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3 years ago ::
Apr 02, 2009 - 12:54PM
#1
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In honor of National Poetry Month, we'd love to know your favorite poem! Mine is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43: 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. :::sigh::: It gets me every time....
BeliefnetGrace
Community Manager
community@beliefnetstaff.com
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3 years ago ::
Apr 02, 2009 - 3:36PM
#2
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I first encountered this in the NYC subway about 15 years ago, as part of their "Poetry in Motion" campaign, which I miss greatly. I read it and set out to find it, and ended up discovering an amazing poet I hadn't read before.
It's Gwendolyn Brooks' "Speech to the Young, Speech to the Progress-Toward.": Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.
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3 years ago ::
Apr 02, 2009 - 8:00PM
#3
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hi, beliefnet entertainment... is that your god-given name? i remember the poetry in motion series well! it used to be great during the commute to zone out and get lost in poetry on a rumbling train or bus. am going to google poetry in motion and see what i turn up. thanks for sharing. i will have to give this thread considerable thought b/c it is hard to narrow it down to one favorite... but i shall take the challenge seriously and play it as if it were the what if game, as in : WHAT IF YOU COULD ONLY READ AND REREAD ONE POEM EVERYDAY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE? ( i like high stakes). take care. m22
"It took me a long time not to judge myself
through someone else's eyes" ~Sally Field
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3 years ago ::
Apr 02, 2009 - 9:03PM
#4
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http://www.poetrysociety.org/motion/mapsite/pimpoems/newyork/ny.html#yeat had a great time perusing poetry in motion - nyc MTA site - click on past poems to read loads of known and unknown poets...
"It took me a long time not to judge myself
through someone else's eyes" ~Sally Field
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3 years ago ::
Apr 02, 2009 - 9:16PM
#5
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Thanks for the reminder about Poetry in Motion and the link. I fell in love with a poem on the subway about 10 years ago and had forgotten about it completely. I'm now off to peruse the site and see if I can find it again!
BeliefnetGrace
Community Manager
community@beliefnetstaff.com
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3 years ago ::
Apr 02, 2009 - 9:36PM
#6
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I found it!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I haven't thought of this poem in years and wouldn't have known where to look because I couldn't remember enough about it to search for it. I'm so happy! Let No Charitable Hope
Now let no charitable hope
Confuse my mind with images
Of eagle and of antelope:
I am in nature none of these.
I was, being human, born alone;
I am, being woman, hard beset;
I live by squeezing from a stone
The little nourishment I get.
In masks outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file;
But none has merited my fear,
And none has quite escaped my smile.
Elinor Wylie (1885-1928)
BeliefnetGrace
Community Manager
community@beliefnetstaff.com
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3 years ago ::
Apr 03, 2009 - 2:16PM
#7
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Hi all, Im a newbee to the site and I thought this was a good place to start. I couldn't decide between two, but finally chose this one. I do not love you as if you were a salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the flower shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?
E.A. Poe
Never get use to anything, trust your intuition, delight in simple things, say "Yes" to life with passion, ,and fall madly in love with the world! Ruth Bernhard
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3 years ago ::
Apr 03, 2009 - 5:31PM
#8
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Gene, Gene, made a machine... I think we all know the rest...
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3 years ago ::
Apr 03, 2009 - 5:47PM
#9
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Sarahm~ i love the poetry of pablo neruda- had to study him extensively in college (spanish major) thanks for sharing! ...hmmm can't say that i know gene gene made a machine, tho.
"It took me a long time not to judge myself
through someone else's eyes" ~Sally Field
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3 years ago ::
Apr 03, 2009 - 10:29PM
#10
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Oh beliefnet grace i love thatElizabeth Barrett Browning too, I just bought a volume of her complete poems. Here is one of my favorite poems by Theodore Roethke: The OtherWhat is she, while I live?- Who plagues me with her Shape Lifting a nether Lip Lightly so buds unleave; but if I move to close who busks me on the Nose? Is she what I become? Is this my final Face? I find her every place; She happens time on time- My Nose feels for my Toe; Nature's too much to know. Who can surprise a thing Or come to love alone? A lazy natural man, I loll, I loll, all Tongue. She moves, and I adore: Motion can do no more. A child stares past a fire With the same absent gaze: I know her careless ways!- Desire hides from desire. Aging I sometimes weep, Yet still laugh in my sleep.
我爱希拉
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