25 poems

I thought I would cover this before films... that way I can appear more 'artistic' :) Also, the film list might be more like 100, sooo...

For a poet, I actually do not read a lot of poetry, though I have read a great deal in the past when it was required of me, and I did more than my fair share of poetry reviews on writing workshop sites. So, I know a little about the subject, though I have not actually taken a class on it, but then most poets throughout history did not either. Still, lists like this are subjective (and in my case, perhaps really, really subjective :) and poetry can especially be even more so. I will say, hardly any of these are modern, some ancient, others very, very long. Many are classics and a couple are a little obscure. In any event, they have all influenced me in some way with regards to my work as a writer and as a poet.

Oh, and as a bonus, at the end of this list, I am including my five favorite poems that I have written.

1) 'Sonnet #88' by William Shakespeare:
Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
That for thy right myself will bear all wrong.

This sonnet has one of the finest endings to a poem that can ever be described. From this poem, I learned a lot about being a romantic, and how to end a poem on the right note.

2) 'Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening' by Robert Frost:
The woods are lovely dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep,
and miles to go before I sleep.

The first poem by Frost on this list, and one of simple, elegant imagery. I always keep this poem in the back of my mind when writing.

3) 'My life closed twice before its close' by Emily Dickinson:
Parting is all we know of heaven
and all we need of hell.

Ah, those last lines... see a trend forming? To me, many poems have a simple truth buried in the subtext... other times, they are pretty obvious.

4) 'War is Kind' by Stephen Crane:
Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Opening verse this time, though the entire poem is remarkable and the stark realism of this piece has influenced much of my own writings on war.

5) 'A Dream Within a Dream' by Edgar Allan Poe:
All that we seek or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

One of the first poems that made me 'get' poetry. I understood the imagery, the allusion (the illusion as well), and to an extent, the madness, and with Poe, well I suppose a little madness is a given.

6) 'The Iliad' by Homer: I've quoted this poem many a time and there are so many translations, I will refrain. Besides, if you took high school English in the United States, you probably have been forced to read perhaps the classic of Western Literature. To me, in whatever translation, it still stands above many other works in its grandeur and power.

7) 'The Odyssey' by Homer: One could easily interchange the two, but it is hard to mention 'The Iliad' without 'The Odyssey'. Some consider it a lesser tale, a more simplistic tale (perhaps to some not even written by the same person). To me, it is the same author, older, a little wiser, and yearning for rest.

8) 'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost: Perhaps Frost's most famous work and one most of us know to some extent (again, sort of a rite of passage in English class to read this at least once). I see this poem as well when I write and many times in the quiet before dawn as a reminder of how my life has gone.

9) 'Shiloh' by Herman Melville:
Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low
O'er the field in clouded days,
The forest-field of Shiloh -

Melville? Didn't he write a book about a whale? Well, he was a pretty fair poet, too. And I recall this poem inspiring me in writing many of my pieces regarding the realism of war. And every time I re-read 'Shiloh' I realise I still have much to learn.

10) 'Charge of the Light Brigade' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: In to the valley of Death rode the 600... Now the converse side of war poetry. Such a contrast to me, the words of Tennyson as compared to Melville and later war poets. This does not denigrate his words at all, just how the conduct of writing about war is viewed.

11) 'Maud Muller' by John Greenleaf Whittier:
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

Nothing like writing about regret and the what might have beens of our lives. I always liked the couplet style of this poem, though I was never a huge fan of whitter, but I do understand the sorrow and lament in this piece if not the lesson.

12) 'Ananbel Lee' by Edgar Allan Poe:
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

For more of a realistic writer, Poe could be a little romantic at times. He did have an ability to cross thematic lines, though less so in his stories, but at least to some degree in his poems. I always loved this piece for the way it repeated the important parts of the poem, endearing it to the reader. This was one of the first poems that I recall really liking when I was in school.

13) 'I Have A Rendevous With Death' by Alan Seeger: I have a Rendevous with Death on some scarred slope of battered hill... Seeger wrote this not long before his own death during the Great War. Not so much prophetic as realistic about his chances. One of the tragedies of that most modern and terrible of wars. In some ways, the poem feels heroic and romantic about war, but the underlying subtext yields its true nature, the terrible truth of it all.

14) 'In Flanders Fields' by John McRae:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

I have never been to Ypres and the Flanders Fields, though I would like to visit some day. I admit, as someone who writes about war I have been to few battlefields... I wonder if that would help. I suppose it could not hurt.

15) 'A Fable for Critics' by James Russell Lowell: A rather humorous poem and also pretty long, but one that sort of makes fun of the poets of the day and then the author turns and makes fun of himself in the process. Very tongue-in-cheek, a rarity for the 19th century(outside of Mark Twain).

16) 'Ulysses' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Another oft-quoted poem that rarely needs introduction and reminder that we should always strive and seek and never yield. Many a school, person and place have adopted the lines from this poem as their motto.

17) 'Farewell to the Muse' by George Gordon, Lord Byron:
Can they speak of the friends that I lived but to love?
Ah, surely Affection ennobles the strain!
But how can my numbers in sympathy move,
When I scarcely can hope to behold them again?

One of Byron's few poems that I really like, mostly because of the panache that he brings to this piece and the imagery of trying to understand his Muse. I can relate.

18) 'Voluntaries' by Ralph Waldo Emerson: When duty whispers lo 'Thou must', the youth replies 'I can'. I did not read this piece until after seeing the movie 'Glory'. The poem is dedicated to Robert Gould Shaw (whose family I believe Emerson knew, they all being Boston abolitionists and of high society), who along with half his regiment, the 54th Massachusetts, fell at Ft. Wagner, South Carolina in 1863. I always found it the heroic, romantic sentiment and a stirring tribute, but there are times when I question the place of such things, not for what those who fought have done, never that. It is more what we place upon those still fighting and what they have to live up to in the end.

19) 'Americanisation' by G.K. Chesterton:
Britannia needs no Cafes:
If Coffee needs must be,
Its place should be the Coffee-house
Where Johnson growled for Tea;
But who can hear that human mountain
Growl for an ice-cream soda-fountain?

I probably should have posted the whole poem... it's quite funny, but most of Chesterton's poems are indeed funny with a lot of sarcasm thrown in for taste. No real inspiration or influence, just a good laugh now and then.

20) 'The Ant' by Ogden Nash:
The ant has made himself illustrious
Through constant industry industrious.
So what?
Would you be calm and placid
If you were full of formic acid?

Chemistry students love this one, as do chemistry teachers. Again, very funny, and more a reminder that I should not take myself to seriously... and that I am thankful for a lack of formic acid in my system (which btw, is the poison in their sting).

5 favorites of mine from my own collection... not to be confused with the poets above :)

All the poems below have been posted to the blog and are linked in the title... no sense in me posting them again. And they might not necessarily be my best work, just ones that I really like. I suppose I can afford myself some frivolity in that regard.

1) 'Lament'
2) 'The Quiet Earth'
3) 'The Other Side of War'
4) 'Night Train to Perth'
5) 'War Prayers'

Honorable Mention: One of my newer poems: 'Of Time and Soul and Simple Things'

Hmm... I was going over this and I like a lot of my stuff. That is a good thing, I think. I may have to do a top 10 just based on my own work... hope that's not too egotistical :)

Have a great weekend everyone,

C.