What is a good long poem?

Question

I need a good poem for a forensics (Speech & Debate) competition this Thursday. It should last more then 5 minutes but not more then 7 or 8 minutes. I needs to be a published poem...and doesn't have to be about anything specific....I just need one because I'm being forced to try poetry and prose.

Answer 1

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by TS Eliot, (recite slowly)

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge (very long)

Answer 2

The Rime of The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Answer 3

If your assignment would allow a religious poem, try T. S. Eliot's "Ash Wednesday." The poem moves from despair almost to hope.

Someone else suggested Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." If you really want something strange, try Eliot's "The Wasteland." Lots of interesting rhythms and curious images.

I'm also partial to Alfred Noyes' "The Highwayman." The story of a thief who is in love with the innkeeper's black-eyed daughter Bess. Bess sacrifices herself to save her lover from the King's soldiers.

Another is Stephen Vincent Benet's "Metropolitan Nightmare," about what would happen to skyscrapers if termites suddenly were able to eat steel.

Have fun with this assignment!

Answer 4

No, no, no, no...This is the poem you want to use! Robert Service is one of the great Canadian poets and was a contemporary of Jack London. The Cremation of Sam McGee from his collection "The Spell of the Yukon" was one of the most widely read poems of its time.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

That's just the start. Hope this helps. --Andy

Answer 5

My Own Grandpa

Many many years ago when I was twenty three,
I got married to a widow who was pretty as could be. This
widow had a grown-up daughter who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her, and soon the two were wed.
This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life.
My daughter was my mother, for she was my father's wife.

To complicate the matters worse, although it brought me joy, I
soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy.
My little baby then became a brother-in-law to dad. And so
became my uncle, though it made me very sad.

For if he was my uncle, then that also made him brother
To the widow's grown-up daughter who, of course, was my
step-mother. Father's wife then had a son, who kept them on
the run.

And he became my grandson, for he was my daughter's son. My wife is now my mother's mother and it makes me blue. Because, although she is my wife, she's my grandma too. If my wife is my grandmother, then I am her grandchild. And every time I think of it, It simply drives me wild. For now I have become
the strangest case you ever saw. As the husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa.

Answer 6

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" by Oscar Wilde

Answer 7

The Lady of Shallot--Tennyson

Sounds amazing when spoken aloud!

Answer 8

The ballad of Pecos Bill.

Answer 9

How Do I Love Thee

Answer 10

download this poem -it is free from the publisher called arachnids :homme fatales
http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/gamahucher_press_catalogue.htm