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Some of the Most Powerful Excerpts From Poetry

Famous Lines From Our Favourite Poets

Many of us have heard or seen famous lines of poetry (even if we are not aware of it). Sometimes it could be in a movie we are watching to illustrate some poignant theme, it could be something you were forced to learn in school or a play, or perhaps stuck on the wall of a person you know.

Either way, these excerpts stick in our minds for a reason because they are powerful and moving. Either they reflect something of ourselves or make us see the world in a different way.

Here are some of my favourites below.

1.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes…

Lord Byron

2.

He was my North, my South, my East and West.
My working week and my Sunday rest.
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song.
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

W.H. Auden

3.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

4.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

~ Dylan Thomas

5.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d.

~ Shakespeare

6.

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain.

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

7.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

~ Yeats

8.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Frost

9.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

~ William Wordsworth

10.

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Image credit: thelatinoauthor.com

August 6, 2015
10 Contemporary Poets You Need To Read

Do You Know These Poets?

We can easily name some of the greatest poets who have ever lived, such as Walt Whitman, Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, but do we know much about our modern poets?

In the past poets were known because of their published works, where this day and age modern poets can use social media. There are so many talented poets out there it can be hard to keep track of them all.

Some people claim poetry as a dying art, but these modern poets show that this is definitely not true.

Check out these contemporary poets below that you might not have heard off.

Full article here.

1. Claudia Rankine

Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in both Poetry and Criticism, winning for Poetry. The dual nominations illustrate the power and timeliness of Rankine’s poems to discourse on race in America.

2. Carolyn Forche

Carolyn Forche most famously coined the term “poetry of witness,” which came in the aftermath of her observations with Amnesty International of civil war in El Salvador in the late 1970s, resulting in The Country Between Us. Her poetry challenges the distinctions between personal and political when writing about the world around us.

3. Natasha Trethewey

Appointed as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2012–2014, Natasha Trethewey explores the intersections of race, art, and history in Bellocq’s Ophelia and in her 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winning Native Guard.

4. Gregory Pardlo

The winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Digest, Gregory Pardlo looks at the American identity through the lenses of fatherhood and race, while acknowledging the ever-present past.

5. Charles Simic

A former U.S. Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner, and MacArthur Foundation fellow with over 30 books of poetry, Charles Simic’s accomplishments qualify him as one of America’s most important poetic voices.

6. Marie Howe

The 2012–2014 Poet Laureate of New York state, Marie Howe is best known for What The Living Do, which unflinchingly dealt with the AIDS crisis through a personal lens: Howe’s brother John died of complications from AIDS.

7. Rickey Laurentiis

A recipient of multiple poetry fellowships, from the National Endowment for the Arts to the Poetry Foundation, Rickey Laurentiis’ poems examine how the collective American past is still an active force in the present. His forthcoming book Boy With A Thorn was selected for the 2014 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.

8. Jane Hirshfield

Jane Hirshfield’s poetry is influenced by her personal Buddhist faith, though she prefers not to labeled. “I am a human poet, that’s all,” she told Spirituality and Healthin 2013. Notably, Hirshfield was one of the first women to graduate from Princeton. Her eighth book of poetry, The Beauty, was released last month.

9. Cathy Park Hong

The recipient of multiple fellowships, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Cathy Park Hong’s poems are referential and fragmented in form. In her latest book Engine Empire, Hong juxtaposes the worlds of the old American West with industrialized China, and our increasing dependence on collective and digitized data.

10. Eileen Myles

2012 Guggenheim Fellow Eileen Myles uses bold imagery and unexpected line breaks in her quick-voiced poems, most recently in her two-part collection Snowflake / different streets. She also famously participated in a write-in campaign for the 1992 presidential election.

Image and Article Credit: Thanks Buzzfeed

July 28, 2015
10 of the Most Beautiful Lines of Poetry

Reminding Us Again Why We Love Poetry

If you are a lover of poetry then there are definitely a few lines from your favourite poets that you remember by heart.

Buzzfeed asked their members recently to share some of their favourite lines of poetry. You might have heard of some of these before, or they might be new to you, but they definitely captured me in some way. There is nothing like some beautiful lines of poetry to brighten up your day!

Here are my favourite 10 of their full list, which you can find here.

Hope you enjoy, and if you have a favourite feel free to share!

1.

2.

From “Variations on the Word Sleep” by Margaret Atwood:
“I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
and that necessary.”

3.

4.

From “The Wasteland” by T.S. Eliot:
“These fragments I have shored
Against my ruins.”

5.

6.

From “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats:
“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

7.

8.

From “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou:
“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”

9.

10.

From “Auguries of Innocence” by William Blake:
“To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
To hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.”

Article and Image credit: Buzzfeed.com

July 24, 2015