Whats your favorite poem of all time.?

Question

my favorite is the ***** speaks of rivers.

Answer 1

This is one of my favorites. I also love Emily Dickenson

When I am an old woman I shall
wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go,
and doesn't suit me
And I shall spend my pension on
brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandles, and say we've
no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement
when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops,
and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public
railings
And make up for the sobriety of
my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the
rain
And pick the flowers in other
people's gardens
And learn to spit . . .
But maybe I ought to practice a
little now
So people who know me are not
too surprised and shocked
When suddenly I am old and start
to wear purple . . .

Answer 2

I can't name a single favorite, because I like different poems for different reasons. A few of my more cynical favorites are below. They may not be perfect - I typed them from memory.

Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think that, for destruction,
Ice is also great,
And would suffice.

Provide, Provide, by Robert Frost
The witch that came, the withered hag,
To wash the steps with pail and rag,
Was once the beauty, Abishag -
The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.
Die early and avoid the fate,
Or, if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.
Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be, occupy a throne
Where nobody can call you crone.
Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all -
Provide, provide.

Edna St. Vincent-Millay has a few that I like:

First Fig
My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night.
But ah, my foes and oh, my friends
It give a lovely light.

Second Fig
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand.
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

and her untitled poem:

I, being born a woman, and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind
Am urged by your propiniquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast.
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout heart against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity - let me make it plain.
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.

(How's that for a slam?)

Finally, I had to copy and paste this one because I don't know it by heart. I learned the others by reading them aloud and repeating them, but I couldn't say this one aloud. I can hear in my head the way it's supposed to sound, but I can't actually get the rhythm and speech right.

The Weary Blues, by Langston Hughes
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a ***** play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that ***** sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.

Answer 3

It would require a whole anthology for me to give you my favorite poem of all time, for every day a different poem would come to mind. By the end of the year, I would probably have 365 different poems.

One of them certainly would be, "The ***** Speaks of Rivers." But for today, and for many days since I discovered this one more than forty years ago, my favorite is another one by Langston Hughes:

Mother To Son

Well, son, I'll tell you,
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Answer 4

"Alone" by Edgar Allen Poe

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were--I have not seen
As others saw--I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source i have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I'd lov'd, I lov'd alone.
Then--in my childhood--in the dawn
Of a most stormy life--was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold--
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by--
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

My second favorite poem is "Ode to the Little Boy Standing on My Shoes When I am Wearing Them" by Ogden Nash. But since that one is far too long to type here, I'll give you one of his shorter, but quite delightful little poems:

"Song of the Open Road"
I think that I shall never see
A Billboard as lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.

Answer 5

Funeral Blues by W.H Auden. I'm not into poetry at all but when I heard this poem the first time, in the movie "four weddings and a funeral", I was immediately sold. It so much expresses the grief of someone who has lost a loved one, it so much expresses my own feelings when my parents died. It's so totally human. I still can't read it without being moved to tears. I think it's absolutely brilliant.

Answer 6

It's a tie between Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Spenser's The Faerie Queene.

I'd paste them here for lurking readers to compare (maybe you could help me make up my mind), but it'd kill Yahoo's servers -- each of the poems is longer than The Lord of the Rings.

Answer 7

Sick
by Shel Silverstein


"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more--that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut--my eyes are blue--
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke--
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is. . .Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"

One of my favorite poets.

Answer 8

Edgar Allan Poe.
The Raven.

Answer 9

Hi,

My favorite poem is:

So much depends on a red wheelbarrow all covered with dew beside the white chickens.

Answer 10

the one I made up in 3rd grade
Mary had a little lamb as you all did know
she played games had fun until it started to snow.As the snow fell down that night Mary got hungry for what was in her sight.She grabbed the lamb slammed it down and began to gnaw on its leg,needless to say it didn't follow her to school the next day.