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Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

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Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#71
Aside from Tolkien's poetry in-world poetry, my favorite is probably Tennyson. Ulysses in particular is awesome. This is the final stanza.

    There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
    There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
    Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
    That ever with a frolic welcome took
    The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
    Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
    Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
    Death closes all: but something ere the end,
    Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
    Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
    The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
    The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
    Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
    'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
    Push off, and sitting well in order smite
    The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
    To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
    Of all the western stars, until I die.
    It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
    It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
    And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
    Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
    We are not now that strength which in old days
    Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
    One equal temper of heroic hearts,
    Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
    To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#72
Seamus Heaney & Patrick Kavanagh

Heaney was a literary genius. Kavanagh was a master at capturing the bleak reality of working class Ireland.

Both very different in their own right but both are prime examples of the immense variety within Irish poetry.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#73

Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov... Yeah, I'm Russian :-p Among English poems, I rather like this one by Laurie Lee: A golden fish like a pint of wine Rolls the sea undergreen, Glassily balanced on the tide Only the skin between. Fish and water lean together, Separate and one, Till a fatal flash of the instant sun Lazily corkscrews down. Did fish and water drink each other? The reed leans there alone; As we, who once dra…

What Auden couldn't find On hornbooks or in verses Is whether it is our condition Only stirring with the curses

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#74
Mihai Eminescu - "Si Daca" (And If in English)

And if the branches tap my pane And the poplars whisper nightly, It is to make me dream again I hold you to me tightly.

And if the stars shine on the pond And light its sombre shoal, It is to quench my mind's despond And flood with peace my soul.

And if the clouds their tresses part And does the moon outblaze, It is but to remind my heart I long for you always.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#75
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.

If you haven't already, you should watch this lecture by Nick Mount on Eliot's "The Waste Land": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxF9xkB5o04

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

I recently reread Christopher Alexander's foreword to "Patterns of Software" and remembered his mention of this poem. He asks, with something that could be called optimism:

"Can you write a program which overcomes the gulf between the technical culture of our civilization, and which inserts itself into our human life as deeply as Eliot's poems of the wasteland or Virginia Woolf's The Waves?"

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#76
Desiderata by Max Ehrmann:

    Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
    and remember what peace there may be in silence.
    As far as possible without surrender
    be on good terms with all persons.
    Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
    and listen to others,
    even the dull and the ignorant;
    they too have their story. 
    
    Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
    they are vexations to the spirit.
    If you compare yourself with others,
    you may become vain and bitter;
    for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
    Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. 
    
    Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
    it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
    Exercise caution in your business affairs;
    for the world is full of trickery.
    But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
    many persons strive for high ideals;
    and everywhere life is full of heroism. 
    
    Be yourself.
    Especially, do not feign affection.
    Neither be cynical about love;
    for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
    it is as perennial as the grass. 
    
    Take kindly the counsel of the years,
    gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
    Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
    But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
    Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
    Beyond a wholesome discipline,
    be gentle with yourself. 
    
    You are a child of the universe,
    no less than the trees and the stars;
    you have a right to be here.
    And whether or not it is clear to you,
    no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. 
    
    Therefore be at peace with God,
    whatever you conceive Him to be,
    and whatever your labors and aspirations,
    in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. 
    
    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
    it is still a beautiful world.
    Be cheerful.
    Strive to be happy.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#78
Richard Brautigan!!

~All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

  I like to think (and
  the sooner the better!)
  of a cybernetic meadow
  where mammals and computers
  live together in mutually
  programming harmony
  like pure water
  touching clear sky.

  I like to think
  (right now, please!)
  of a cybernetic forest
  filled with pines and electronics
  where deer stroll peacefully
  past computers
  as if they were flowers
  with spinning blossoms.

  I like to think
  (it has to be!)
  of a cybernetic ecology
  where we are free of our labors
  and joined back to nature,
  returned to our mammal
  brothers and sisters,
  and all watched over
  by machines of loving grace.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#79

God. Though you probably have to read/hear/understand the Quran in Arabic to fully appreciate its beauty. Nothing worldly has even come close to the poetic and literatural quality of God's word.

I'm sorry, but reading the translation of Quran, I can't believe it:

Those who wander from the way of Allah have an awful doom.--38:36

Take them [unbelivers] and kill them wherever ye find them. Against such We have given you clear warrant.--4:91

O ye who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you--9:123

Those who strive against Our revelations, challenging (Us), theirs will be a painful doom of wrath.--34:5

Those who disbelieve will be gathered unto hell.--8:36

A painful doom will fall on those of them who disbelieve.--9:90

As for the Disbelievers, Whether thou warn them or thou warn them not it is all one for them; they believe not. Allah hath sealed their hearing and their hearts, and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be an awful doom.--2:6-7

We have placed upon their hearts veils, lest they should understand, and in their ears a deafness.---6:25

Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers--3:28

What can be pretty and poetic in that?

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