
They filled his body with life;
Eyesight and speech they wrought
For the veils of the soul therein,
A time for labour and thought,
A time to serve and to sin;
They gave him light in his ways,
And love, and a space for delight,
And beauty and length of days,
And night, and sleep in the night.
His speech is a burning fire;
With his lips he travaileth;
In his heart is a blind desire,
In his eyes foreknowledge of death;
He weaves, and is clothed with derision;
Sows, and he shall not reap;
His life is a watch or a vision
Between a sleep and a sleep

dennisrwood, that is beautiful.

e.e.cummings
Robert Service
Robert Frost
Edgar Allen Poe

Kymbierlee wrote:Wow, Lord Foul-
You have hit upon my favorite poem, by my favorite poet ever. I first read the hollow men in 8th grade. I didn't get it until my teacher did an interpretive reading for us, and explained some of the meaning. Now I have read, re-read, analyzed, recited it to death, and still feel like I find more insight every time I read it.

It is indeed a beautiful poem. I just bought all of his poems in one book--called "Collected Poems". I'm not sure if Hollow Men will always be my favorite Eliot, because I've only read a fraction of his stuff, and I might come away with something I like more, after reading everything. But, yes, Hollow Men will always resonate very strongly with me.

Render, Render
Thomas Lux



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Boil it down: feet, skin, gristle,
bones, vertebrae, heart muscle, boil
it down, skim, and boil
again, dreams, history, add them and boil
again, boil and skim
in closed cauldrons, boil your horse, his hooves,
the runned-over dog you loved, the girl
by the pencil sharpener
who looked at you, looked away,
boil that for hours, render it
down, take more from the top as more settles to the bottom,
the heavier, the denser, throw in ache
and sperm, and a bead
of sweat that slid from your armpit to your waist
as you sat stiff-backed before a test, turn up
the fire, boil and skim, boil
some more, add a fever
and the virus that blinded an eye, now's the time
to add guilt and fear, throw
logs on the fire, coal, gasoline, throw
two goldfish in the pot (their swim bladders
used for "clearing"), boil and boil, render
it down and distill,
concentrate
that for which there is no
other use at all, boil it down, down,
then stir it with rosewater, that
which is now one dense, fatty, scented red essence
which you smear on your lips
and go forth
to plant as many kisses upon the world
as the world can bear!

Damn, this is a tough one. There are so many.

Elliot for sure, The Wasteland is probably my favourite, but Macavity was the first poem I ever memorised, at age 8.

Browning
Yeats
Frost
Whitman
Shelley (The Cloud)
Byron
Blake

And more I can't think of right now.

--Avatar

The Emperor of Ice-Cream, by Wallace Stevens


Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Theodore Giesel and Lord Foul.
Thats about it for me.