/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5858254]

God tier poetry

[Anonymous No.5858264]

>>5858254
lmfao /lit/ incarnate

[Anonymous No.5858265]

>>5858254
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
ect. ect.

[Anonymous No.5858307]

>>5858254
e.e. cummings

[Anonymous No.5858516]

>>5858254
The Waste Land
Ozymandias
Ode to the West Wind

[Anonymous No.5858523]

>>5858516
Good taste

[Anonymous No.5858525]

your dick on hard
from fucking your own dogs
the hood you threw up with
niggas you grew up with

[Anonymous No.5858529]

>>5858307

This x1000

[Anonymous No.5858538]

>>5858307
>e.e. cummings
>>5858516
>The Waste Land
Shit taste.

[Anonymous No.5858540]

>>5858523
Ozymandias is god tier

[Anonymous No.5858550]

>>5858538
>Shit taste.

[Anonymous No.5858573]

>>5858265
kek

[Anonymous No.5858578]

>>5858254
pic not related

[Anonymous No.5858591]

>>5858550
I've read and wrote about T.S. Eliot's the Waste Land.

It's absolute garbage; inane allusion packed malarky.

Go ahead, post an excerpt from The Waste Land that proves me wrong.
Protip, you can't.

[Anonymous No.5858627]

It always seems like you guys haven't read much poetry or really, REALLY like the entry level goodies.

I'm also not really sure what OP wants out of us so here are some poets I think highly of:
John Berryman (only The Dream Songs), Charles Olson, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, Denise Levertov, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Rexroth, Emily Dickinson, Rainer Maria Rilke (I think /lit/ has a thing for him), and sometimes Louis Zukofsky, Ron Silliman, and Reznikoff.

[Anonymous No.5858632]

>>5858254
us
all of us are the poetry

[Anonymous No.5858658]

>>5858632

[Anonymous No.5858672]

>>5858591
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strive
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at tea-time, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house-agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronizing kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit…

[Anonymous No.5858679]

>>5858627
You're right: /lit/ is sorely lacking in the poetry department, and I am included in that.

Of the poets you listed (except Dickinson already read her best poems) what poet and what work by them would you recommend a poet noob to pick up?

[Anonymous No.5858693]

>>5858591
What's the point? Someone posts an excerpt, you say it's shit.

I, along with the majority of this board, have the opinion that The Wasteland is the one of the best poems of the 20th century. Five decades of academic consensus is on our side as well.

If you think it's shit that's fine, that's just your opinion. But don't go trying to start a shitflinging fight by saying "prove me wrong" when you very well know that's impossible

[Anonymous No.5858726]

>>5858679
I'm more interested in each poem individually rather than the volume so I tend to err on the side of selected and collected. That said, here are some suggestions.

John Berryman - The Dream Songs
Charles Olson - The Selected Poems
Wallace Stevens - Harmonium
Ezra Pound - Personae
Denise Levertov - One of the selected volumes
Barbara Guest - The Open Skies (although her collected poems will be easier to find and will have everything)
Kenneth Rexroth - Collected and read straight through
Rainer Maria Rilke - The Selected translated by Stephen Mitchell. You can read right through it but the awesome stuff are the Duino Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus. Letters to a Young Poet is not included in this volume. If you're interested in trying to write poetry I highly recommend reading it.

None of these are for beginners:
Louis Zukofsky - A
Ron Silliman - The Alphabet
Charles Reznikoff - Selected or complete

[Anonymous No.5858735]

>>5858726
thanks. saved

[Anonymous No.5859085]

>>5858679
>>>5858679
dude's right, ezra pound is a very, very good poet

[Anonymous No.5859087]

rime of the ancient mariner

[Anonymous No.5859122]

Paul Celan - Todesfuge

Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken sie abends
wir trinken sie mittags und morgens wir trinken sie nachts
wir trinken und trinken
wir schaufeln ein Grab in den Lüften da liegt man nicht eng
Ein Mann wohnt im Haus der spielt mit den Schlangen der schreibt
der schreibt wenn es dunkelt nach Deutschland dein goldenes Haar Margarete
er schreibt es und tritt vor das Haus und es blitzen die Sterne er pfeift seine Rüden herbei
er pfeift seine Juden hervor läßt schaufeln ein Grab in der Erde
er befiehlt uns spielt auf nun zum Tanz

Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich morgens und mittags wir trinken dich abends
wir trinken und trinken
Ein Mann wohnt im Haus der spielt mit den Schlangen der schreibt
der schreibt wenn es dunkelt nach Deutschland dein goldenes Haar Margarete
Dein aschenes Haar Sulamith wir schaufeln ein Grab in den Lüften da liegt man nicht eng

Er ruft stecht tiefer ins Erdreich ihr einen ihr andern singet und spielt
er greift nach dem Eisen im Gurt er schwingts seine Augen sind blau
stecht tiefer die Spaten ihr einen ihr andern spielt weiter zum Tanz auf

Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich mittags und morgens wir trinken dich abends
wir trinken und trinken
ein Mann wohnt im Haus dein goldenes Haar Margarete
dein aschenes Haar Sulamith er spielt mit den Schlangen
Er ruft spielt süßer den Tod der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland
er ruft streicht dunkler die Geigen dann steigt ihr als Rauch in die Luft
dann habt ihr ein Grab in den Wolken da liegt man nicht eng

Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich mittags der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland
wir trinken dich abends und morgens wir trinken und trinken
der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland sein Auge ist blau
er trifft dich mit bleierner Kugel er trifft dich genau
ein Mann wohnt im Haus dein goldenes Haar Margarete
er hetzt seine Rüden auf uns er schenkt uns ein Grab in der Luft
er spielt mit den Schlangen und träumet der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland

dein goldenes Haar Margarete
dein aschenes Haar Sulamith

>inb4 not being able to read german

[Anonymous No.5859200]

>>5858538
The London Bridge is falling down part at the end is awesome if you know Italian pronunciation

[Anonymous No.5859212]

>>5859122
Damn this is good

[Anonymous No.5859261]

>>5858254
Deep in the shady sadness of a vale, etc, etc.

[Anonymous No.5859268]

pretty much any waka

[Anonymous No.5859269]

>>5858254

Legend
By Hart Crane
As silent as a mirror is believed
Realities plunge in silence by ...

I am not ready for repentance;
Nor to match regrets. For the moth
Bends no more than the still
Imploring flame. And tremorous
In the white falling flakes
Kisses are,—
The only worth all granting.

It is to be learned—
This cleaving and this burning,
But only by the one who
Spends out himself again.

Twice and twice
(Again the smoking souvenir,
Bleeding eidolon!) and yet again.
Until the bright logic is won
Unwhispering as a mirror
Is believed.

Then, drop by caustic drop, a perfect cry
Shall string some constant harmony,—
Relentless caper for all those who step
The legend of their youth into the noon.

[Anonymous No.5859275]

>>5858516
I've yet to find a more perfect poem than Ozymandias.

[Anonymous No.5859276]

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast, the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

[Anonymous No.5859279]

>>5859269
Those final lines always get me.

The Weary Blues
Langston Hughes, 1902 - 1967

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man’s soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
“Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
And put ma troubles on the shelf.”

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—
“I got the Weary Blues
And I can’t be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can’t be satisfied—
I ain’t happy no mo’
And I wish that I had died.”
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.

[Sully Prudhomme No.5859367]

Le vase où meurt cette verveine
D'un coup d'éventail fut fêlé ;
Le coup dut effleurer à peine :
Aucun bruit ne l'a révélé.

Mais la légère meurtrissure,
Mordant le cristal chaque jour,
D'une marche invisible et sûre
En a fait lentement le tour.

Son eau fraîche a fui goutte à goutte,
Le suc des fleurs s'est épuisé ;
Personne encore ne s'en doute ;
N'y touchez pas, il est brisé.

Souvent aussi la main qu'on aime,
Effleurant le coeur, le meurtrit ;
Puis le coeur se fend de lui-même,
La fleur de son amour périt ;

Toujours intact aux yeux du monde,
Il sent croître et pleurer tout bas
Sa blessure fine et profonde ;
Il est brisé, n'y touchez pas.

[Anonymous No.5859398]

King Richard II has some excellent poetry. Best are act iii scene ii, and act iv scene i. Here's King Richard II's monologue in response to being told that the rebellion has grown and will inevitably depose him:

No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?
BISHOP OF CARLISLE
My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,
But presently prevent the ways to wail.
To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,
Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe,
And so your follies fight against yourself.
Fear and be slain; no worse can come to fight:
And fight and die is death destroying death;
Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.

[Anonymous No.5859401]

>>5859398
whoops, some more got in. just ignore the reply (or read it if you want!)

[Anonymous No.5859528]

اَللهُ اَكْبَر اَللهُ اَكْبَر
إِنَّكَ اَنتَ أًلعلِيمُ ألحَكِيم
اَللهُ اَكْبَر اَللهُ اَكْبَر
إِنَّهُ هُوَ ألتّوَّاَبُ الرَّحيم
اَللهُ اَكْبَر اَللهُ اَكْبَر
وَهُدًي وَّ بؤ بُشرأ ا لِلمُؤمِنينَ
اَللهُ اَكْبَر اَللهُ اَكْبَر
إِنَّكَ اَنتَ السَّمِيعُ العليمُ
وأعَلمُ اْ أًنَّ اللهَ عَزِيزُ حَكيمْ

قَالُ لَنَا عزرائيل
اِسرافيلُ ميكائيل
اَيضًا لَنَا جِبرايل
لَا اِلهَ اِلَا اللهْ
يا اللهُ اَرحَمْنَا
وَ احْفَظْ مِنْ عَدُوِنَا
زَيّنت فِ لِسَانِنَا
لَا اِلهَ اِلَا اللهْ

اِبراهيم خَلِيلُ اللهْ
اِسمَاعِيل ذَبِيحُ اللهْ
عَلّمَ الِخَلقِ اللهْ
لَا اِلهَ اِلَا اللهْ
وَ نوُح'' مَعَ اَهْلِهْ
وَاسْتَوَتْ عَلَى اْلُجودِي
مَا كَانَ يَقُولُ هُو
لَا اِلهَ اِلَا اللهْ

[Anonymous No.5859538]

>>5859528

《施氏食狮史》

石室诗士施氏,嗜狮,誓食十狮。
氏时时适市视狮。
十时,适十狮适市。
是时,适施氏适市。
氏视是十狮,恃矢势,使是十狮逝世。
氏拾是十狮尸,适石室。
石室湿,氏使侍拭石室。
石室拭,氏始试食是十狮。
食时,始识是十狮尸,实十石狮尸。
试释是事。

[Anonymous No.5859607]

>>5859122
>tfw been studying in germany since september and all i had to look up was rüde

feels good

[Anonymous No.5859634]

There are great moments in some of D.H. Lawrence's poetry, I often think he ruins them in some way. Except for this one. This one almost makes me shake.


Bavarian Gentians
-------------------------

Not every man has gentians in his house
In Soft September, at slow, sad Michaelmas.
Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark
Darkening the day-time torch-like with the smoking blueness of Pluto's gloom,
Ribbed and torch-like with their blaze of darkness spread blue
Down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day
Torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, Pluto's dark-blue daze,
Black lamps from the halls of Dis, burning dark blue,
Giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter's pale lamps give off light,
Lead me then, lead me the way.

Reach me a gentian, give me a torch
Let me guide myself with the blue, forked touch of this flower
Down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness,
Even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September
To the sightless realm where darkness is awake upon the dark
And Persephone herself is but a voice
Or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
Of the arms Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense gloom,
Among the splendour of torches of darkness, shedding darkness on the lost bride and her groom.

[TheOnlyAustralianInBrit/pol/ !SDj8IFD6gY No.5859658]

what is it really that is going on here,
you've got the system for total control
so is there anybody out there,
now watch us suffer, cause we can't go
what is it really that is in your head,
what little life that you had just died
i'm gonna be the one that's taking over,
now this is what it's like when worlds collide ...

are you ready to go - cause i'm ready to go - what you gonna do baby - baby
are you going with me - cause i'm going with you - it's the end of all time

what is it really that motivates you, the need to fly or this fear to stop
i'll go along for the ride but surprise, when we get there is say 9 of 10 drop
now who's the light and who is the devil, you can't decide so i'll be your guide
and one by one they will be hand chosen,
now this is what it's like when worlds collide ...

are you ready to go - cause i'm ready to go - what you gonna do baby - baby
are you going with me - cause i'm going with you - it's the end of all time

what is it really when they're falling over,
everything that you thought was denied
i'm gonna be the one that's takin over,
now this is what it's like when worlds collide

[Anonymous No.5859671]

>>5859658
oh the kekkles

[Anonymous No.5859697]

WHEN then—if such thy lot—thou seest thy Judge,
The sight of Him will kindle in thy heart,
All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts.
Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for Him,
And feel as though thou couldst but pity Him,
That one so sweet should e’er have placed Himself
At disadvantage such, as to be used
So vilely by a being so vile as thee.
There is a pleading in His pensive eyes
Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee.
And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself; for, though
Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast sinned,
As never thou didst feel; and wilt desire
To slink away, and hide thee from His sight;
And yet wilt have a longing aye to dwell
Within the beauty of His countenance.
And these two pains, so counter and so keen,—
The longing for Him, when thou seest Him not;
The shame of self at thought of seeing Him,—
Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.

[Anonymous No.5859703]

I am drifting in the wind
like a bag of water
oosh, o'er the hills I go

[Anonymous No.5859874]

>>5859703
>drifting in the wind like a bag of water

[Anonymous No.5859913]

>>5858672
Alright friend, I've read and re-read this excerpt of yours, and I have a general idea of what it means.

But could you please, in your own words, explain what your excerpt is about.

Sorry for the late reply, I was sleeping.

[Anonymous No.5859924]

>>5859703

>not bags of sand

[Anonymous No.5860140]

Some anon posted this by Larkin once and I love it:

Since the majority of me
Rejects the majority of you,
Debating ends forwith, and we
Divide. And sure of what to do

We disinfect new blocks of days
For our majorities to rent
With unshared friends and unwalked ways,
But silence too is eloquent:

A silence of minorities
That, unopposed at last, return
Each night with cancelled promises
They want renewed. They never learn.

[Anonymous No.5860154]

Some of the impact of this poem might be lost on you if you're not Irish because of some of the cultural context surrounding the poem itself, but I reread this years after reading it in school and the last few lines left me with a bit of a lump in my throat.

Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

[Anonymous No.5860193]

Forgot one>>5858516
John Clare - I Am

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes—
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below—above the vaulted sky.