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Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

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Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#42

Post by bzalasky »

One Art

Elizabeth Bishop, 1911 - 1979 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bishop)

  The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
  so many things seem filled with the intent
  to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

  Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
  of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
  The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

  Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
  places, and names, and where it was you meant 
  to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

  I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
  next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
  The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

  I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
  some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
  I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

  —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
  I love) I shan’t have lied.  It’s evident
  the art of losing’s not too hard to master
  though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#43

Post by peri »

As somebody who studied lit, this is an impossible question to answer, so I'll just link to my favorite John Donne ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Donne ) poem from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Sonnets, number 14 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Holy_Sonnets#Holy_Sonnet_14

  Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
  As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
  That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
  Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
  I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
  Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
  Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
  But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
  Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
  But am betroth'd unto your enemy:
  Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
  Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
  Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
  Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
It's set to music in the fantastic Doctor Atomic by John Adams, with a superb recording available from http://www.metopera.org

Edits: still not good at HN formatting, should be good now.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#44

Post by rb2k_ »

I don't particularly enjoy poetry (or poets for that matter), but I always liked reading "Algorhyme" by Radia Perlman, the inventor of spanning tree network protocol

    Algorhyme

    I think that I shall never see
    A graph more lovely than a tree.
    A tree whose crucial property
    Is loop-free connectivity.
    A tree that must be sure to span
    So packets can reach every LAN.
    First, the root must be selected.
    By ID, it is elected.
    Least-cost paths from root are traced.
    In the tree, these paths are placed.
    A mesh is made by folks like me,
    Then bridges find a spanning tree.
    
    - Radia Perlman

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#45

Post by peri »

rb2k_ wrote: post #44

I don't particularly enjoy poetry (or poets for that matter), but I always liked reading "Algorhyme" by Radia Perlman, the inventor of spanning tree network protocol Algorhyme I think that I shall never see A graph more lovely than a tree. A tree whose crucial property Is loop-free connectivity. A tree that must be sure to span So packets can reach every LAN. First, the root must be selected. By ID, it is elected. Le…

This is a great one, and one that often comes up when I tutor students. It's even better if you can teach it as a sing-along.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#46

Post by peri »

harperlee wrote: post #21
rdtsc wrote: post #14

I like George Bacovia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bacovia ) Here is his probably most known one: Plumb Dormeau adanc sicriele de plumb, Si flori de plumb si funerar vesmant - Stam singur in cavou ... si era vant ... Si scartaiau coroanele de plumb. Dormea intors amorul meu de plumb Pe flori de plumb, si-am inceput sa-l strig - Stam singur langa mort ... si era frig ... Si-i atarnau aripile de plumb. (Transl…

Regarding poetry translation (and a lot more), there is this book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Ton_beau_de_Marot By Douglas Hofstadter, that I quite like and recommend!

This is (arguably) a better book than GEB ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel,_Escher,_Bach ) for the literature-minded folks out there. I can't recommend it enough.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#47

Post by bcostlow »

scmoore wrote: post #2

It's been a long time since my last college English class, but I enjoyed Derek Walcott: "...I loved them, my children, my wife, my home; I loved them as poets love the poetry that kills them, as drowned sailors the sea." http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177932 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Walcott

A fellow Walcott fan!

"The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome..."

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#48

Post by peri »

xekul wrote: post #32

T.S. Eliot. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" perfectly captures the essence of a middle-aged man's insecurities, and Eliot wrote it when he was 23.

Eliot is amazing; folks who love his work do themselves a disservice, however, if they aren't also reading Ezra Pound ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound ) for a very different perspective on most of the same inspirations that made Eliot's early work so powerful.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#49

Post by segf4ult » 

    Jenny Kissed Me
    by Leigh Hunt
    
    Jenny kissed me when we met,
    Jumping from the chair she sat in.
    Time, you thief! who love to get
    Sweets into your list, put that in.
    Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;
    Say that health and wealth have missed me;
    Say I'm growing old, but add-
    Jenny kissed me!
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