Favourite poetry

[pigeon1]

I don't think most people take any great interest in poetry - I certainly don't anyway! - but some of us will have one that's special to us for whatever reason. As a wannabe theologian I read a fair amount of religious/mystical writings; when I first came across this piece by Sikh mystic Kushdeva Singh I was overcome by the beauty of it all...



People go to their temples
To greet Me;
How simple and ignorant are my children
Who think that I live in isolation

Why don’t they come and greet Me
In the procession of life, where I always live,
In the farms, the factories, and the market,
Where I encourage those
Who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow?

Why don’t they come and greet Me
In the cottages of the poor
And find Me blessing the poor and the needy
And wiping the tears of widows and orphans?

Why don’t they come and greet Me
By the road-side
And find Me blessing the beggar asking for bread?

Why don’t they come and greet Me
Among those who are trampled upon
By those proud of pelf and power,
And see Me beholding their suffering and pouring out compassion?
Why don’t they come and greet Me
Among women sunk in sin and shame
Where I sit by them to bless and uplift?

I am sure
They can never miss Me
If they try to meet Me
In the sweat and struggle of life
And in the tears and tragedies of the poor

 

[HOLLYWOOD]

the hollywood brother has no talent to write poetry but the hollywood brother can aprecaite the hours it takes to get good at it

 

[Ignatz]

Thank you, Pigeon, for bringing that magnificent piece to our attention.
Here's one, from the 19th Century American poet Jones Very.

The Dead

I see them, crowd on crowd they walk the earth,
Dry leafless trees no autumn wind laid bare;
And in their nakedness find cause for mirth,
And all unclad would winter's rudeness dare;
No sap doth through their clattering branches flow,
Whence springing leaves and blossoms bright appear;
Their hearts the living God have ceased to know,
Who gives the springtime to th' expectant year.
They mimic life, as if from him to steal
His glow of health to paint the livid cheek;
They borrow words for thoughts they cannot feel,
That with a seeming heart their tongue may speak;
And in their show of life more dead they live
Than those that to the earth with many tears they give.



The human race has an innate love of poetry. In America, at least, most of us have that love bludgeoned into a coma by the public schoolteachers with their deconstructive analyses and damnable diagrams. Incomprehensible avant-garde poets have done as much damage with their self-indulgent drivel.

The best cure I have found is to hear great poetry spoken aloud. It is, after all, written for the ear as much as for the eye. There are splendid recordings available: the best are by professional actors. A few poets, like Dylan Thomas, were themselves gifted interpreters of their own and others' work.

One excellent collection available is called The Silver Lining, in which stars like Patrick Stewart, Christopher Lee, Jeremy Irons, Gary Oldman, Julie Harris and Michael Caine perform moving readings of their own favorite works by Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats and others. Leonard Nimoy reads one of his own verses.
If you need motivation to explore this area of human experience, rent "Dead Poets Society" and let Robin Williams's character light your fire.