This doesnt exactly fit into a category but what are people's favourite poet/peom. Personally my favourite poet is Percy Shelley but favourite poem is Somewhere I Have Never Travelled by e.e. cummings:

[somewhere i have never travelled]


somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

Wystan Hugh Auden
Funeral blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

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 forever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

As far as poems go, this is still my favourite. And in many respects still very actual as the 'moral majority' is more silent then ever.

Martin Niemoller

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Orhan Veli
i've loved his simple poetry for many years and wait for the day when i can understand it in the original (plus, the translations all vary too wildly-i can't know who to trust!)

i don't have a favorite poem of his because there are too many to love, but here's one in honour of the upcoming anniversary of his death: the unfinished poem said to have been found wrapped around his toothbrush

for some reason, this one always tears me up

THE PARADE OF LOVE

The first one was that slender, reedy girl,
I think now she's the wife of a merchant.
I wonder how fat she's grown.
But still I'd like to see her very much.
It isn't easy, first love.

........................... goes up
......................... we stood in the street
......................... even though
........... our names were written side by side on the walls
........................... in the fire.

The third was Miss Munevver, she was older than me,
As I wrote and wrote and tossed letters into her garden
She was in stitches reading them.
Remembering those letters,
I feel ashamed, as though it were today.

The fourth was wild.
She used to tell me dirty stories.
One day she undressed in front of me.
Years have passed, I still can't forget it.
So many times it entered my dreams.

Let's skip the fifth and come to the sixth.
Her name was Nurunnisa.
Oh, my beauty,
Oh, my brunette,
Oh, my lovely, my lovely
Nurunnisa!

The seventh was Aliye, a society woman,
But I couldn't appreciate her very much;
Like all society women
Everything depended on earrings and fur coats.

The eighth was more or less the same shit;
Look for honor in somebody else's wife,
But if asked of you to throw a tantrum,
Lies, fits;
Lying was second nature to her.

The name of the ninth was Ayten.
She was a belly dancer in a bar;
While working she was the slave of any man
But after work
She slept with whom she pleased.

The tenth grew smart
And left me.
She wasn't wrong either;
Making love is the business of the rich or the idle
Or the jobless;

If two hearts get together
The world is beautiful, it's true,
But two naked bodies
Belong in a bathtub.

The eleventh was a serious worker.
What else could she do?
She was a maid for a sadist;
Her name was Luxandra;
At night she would come to my room
And stay till morning.
She drank cognac, got drunk.
And before dawn, she went back to work.

Let's come to the last one.
I got attached to her
The way I loved no one else.
She wasn't only a woman, but a person.
Not foolishly after fancy manners,
Or greedy for goods and jewelry.
``If we are free'' she said;
``If we are equal'' she said.
She also knew how to love people
The way she loved living.



***oh, and this sweet one from Akgun Akova:
http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~sibel/poetry/poe ... comet.html

I wouldn't say it's my favorite, but I definatly enjoy reading this every time.

Bob Flanagan

because it feels good; because it gives me an erection; because it makes
me come; because i'm sick; because there was so much sickness; because i
say fcuk the sickness; because i like the attention; because i was alone
a lot; because i was different; because kids beat me up on the way to
school; because i was humiliated by nuns; because of christ and the
crucifixion; because of porky pig in bondage, force-fed by some sinister
creep in a black cape; because of stories about children hung by their
wrists, burned on the stove, scalded in tubs; because of "mutiny in the
bounty"; because of houdini; because of my cousin cliff; because of the
forts we built and the things we did inside them; because of what's
inside me; because of my genes; because of my parents; because of
doctors and nurses; because they tied me to the crib so i wouldn't hurt
myself; because i had time to think; because i had time to hold my
penis; because i had awful stomachaches and holding my penis made it
feel better; because i felt like i was going to die; because it makes me
feel invincible; because i'm a catholic; because i still love lent, and
i still love my penis, and in spite of it all i have no guilt; because
my parents said be what you want to be, and this is what i want to be;
because i'm nothing but a big baby and i want a mommy forever, even a
mean one, especially a mean one; because of all the fairy tale witches,
and the wicked step mother, and the step sisters, and how sexy
cinderella was, smudged with soot, doomed to a life of servitude;
because of hansel locked in the witch's cage until he was fat enough to
eat; because of "o" and how desperately i wanted to be her; because of
my dreams; because of the games we played; because i've got an active
imagination; because my mother bought me tinker toys; because hardware
stores give me hard-ons; because of hammers, nails, clothespins, wood,
padlocks, pullies, eyebolts, thumbtacks, staple-guns, sewing needles,
wooden spoons, fishing tackle, chains, metal rulers, rubber tubing,
spatulas, rope, twine, c-clamps, s-hooks, razor blades, scissors,
tweezers, knives, push-pins, two-by-fours, ping-pong paddles, alligator
clips, duct tape, broom sticks, barbecue skewers, bungie cords,
sawhorses, soldering irons; because of tool sheds; because of garages;
because of the pit and the pendulum, because of the tower of london;
because of the inquisition; because of the rack; because of the cross;
because of the addams family playroom; because of morticia addams and
her black dress with its octopus legs; because of motherhood; because of
amazons; because of the goddess; because it's in in my nature; because
it's against nature; because it's nasty; because it's fun; because it
flies in the face of all that's normal (whatever that is); because i'm
not normal; because i used to think that i was part of some vast
experiment and that there was this implant in my penis that made me do
these things and allowed them (whoever they were) to monitor my
activities; because i had to take my clothes off and lie inside this
giant plastic bag so the doctors could collect my sweat; because once
upon a time i had such a high fever my parents had to strip me naked and
wrap me in sheets to stop the convulsions; because my parents loved me
more when i was suffering; because surrender is sweet; because i'm
attracted to it; because i'm addicted to it; because endorphins in the
brain are like a natural kind of heroin; because i learned to take my
medicine; because i was a big boy for taking it; because i can take it
like a man; because, as somebody once said, he's got more balls
than i do; because it is an act of courage; because it does take guts;
because i'm proud of it; because i can't climb mountains; because i'm
terrible at sports; because no pain, no gain; because
spare the rod and spoil the child;

because you always hurt the one you love.

Great thread, GD. Whilst I think about this properly here's a ditty from one of my favourites, "Sir" Ogden Nash:

THE SHRIMP
A shrimp who sought his lady shrimp
Could catch no glimpse
Not even a glimp.
At times, translucence
Is rather a nuisance.

The Tiger
William Blake
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?



The Lamb
William Blake
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!

We Real Cool
By Gwendolyn Brooks




We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

It's long so I'll include the first section and include a link if anyone is interested in the rest:

Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law
By Adrienne Rich

You, once a belle in Shreveport,
with henna-colored hair, skin like a peachbud,
still have your dresses copied from that time,
and play a Chopin prelude
called by Cortot: “Delicious recollections
float like perfume through the memory.”

Your mind now, moldering like wedding-cake,
heavy with useless experience, rich
with suspicion, rumor, fantasy,
crumbling to pieces under the knife-edge
of mere fact. In the prime of your life.

Nervy, glowering, your daughter
wipes the teaspoons, grows another way.

http://virtual.park.uga.edu/eng3k/sprin ... shots.html

I simultaneously pissed myself and wept when I first read the following. You may or may not know that the poet/playwrite/Nobel laureate/liberalista Harold Pinter wrote a poem before the Iraq war. It went like this:

The big dicks are out
they'll fcuk everyone
watch your back

Nice. Anyway, the UK's Private Eye did a send up of it, which I think is relevant to this thread.

Enjoy!

Please pay special attention to If, We'll Go No More A-Roving, Home Thoughts From Abroad and Come into the Garden, Maud.

I'm a big fan of Neyzen Tevfik.


also

[quote user="RSA" post="70739"]
[/quote]

And the genius behind this is?

it's true.

I know it's true - that's why I want to know who wrote it and if there are any more.

very close friend of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and national drunk Neyzen Tevfik.

You can find quite alot about him and his work here