Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light
-Dylan Thomas
I just read this somewhere and it gave me goosebumps. 🙂 I think I need to read more poetry in general. Recommendations welcome. (Preferably something I can get easily?)
I have traditional tastes, myself.
I like Emily Dickinson a lot. Favorites: 1 2
John Donne, “Valediction forbidding mourning“
TS Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock (a classic)
My favorite poem at the moment is Coal by Charles Simic.
Dismembered angel
In whose heart the earth is still on fire,
The moon still has not been split-off;
Here is the message
Your long night announces:
Everything my eye encompasses this instant:
This fire, the cupped-hand, this window
With trees and miles of snow beyond it,
Even this thought, this poem,
Will be compressed
Into a lump of your sleep
For some other awakening.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Simic is a brilliant poet, born in Yugoslavia and came to the US in 1953. When he writes about hunger, you know he knows what hunger really is…he is a professor at the University of New Hampshire. I had a hard time getting some of his older material, but the new stuff was easy enough to get.
Tolkien has some lovely poetry bits in The Silmarillion and the Rings trilogy. I’m sure there’s one or two fan sites that will have the complete listings 😉
I will give you more later!
In addition to seconding Heidi’s recommendations above (as well as thinking, oh yeah, I remember reading that Simic poem a while back and liking it), I offer Denise Levertov for your consideration.
Where Is the Angel?
The Ache of Marriage
Illustrious Ancestors
e.e. cummings is another of my favorites, especially the perennial anyone lived in a pretty how town.
Try the Wondering Minstrels. Subscribe to the Minstrels mailing list by sending a blank email to minstrels-subscribe at egroups.com
All sorts of poetry there. Happy reading!
You know where I read this poem the very first time? You won’t believe this – it was in a Green Lantern comic. With artwork by Alex Toth. My first Green Lantern book, for that matter. I was in Class III (1988).
The next time I heard this poem was a quiz in IITM, in 2001. 😉