My Favorite Poems

[Snapdragon]

Poetry

I was reading over one of my favorite pieces of poetry today and began to wonder who else enjoys reading this type of writing. Funny, sad, short, long, EPIC...poems come in all shapes and sizes, types and styles and they reflect on life just like a good painting or a great art film. They are often deep and make you think, even sometimes wonder what caused the poet to write a piece like this.

What are your favorite poems (link me or paste in the thread if it is not painfully long--I need a good read)?


"The Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti

This long victorian poem, is not an epic, but reads more like a story than a poem. It is my absolute favorite. Both feminist, and cautionary it tells the tale of two young girls (Lizzie and Laura) who are lured from their path by a bunch of Goblins selling delcious fruits. While one of the 'sisters' boldly buys the fruits with a lock of golden hair, the other(Laura) goes home like a good girl should. Eventually Lizzie becomes addicted to these forbidden fruits which winds up being her major downfall.

The poem has so much symbolism in it. Once you read you will see what I mean.

The Poem (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/crossetti/gobmarket.html)


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[Angelic]

God, I love poems and I can't believe I missed this thread. Well, I can't think of any that I love off the top of my head because I remember reading a bunch and then quite a few my Junior year of high school, they mesh together. But when we did Sonnets and Ballads my Senior year (I know they aren't really poems but close right? u.u) there were a few I loved. i shall post them. :)

Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person'd God by John Donne

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

And then of course there's Shakespeare, he wrote many sonnets. Beautiful, funny, dark, they all are incredible and what's amazing about them is the imagery and then the last word of each line. It gives you the tone of the sonnet and then the consonants too, seriously the language is astounding. I went to a Shakespeare Workshop and took a class too in high school, very fascinating. :) This one though is one of my all-time favorites of his. I quote it often and have a copy of it up in my bulletin board in my room.

Sonnet 129 by William Shakespeare

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.