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Honored Contributor
Posts: 14,090
Registered: ‎01-02-2011

April is National Poetry Month

[ Edited ]

Here’s one of my favorites by Billy Collins on aging:

 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/37695/forgetfulness

 

Post one of your favorites, please🙂

Honored Contributor
Posts: 15,344
Registered: ‎05-01-2010

Re: April is National Poetry Month

Annabelle Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

Respected Contributor
Posts: 2,602
Registered: ‎03-21-2017

Re: April is National Poetry Month

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.

   - Shakespeare.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 18,218
Registered: ‎11-08-2014

Re: April is National Poetry Month

Oh, boy.  Very hard to narrow down.  From the "modern age",  one of my favorites is "Letter in November" by Sylvia Plath:

 

https://genius.com/Sylvia-plath-letter-in-november-annotated

Respected Contributor
Posts: 3,554
Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Re: April is National Poetry Month

@tansy, speaking of forgetfullness, I was culling books to send to the Goodwill and a Billy Collins book went into the box.  I enjoyed it but forget to read it again.  LOL

 

 

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 5,195
Registered: ‎04-10-2012

Re: April is National Poetry Month

Two of my favorites.....

 

Walk Slowly - Poem by Adelaide Love

If you should go before me, dear, walk slowly
Down the ways of death, well-worn and wide, 
For I would want to overtake you quickly
And seek the journey's ending by your side.

I would be so forlorn not to descry you
Down some shining highroad when I came; 
Walk slowly, dear, and often look behind you
And pause to hear if someone calls your name.

 

 

LIFE by 
Nan Terrell Reed
 
They told me that Life could be just what i made it
Life could be fashioned and worn like a gown
I, the designer, mine the decision
Whether to wear it with bonnet or crown
 
And so i selected the prettiest pattern,
Life should be made of the rosiest hue
Something unique, and a bit out of fashion
One that perhaps would be chosen by few
 
But other folks came and then leaned o'er my shoulder
Someone questioned the ultimate cost
Somebody tangled the thread i was using
One day i found that my scissors were lost
 
And somebody claimed the material faded
Somebody said I'd be tired ere 'twas worn
Somebody's fingers, too pointed and spiteful
Snatched at the cloth, and i saw it was torn
 
Oh!  Somebody tried to do all the sewing
 Wanting always to advise or condone
Here is my life, the product of many
Where is that gown  i could fashion  alone??
Valued Contributor
Posts: 817
Registered: ‎06-24-2016

Re: April is National Poetry Month

Hoo Boy, here goes.......

When in Aprile with its shoures soote,

The doughte of Marche has perced to the rote,

And bathed every veine in swich liquor 

Of which vertu engendred is the floure

 

That's all this brain can come up with right now from The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales that we had to memorize in Middle English sometime back IN what seems LIKE the middle ages. 

 

I am not huge on poetry, but I love me some Robert Burns:  My Love is like a Red, Red, Rose.   

 

I do love haiku, though.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 12,073
Registered: ‎03-13-2010

Re: April is National Poetry Month

Trees BY JOYCE KILMER
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
 
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
 
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
 
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
 
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
 
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 6,891
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: April is National Poetry Month

The birds, they sang at the break of day

Start again I heard them say

Don't dwell on what has passed away

Or what is yet to be.

 

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

 

Leonard Cohen

 

Valued Contributor
Posts: 817
Registered: ‎06-24-2016

Re: April is National Poetry Month

@tansy 

 

True, that.