Favourite poems.

tui · Favourite poems.

i would like to read other peoples favourites so if you feel like typing them up we could share.

High Country Weather

Alone we are born
And die alone;
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
Over snow mountain shine.

Along the upland road
Ride easy, stranger:
Surrender to the sky
Your heart of anger.

James K Baxter

smallholder

I like that very much Tui, a small poem with such a huge sense of space and time.
Difficult to choose a single favourite of my own. But for the moment I will give a link to two I particularly like
'The Road not taken' by Robert Frost http://www.ram.org/contrib/road_not_taken.html
and Adlestrop by Edward Thomas http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/Classic%20Poems/Thomas%20E/adlestrop.htm

tui

i love the Road not taken. i will look up the other one. thanks

tui

Adlestrop is lovely. The imagery is so clear.
i haven't read much of Robert Graves before.

smallholder

I went to bed thinking of Adlestrop - classic english summer feel to it. Here's another I like which reminds me of that 'have I been here before ' feeling I sometimes get and gives a sense of connection with people who have been before and will come again. Sudden Light by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/Clas...ms/Rossetti%20DG/sudden_light.htm

tui

I like that poem and the website warrants further investigation.

Here's another NZ poet, Hone Tuwhare.

Rain.

I can hear you
making small holes
in the silence
rain

If I were deaf
the pores of my skin
would open to you
and shut

And I
should know you
by the lick of you
if I were blind

the something
special smell of you
when the sun cakes
the ground

the steady
drum-roll sound
you make
when the wind drops

But if I
should not hear
smell or feel or see
you

you would still
define me
disperse me
wash over me
rain

smallholder

That's fantastic. I love poems about nature, landscape and the elements. It made me think about the different sounds of rain, in particular it made me think of rain when camping and that lovely early morning feeling of being snug inside my sleeping bag with the rain drumming down outside on the canvas tent.

smallholder

Tui - you got me looking at NZ poets!

Found this poem about seeing Elvis (!) which I really like

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/modernletters/bnzp/2001/brownj.html

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Oh and finally, before I monopolise this thread entirely!...I will add Maya Angelou's Caged Bird

http://www.poetseers.org/contempo...aya_angelou_poems/caged_bird/view

greyengine

When I was a teenager, I learned this poem by heart for some event and phrases from it still linger today. I remember at the time just finding it really evocative, but not really undererstanding why. Something to do with events which seem fairly insignificant, assuming much greater significance in hindsight, and the chance that any of us might from time to time witness a historically significant event without even realising it. http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/3044/

smallholder

What an interesting choice greyengine. It reminds me of how sometimes when I visit somewhere be it manmade or natural landscape I wonder who has been there before, walked where I am walking etc.

Night Garden

Tui, I love Rain. One I had to do for my speech exams, many moons ago!