Whitechapel - The most important poems in English - Top 10 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/ Lussumo Vanilla & Feed Publisher The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304197#Comment_304197 2011-08-01T18:45:57-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 Vornaskotti http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6665 Being a foreign devil but under the anvil of Anglo Saxon cultural imperialism, the other day I was wondering how much I knew or recognized poetry in English compared to poetry in Finnish. Then I ...
Then I started wondering, what would be the top-10 of the most important poems in English. I mean, I know my Poe embarrassingly by heart, but outside of that...?

I got a good list from my fiancé Susimur, who's only not a bilingual English speaker but also a student of English philology, but: how about the Whitechapel? The definition of "important" is of course fluid, so let's not argue about that. Let's hear your top-10.]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304202#Comment_304202 2011-08-01T19:16:05-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 Maritza Campos http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=9045 There's a lot, but I'd like to propose "HOWL" by Allen Ginsberg. The most famous excerpt: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical ...
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz"]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304207#Comment_304207 2011-08-01T21:04:53-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 ebullientsoul http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=7705 I nominate The Masque of Anarchy by Shelley. Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you- ...

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many — they are few]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304209#Comment_304209 2011-08-01T21:15:50-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 D.J. http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3196 Alligator Pie by Dennis Lee Alligator pie, alligator pie, If I don't get some I think I'm gonna die. Give away the green grass, give away the sky, But don't give away my alligator ...
Alligator pie, alligator pie,
If I don't get some I think I'm gonna die.
Give away the green grass, give away the sky,
But don't give away my alligator pie.

Alligator stew, alligator stew,
If I don't get some I don't know what I'll do.
Give away my furry hat, give away my shoe,
But don't give away my alligator stew.

Alligator soup, alligator soup,
If I don't get some I think I'm gonna droop.
Give away my hockey stick, give away my hoop,
But don't give away my alligator soup.]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304213#Comment_304213 2011-08-01T21:46:36-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 Purple Wyrm http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6726 That's one hell of a big ask, but as an Australian I'm pretty much legally bound to invoke The Man from Snowy River by Banjo Patterson - regardless of any actual merit or relevance to wider English ... The Man from Snowy River by Banjo Patterson - regardless of any actual merit or relevance to wider English literature...

And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
And where around the Overflow the reedbeds sweep and sway
To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
The man from Snowy River is a household word to-day,
And the stockmen tell the story of his ride,
]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304215#Comment_304215 2011-08-01T22:44:52-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 lgenius http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4832 A question with no easy answer. I would normal go with Annabel Lee since your well versed this is a Lord Byron poem that always stuck with me. PROMETHEUS TITAN! to whose ...
PROMETHEUS

TITAN! to whose immortal eyes
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,
Were not as things that gods despise;
What was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,
Which speaks but in its loneliness,
And then is jealous lest the sky
Should have a listener, nor will sigh
Until its voice is echoless.

Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refus'd thee even the boon to die:
The wretched gift Eternity
Was thine--and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell;
And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
And in his Soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled,
That in his hand the lightnings trembled.

Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen Man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,
In the endurance, and repulse
Of thine impenetrable Spirit,
Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse,
A mighty lesson we inherit:
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, Man is in part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself--and equal to all woes,
And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry
Its own concenter'd recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304217#Comment_304217 2011-08-01T23:40:40-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 Rootfireember http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1551 The Wanderer (pardon the shitty translation. There's a better one in the norton anthology I have somewhere). .Yes. I went with Old English, and a super old poem. >:) The Wanderer (pardon the shitty translation. There's a better one in the norton anthology I have somewhere).
.Yes. I went with Old English, and a super old poem. >:)]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304221#Comment_304221 2011-08-02T00:49:19-07:00 2011-08-02T00:52:37-07:00 celan http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=5337 @Vornaskotti Well, Poe's not such a great poet really. His short fiction and essays are much better. We could start with some of the great poets and choose one of their representative works...or ... Well, Poe's not such a great poet really. His short fiction and essays are much better.

We could start with some of the great poets and choose one of their representative works...or go with what's most commonly anthologized.

Top ten would need to include Shakespeare, Blake, Dickinson, Yeats, Pound, & Eliot, for starters. My choices will certainly reflect my personal bias.
I know more about modern American poets and I prefer the writers of shorter lyrical poems to the long-winded blow-hards...I'm looking at you, Whitman. ;-)
I do sincerely believe that Emily Dickinson is one of the greatest poets in English after Shakespeare and Blake, and certainly the greatest American poet to have ever lived.

Commonly anthologized examples might be (admittedly heavy on the American Modernists):
1. Shakespeare's Sonnet 129
2. Milton's "Paradise Lost"
3. Blake's "Tyger, Tyger!"
4. Yeats' "Second Coming"
5. Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death —"
6. Shelley's "Ozymandias"
7. T.S. Eliot's "Waste Land"
8. Wallace Steven's "The Emperor of Ice Cream" (not my favorite of his, but frequently anthologized)
9. Ezra Pound's Canto I
10. Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"

Anyway, that's just me shooting from the hip a bit. Leaving out a ton of other great stuff which I could natter on about.
My list of personal faves would look different. Many of my favorite poets didn't even write in English though (Paul Celan, Paul Valéry.)
[Full disclosure: my first undergrad degree was in English/Creative Writing with a Poetry focus.]]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304222#Comment_304222 2011-08-02T01:57:09-07:00 2011-08-02T02:07:28-07:00 ian holloway http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6961 i'm in full agreement with some of the choices made upstream - i adore Paradise Lost and Howl Don't know if these class as the most important but they're the ones I love. Charles Bukowski's An ...
Don't know if these class as the most important but they're the ones I love.

Charles Bukowski's An Almost Made Up Poem - full text here - but this line is just wow...

"“ her, print her, she’ mad but she’
magic. there’ no lie in her fire.” "

i never got too into his novels but I adore his poetry

................................................................

T.S.Eliot's The Hollow Men
most noted of course for it's final stanza...

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

............................................

One of the first books of poetry I ever owned was Ted Hughes' The Crow.
I sat and read those poems for years whenever I got stoned..

A Childish Prank

Man's and woman's bodies lay without souls,
Dully gaping, foolishly staring, inert
On the flowers of Eden.
God pondered.

The problem was so great, it dragged him asleep.

Crow laughed.
He bit the Worm, God's only son,
Into two writhing halves.

He stuffed into man the tail half
With the wounded end hanging out.

He stuffed the head half headfirst into woman
And it crept in deeper and up
To peer out through her eyes
Calling it's tail-half to join up quickly, quickly
Because O it was painful.

Man awoke being dragged across the grass.
Woman awoke to see him coming.
Neither knew what had happened.

God went on sleeping.

Crow went on laughing.

......................................

Spike Milligan - There are holes in the Sky

There are holes in the sky
Where the rain gets in
But they're ever so small
That's why the rain is thin.

..........................................

and finally John Cooper Clarke - Haiku

To-con-vey one's mood
In sev-en-teen syll-able-s
Is ve-ry dif-fic]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304242#Comment_304242 2011-08-02T08:21:48-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 ravnos http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=644 I would have to second "Howl" honestly. I wish I could have come up with something, but as soon as I read the topic Howl started playing in my head. Of course, so did "There once was a ... The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304244#Comment_304244 2011-08-02T08:45:21-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 sellmeyoursoul http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=9518 I'd say with Blake, do the entire Songs of Innocence and Experience (which if memory serves is where The Tyger comes from) or the Marriage of Heaven and Hell (my personal fave). And while it's ...
And while it's definitely not "Most Important" the poems of Sherman Alexi are amazing and worth checking out. I'd say he's probably the best living poet I'm aware of (or he was 10 years ago. I haven't really been keeping up to date).

Otherwise, I agree with most of the statements above (although I can't stomach the beats, but I know that's a personal issue).]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304262#Comment_304262 2011-08-02T11:46:33-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 Fauxhammer http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=27 Beowulf. It's English!
It's English!]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304266#Comment_304266 2011-08-02T12:17:25-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 Scrymgeour http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4141 to anyone who has studied GCSE English i'd like to propose: Half Caste - By John Agard "excuse me standing on one leg" I wanna be yours - John Cooper Clarke to his coy mistress - ...
Half Caste - By John Agard "excuse me standing on one leg"

I wanna be yours - John Cooper Clarke

to his coy mistress - Andrew Marvel


Otherwise

try Shane Macgowan's waltzing Mathilda ( I know it's a song but its still poetry)]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304269#Comment_304269 2011-08-02T12:40:16-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 oldhat http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=75 I'm going to go all mainstream here, but I like Desiderata Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, ...
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304271#Comment_304271 2011-08-02T13:13:31-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 lazarus corporation http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=630 Many good choices. I'd add another T.S.Eliot poem to the list - Sweeney Erect: And the trees about me, Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks Groan with continual surges; and behind ...
And the trees about me,
Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
Groan with continual surges; and behind me
Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!

Paint me a cavernous waste shore
Cast in the unstilted Cyclades,
Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks
Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.

Display me Aeolus above
Reviewing the insurgent gales
Which tangle Ariadne's hair
And swell with haste the perjured sails.

Morning stirs the feet and hands
(Nausicaa and Polypheme),
Gesture of orang-outang
Rises from the sheets in steam.

This withered root of knots of hair
Slitted below and gashed with eyes,
This oval O cropped out with teeth:
The sickle motion from the thighs

Jack-knifes upward at the knees
Then straightens out from heel to hip
Pushing the framework of the bed
And clawing at the pillow slip.

Sweeney addressed full length to shave
Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,
Knows the female temperament
And wipes the suds around his face.

(The lengthened shadow of a man
Is history, said Emerson
Who had not seen the silhouette
Of Sweeney straddled in the sun).

Tests the razor on his leg
Waiting until the shriek subsides.
The epileptic on the bed
Curves backward, clutching at her sides.

The ladies of the corridor
Find themselves involved, disgraced,
Call witness to their principles
And deprecate the lack of taste

Observing that hysteria
Might easily be misunderstood;
Mrs. Turner intimates
It does the house no sort of good.

But Doris, towelled from the bath,
Enters padding on broad feet,
Bringing sal volatile
And a glass of brandy neat.]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304306#Comment_304306 2011-08-02T16:46:16-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 Purple Wyrm http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6726 If you want to go way back into Anglo-Saxon there's The Seafarer which like most Anglo-Saxon poetry can be appreciated with no knowledge of the language because it relies on alliteration and rhythm ... The Seafarer which like most Anglo-Saxon poetry can be appreciated with no knowledge of the language because it relies on alliteration and rhythm rather than rhyme.

Personal favourites of mine are Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, both by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The former is famous for having been composed in a drug laced stupor and remaining forever unfinished after some bastard from Porlock interrupted Coleridge while he was writing it down. The later is a batshit insane account of the sea voyage from hell including demons, angels, manifestations of death, zombies, an albatross and a guy that you seriously don't want turning up to your wedding.

Anthologised to the point of cliche are Wordsworth's Daffodils and Ode to a Grecian Urn by Keats. Shelly's Ozymandias still stands up though.

Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome were wildly popular in the Victorian Era, and were an attempt to reconstruct (in English) the kind of poems the Romans wrote before they got all cultured. Horatius is probably the best known today. Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade is a fine example of the Victorian worship of idiotic adherence to orders in the face of all common sense, as is Hemans' Casabianca - better known as "The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck".

William Topaz McGonagall deserves a mention for being perhaps the best bad poet in English. For instance The Tay Bridge Disaster.

The First World War Poets are highly significant because they were about the first to buck the trend of celebrating war as glorious and manly. Fantastic examples include Benjamin Peret's Little Song for the Maimed and Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum est]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304308#Comment_304308 2011-08-02T16:57:14-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 photomagex http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3592 T'was the night before Christmas And all through the house Not a creature was stirring Not even a mouse And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a mouse]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304310#Comment_304310 2011-08-02T17:05:30-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 Finagle http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=5254 In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, "Is it good, friend?" "It is bitter - ... I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.

I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
- "The Heart", Stephen Crane

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
- "Ozymandias", Percy Bysshe Shelley]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304313#Comment_304313 2011-08-02T17:26:29-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 ian holloway http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6961 oh man - can't believe i forgot Dulce Et Decorum Est (good call Purple Wyrm) - one of the most devastating poems I've ever read. was first introduced to Wilfred Owen in a tiny little theatre in ... was first introduced to Wilfred Owen in a tiny little theatre in North Wales. was the first play i'd ever gone to and it was a one man show (called The Pity of War) based on Owens life and works. it was amazing!]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304316#Comment_304316 2011-08-02T18:26:25-07:00 2011-08-02T18:27:31-07:00 256 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4827 There's something seriously mindbending about this entire exercise. I'm not quite sure what makes it so troubling, but... there is something. Anyway. I've never read it, but I have to second ... something.

Anyway. I've never read it, but I have to second @celan's #7 pick, The Wasteland - you're never very far from a reference to that poem.]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304317#Comment_304317 2011-08-02T18:31:06-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 Purple Wyrm http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6726 @ian holloway - I studied the WWI Poets at high school. Dulce was the one that really stuck with me... Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed ... Dulce was the one that really stuck with me...


Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.


(The Peret one also suck with me, but mostly because of the rats)

To lighten the mood a bit...

Things that go bump in the night,
Should not really give one a fright,
It's the hole in each ear, that lets in the fear,
That, and the absence of light
--Spike Milligan]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304320#Comment_304320 2011-08-02T18:45:21-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 ian holloway http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6961 @Purple Wyrm it's a harrowingly beautiful piece to be sure. and I always love me some Spike. it's a harrowingly beautiful piece to be sure.

and I always love me some Spike.]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304321#Comment_304321 2011-08-02T18:52:53-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 there are many good reasons for drinking and one's just entered my head if you don't drink when you're living how the hell can you drink when you're dead -- anon (painted on a wooden plate ... and one's just entered my head
if you don't drink when you're living
how the hell can you drink when you're dead

-- anon

(painted on a wooden plate hung over my grandad's toilet in the 70s)]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304347#Comment_304347 2011-08-02T23:39:32-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 Yskaya http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1359 I love several poets but for me Dorothy Parker has captured many a mood more accurately than any could Flippancy, sarcasm and gloom (in equal measure) are the salt and bread of all my favourite ... Flippancy, sarcasm and gloom (in equal measure) are the salt and bread of all my favourite poems, I deem them important in that they helped give shape to an aspect or a thought.

Braggart

The days will rally, wreathing
Their crazy tarantelle;
And you must go on breathing,
But I'll be safe in hell.

Like January weather,
The years will bite and smart,
And pull your bones together
To wrap your chattering heart.

The pretty stuff you're made of
Will crack and crease and dry.
The thing you are afraid of
Will look from every eye.

You will go faltering after
The bright, imperious line,
And split your throat on laughter,
And burn your eyes with brine.

You will be frail and musty
With peering, furtive head,
Whilst I am young and lusty
Among the roaring dead. ]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304348#Comment_304348 2011-08-02T23:53:18-07:00 2011-08-02T23:56:01-07:00 Will Ellwood http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2556 @Yskaya - I could have guessed you liked Dorothy Parker. I've always found William Gibson's poem Agrippa to be an interesting experiment. More recently I've been enjoying bits of William ...
I've always found William Gibson's poem Agrippa to be an interesting experiment.

More recently I've been enjoying bits of William Carlos Williams, who strikes me as the most sympathetic writer to come out of Imagism.

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.
]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304351#Comment_304351 2011-08-03T00:11:29-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 celan http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=5337 @Finagle Glad you mentioned Crane (Stephen, not Hart). I always loved how raw and immediate his stuff was. Glad you mentioned Crane (Stephen, not Hart). I always loved how raw and immediate his stuff was.]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304411#Comment_304411 2011-08-03T11:00:50-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 infomancer http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=5161 Howl - Ginsberg The Waste Land - Eliot I Sing The Body Electric - Whitman and because I love it, The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Gorey. The Waste Land - Eliot
I Sing The Body Electric - Whitman

and because I love it, The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Gorey.]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304417#Comment_304417 2011-08-03T11:57:29-07:00 2011-08-03T11:57:56-07:00 G. Foyle http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3863 I'll admit that neither of these are especially original choices (references to them in popular media abound), and I'm not a huge poetry reader, so my tastes are not all that sophisticated. However, ...
Dylan Thomas-Do Not Go Gentle...
W. H. Auden-Stop All the Clocks...]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304423#Comment_304423 2011-08-03T12:51:30-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 manglr http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6038 I'll add the chrous on the subject of both Howl and Beowulf. Regarding Beowulf, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out this particular link. I was lucky enough to attend a performance of this and ...
Regarding Beowulf, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out this particular link. I was lucky enough to attend a performance of this and watching Beowulf performed live was definitely so write home about:

Beowulf as performed by Benjamin Bagby]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304427#Comment_304427 2011-08-03T13:24:41-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 evelet http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=9215 I always loved Keats, but this one stays with me from my teenage years: I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind, Am urged by your propinquity to ...

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn wtih pity, -- let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Not sure it counts as the most important, but to me it is quintessentially English...]]> The most important poems in English - Top 10 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10096&Focus=304895#Comment_304895 2011-08-05T17:35:44-07:00 2013-05-24T04:35:24-07:00 TheEndsOfInvention http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=8799 Has anyone mentioned Oscar Wilde? Ballad of Reading Gaol ...Some love too little, some too long, Some sell, and others buy; Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh: For ...
Ballad of Reading Gaol
...Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
...

Ok something happier. Nonsense poetry!

Jabberwocky - Lewis Carroll
(Best read aloud. Well... all poetry should be read aloud... but you CAN end up looking very silly in public.)
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
...

Sprung Verse!

Also cries to be read aloud. It's related to the Anglo-Saxon poetry posted earlier, Hopkins kind of re-vamped it (in a 19th-century-welsh-vicar kind of a way), all alliteration and weird rhythm.

Pied Beauty - Gerard Manley Hopkins
GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

And I've got to include my favourite 'also ran' from the Romantics, poor old Swinburne.

The Garden Of Proserpine - Algernon Charles Swinburne
...There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings ;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things ;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.

Yeah, he's hit and miss. But 'red strays of ruined springs' is one of my favourite lines ever.]]>