Share Your favorite poems or poems that have affected or inspired you

[BowlOfCherries]

Was watching the movie  "Awakenings" and in it Robin Williams recites the poem "The Panther" by German poet Rainer Maria Rilke.  He's an amazing poet.  I first saw the movie a long time ago and always remembered the sad and haunting quality of this poem.

Do you have any favorite poems or poems that have affected or inspired you in some way?


The Panther (by Rainer Maria Rilke) - Translation: Stephen Mitchell
 
His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else.
It seems to him there are a thousand bars;
and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils lifts, quietly—
An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.

[drenee]

I don't have a poem to post.  But I did read this story in our local paper last week and thought it very interesting.

http://wvutoday.wvu.edu/n/2011/12/12/a-centuries-old-mystery-hidden-in-wvu-s-rare-book-room

[geoffthomas]

We tried this last Oct.
at this thread:
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,86294.0.html

[MadCityWriter]

High flight

It's a poem written by a pilot that my father, whose plane was shot down in WWII, memorized and recited at every memorial service in my small community. He is now 94 and has Alzheimer's.  He can barely remember his name. He doesn't remember mine.  But he can still recite this poem...with meanng.

It begins: 

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings...

Please read tge entire poem:  http://www.deltaweb.co.uk/spitfire/hiflight.htm

[Bethany B.]

Because I Could Not Stop For Death
Emily Dickinson


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 labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
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 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.



I've always loved her work for the morbid quirky way it reads but the first portion is just great.

[Tony Rabig]

I think it was A. E. Housman who said that he read the lines aloud to himself and if it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up then it was poetry.

Won't even start trying to go back and identify favorites from all the poems I've read, but here are links to a few that did the job for me.

Dana Gioia, with two poems from his book Interrogations at Noon:
"Summer Storm" - http://www.danagioia.net/poems/summerstorm.htm
"Unsaid" - http://www.danagioia.net/poems/unsaid.htm

Ishmael Reed, with a poem that starts from an episode of Thriller, "The Hungry Glass," and veers off into something else altogether:
"beware do not read this poem" - http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/poetry/beware.html

Jorge Luis Borges, with a short prose poem from Dreamtigers (if memory serves):
"The Dagger" - http://www.sramanamitra.com/2011/02/26/borges-the-dagger/

Donald Justice, with a poem suggested by a line of description from John D. MacDonald:
"The Tourist from Syracuse" - http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-tourist-from-syracuse/

And a nice little spine-chiller from James Dickey:
"Pursuit from Under" - http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/pursuit-from-under/

[Todd Trumpet]

"NO MAN IS AN ISLAND" by John Donne:

No man is an island entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less;
as well as if a promontory were, as well as a manor of thy friends or of thine own were;
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.

Todd

P.S.  Emily Dickinson bonus couplet:

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

[geoffthomas]

I posted a poem in the What gave your day a "bump" today? thread.
And I thought that perhaps a wider audience (you) would appreciate it .
Here is that original post:

So my wife and I celebrate 47 years of marriage.
I always loved the Robert Browning poetic passage:
 
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

And that is just what we are doing........growing old together.
I would add an update - last Friday - January the 13th is the 51rst anniversary of our meeting.  Friday the 13th has always been a "lucky" day for me.