5 ms·

Ask HN: What are your favorite poems?

13 points by ntumlin 9y ago

wu-ikkyu 9y ago
The long night; The sound of the water Says what I think. -Gochiku
cmoney 9y ago
"Cynthia" -Jonah Hill
PaulHoule 9y ago
I like this guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski#Poetry_collections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski#Poetry_collec... "War all the time" is a good place to start.
danm07 9y ago
There are the rushing waves mountains of molecules each stupidly minding its own business trillions apart yet forming white surf in unison Ages on ages before any eyes could see year after year thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what? On a dead planet with no life to entertain. Never at rest tortured by energy wasted prodigiously by the Sun poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar. Deep in the sea all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves and a new dance starts. Growing in size and complexity living things masses of atoms DNA, protein dancing a pattern ever more intricate. Out of the cradle onto dry land here it is standing: atoms with consciousness; matter with curiosity. Stands at the sea, wonders at wondering: I a universe of atoms an atom in the Universe. Feynman
- mbrock 9y ago
  Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight, Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot, Down from the shower’d halo, Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears, From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist, From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease, From the myriad thence-arous’d words, From the word stronger and more delicious than any, From such as now they start the scene revisiting, As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly, A man, yet by these tears a little boy again, Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter, Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them, A reminiscence sing. (First verse of Whitman's Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking)
vijayr 9y ago
If - Rudyard Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if--- https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if--- Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woo... Emily Dickinson! Here is one I’m Nobody! Who are you? I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know! How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog – To tell one’s name – the livelong June – To an admiring Bog!
Jemaclus 9y ago
I don't really "get" poetry. I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent and well-read, but I've just had a hard time wrapping my head around poetry as a medium. That said, I do enjoy Robert Frost (cliche, I know). The only poem I can recite in totality is "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allen Poe, and part of why I really liked that one is that it tells a short story, and a vivid one at that. Beyond that, I'm not sure. I'd be interested in a "Understanding Poetry's Awesomeness for Dummies" course, though...
- nxsynonym 9y ago
  Poetry is like visual art or music, sometimes there is nothing to "get". Of course there are ways to approach analytically, but I don't believe that's where the awesomeness can be found. To me its about connecting to a particular phrase, image, perspective, or description. Once you feel that connection to a certain poem its a lot easier to feel like you understand it. The poem I always go back to when people say they don't get poetry is: " so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. " - William Carlos Williams It's simple and effective. A single image, a specific point in time and place, are being described with only a few lines and yet you can almost reach onto the page and touch it. You can try to see it as an extended metaphor, or take it completely at face value. Either way - it's beautiful.
  - hood_syntax 9y ago
    I love William Carlos Williams. I'm not an avid poetry reader, but I always loved going through his work. Another favorite is Alfred Tennyson.
- mapster 9y ago
  don't try to 'get' it. a poem is like a song. just listen or read it, and the words have meaning or they don't. eventually you will want more, so you will listen/read with closer attention etc. poetry is an inside joke.
david927 9y ago
Lost by Carl Sandburg Desolate and lone All night long on the lake Where fog trails and mist creeps, The whistle of a boat Calls and cries unendingly, Like some lost child In tears and trouble Hunting the harbor's breast And the harbor's eyes.
seeyes 9y ago
The Frog and the Nightingale (Vikram Seth) - https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-frog-and-the-nightingale/ https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-frog-and-the-nightingale... Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woo... Mending Wall - Robert Frost https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44266/mending-wall https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44266/mending-wall The Second Coming - W.B.Yeats http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html The Mountain and the Squirrel - Emerson https://sites.google.com/site/rainydaypoems/poems-for-kids/classic-poems-for-kids/the-mountain-and-the-squirrel-by-ralph-waldo-emerson https://sites.google.com/site/rainydaypoems/poems-for-kids/c...
mrdependable 9y ago
Pathedy of Manners - Ellen Kay Curiosity - Alistair Reid
kleer001 9y ago
Anything by Shel Silverstein, it's all gold.
yung_endian 9y ago
They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.
krapp 9y ago
pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Progress is a comfortable disease: your victim (death and life safely beyond) plays with the bigness of his littleness --- electrons deify one razorblade into a mountainrange; lenses extend unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish returns on its unself. A world of made is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this fine specimen of hypermagical ultraomnipotence. We doctors know a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go. E. E. Cummings
bmomb 9y ago
I'm Brazilian, so my poem favorite poem is in portuguese, its called A Máquina do Mundo (The World's Machine). Wikipedia as an assert about it: The most prominent of these later metaphysical poems is A Máquina do Mundo (The World's Machine). The poem deals with an anti-Faust referred to in the first person, who receives the visit of the aforementioned Machine, which stands for all possible knowledge, and the sum of the answers for all the questions which afflict men; in highly dramatic and baroque versification the poem develops only for the anonymous subject to decline the offer of endless knowledge and proceed his gloomy path in the solitary road. It takes the renaissance allegory of the Machine of the World from Portugal's most esteemed poet, Luís de Camões, more precisely, from a canto at the end of his epic masterpiece Os Lusíadas.[0] [0] Wikipedia about Drummond, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Drummond_de_Andrade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Drummond_de_Andrade

13 points by ntumlin 9y ago

wu-ikkyu 9y ago

The long night; The sound of the water Says what I think. -Gochiku

cmoney 9y ago

"Cynthia" -Jonah Hill

PaulHoule 9y ago

I like this guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski#Poetry_collections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski#Poetry_collec... "War all the time" is a good place to start.

danm07 9y ago

There are the rushing waves mountains of molecules each stupidly minding its own business trillions apart yet forming white surf in unison Ages on ages before any eyes could see year after year thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what? On a dead planet with no life to entertain. Never at rest tortured by energy wasted prodigiously by the Sun poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar. Deep in the sea all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves and a new dance starts. Growing in size and complexity living things masses of atoms DNA, protein dancing a pattern ever more intricate. Out of the cradle onto dry land here it is standing: atoms with consciousness; matter with curiosity. Stands at the sea, wonders at wondering: I a universe of atoms an atom in the Universe. Feynman

mbrock 9y ago
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight, Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot, Down from the shower’d halo, Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears, From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist, From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease, From the myriad thence-arous’d words, From the word stronger and more delicious than any, From such as now they start the scene revisiting, As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly, A man, yet by these tears a little boy again, Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter, Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them, A reminiscence sing. (First verse of Whitman's Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking)

vijayr 9y ago

If - Rudyard Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if--- https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if--- Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woo... Emily Dickinson! Here is one I’m Nobody! Who are you? I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know! How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog – To tell one’s name – the livelong June – To an admiring Bog!

Jemaclus 9y ago

I don't really "get" poetry. I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent and well-read, but I've just had a hard time wrapping my head around poetry as a medium. That said, I do enjoy Robert Frost (cliche, I know). The only poem I can recite in totality is "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allen Poe, and part of why I really liked that one is that it tells a short story, and a vivid one at that. Beyond that, I'm not sure. I'd be interested in a "Understanding Poetry's Awesomeness for Dummies" course, though...

nxsynonym 9y ago
Poetry is like visual art or music, sometimes there is nothing to "get". Of course there are ways to approach analytically, but I don't believe that's where the awesomeness can be found. To me its about connecting to a particular phrase, image, perspective, or description. Once you feel that connection to a certain poem its a lot easier to feel like you understand it. The poem I always go back to when people say they don't get poetry is: " so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. " - William Carlos Williams It's simple and effective. A single image, a specific point in time and place, are being described with only a few lines and yet you can almost reach onto the page and touch it. You can try to see it as an extended metaphor, or take it completely at face value. Either way - it's beautiful.
- hood_syntax 9y ago
  I love William Carlos Williams. I'm not an avid poetry reader, but I always loved going through his work. Another favorite is Alfred Tennyson.
mapster 9y ago
don't try to 'get' it. a poem is like a song. just listen or read it, and the words have meaning or they don't. eventually you will want more, so you will listen/read with closer attention etc. poetry is an inside joke.

david927 9y ago

Lost by Carl Sandburg Desolate and lone All night long on the lake Where fog trails and mist creeps, The whistle of a boat Calls and cries unendingly, Like some lost child In tears and trouble Hunting the harbor's breast And the harbor's eyes.

seeyes 9y ago

The Frog and the Nightingale (Vikram Seth) - https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-frog-and-the-nightingale/ https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-frog-and-the-nightingale... Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woo... Mending Wall - Robert Frost https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44266/mending-wall https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44266/mending-wall The Second Coming - W.B.Yeats http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html The Mountain and the Squirrel - Emerson https://sites.google.com/site/rainydaypoems/poems-for-kids/classic-poems-for-kids/the-mountain-and-the-squirrel-by-ralph-waldo-emerson https://sites.google.com/site/rainydaypoems/poems-for-kids/c...

mrdependable 9y ago

Pathedy of Manners - Ellen Kay Curiosity - Alistair Reid

kleer001 9y ago

Anything by Shel Silverstein, it's all gold.

yung_endian 9y ago

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.

krapp 9y ago

pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Progress is a comfortable disease: your victim (death and life safely beyond) plays with the bigness of his littleness --- electrons deify one razorblade into a mountainrange; lenses extend unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish returns on its unself. A world of made is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this fine specimen of hypermagical ultraomnipotence. We doctors know a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go. E. E. Cummings

bmomb 9y ago

I'm Brazilian, so my poem favorite poem is in portuguese, its called A Máquina do Mundo (The World's Machine). Wikipedia as an assert about it: The most prominent of these later metaphysical poems is A Máquina do Mundo (The World's Machine). The poem deals with an anti-Faust referred to in the first person, who receives the visit of the aforementioned Machine, which stands for all possible knowledge, and the sum of the answers for all the questions which afflict men; in highly dramatic and baroque versification the poem develops only for the anonymous subject to decline the offer of endless knowledge and proceed his gloomy path in the solitary road. It takes the renaissance allegory of the Machine of the World from Portugal's most esteemed poet, Luís de Camões, more precisely, from a canto at the end of his epic masterpiece Os Lusíadas.[0] [0] Wikipedia about Drummond, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Drummond_de_Andrade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Drummond_de_Andrade