I understand, your view is not uncommon; Richard Hugo mentions how even at university his role as being a professor of poetry was belittled by staff and students. I guess it is how you perceive the world, which is why I find if puzzling that you like Romanticism. I mean the Enlightenment/Romantic divide in Western thought has to be the greatest change in human reasoning since Monotheism.
Trust me, you are just reading the shit stuff. From what you've said here it sounds like the sort of poetry written by people who do not read poetry. Which is something that really annoys me. Also, modern poetry is in a bad way - but no one can read a good modern poet like Seamus Heaney and tell me it's all about narcissistic feelings. The Romantics, too, where the people who started all this off. Maybe you should try something like Alexander Pope, and see real wit and sophistication in poetry.
More people should also try branching out and reading poetry from China, Japan, the Middle East, etc. Some of the best poets in history have come from Asia.
My favorite poet is the California poet Robinson Jeffers. Do not read his later (post WWII) stuff. But what he wrote in the 1920s an '30s was magnificent. He wasn't a gentle man, trying to ease your fears. He was harsh, hard, and demanding. To me, where other poets (Shelley? Keats? These petty little children?) cowered in their odes to fucking urns or whatever, Jeffers towered like a giant straddling mountains, thundering his truth - intransigent, godlike. His narrative verse is hard to like (Roan Stallion, Tamar, The Women at Point Sur) but it's powerful. His shorter lyrics are my favorites: The Hurt Hawk, Continent's End, To The Stone Cutters, Shine, Perishing Republic, and most especially, Night. Jeffers' Night is probably my favorite poem of all time - I sometimes recite it to myself as I go to sleep. Here's Jeffers, The Hurt Hawk: I also love Walt Whitman. What an original! Shocking power. Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking is one I memorized when I was a teen. I don't think I could recite it all correctly now, but damn. I Sing the Body Electric? Come on. The title alone has to put it on your list of favorite poems! "He too is all qualities, he is action and power, the flush of the known universe is in him." Whitman was bolder than any poet I've ever read. He may even have been utterly crazy, but he was unique and monumental.
Walt Whitman's collection "Leaves of Grass". Thanks for reminding me. Held me firm in times of sorrow.
I've never read Walt Witman. I'm about to for my MA though, so it's good to see he has his fans. I must admit a great love of Seamus Heaney's poetry. Especially: And
@Lemex, those Heaney poems are terrific. Thanks for bringing them to my attention! The only thing I don't like about Heaney is his persistent use of short lines. I prefer long-line verse; poetry where you need to take a breath before you speak each line. Robinson Jeffers usually wrote in long lines (see "Continent's End" for example) and it feels more natural to recite aloud, I think. Short lines sound a little too precious to me.
North is one of my favourite poems. For me, it captures the feel of the north Atlantic perfectly. And I love the image of the viking warriors being like poets. It's wonderful, Ancestral Photograph is one of my two favourite poems from Death of a Naturalist. The other has to be this poem about the death of Heaney's brother: I've not read Robinson Jeffers, not even heard of him before. What can you suggest by him?
Jeffers was a powerful poet. He wrote a lot of narrative poems, just about all of which express his deep concern for nature and his disdain for humanity. Some of his narrative poems read like horror stories. I prefer his shorter lyric poems. I quoted "The Hurt Hawk" above. Probably my favorite poem of all time is his "Night." Google "Robinson Jeffers Night" and it pops up right away. I also love "Continent's End", "To The Stone Cutters", "Shine, Perishing Republic", the prelude to "The Women At Point Sur", and too many others to mention. Jeffers made the cover of Time Magazine on April 4, 1932. He was considered one of the most important poets in America then. He's probably the strongest poet I've read. He wrote like a man possessed, like a giant. He was not a twee little mewling wimp like some other poets, whining into their tea about Grecian urns or other unimportant things. Jeffers was a man who bellowed like a savage in his poetry. He was a force of nature. To me, he seems like a sorcerer, a shaman, who mastered the California coast and called down gods to illuminate it and illuminate mankind, ugly as we may be. He's shocking, mighty, his judgement comes down on us like Thor's hammer, and he's relentless. He's also stunningly beautiful when he wants to be. Google him. He wrote a ton of poetry. The Stanford University Press has published a hardcover, five-volume edition of his collected works, and I have the whole set - one of my proudest possessions! During and after World War II, he kind of went nuts, so that poetry isn't where you should start. His narrative poem "The Double Axe" killed his reputation and is probably the reason he isn't remembered well today. But in the 1920s and early 1930s, he was magnificent. Grand poetry. Huge poetry. Sometimes rough, but Herculean.
I see that I am the only one who has ready any Don Marquis, so it's up to me to show you. This is the first of a long running series that appeared in The Sun in 1927. It's part explanation of what kind of poetry would be in the column for the next 5 years and part poetry itself. Enjoy the coming of archy By Don Marquis, in “archy and mehitabel,” 1927 Dobbs Ferry possesses a rat which slips out of his lair at night and runs a typewriting machine in a garage. Unfortunately, he has always been interrupted by the watchman before he could produce a complete story. It was at first thought that the power which made the typewriter run was a ghost, instead of a rat. It seems likely to us that it was both a ghost and a rat. Mme. Blavatsky’s ego went into a white horse after she passed over, and someone’s personality has undoubtedly gone into this rat. It is an era of belief in communications from the spirit land. And since this matter has been reported in the public prints and seriously received we are no longer afraid of being ridiculed, and we do not mind making a statement of something that happened to our own typewriter only a couple of weeks ago. We came into our room earlier than usual in the morning, and discovered a gigantic cockroach jumping about on the keys. He did not see us, and we watched him. He would climb painfully upon the framework of the machine and cast himself with all his force upon a key, head downward, and his weight and the impact of the blow were just sufficient to operate the machine, one slow letter after another. He could not work the capital letters, and he had a great deal of difficulty operating the mechanism that shifts the paper so that a fresh line may be started. We never saw a cockroach work so hard or perspire so freely in all our lives before. After about an hour of this frightfully difficult literary labor he fell to the floor exhausted, and we saw him creep feebly into a nest of the poems which are always there in profusion. Congratulating ourself that we had left a sheet of paper in the machine the night before so that all this work had not been in vain, we made an examination, and this is what we found: expression is the need of my soul i was once a vers libre bard but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach it has given me a new outlook upon life i see things from the under side now thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it there is a cat here called mehitabel i wish you would have removed she nearly ate me the other night why dont she catch rats that is what she is supposed to be fore there is a rat here she should get without delay most of these rats here are just rats but this rat is like me he has a human soul in him he used to be a poet himself night after night i have written poetry for you on your typewriter and this big brute of a rat who used to be a poet comes out of his hole when it is done and reads it and sniffs at it he is jealous of my poetry he used to make fun of it when we were both human he was a punk poet himself and after he has read it he sneers and then he eats it i wish you would have mehitabel kill that rat or get a cat that is onto her job and i will write you a series of poems showing how things look to a cockroach that rats name is freddy the next time freddy dies i hope he wont be a rat but something smaller i hope i will be a rat in the next transmigration and freddy a cockroach i will teach him to sneer at my poetry then dont you ever eat any sandwiches in your office i haven’t had a crumb of bread for i dont know how long or a piece of ham or anything but apple parings and paste and leave a piece of paper in your machine every night you can call me archy ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Edited to Add: Links to more! http://donmarquis.com/archy-and-mehitabel
@Jack Asher, I have a copy of Don Marquis' Archy and Mehitabel in my personal library. My sister (a year older than me, and an English major in university) gave me this book and introduced me to the wonderful characters. I remember loving "Archy Declares War". Goddamn, that's funny and heartfelt and damn good. Your post made me bring the book out again and look at that poem and I'll be smiling for the rest of the day. "i swear by the great horned toad of mithridates i swear by the vision of whiskered old pythagoras that i am very angry i am mad as hell for i have seen a soapy kitchen mechanic murdering my brothers"... A great concept and wonderful execution!
Anyone a fan of Auden? I've recently started exploring him when I have the time. I especially like this one
Growing up, I loved the classics: Shelley, Byron, Blake. The Cloud is still one of my all-time favourites ever. I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. Always thought that'd make a nice epitaph. Also a fan of Rossetti. Next of Kin, which I gave a place in my debut novel. More recently, my aunt sent me Brand New Ancients by Kate Tempest. Blew me away. (extract) Major modern favourites include Queen Herod by Carol Ann Duffy, plus Da Wrong Song and According to my Mood (i WriTe thE way i waNt. i drop my full stops where i like………..), by Benjamin Zephaniah. Maya Angelou, Still I Rise. A friend introduced me to Aimé Césaire last year. Never encountered anything quite like him before. Edward Lear on acid. Phenominal stuff. Hard to find him in English, though. Really enjoy some of the performance poets. These three for instance. Got to see Big Chinned Woman live once
