where to start reading / what you like most?

[benthejack]

My time on this forum is my only real exposure to poetry. I was never interested when I was younger, and I'm not sure what triggered my massive desire to write.

I find that I really have no concept of what great poetry is as I've never read much. Where do I start? I had a look in the poets list forum but there are hundreds, it's like choosing candy in a foreign country (like China where they eat weiiiiird candy)

I'm particularly interested in philosophy so if anyone knows of any good philosopoets that would be a good start.

But I'm also open to anything, I do want to branch out.

I guess the question simply put is: Who are your favourite poets and what do they write about?

Cheers,
Ben


--edit--
I've decided that I'm going to read a couple of poems by these people each day and say what I think about them by their name.

so far I have been suggested:
T. S. Eliot --The hollow men--
Sylvia Plath
William Butler Yeats
Emily Dickerson
Pablo neruda
Kipling
john donne * 2
walt whitman
robert frost
charles bukowski (I love what I've seen so far in Billy's post)
Shelley
Byron
Coleridge
Kublai Khan
robert burns
Louise Gluck: The Wild Iris
Mark Strand: Reasons for Moving
Sandra Beasley: Theories of Falling
Nick Flynn: Some Ether
Charles Simic: The Voice at 3 AM
James Wright: Collected Poems
Li-Young Lee: Rose
Arthur Rimbaud: A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat
Philip Levine: What Work Is
Ed Pavlic: Paraph of Bone & Other Kinds of Blue
Baron Wormser: Impenitent Notes
The Norton Anthology of Poetry 5th Edition
Henry David
Ralph Waldo

[heslopian]

My favourite poem is The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot. Here's a great reading of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KvkJdcmqek My favourite poems tend to be philosophical and deal with life and death too. I also like a certain cockeyed irony, which is why I like Sylvia Plath. I always feel as though she's writing with a sneer.

[billy]

to many to mention and between them they write about everything. i think philosophy goes through a seed change when it's portrayed through poetry. William Butler Yeats.has some philosophical qualities. a staunch irishman with solid views about promoting his poetry through his country. Emily Dickerson is a well writ poet with many philosophical views. not my cup of tea but many like her. i always saw Pablo neruda as a weird bastard. again others like him but he's not my cuppa tea
i love Kipling. some of his army style ballads are superb. john donne write an odd philosophical line and i do like his elergy for who the bell tolls, i think he was classed some as a metaphysical poet. i def try and get a read of "the works of john donne" look for meditation MVII walt whitman is okay in small doses. not one of mine favourites but many love him mainly because his poem O captain my captain was done on film in the dead poets society. many who hear it now think of themselves as poetry lovers. not my cuppa but worth a read. robert frost is a poet i never liked. mainly because i'd never really read his stuff. now i think him a truly great american poet. google his name. charles bukowski. this poem i'm putting up is so awesomely awesome it's awesome ;

The History Of One Tough Motherfucker by Charles Bukowski

he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and
terrorized
a white cross-eyed tailless cat
I took him in and fed him and he stayed
grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway
and ran him over
I took what was left to a vet who said,"not much
chance…give him these pills…his backbone
is crushed, but is was crushed before and somehow
mended, if he lives he'll never walk, look at
these x-rays, he's been shot, look here, the pellets
are still there…also, he once had a tail, somebody
cut it off…"
I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the
hottest in decades, I put him on the bathroom
floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn't eat, he
wouldn't touch the water, I dipped my finger into it
and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn't go any-
where, I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to
him and gently touched him and he looked back at
me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went
by he made his first move
dragging himself forward by his front legs
(the rear ones wouldn't work)
he made it to the litter box
crawled over and in,
it was like the trumpet of possible victory
blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I
related to that cat-I'd had it bad, not that
bad but bad enough
one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and
just looked at me.
"you can make it," I said to him.
he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally
he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the
rear legs just didn't want to do it and he fell again, rested,
then got up.
you know the rest: now he's better than ever, cross-eyed
almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in
his eyes never left…
and now sometimes I'm interviewed, they want to hear about
life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,"look, look
at this!"
but they don't understand, they say something like,"you
say you've been influenced by Celine?"
"no," I hold the cat up,"by what happens, by
things like this, by this, by this!"
I shake the cat, hold him up in
the smoky and drunken light, he's relaxed he knows…
it's then that the interviews end
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo-
graphed together.
he too knows it's bullshit but that somehow it all helps.

---

and if that's not a philosophical poem i don't know what it

[Leanne]

Ha, trying to narrow down the best poems is like trying to narrow down the best philosophy! Almost all great poetry is philosophical in some way -- it deals with the human condition and doesn't necessarily offer answers, but does pose some interesting questions. Me, I love the surrealists and symbolists but I'm also a massive fan of the metaphysicals like John Donne. In philosophy, I tend to lean most toward existentialism, which kind of grew out of both the metaphysical and romantic eras, though there aren't a lot of decent poems written by existentialist philosophers (they were far too verbose!). Shelley, Byron and Coleridge are the main culprits when it comes to provoking thought in that direction.

[billy]

the scope of the question itself can become a philosophical debate. i enjoy the last three poets Leanne mentioned. specially Byron. coleridge's rhyme of the ancient mariner is mainly a philosophical piece, and Kublai Khan is an exceptional poem (i think)

byron is the romantic that wrote my all time favourite poem.

she walks in beauty. (google it )

[Leanne]

Shelley's Ozymandias is rather not crap as well

[benthejack]

Thanks a heap,
I'll start my education by getting through this list

also Billy,
God damn that is an amazing poem. I loved it!

[Todd]

Ben, These are my favorites (they are all collections):

Louise Gluck: The Wild Iris
Mark Strand: Reasons for Moving
Sandra Beasley: Theories of Falling
Nick Flynn: Some Ether
Charles Simic: The Voice at 3 AM
James Wright: Collected Poems
Li-Young Lee: Rose
Arthur Rimbaud: A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat
Philip Levine: What Work Is
Ed Pavlic: Paraph of Bone & Other Kinds of Blue
Baron Wormser: Impenitent Notes
The Norton Anthology of Poetry 5th Edition

Since you mention Charles Bukowski probably...

Charles Bukowski: Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame

[Leanne]

robert burns - of mice and men (both the galic version and the new english version )

There's a new English version? That makes me a little bit sad. Half the fun of Rabbie Burns is trying to read it without sounding like Shrek

Of Mice and Men is a wonderful poem though. So is "A Man's A Man" and "Scots Wha Hae".

[arbil_poieo]

Kahlil Gibran, he's a philosophical/poet. He's most known for writing The Prophet, but he dabbled in a lot of things.

[smakpopy]

If asked i suppose i would say that paradise lost by john milton is my favorite, and although the republic by plato is not exactly considered a poem, it can be read as such, especially when you get to the parts of the tales told within, like how some viewed the afterlife.

Henry David, and Ralph Waldo also wrote some lasting poetry, about appreciating nature and on mans nature.

Dantes views, related to miltons works take things in a much darker direction and deal more with mans sufferings, at least those who failed to accept redemption, or were beyond it.

You can read and write poetry that has no religious connotations, but usually there is some philosophical bent to it, some moral, or at the very least some emotional response.

I am not sure where you should start first, as far as reading. It would depend on your interests. You could start simply, and read childrens fables and books that have been popular for a long time. Or you could watch alot of movies, as most have stolen ideas from poetry.

I am not sure if i could rightly recommend you begin with an epic like miltons, for one there is an overarching religious message, and it was written so long ago and in such a way that it would be hard for most to understand who are not well versed in english and some latin roots. There are also alot of very old myths and legends and fabled things entwined into it that are not common knowledge today.

You could read it as a disbeliever and simply enjoy the work, the characters developed, and situations.

If you are as you say a proclaimed atheist, you may want to begin by reading works from each of the philosophers of history. It sounds like you do not have a personal understanding of "why" things are, the point of it all.

You do not have to totally adopt a belief system laid down by someone else, take snippets of what you feel fits and puzzle it out yourself. Paint the picture of your view of things, and then you can write poems to try get others to see what you see.

Some poems are just willy nilly distractions, and others are trying to make you think, and others try to think for you.

As it was said, art is done for arts sake. There could be a world without art, and the natural end of man is simple propagation of species. But as is alluded to in the republic the end of some people are the works they do, the end of a doctor is good medicine, the end of a carpenter is what he builds with skill, the end of a farmer is the food produced, the end of a sculptor is the statues he makes, the same with painting and wordsmithing.

Just because the majority of peoples "end" is simple propagation and raising of the children, some feel that to create something lasting and of quality, appreciated for centuries can be a higher calling.

And that is what separates man from animal and plant, they have a simple mechanical or instinctual singleminded purpose in life.

It is the free will to make a multitude of decisions, and actions that defines a person.

[benthejack]

Kahlil Gibran, he's a philosophical/poet. He's most known for writing The Prophet, but he dabbled in a lot of things.

Oh Kahlil Gibran is absolutely my favorite, one of the few poets I've read much of. I also really enjoyed the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam too which is in a similar but also quite different vein (still very wise, but often have more of a "real life" feel than Gibran's).

[arbil_poieo]

Kahlil Gibran is my favorite, I have to look up Omar Khayyam...I'm not familiar with their work.

[benthejack]

If asked i suppose i would say that paradise lost by john milton is my favorite, and although the republic by plato is not exactly considered a poem, it can be read as such, especially when you get to the parts of the tales told within, like how some viewed the afterlife.

Henry David, and Ralph Waldo also wrote some lasting poetry, about appreciating nature and on mans nature.

Dantes views, related to miltons works take things in a much darker direction and deal more with mans sufferings, at least those who failed to accept redemption, or were beyond it.

Cheers for the recommendations, I'll add them to my list

---

Kahlil Gibran is my favorite, I have to look up Omar Khayyam...I'm not familiar with their work.

He is an Persian poet from the 10th century. Here is one of my favourite excerpts:

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so wisely they are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand wrought to make it grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd--
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go."

Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.

What, without asking, hither hurried Whence?
And, without asking, Whither hurried hence!
Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine
Must drown the memory of that insolence!