Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#251

Post by tapichu » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 3:39 AM UTC

John Peale Bishop is pretty hilarious:

  Famously she descended, her red hair
  Unbound and bronzed by sea-reflections, caught
  Crinkled with sea-pearls. The fine slender taut
  Knees that let down her feet upon the air,

  Young breasts, slim flanks and golden quarries were
  Odder than when the young distraught
  Unknown Venetian, painting her portrait, thought
  He'd not imagined what he painted there.

  And I too commenced with that golden cloud:
  Lipped her delicious hands and had my ease
  Faring fantastically, perversely proud.

  All loveliness demands our courtesies.
  Since she was dead I praised her as I could
  Silently, among the Barberini bees.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#252

Post by miked » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 3:50 AM UTC

boundring wrote: post #66

THAT is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees - Those dying generations - at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. ⁯⁯⁯⁯⁯⁯…⁯⁯⁯ An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul cl…

> be the singing-masters of my soul

Those have to be seven of the most powerful words ever written in any language.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#253

Post by Zigurd » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 3:51 AM UTC

Philip Larkin. Kate Tempest.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#254

Post by ridgeguy » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 3:55 AM UTC

As I age, I grow ever fonder of Tennyson, particularly his "Ulysses", from which:

...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.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174659

edit: sorry, can't format correctly

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#255

Post by JackFr » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 3:57 AM UTC

Stephen Crane

  In the desert
  I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
  Who, squatting upon the ground,
  Held his heart in his hands,
  And ate of it.
  I said, “Is it good, friend?”
  “It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

  “But I like it
  “Because it is bitter,
  “And because it is my heart.”

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#256

Post by ridgeguy » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:02 AM UTC

throwaway43 wrote: post #7

Neruda is my favourite. I want to do to you , what the spring does to the cherry trees. Here's another one Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. How he is able construct such powerful verse out of simple words and concepts always blows me away. Though it looks easy I've never seen a good imitation of his style. Then there's this poem by Phillip Larkin that I like. They fu…

I'll join you in appreciating Neruda. Me gusta especialmente Los Versos del Capitan. Night on the Island, just one of the gems.

http://www.akirarabelais.com/vi/o/thelibraryofbabel/neruda/c...

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#257

Post by miked » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:07 AM UTC

dgraunke wrote: post #40

Cavafy! http://www.cavafy.com/poems/list.asp?cat=1

Thank you so much for reminding me of his writing. I fell in love with a Greek woman on Crete many years ago. It was one of the most painful times of my life when I realized that I could not stay there with her, or she with me. Cavafy's poem Ithaca has haunted me whenever I'm reminded of it:

http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=74&cat=1

I am a muted Ulysses.

[Update] Looks like I'm not the only one who loves this poem. See the follow-on comment for some background.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9292200

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#258

Post by schoen » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:09 AM UTC

aerovistae wrote: post #246

nngrey wrote: post #234

David E. Howerton. He's not well known but one of my favorites. tajpe’ joj ‘oy’wI’Daq boS yabwImey legh choSmeyDaq nuqDaq Hon e’be’ pa’ Qoy ghoghmey tun retlh HeH yabmey ghIH nuqDaqvIpbe’ And the translation: Torn between pains, the gathering of my mind, seeing shadows move, which aren’t there. Hear the voices whispering along the edge of minds coming out of nowhere.

what on earth language is that?

It's Klingon.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#259

Post by ISL » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:17 AM UTC

Wislawa Syzmborska, for me. When lighthearted, she has depth, and when dark, she keeps a glimmer of light.

  The Joy of Writing

  Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
  For a drink of written water from a spring
  whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
  Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
  Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
  she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.
  Silence - this word also rustles across the page
  and parts the boughs
  that have sprouted from the word "woods."

  Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
  are letters up to no good,
  clutches of clauses so subordinate
  they'll never let her get away.

  Each drop of ink contains a fair supply
  of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights,
  prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,
  surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.

  They forget that what's here isn't life.
  Other laws, black on white, obtain.
  The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,
  and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,
  full of bullets stopped in mid-flight.
  Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so.
  Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,
  not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof's full stop.

  Is there then a world
  where I rule absolutely on fate?
  A time I bind with chains of signs?
  An existence become endless at my bidding?

  The joy of writing.
  The power of preserving.
  Revenge of a mortal hand.

Re: Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

#260

Post by aptwebapps » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:23 AM UTC

avn2109 wrote: post #205

throwaway43 wrote: post #7

Neruda is my favourite. I want to do to you , what the spring does to the cherry trees. Here's another one Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. How he is able construct such powerful verse out of simple words and concepts always blows me away. Though it looks easy I've never seen a good imitation of his style. Then there's this poem by Phillip Larkin that I like. They fu…

+1 for Coleridge, especially the first stanza of Kubla Khan [0]. Also, I'm surprised to see nobody here recommending A.E. Houseman. His Reveille is my favorite poem: ... Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying: Hear the drums of morning play; Hark, the empty highways crying 'Who'll beyond the hills away?' ... [0] http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173247

I read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency before ever coming across Coleridge's Kubla Khan and spent quite a bit of time (this was before I was on the Internet) trying to find the rest of the poem. I was quite disappointed once I figured things out but on the plus side I understood what happened in the book afterwards.