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Original poster

Have we had a favourite poem thread?

130 replies

turquey · 14/12/2004 15:06

Or is that a bit pretentious?

Well the favourite classics thread got me thinking so here's mine:

Bat - DH Laurence
'The expense of spirit in a waste of shame' sonnet - Shakespeare
Dulce et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen
Lament - Dylan Thomas
The Waste Land - TS Eliot

OP posts:
spacedonkey · 14/12/2004 15:07

The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock - TS Eliot

spacedonkey · 14/12/2004 15:08

On This Island - WH Auden

popsycal · 14/12/2004 15:09

spacemonkey.......Let us go then, you and i, where the evening is laid ot against the sky, like a patient etherised on a table - it is that one isnt it?

TinselTamum · 14/12/2004 15:09

Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas

The Sunlight on the Garden by Louis MacNeice

(pretentious, moi? )

spacedonkey · 14/12/2004 15:10

yep that is the one, it's so atmospheric, i love it

MariNativityPlay · 14/12/2004 15:12

Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold.
An Arundel Tomb, Philip Larkin.

We have discussed this before somewhere but everyone loves a thread like this so I'm up for it again...bringing W H Auden to wider knowledge was the best thing about Four Weddings and a Funeral IMO spacedonkey...

spacedonkey · 14/12/2004 15:13

at risk of soundling like a complete ponce, wh auden is really musical dontchathink?

MariNativityPlay · 14/12/2004 15:17

Yes, I'll join in you in the nonce corner. Finest English lyrical love poet of the 20th century. I know one is supposed to rate Robert Graves on this front but I much prefer his prose.

spacedonkey · 14/12/2004 15:26

I do like a bit of John Hegley too

spacedonkey · 14/12/2004 15:28

A Somewhat Absent Minded Attempt to Be Politically Correct
-----

Someone I don't know that well
tells me they have a little boy.
"Oh yes," I enquire, "and how old is he or she?"

John Hegley

moondog · 14/12/2004 15:28

'Poppies' Sylvia Plath
Anyone remember the name of that one about birth of her child? Starts with
'Love set you ticking like a big fat clock'

V partial to Seamus Heaney.

MariNativityPlay · 14/12/2004 15:28

"My new glasses", bless. Billy Bragg too, come to think of it.

MariNativityPlay · 14/12/2004 15:28

snurk spacedonkey!

TinselTamum · 14/12/2004 15:33

Or the seminal Hegley poem about the tension between his humble origins and his current status:

I remember Luton
When I'm swallowing my crouton

spacedonkey · 14/12/2004 15:34

Grin Grin Grin

MariNativityPlay · 14/12/2004 15:34

I'm getting a flashback to Jack Straw thinking mushy peas were guacamole here...

spacedonkey · 14/12/2004 15:35

another of my fav hegleys

"Poem about not using tropical hardwoods
because it diminishes the rain forests"

this winter
I hope you get a splinter
if you make a toboggan
and it is a mahog'un

spacedonkey · 14/12/2004 15:38

the crouton one is a work of genius though

i never heard the jack straw story - excellent

Pagan · 14/12/2004 15:43

I eat peas and honey
I've done it all my life
It makes the peas taste funny
But they stick on to my knife!

TinselTamum · 14/12/2004 15:45

I'd forgotten that one sd. It still makes me laugh out loud.

It is a bit like that Jack Straw story Marine, isn't it?

I met John Hegley once. Should maybe have put that on the claim to fame thread, but there's less chance of someone saying "Who??" on here

TinselTamum · 14/12/2004 15:46

Marina, sorry!

spacedonkey · 14/12/2004 15:50

He must live near me, I've seen him in the school playground when picking ds up. He's a genius.

moondog · 14/12/2004 15:55

I thought the guacamole story was a bit of an urban myth!
Simon Armitage-really rate him.

MariNativityPlay · 14/12/2004 15:56

Very possibly moondog, but a droll one!
I love Simon Armitage too.

anorak · 14/12/2004 15:59

This thread would be even better if you posted the actual poems you like! I'd certainly like to read them.