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r/CasualConversation•
CartoonMango

Let's chat about poetry

It's about 4am where I am and I'm thinking about poetry for no particular reason.

I haven't really read any poetry since high school. I guess it seems frivolous or pretentious (not that I'm using my time well anyway). Recently I browsed my way through a bookstore and was surprised by how much I liked a small book of Irish poems, and another focusing on poems about Baghdad. And there have been poems I've come across in daily life that I still come back to.

So, what are your thoughts/experiences/memories/opinions dealing with poetry? Maybe share a favorite poem, and why you like it? It seems like a good late night (now early morning) topic somehow.

Posted Feb 15, 2016, 9:13 AM UTC

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JezzPanda•

I'll kick it off: I hate 99% of poetry.

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professionalevilstarfor hire•

Be the 1%: u/Poem_for_your_sprog

Sample: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3z9vd3/what_is_the_most_bullshit_sounding_true_fact_that/cykil5t

'We're off,' he cried and clapped with pride,

'To sail amongst the stars!

We'll take a trip upon a ship

To walk the moon and mars!

'We'll float and fly beyond the sky,

In search of ice, my boy!

The coldest place in all of space!'

He cried aloud with joy.

And so he went, and left, content,

To make his earnest start.

He searched around... and quickly found

My ex's fucking heart.

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JezzPanda•

He/she writes some of the only poems that I enjoy. I'd like poetry more If I understood half of it.

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professionalevilstarfor hire•

yeah that's part of the reason why I want to, one day, take class in literature. I know it hides more than just fancy words you know? But for now I just like these what OP described as people's poet.

Shel Silverstein guy also wrote many funny poems too.

It's probably the fact that I grew up reading this one book of Silverstein's poems that I have a lingering love for poetry, completely unrealised because I'm much more scientifically minded :(

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CartoonMangoOP•

I remember asking for and receiving all of shel silverstein's books when I was a kid. They were nice and hardbound, I got a huge kick out of them. I wonder what happened to them.

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CartoonMangoOP•

I think that's a lot better than indiscriminately liking it all!

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JezzPanda•

I'm fine with reading a bit of it, but when I was at school, we'd spend every English lesson analysing every little thing that Carol Ann Duffy did.

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CartoonMangoOP•

Just read a bit. Very dramatic with all the short lines. I can remember getting really pissed in 10th grade once because we had like an hour long discussion about the deeper meaning of "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams.

"So much depends upon

a red wheel barrow

glazed with rain water

beside the white chickens."

THAT'S IT. I remember losing it when someone "interpreted" the red wheelbarrow as communism.

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JezzPanda•

There was this one guy in my class who would go on forever about something as pathetic as a semicolon; which symbolised the break between childhood and being an adult.

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professionalevilstarfor hire•

If I ever get financially well-off- that is, beyond just stable- I want to take some university courses in English literature and other liberal arts. I like poetry, but I'm rather daunted by most.

My favourite poet is u/Poem_for_your_sprog and Shel Silverstein.

...yeah I only like the funny ones

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CartoonMangoOP•

The people's poet. I wonder who they really are.

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professionalevilstarfor hire•

https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/3aungz/hi_im_sam_garland_aka_upoem_for_your_sprog_ive/

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CartoonMangoOP•

Huh. Well there's the answer to that. That guy is gifted.

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EddieTheJesterheadHi•

I like writing poems when I'm feeling down, because it often helps me dealing with my issues. If something bothers me, I'll write a poem about it. It's not that my problems just disappear, but somehow writing down my feelings just makes me feel better :P

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TheSausageGuyWhen The Moon Hits Your Eye•

I don't mean to be ignorant.

But i don't really understand almost all poetry. Ive never really read any poem that I've been moved by.

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CartoonMangoOP•

Nah I think that's normal. I've never really been able to easily interpret it either. Metaphors usually have to hit me over the head before I realize they're there. Usually the only ones that have made an impression were because 1)they were relevant to my life at the time or 2)I just thought the language was really nice without worrying about the meaning.

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olioli86•

Meaning doesn't have to be subtle, some poetry is too caught up in the cleverness of its own writing in my opinion. I fully agree with relevance increasing impact as well, here is one I wrote about a couple where one has Alzheimer's, I think if your experienced similar things then its impact will inevitably be greater. Not saying it's anything great, but it's nice to share. I've done a couple of silly give me a topic and I'll write you a poem threads as well, sometimes poetry cab just be silly and fun. Sprog is on a while different level though, the simile and metaphor is so clever, yet simplistic and the poems are incredibly concise for what they manage to convey, that takes real talent.

Forgotten Love

Remember when you knew my name
The past and present weren't the same
Now memories play you like a game
Your history standing still

I listen, though I could ignore
Because you've said it all before
Facts they change, but still you're sure
The gaps I gently fill

But in all this you're there with me
Being the best that you can be
I don't want I, I still love we
It's us until... until

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CartoonMangoOP•

Cummings is always interesting and a little disorienting. Reads like the output of a poem generator tool.

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CartoonMangoOP•

Uhh idk if I can reply to my own post but here's one I think about sometimes: http://www.poetrytranslation.org/poems/amazement

It's a Somali love poem, meant to be sung. Found it while googling around after talking about how Somalia's alphabet is so new compared to its language in class. I wonder how accurate the translation is, but I like it anyway. The second stanza (verse?) with the long comparison to nature always gets me.

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MythKitty7•

I love good poetry... but there's so little to love! This one makes me smile: [Paper People] (https://youtu.be/Z94sQNlQge0)

I started writing poetry at age eleven after buying a book of poetry at a yard sale my mother had dragged me to. In the mid-90s, I was a popular performance poet. I haven't read anywhere for years but, every now and again, I write something I can be proud of. =)

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UveampalineUpvote Mode Initiated•

I used to write poetry when I was younger, I think I compared myself to much to others. Being deaf it would be hard to hear rhyme and metre and all that. I do like reading it though. Some poetry puts me off and some like Emily Dickinson really resonate with me.

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CartoonMangoOP•

Do you have a favorite Dickinson poem/one you'd like to share? I could never get a feel for her in high school but admittedly I've only read a couple of her poems.

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UveampalineUpvote Mode Initiated•

I haven't read her poems in a while, my bookmark was on the following poem. I liked the imagary in at the time.

I would not paint — a picture —

I'd rather be the One

It's bright impossibility

To dwell — delicious — on —

And wonder how the fingers feel

Whose rare — celestial — stir —

Evokes so sweet a torment —

Such sumptuous — Despair —

I would not talk, like Cornets —

I'd rather be the One

Raised softly to the Ceilings —

And out, and easy on —

Through Villages of Ether —

Myself endued Balloon

By but a lip of Metal —

The pier to my Pontoon —

Nor would I be a Poet —

It's finer — Own the Ear —

Enamored — impotent — content —

The License to revere,

A privilege so awful

What would the Dower be,

Had I the Art to stun myself

With Bolts — of Melody!

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WorkingNinj•

I'm a poet, there is a lot of boring and bad poetry out there, currently I'm enjoying Warshan Shire a lot, I'm rereading a Leonard Cohen collection.

Buddy wakefield is another great one.

"It was not my intention to make such a

production of the emptiness between us

playing tuba on the tombstone of a soprano

to try and keep some dead singer’s perspective alive.

It’s just that I coulda swore you had sung me a love song back there

and that you meant it

but I guess sometimes people just chew with their mouth open"

http://buddywakefield.com/hurling-crowbirds-at-mockingbars-hope-is-not-a-course-of-action/

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jakethespectrego pink!•

My favourite poem ever.

Otherwise though, I'm not too much into poetry, with one exception. My best friend at college writes really good poetry on very dark topics. Suicide, insanity, life. He also writes love poems for his girlfriend and those are adorable, so I like those too.

If someone reminds me in like 5 hours I'll ask him if I can post some of his poetry.

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bearondiet•

I am not a big fan of poetry, but when I get to read them, I favor the ones with powerful impacts like T. S. Elliot.

"Along the reaches of the street

Held in a lunar synthesis,

Whispering lunar incantations

Dissolve the floors of memory

And all its clear relations,

Its divisions and precisions,

Every street lamp that I pass

Beats like a fatalistic drum,

And through the spaces of the dark

Midnight shakes the memory

As a madman shakes a dead geranium."

See, I especially like this part.

"Whispering lunar incantations

Dissolve the floors of memory

And all its clear relations,

Its divisions and precisions,"

That's so beautiful. This is my favorite poem.

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Viscous_Crescendolikes eating cereal•

r/HaikuConversation shameless plug.

With that out of the way...I've written some poetry, and read a lot. It's not for me. I'm wired to absorb more through prose.

u/poem_for_your_sprog is pretty incredible, and I really admire his ability to come up with great poetry on the fly.

It might be an obvious choice but I think my favorite poem is "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. Especially when it's recited by Homer Simpson.

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