Who are your favorite poets? All languages welcome.
O'Hara. The only man to make New York desirable.
Not favorite but his poems have a perfection I can't explain. Everytime I am surprised by what I find at the end of the verse and everytime I am certain it can't be any other way.
Keats in English, for his references to mythology and rich prose regarding nature. And perhaps it’s a cliché choice for Russian, but Pushkin. Reciting his poetry is sweeter than honey in one’s mouth; and I love his discussions of chivalry and heartbreak, the seasons, religion, the Russian soul. He really does embody the Golden Age.
William McGonagall has a special place in my heart, he's so babygirl.
Seamus Heaney. Is 'Digging' the most artful poem ever written? Not by a long shot. Is it the most forceful claim ever made to a vocation? It may be. This poem is a stake in the ground; a manifesto that mandated the lifetime that it entailed.
Recommend 'Casualty' or 'Clearances' among more mature works.
I was looking at beowulf in the original old english and am just amazed at the time it must have took.
> Wyrce se þe mote domes ær deaþe Þæt bið drihtguman, unlifgendum, æfter selest
Let whoever can win glory before death. When a warrior is gone, that will be his best and only bulwark.
bros, the d sounds in 'domes ær deaþe
Þæt bið drihtguman' are perfect.
Does anyone have any modern english alliterative poems they like?
I'm the person who made the miami thread, the poetry festival they hold every year was really great, and they have their own publishings too
omiami(.)org
Góngora! I thought I wasn't "made" to enjoy poetry. Then I read this, a classic "carpe diem" poem:
Mientras por competir con tu cabello
Oro bruñido al sol relumbra en vano,
Mientras con menosprecio en medio el llano
Mira tu blanca frente al lilio bello;
Mientras a cada labio, por cogello,
Siguen más ojos que al clavel temprano,
Y mientras triunfa con desdén lozano
Del luciente cristal tu gentil cuello,
Goza cuello, cabello, labio y frente,
Antes que lo que fue en tu edad dorada
Oro, lilio, clavel, cristal luciente,
No sólo en plata o vïola troncada
Se vuelva, más tú y ello juntamente
En tierra, en humo, en polvo, en sombra, en nada.
Big fan of James Tate, though the work of his I've liked the most is like short fiction. The Lost Pilot was the first poetry collection I'd read in full (only about 1.5 years ago), and I feel I oughta re-read it, since a lot of it was pretty opaque to me at the time (though at least the title poem struck me). My introduction to James Tate was actually through this recording of him reading, posted to /lit/:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPJTXOMHTk4
I'm not sure exactly what reading it is, but one where he reads Long-Term Memory, and the audience is laughing, and it's a strange thing to hear when the ending comes with a feeling to me that's profoundly pensive and sad. But it is funny too, of course. I suppose that duality is what's impressive about it to me.
His poetry is relatively forgotten by the general public, unlike his prose work (Las fuerzas extrañas, La guerra gaucha, El payador..). Modernism is, perhaps at first glance, terribly outdated, but I've come to consider it a kind of "acquired taste" (although Modernist works still feel dense, pompous or sugary at times: in this case, I can't take his Odas seculares seriously, notwithstanding its historical importance).