ITT:

e. e. cummings
i like my body when it is with your
muscles better and nerves more

or

Carl Sandburg
Gone
Everybody loved Chick Lorimer

I don't think Blake is a good starting point for someone who doesn't read poetry.
Bukowski or Ferlinghetti or Ginsberg might be a better start because of their almost prose-like quality. At least that worked for me, if I had started with Blake I would have never gotten so much into poetry.

Sounds good. I will check out these guys first then. Thanks for the rec comrade.

Yeats

I have no single favorite, but his poems focused on the turnings of ages have my attention of late.

"Two Songs From A Play" is one, and my favorite line: When that fierce virgin and her Star.

Louis MacNeice
Valediction
"See Belfast, devout and profane and hard,"

Roethke
the Geranium
"so when that snuffling cretin of a maid.."

Frank O'Hara

For Grace, After a Party

"You do not always know what I am feeling."

>Alfred Lord Tennyson
>Ulysses
>Fuck you I'm using 5 lines

We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Wilfred Owen
A Hero by Robert William

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

>Franco Fortini
>not my favorite poem but I really like it
>I tried to translate it from Italian
>let me know if it makes sense

ONE SEPTEMBER EVENING

One september evening
when the gruff rough women with seared hair
became sweet and ready in calcinated villages
and at springs the sand washed the jingling mess tins
I saw under the copper moon
on the violet road of Lodi, two workmen, three girls dancing
among the ink smears of phosphorus on the asphalt
one september evening
when fear and joy were a single scream
when every woman talked to the soldiers
that were scattered in the vineyard rows
and on the cities there was nothing but the sour wine
of chants, and everything was possible
around the pale fire of the radio
and who on the road was going to die the next day
was drinking from the slim cast iron of stations
or sleeping in straw, hugging the rifle
when summer was incinerated
from Ventimiglia to Salerno
and there was nothing left
and we were free
to run away, to ignore or cry,
one september evening.

Gore Vidal got fat

sounds like something churchill would say desu

that's the one I have, it's great.

Tennyson is great.

Start with Dylan Thomas. I've never met a person who didn't love him, and his poetry is accessible for anyone. You probably already know
do not go gentle into the good night

nesimî
saat, zaman ve kişi (not from nesimî tho)
"ben de sana ve boş yere"
but it is only meaningful (beautiful) when you read the previous line too:
ben de sana ey bir ömrüm
ben de sana ve boş yere

can you translate it?

Why did Emily look so spooky?

ode to a nightingale - keats

'Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep? '

It makes sense. That is an interesting poem. I think it may be the first Italian poem I've ever read. Thank you for translating it.

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

tutsak tutsak tutsak tutsak
her şey tutsak ve de ölüm
ve de ölüm; her şey tutsak

günler tutsak gecelere
ben de sana ey bir ömrüm
ben de sana ve boş yere

-----------------------------

captive, captive, captive
everything (is) captive and death
and (to) death; everything is captive

days are captive to nights
and i to you, o my one life
i to you, and [in vain]/[to no end]/[for no reason]

>Why did Emily look so spooky?
she was full of the holy ghost

genuinely sounds captivating

tunuk tunuk, tunuk tunuk, tunuk tunuk, bre blablablah

it's a rupi kaur poem

get out

Milton
Paradiſe Loſt
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,

>paradise lost
>drop't from the zenith like a falling star

(I.475)

>Eliot
>Four Quartets

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
By the purification of the motive
In the ground of our beseeching.

Those lines made me read all of Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love, and various articles and books ("Eliot's Affirmative Way: Julian of Norwich, Charles Williams, and Little Gidding" by Barbara Newman, "Timeless Moments: The Incarnation Theme in Little Gidding" by Marden J. Clark, etc., and other English mystics and anchorites, Ancre Wisse, Cloud of Unknowing, Helen Gardner, Charles Williams).

Heinrich Heine
Die schlesischen Weber
Wir weben, wir weben!

>not drop't'th'stn't

what if my fav poem is not written by my fav poet?

checkmate, atheists

>e. e. cummings

hi everyone i'm new!!!!!! holds up bad syntax my name is Edward Estlin Cummings but you can call me e e cummings !!!!!!! lol as you can see i'm very inventive!!!!!! that's why i came here, 2 meet inventive people who don't use punctuation like me _... i'm 50 years old (i'm immature for my age tho) i like to use random line breaks and indentations in my poetry (i know it's probably beyond ur comprehension but deal w/ it) it distracts from my artistic poverty!!! because my style is soooo random. all my admirers are plebs of course but i want to have more =) as they say the more plebs the greater my profile!!!!! lol...neways i hope to maintain my self image so call
me inventive!!!!!

T.S.Eliot
The Hollow Men
"Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion;"
Literally modern society.

H.D.

World of Dew

and yet and yet

>rebelling
> against
> formatting
Ya, this isn't the reason Cummings is someone's favorite. The people you're complaining about don't exist.

Myself

Wreck of Time

to stop with I

you're a fucking retard who doesn't read anything if you think cummings is 'lol-random'

You don't have to like him to acknowledge that he is purposeful.

Edwin Markham
Lucretia
"I have the daring to believe!"

A lot of Eliot quotes here, which surprises me. Kinda thought Veeky Forums would consider him 'entry level'-not that I'm complaining, since I really like his writing in general. My favourite poem by him is probably Hollow Men, maybe Prufrock, but since both have been mentioned I'll pick a few lines from a Game of Chess (The Waste Land):

Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.

Emily. The line I'm thinking of right now comes from a letter: Candor is the only wile. Choosing a favorite poem or line of hers is of course out of the question.

Veeky Forums generally is afraid of poetry (as shown by that cummings pasta and people constantly misunderstanding free verse)

My favorite Eliot line is in Gerontion

>Like Christ came the Tiger

Ah, that would explain it. And I love that line too, although really I think the whole verse is great and should be taken as a complete package even for something like this (admittedly that's somewhat true of any extract, though)

true, nut the modernist were awfully good at those lines that could almost exist outside of the universe

>till elevators drop us from our day

>there is a black rose growing in your garden

>I may not be a rose in the galaxy of poets/ but who would dare deny me my place

I fucking love modernist verse

I think there's definitely something to be said for lines that just seem to tell a story, or at least evoke something, without any context at all.

I really need to reread some of H.D's work someday.

tell me why the linked poem isn't shit. what's the purpose of the indentations, the line breaks, the lack of punctuation? it's just stupid affectation and a fucking gimmick. it's something that gradeschoolers would discuss when they study poetry in their language arts class.

forgot poem. here it is: poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/47244

P I E R S
L
O
W
M
A
N

there is no good poetry

Robinson Jeffers
Rock and Hawk

Here is a symbol in which
Many high tragic thoughts
Watch their own eyes.

Delet this

>favorite poem its not from favorite poet

WHY LIT?

at least have the decency of posting the original my nigga. not everyone around here is monolingual.

Una sera di settembre
quando le dure donne rauche di capelli strinati
si addolcivano pronte nei borghi calcinati
e ai fonti la sabbia lavava le gavette tintinnanti
ho visto sotto la luna di rame
sulla strada viola di Lodi due operai, tre ragazze ballare
tra le bave d'inchiostro dei fosfori sull'asfalto
una sera di settembre
quando fu un urlo unico la paura e la gioia
quando ogni donna parlò ai militari
dispersi tra i filari delle vigne
e sulle città non c'era che il vino agro
dei canti e tutto era possibile
intorno al fuoco della radio pallido
e chi domani sarebbe morto sugli stradali
beveva alle ghise magre delle stazioni
o nella paglia abbracciato al fucile dormiva
quando l'estate inceneriva
da Ventimiglia a Salerno
e non c'era più nulla
ed eravamo liberi
di fuggire, di non sapere o piangere,
una sera di settembre.

what a shit poem. i wonder who did it.

Longfellow
Evangeline
This is the forest primeval

>trying to judge a poet by a random poem

"you cant judge a poet except for his finest poems, my nigga"

ezra pound

this is a great poem, thanks for bringing it to my attention

Ours is a great wild country:
If you climb to our castle's top,
I don't see where your eye can stop;
For when you've passed the cornfield country,
Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed,
And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract,
And cattle-tract to open-chase,
And open-chase to the very base
Of the mountain where, at a funeral pace,
Round about, solemn and slow,
One by one, row after row,
Up and up the pine-trees go,
So, like black priests up, and so
Down the other side again
To another greater, wilder country,
That's one vast red drear burnt-up plain,
Branched through and through with many a vein
Whence iron's dug, and copper's dealt;
Look right, look left, look straight before,---
Beneath they mine, above they smelt,
Copper-ore and iron-ore,
And forge and furnace mould and melt,
And so on, more and ever more,
Till at the last, for a bounding belt,
Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea-shore,
---And the whole is our Duke's country.

You are actually fucking braindead. I don't care about that poem. I don't care about your perception of that work or the work like it. That's not why Cummings is a fantastic poet. Even if you exclude all his work in that vein, he is a fantastic poet.
Read more, shut the fuck up more.

Why is it a great poem - is what he's asking. Don't just say it is, give an analysis.

This kind of response doesn't earn you or E. E. Cummings any respect. It actually suggests he's given this more thought than you if you can't respond with an analytic insight.

Wow. I have to thank you man. I hadn't read E. E. Cummings yet, and as you can see here and here I though you made a fair enough point.

When I read Buffalo Bill, I didn't quite understand it, so I started reading some of his other poems. Although I'm new to his work I think I can provide an introductory analysis to his style using his poems "2 Little Whos," and "All Nearness Pauses, While A Star...," which I will link below. After that, I'll take a crack at "Buffalo Bill's."

Okay, that said I'll jump in.

[Analysis coming forthwith]

Here are the links to the poems:

poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=28567

poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=25957

>Don't have one
>Don't have one
>Raimbaud (Les Ponts): Un rayon blanc, tombant du haut du ciel, anéantit cette comédie.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
– Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Rupi Kaur
Untitled
i fill you

To understand E. E. Cummings, we need to not only look at his art for what it is, but also for when it is.

E. E. Cummings is well within the same period of artists and philosophers as Picasso, Joyce, Sartre, Camus, Heidegger and so forth. The prevailing theme of the time is the Finitude of Man.

[For an external source on this subject, I highly recommend William Barret's "Irrational Man," and, specifically, the chapter entitled, "The Testimony of Modern Art."]

This is also a consistent theme within these three poems by Cummings. He explores this theme especially by playing with conceptions of spacetime. Let's first look at "2 Little Whos" to see this.

The first stanza:

>2 little whos
>(he and she)
>under are this
>wonderful tree

To understand this, and all poetry (literature as well, but poetry is top-tier for this), you must always ask yourself, "What do these things mean symbolically?"

With that in mind, why did he choose the number two instead of the word? Why did he call them "whos" an ambiguous, collective noun, only to then, as an aside, differentiate them as "he" and "she?" D

Do you see? He is playing with the idea of plurality and separation. He wants you to see these two "whos" (their ambiguity allowing them to be a symbol of any and all humans) as both separate and inseparable.

In the next line, the sentence structure is broken. What should normally be, "are under this," is now "under are this." "Are" has become a state of being. They "are." This is clearly a strain of existential thought. Extending the sentence, "under are this wonderful tree."

Now we see the theme of plurality and separation is being extended further, and now includes oneness between man and nature. Like Nietzsche before him, E. E. Cummings is seeking to lead us away from Apollonian abstractions, and like Heidegger, wishes us to explore Being for what it is.

As the second stanza unfolds it becomes increasingly more clear that Cummings wishes for us, the readers, to let our consciousnesses cease to fly endlessly away from Being-in-Itself (as Sartre put it), and to allow ourselves to be present in the moment.

>smiling stand
Notice the present tense.
>(all realms of where and when beyond)
These parenthetical portions should be looked at as asides, expositions, or perhaps even internal monologues of how Cummings wishes for the reader to view the surrounding lines.
>now and here
Straightforward, is it not?

The last stanza is the most complex.

>(2 little ams
>and over them this
>aflame with dreams
>incredible is)

The point Cummings wished to make in the first stanza, by using "are" to emphasize existence, is reinforced in this line by calling the "whos" "ams." I don't know about you, but I also think an attitude of benevolence toward life and existence comes through in this work. Anyway, the tree which they were under is now a "this." It is again the ambiguity of all existence which surrounds, permeates, and is - them.

[con't below]

I believe we can equate the "aflame with dreams" to divine inspiration - Yeats' concept of Spiritus Mundi may do well to explain the meaning here. Again, like the line "under are this," which normally would have been "are under this," the flip of the two words is of monumental importance.

E. E. Cummings is pointing us to what he has just defined as the "Incredible IS." In other words, that which is, or, Existence.

I hope this helps unravel his style somewhat. I'll continue with the next poem to further show you how his style works.

[con't below]

Tennyson was too good for us.

>no Crane

SHIGGY

The predominant themes of "All Nearness Pauses, While A Star..." are as follows: Past, Present, Future, Death, Life, Time, and Space.

These themes are explored within the context of an event which is a celebration of life and love (and certainly this was the case to Cummings, as the symbolism makes that plain) - a wedding.

The first two stanzas:

>honour the past
>but welcome the future
>(and dance your death
>away at this wedding)

>never mind a world
>with its villains or heroes
>(for god likes girls
>and tomorrow, and the earth)

The very first stanza sets the themes. We can see at the end of each line he has highlighted one - the past, the future, death, and wedding. Looking at "wedding" symbolically, we see that a wedding can symbolize a celebration, love, family, activity, etc.,... and all of these things are symbolic of Life - a specific kind of living to be explicit. E. E. Cummings wants us to celebrate life and embrace it vivaciously.

The second stanza is, as was the second stanza of "2 Little Whos," an adjuration to let ourselves experience Being by letting go of our abstracting ourselves into contemplations of what is not - in an immediate, contextual sense. As we will see, this is the central theme of the poem.

The central lines:

>all nearness pauses, while a star can grow

>all nearness pauses, while a star can grow

Here, again, "star" is a symbol. A star is light. It is also a spherical - what are spheres and circles symbols of? Wholeness, completion, infinity, nature, woman, etc.,... What might "woman," in this context, be symbolic of? The womb, birth, the passive principle (which ties into the idea of simply Being), inspiration (via the Muses), foresight (via the Furies - which are also symbolic of the past, etc.,...), etc.,... A star can also be looked at as a fixed point, suggesting immovability, centricity, and other such things.

Do you see my point? Just by choosing "star" as a symbol, he has layered so much imagery and symbolic meaning upon these central line (which is intentionally boldfaced and reiterated) to drive home his message.

It is clear Cummings is trying to tell us again, to simply be present in the moment. He is so adamant about this he tells us to let "all nearness pause." In other words, to let the separations of space and time fade away, and let all things be "here" and "now."

As before, he re-emphasizes this point with the subsequent line(s):

>all distance dreams a final dream of bells;
>perfectly outlined against afterglow
>all are amazing the and peaceful hills

>(not where not here but neither's blue most both)

[con't below]

Is this autism

This portion is somewhat straightforward, I think.

First, Cummings disconnects time from space by annihilating distance but reaffirming time distinctions by suggesting finality but highlighting synthesis.

The third line, "all are amazing 'the' and peaceful hills," is doing the same thing he did in the line "under are this" in the previous poem. By altering the placement of the words he can emphasize a particular point of view, and it is a similar one to that expressed in "2 Little Whos" - the Incredible IS, the Amazing THE - Existence.

The last line, at first glance, a jumbled mishmash of words, is really a counter to the first line of this stanza. In the first line he contested the synthesis of time and space, but affirmed the synthesis of each individually, here Cummings re-synthesizes all these concepts to again tell us that all is one - all is.

The last portion of the poem is of particular interest to us, as its style closely resembles that of "Buffalo Bill's'."

>Time's a strange fellow;
> more he gives than takes
>(and he takes all) nor any marvel finds

E. E. Cummings intends to use this structure to communicate to us the manner in which he is pondering these thoughts. The clauses seem float-y, connected but disjointed, and inconclusive. This is exactly how he wants us to perceive these thoughts in him - as dreamy musings rather than as dogmatic assertions. Beyond that, I think the lines are self-explanatory.

Now, seeing how closely related the themes of these two poems are, and how dearly they cling to the common artistic strains of the day, we can look with fresh as at the once perplexing "Buffalo Bill's."

[con't below]

No, here see for yourself, lol.

This is PASSION - for poetry, for conversation, and for Socratic inquiry!!!!!

Actually, perhaps I should not have said, "once perplexing." Buffalo Bill's is still somewhat enigmatic to me.

Here it is:

Buffalo Bill ’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus

he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blue-eyed boy
Mister Death

From my perspective, he is speaking of the man, Buffalo Bill, both as himself, and as a symbol for all humans who could be construed as symbols of achievement or renown.

The theme of this poem is Death.

Cummings makes sure we recognize this by letting "defunct" and "who used to" stand on their own.

The man, the legend, that was Buffalo Bill is no more - and now what? That is literally the whole point of the poem.

Cummings uses some playful word placement in order to present the reader a more animated prose, but ultimately, he is asking death what was the point of the once great man Buffalo Bill's life.

I think it's pretty neat, and very American in style and theme. I'm an American, so I appreciate that (because our culture is not so well defined as those of countries with a more substantial history).

Anyway, I hope that helped you understand and appreciate E. E. Cummings poetry for what it is user - you helped me by asking the question which provoked this exercise.

I should have said, "very American in style and imagery," not in style and theme.

Death is an universally human theme, however, Cummings explored this theme using American imagery.

This is awesome! Ignore this close-minded guy .

What language is that?

yeah. i don't like the guy's other poems, or even the rest of this poem, but this 6 lines shut my mind whenever i read them
turkish

>implying
>implying
>implying

I appreciate your analysis. I still can't shake the feeling that, even if there are interesting and perhaps even profound themes and arguments behind his poetry, the signifiers of this are cheap and there is no power nor elegance in his style. And why does he not punctuate nor use capital letters? You can't tell me it is anything but affectation.

>this is awesome!
>btw what language is that I can't read it

reddit pls leave. no one cares that you're kind to foreigners

Foreigners? Lol, this is Veeky Forums nub. There are people from all over the world on this site. We're all foreigners to someone here,

Bad Blood.

>>"Now I am accursed, I detest my native land. The best thing is a drunken sleep, stretched out on some strip of shore."

>Ginsberg
>America
>America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

RINTRAH ROARS AND SHAKES HIS FIRE IN THE BURDEN'D AIR
HUNGRY CLOUDS SWAG ON THE DEEP

Sorry for caps, I just fuckin love the sound of this.

who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,

Oh! I'm glad you asked actually! I meant to mention the capitalization.

I don't know this for certain, of course, but I suspect he doesn't capitalize to keep driving home the idea that nothing is of any greater importance than anything else. It is his theme of Oneness again (like when he annihilated the separation between to two people and the tree).

As for the punctuation, I'd have to give that a closer look, because I don't have any answer for that right now.

I believe, in general terms, lack of capitalisation is an aesthetic choice. It just looks better, at least to me.

In addition, not capitalising every new line creates a better sense of flow, the capitalisation at the beginning of each verse seems to break the line of thought even more aggressively than the line break itself.

But then cummings breaks the flow of the poem with his fucked up capitalisation, so it's in direct opposition to what I just said. Huh. Oh well, it's also nice to look at. His weird use of punctuation is kinda similar to Emily Dickinson's use of dashes - it doesn't really serve any real purpose (at least the pleb who I am isn't able to detect it) and it's just their idea of bringing something new to poetry.

Or maybe I'm just totally wrong. Who knows.

Perle, plesaunte to prynces paye
To clanly clos in golde so clere,
Oute of Oryent, I hardyly saye,
Ne proved I never her precios pere.
So rounde, so reken in uche araye,
So smal, so smothe her sydes were,
Queresoever I jugged gemmes gaye
I sette hyr sengeley in synglure.
Allas, I leste hyr in on erbere;
Thurgh gresse to grounde hit fro me yot.
I dewyne, fordolked of luf-daungere
Of that pryvy perle withouten spot.

Pearl of delight that a prince doth please
To grace in gold enclosed so clear,
I vow that from over orient seas
Never proved I any in price her peer.
So round, so radiant ranged by these,
So fine, so smooth did her sides appear
That ever in judging gems that please
Her only alone I deemed as dear.
Alas! I lost her in garden near:
Through grass to the ground from me it shot;
I pine now oppressed by love-wound drear
For that pearl, mine own, without a spot.

I like you anons