It’s national poetry day, which undoubtedly means vastly different things depending on your taste for the stuff. For my part, I read poetry the way some people read their Bible (though for the record, the Bible can be exceedingly poetic). So, in honor of the holiday, here are some poetic recommendations for both the novice and great admirer of verse. Don’t be intimidated if you’re the former—poetry is for everyone. I promise.
Hey, it’s your birthday. Happy birthday! Between parties, take a quiet moment alone to reflect on your life. For this, there’s nothing like the lyrical sprawl of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself.
Heartbroken and bereft? Sylvia Plath’s Ariel is a classic for a reason—nearly every poem in the collection speaks to the intricacies of romantic loss. “And we, too, had a relationship -/Tight wires between us,/ Pegs too deep to uproot, and a mind like a ring/Sliding shut on some quick thing,/The constriction killing me also.”
Fighting through a rough patch at home, at work, in life? Anne Sexton’s “Courage” tops my list, every time.
Perhaps instead, you’re shimmering and tingling with the effervescence of new love. There’s an e.e. cummings poem for that. Several, actually.
When infatuation deepens into real intimacy, as it does when we’re lucky, there’s a gorgeous Pablo Neruda poem, “A Night on the Island” for just that feeling.
From here, you might get into Philip Levine, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Byron, Robert Lowell, Tennyson, William Butler Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Sappho, or even—by my troth—Shakespeare. Maybe that’s the best part about poetry—the sheer adventure of it. The speed of its pleasure, the infinite variety. What are your favorite poems? Feel free to sound off in the comments.
You'd elope with the heroine's younger, misguided sister, and become a source of scorn and derision. A bit more exciting than landed gentry, no?
Posted by: North Face Sale | February 02, 2012 at 01:31 AM
I work at a big bookstore that is pushing their ereader, and I still can't bring myself to get one either. You're not alone.
Posted by: Hermes Replica | February 15, 2012 at 08:40 PM