I thought I would add this page just so people could see what kinds of poetry I enjoy and how it influences my poetry.
I will start with ten poems that are very important to me and always will be, just in case I don’t update this again!
Number One:
‘When I have Fears’ by John Keats:
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;–then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
-
This poem reflects a time in my life when I was first interested in poetry. I had never read a poem that so clearly conveyed a poet’s fears about life and love, but also dealt with the fear that his poetic efforts may go unrewarded in his lifetime. It struck me as heartbreaking that his fears were well founded.
Number Two:
‘Sailing to Byzantium’ by W. B. Yeats:
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees -
Those dying generations – at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
-
I love this poem. I am indebted to my English teachers for so many things and this poem is no exception. It is so achingly honest about growing old, but also reflects a difficult time contextually. It means so much more than just fear of old age; it’s the fear of the unknown felt by all.
Number Three:
‘Leave me, O Love’ by Sir Philip Sidney
Leave me, O love which reachest but to dust ;
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things ;
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust,
Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings.
Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might
To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be ;
Which breaks the clouds and opens forth the light,
That doth both shine and give us sight to see.
O take fast hold ; let that light be thy guide
In this small course which birth draws out to death,
And think how evil becometh him to slide,
Who seeketh heav’n, and comes of heav’nly breath.
Then farewell, world ; thy uttermost I see ;
Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me.
-
Another sonnet (you will see a distinct trend developing here!) but one that stands alone, separate from Astrophel and Stella. I owe Sidney so much – he was my primary focus (along with other Elizabethan poets) in applying to Cambridge and in my interview. This poem is so incredibly well thought out but retains the ache of emotion so characteristic of Sidney. This poem reminds me too of my own experiences of love, granted not as lofty as Sidney’s, but I have a soft spot for emotional attachments.
Number Four:
‘Ithaca’ by C. P. Cavafy (this one is a long one!)
When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon — do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.
Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.
Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.
-
Although this is a translation, it still makes me tingle. It’s such a beautiful re-work of the Odysseus myth but for the modern world. Of course there’s much more to it than that, but I think it reflects the modern Odyssey. To me the poem is almost prophetic – it foretells a world where experience counts just as much as hardship. Ithaca, real or imagined, will always provide you with that much needed impetuous for a long journey, whatsoever she may be.
Number Five:
‘Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy
Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.
Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
-
I find this poem really puzzling and I like it for that reason. Duffy seems ambivalent about Valentine’s Day, incapable of shunning it all together, for she loves, but wishing to return its meaning and integrity. I think it’s an experimental poem, but as a lover of Duffy’s poetry I couldn’t not include it.
Number Six:
‘Rain’ by Edward Thomas
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying tonight or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be for what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me,
disappoint.
-
I have always found myself interested in War Poetry and came across Edward Thomas’ ‘Lights Out’ a few years ago. Since then I’ve read as much poetry by him as I can. It would be ridiculous to say this poem is ‘sad’, that’s a given, but what I love about it is his affinity with nature that shines through all his poetry and his ability to associate his emotions from the emotional to the physical.
Number Seven:
‘The Hollow Men’ by T. S. Eliot
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
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.
-
Another long one, but this poem is such an important landmark in Eliot’s poetry and in the Twentieth Century as a whole. I only read it very recently, but I was surprised at how quickly it overtook Prufrock as my favourite. There is something so raw in both poems, but I find this one much easier to handle, much easier to understand and relate to. There is such an ache of sadness in this poem.
Number Eight:
‘Crossing the Water’ by Sylvia Plath
Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people.
Where do the black trees go that drink here?
Their shadows must cover Canada.
A little light is filtering from the water flowers.
Their leaves do not wish us to hurry:
They are round and flat and full of dark advice.
Cold worlds shake from the oar.
The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes.
A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand;
Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls.
-
Sylvia Plath’s ‘The Bell Jar’ was my favourite book from the ages of 13-15 as it summed up the way I felt as a new teenager. Now I am much more refined (sorry Sylvia!) but I find her poetry to be so bleak and fabulous that I had to put her here.
Number Nine:
‘Shut Out that Moon’ by Thomas Hardy
Close up the casement, draw the blind,
Shut out that stealing moon,
She wears too much the guise she wore
Before our lutes were strewn
With years-deep dust, and names we read
On a white stone were hewn.
Step not out on the dew-dashed lawn
To view the Lady’s Chair,
Immense Orion’s glittering form,
The Less and Greater Bear:
Stay in; to such sights we were drawn
When faded ones were fair.
Brush not the bough for midnight scents
That come forth lingeringly,
And wake the same sweet sentiments
They breathed to you and me
When living seemed a laugh, and love
All it was said to be.
Within the common lamp-lit room
Prison my eyes and thought;
Let dingy details crudely loom,
Mechanic speech be wrought:
Too fragrant was Life’s early bloom,
Too tart the fruit it brought!
-
I read this poem first when I visited Hardy’s house at Max Gate in Dorset. It was sellotaped to one of the walls in the drawing room. I have always admired Hardy. Not only can the man write epic novels (granted I have only read two) and short stories, but he could also write decent poetry. It just shows you – all that country air was good for him!
& finally,
Number Ten:
‘The Iliad’ by Homer
I love this poem because it is so incredibly diverse and clever. It has such an amazing variety of themes and messages and characters. I couldn’t possibly say I know anyone who could write poetry quite like Homer and yes I do believe it was just one man!
And so ends the list. 
If anyone got this far, leave a comment. I’d be amazed if anyone ever does.
