Would anyone be able to recommend me their favourite poem?

[Purplturpl]

Particularly if it evokes strong emotions. I want to convince my teenager poetry can be amazing

Makes me cry everytime was thinking of putting it on my sons grave but probably not

"Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling upon the Bog of Allen and, further westwards, falling into the waves. It was falling too upon every part of the churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay drifted on the crosses and headstones, on the spears of the gate, on the thorns. His soul swooned as he heard the snow falling through the universe and falling, like the descent of their end, upon all the living and the dead."

Small dreams of a Scorpion
.. absolutely brilliant.

Unto us.. my favourite. X

The Road Not Taken
Play Audio
By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

John Donne, The Bait

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.

There will the river whispering run
Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun;
And there the 'enamour'd fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth,
By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare, or windowy net.

Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest;
Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes.

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait:
That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,
Alas, is wiser far than I.

I don't know if your teenager would like John Donne, but I discovered him as a teenager...

He might also like For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is pithier and much-quoted.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Hear this sung in Edward German's setting if you can.

Prayer before birth by Louis MacNeice

I love Jess Urlichs.
Before having DC I used to find poetry a bit boring (could just be me being completely uncultured!) but poems by Jess Urlichs always make me a bit emotional. In particular this one:

Dear Husband,

There’s a life in the future with little faces in photo frames instead of before our eyes,
artwork and ABC magnets won’t adorn our fridge, and these old leggings I’m wearing right now will be long gone.

There’s a bed big enough, where little elbows and knees won’t prod us in our sleep, and only our feet will swing out in the morning.

There’s a vase placed in reach of little arms because there aren’t any, and mugs will daringly sit on the edge of the table.

There’s a bank balance that looks a bit more forgiving, a bag I leave with that isn’t overflowing, and it will only take us 10 seconds from the door to the car.

There’s a free calendar that isn’t packed with swimming lessons, dance classes and muddy sports shoes. And we’ll get to know each other for a third time, before them, with them, and then when only two jackets hang at the door.

There’s a clean car, the only noise is the hum of the radio. There will be no endless questions in a high pitched voice from the back seat, there may even be days we don’t hear from them at all.

There’s a date night with no curfew, my mums not needed for babysitting, and we aren’t sleeping with one eye open waiting for the shuffle of feet down the hallway. A type of freedom that feels heavy.

There’s a house that’s clean, maybe our couch is new, and we aren’t stepping on Lego or toy cars either. In fact there’s not much colour anywhere, remember how we hated all the colour? Remember how it came with so much happiness?

There’s a dinner table that feels big, we aren’t negotiating bites of vegetables or wiping little hands and mouths. But sometimes there’s a knock on the door and the table is full once more.

There’s a shower that doesn’t sound like baby cries, a coffee that is warm and my body will be my own. We won’t wear tired the same way but time will have aged us anyway.

There will be hard moments to come that will make these moments look easy, but we’ll remember.
We’ll remember the first words, the curls, the “I love you’s”, the moments we almost broke, and how we held each other through it.
We’ll laugh and we’ll cry just like we did then.

There’s a life in the future and it’s coming for us every day.
So let’s get swept up in the beautiful chaos in front of us.
Let’s make the future wait a little longer.
Because I love this life with you so much,
this one right now.

I bought a book called A poem for every day of the year and we'd randomly pick it up now and then. Especially on someone's birthday to see what poem they had.
Some of the poems were quite funny and the dc did enjoy it.

That one's Wordsworth, a few centuries after Shakespeare.

Can anyone remember a poem about a girl bringing some crumpled daffodils to her grandmother in hospital? I have never found it again since I studied it in school. Google no help.

I can never read this poem without crying.

At 35, I broke up with a long term partner and this poem really helped me. I wasn't sure if what I was doing was the right choice but I'd been feeling so unhappy so so long and just ignoring the feelings. He just wanted to carry on as normal. It was a hard time but this poem helped me.

HAVING ALREADY WALKED OUT ON EVERYONE I EVER SAID I LOVED

I pause for a moment at your door
And consult my fate
This life is more stupid than even I could have hoped for
Every day a search party gets lost in the snow
With no one to dig them out again
I have tried for too long to act in ways that seem reasonable
Yet somehow, this makes me double-unreasonable?
Like flicking someone’s bra-strap at a coroner’s inquest
The official theme of this poem is
The official theme of all my poems which is
You get in love and then you die!
Oh write it in rhinestones on the lid of my coffin
Some people are too hard to be lived without
Once upon a time I used to feel like............huh
But then I started to feel a little more like..................................uhuh
Once upon a time I used to feel like.................??
But then I started to feel a little more like.................................????????
Having already walked out on everyone I ever said I loved
Things do not bode well for you
But things do also not bode well for me
Every year life gets less and less acceptable

And I feel uncertain of how to proceed in an appropriate fashion
To anticipate heartache is a grim satisfaction
Like tripping down a staircase in a peach negligee
Or an ancient forest with a new corsage of flames
It pleases me to subject myself to such whimsical hurt feelings
But under my main feelings, I have other, worse feelings
Like an auxiliary moat in which black swans are circling
If I ever die young I’m going to do it in style
.....like a Great Gatsby-themed suicide attempt!
Having already walked out on everyone I ever said I loved
I have so little left to say to you
I pause for a moment at your door
My eyes pouring out across the darkness
Oh let us not be little bitches to one another
Life is hard enough as it is
Life is hard enough and fast enough
And there is nothing in this world worth doing
But shaking our heads in awe
A little wind shifts the branches
A bird flies out of the radio and off into silence
I can hardly believe this
I can hardly believe this life
Every time I knock you let me in

The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins
ode to a Nightingale, and ode to Autumn, by John Keats

Has anyone said Dover Beach?

The Journey by Mary Oliver, makes me cry every time 🥹
Warning By Jenny Joseph

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

I was going to suggest this. I love it. He's so attached to Britain.

I like Gunga Din and people will throw up their hands but surely it's about a soldier completely re-thinking his racism.

I'm obsessed with Lucas Jones spoken word poetry on Instagram. It's really clever and moving and on insta so maybe more accessible to a teenager?

Here's one I've loved since childhood:

Overheard on a Saltmarsh
Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?
Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?
Give them me.
No.
Give them me. Give them me.
No.
Then I will howl all night in the reeds,
Lie in the mud and howl for them.
Goblin, why do you love them so?
They are better than stars or water,
Better than voices of winds that sing,
Better than any man's fair daughter,
Your green glass beads on a silver ring.
Hush, I stole them out of the moon.
Give me your beads, I want them.
No.

I will howl in the deep lagoon
For your green glass beads, I love them so.
Give them me. Give them.
No.

- Harold Monro (1879 - 1932)

I was going to suggest this. I love it. He's so attached to Britain.

And there's probably no-one left in Rome now who remembers him.

I like Gunga Din and people will throw up their hands but surely it's about a soldier completely re-thinking his racism.

Yes. And Mandalay is a former soldier comparing London to Burma, and wishing he was back there.

But that's all shove be'ind me–long ago an' fur away
An' there ain't no 'buses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else."

Give me your beads, I want them.

My preciousss

I love this.

Funeral Blues
Dover Beach
Invictus

If you are 14 I think a poem probably needs to have an obvious immediate emotional impact rather than requiring a bit of musing on. So that you get hooked.

Dunkirk - a ballad, by Robert Nathan, about the little boats going over the Channel to get as many men home from Dunkirk as they could.

I love anything by Andrea Gibson, or Donna Ashworth. Both are on instagram, which might make them more accessible to a young person?