Poetry April Madness

Poetry By Marianne Moore I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.    Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in    it after all, a place for the genuine.       Hands that can grasp, eyes       that can dilate, hair that can rise          if it must, these things are important not because a high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are    useful; when they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the    same thing may be said for all of us—that we       do not admire what       we cannot understand. The bat,          holding on upside down or in quest of something to eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under    a tree, ...

Immortality By Clare Harner Do not stand    By my grave, and weep, I am not there,    I do not sleep-- I am the thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints in snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle, autumn rain. As you awake with morning's hush, I am the swift, up-flinging rush Of quiet birds in circling flight. I am the day transcending night. Do not stand    By my grave, and cry-- I am not there, I did not die.       Leave a comment below ⬇️⬇️ to convince people to vote for the poems you like!

Tulips By Sylvia Plath The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here. Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in.    I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.    I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.    I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses    And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons. They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff    Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut. Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in. The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble, They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps, Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,    So it is impossible to tell how many there are. My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently. They bring me numbness i...

Fire and Ice By Robert Frost Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.       Leave a comment below ⬇️⬇️ to convince people to vote for the poems you like!

Kubla Khan By Samuel Taylor Coleridge     Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.    In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man    Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this...

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat By Edward Lear I The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea    In a beautiful pea-green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money,    Wrapped up in a five-pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above,    And sang to a small guitar, "O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,     What a beautiful Pussy you are,          You are,          You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are!" II Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!    How charmingly sweet you sing! O let us be married! too long we have tarried:    But what shall we do for a ring?" They sailed away, for a year and a day,    To the land where the Bong-Tree grows And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood    With a ring at the end of his nose,              His nose,     ...

The Dong with a Luminous Nose By Edward Lear   When awful darkness and silence reign Over the great Gromboolian plain, Through the long, long wintry nights; — When the angry breakers roar As they beat on the rocky shore; — When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heights Of the Hills of the Chankly Bore: — Then, through the vast and gloomy dark, There moves what seems a fiery spark, A lonely spark with silvery rays Piercing the coal-black night, — A Meteor strange and bright: — Hither and thither the vision strays, A single lurid light. Slowly it wander, — pauses, — creeps, — Anon it sparkles, — flashes and leaps; And ever as onward it gleaming goes A light on the Bong-tree stems it throws. And those who watch at that midnight hour From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower, Cry, as the wild light passes along, — "The Dong! — the Dong! "The wandering Dong through the forest goes! "The Dong! the Dong! "The Dong with a luminous Nose!" Long years ago The Dong was happy a...

Jabberwocky By Lewis Carroll ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves       Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves,       And the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!       The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun       The frumious Bandersnatch!” He took his vorpal sword in hand;       Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree       And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood,       The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,       And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through       The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head       He went galumph...

If We Must Die By Claude McKay If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursèd lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!       Leave a comment below ⬇️⬇️ to convince people to vote for the poems you like!

I, Too By Langston Hughes I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then. Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed— I, too, am America.       Leave a comment below ⬇️⬇️ to convince people to vote for the poems you like!

The Cat and the Saxophone (2 A.M.) By Langston Hughes EVERYBODY Half-pint,— Gin? No, make it LOVES MY BABY corn. You like liquor, don’t you, honey? BUT MY BABY Sure. Kiss me, DON’T LOVE NOBODY daddy. BUT ME. Say! EVERYBODY Yes? WANTS MY BABY I’m your BUT MY BABY sweetie, ain’t I? DON’T WANT NOBODY Sure. BUT Then let’s ME, do it! SWEET ME. Charleston, mamma! !       Leave a comment below ⬇️⬇️ to convince people to vote for the poems you like!

Still I Rise By Maya Angelou You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s roote...

Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways By Elizabeth Barrett Browning How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.       Leave a comment below ⬇️⬇️ to convince people to vote for the poems you like!

England in 1819 By Percy Bysshe Shelley An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King; Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring; Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know, But leechlike to their fainting country cling Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow. A people starved and stabbed in th' untilled field; An army, whom liberticide and prey Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield; Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed; A senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed— Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.       Leave a comment below ⬇️⬇️ to convince people to vote for the poems you like!

Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? By William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date; Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:    So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.       Leave a comment below ⬇️⬇️ to convince people to vote for the poems you like!  

Ozymandias By Percy Bysshe Shelley 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.”       Leave a comment below ⬇️⬇️ to convince people to vote for the poems you like!