Looking for a cool/interesting poem for an english presentation.?

Question

I can't do : To his Coy Mistress, My Last Duchess, The Road Not Taken, because I have already studied them in class. I'm looking for published poets only, I can't do a project on poems you have written (unfortunately). Please help. (:

Answer 1

How about this one?

The Waking by Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

or this?

Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

They f*ck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were f*cked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

or this?

o karma, dharma, pudding and pie
o karma, dharma, pudding and pie,
gimme a break before i die
grant me wisdom, will, and wit,
purity, probity, pluck, and grit
trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind,
gimme great abs and a steel-trap mind
and forgive, ye gods, some humble advice -
these little blessings would suffice
to beget an earthly paradise:
make the bad people good -
and the good people nice,
and before our world goes over the brink,
teach the believers how to think.

- philip appleman

or this?

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Answer 2

Recycling my answer from your previous thread on the same topic:

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I think this is a fantastic and interesting poem (and it's short!):


"Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry," by Howard Nemerov

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned into pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn't tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

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If you want something a little stranger, try Andrew Marvell. This is a love poem of his, but I guarantee it's the weirdest love poem you'll ever read (spelling and capitalization modernized):

"The Mower's Song"

My mind was once the true survey
Of all these meadows fresh and gay;
And in the greenness of the grass
Did see its hopes as in a glass;
When Juliana came, and she
What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

But these, while I with sorrow pine,
Grew more luxuriant still and fine;
That not one blade of grass you spy'd,
But had a flower on either side;
When Juliana came, and she
What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

Unthankful meadows, could you so
A fellowship so true forgo,
And in your gaudy May-games meet,
While I lay trodden under feet?
When Juliana came, and she
What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

But what you in compassion ought,
Shall now by my revenge be wrought:
And flow'rs, and grass, and I and all,
Will in one common ruin fall.
For Juliana comes, and she
What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

And thus, ye meadows, which have been
Companions of my thoughts more green,
Shall now the heraldry become
With which I shall adorn my tomb;
For Juliana comes, and she
What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

Answer 3

Try something by T.S. Eliot. Rhapsody on a Windy Night and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock are wonderful.

Answer 4

My Senior Research Paper was done on W.H. Auden's 'Musee des Beaux Arts.' 14 pages long, not including appendices. Its a great poem, has a lot of depth. Also, it based on a painting by Peter Breughel, I think entitled "The Fall of Icarus." Which is a great visual.

Answer 5

Almost anything by anything by Edgar Allan Poe could work. Try something well-known, like The Raven or Annabell Lee (not sure if that's how you spell it...) or something less known like Tamerlane-his first published poem-they are all interesting.

Answer 6

How about some William Blake? A little dark, but here's "The Poison Tree" by William Blake:

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree

Or "The Sick Rose" by William Blake:

O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

Or some William Butler Yeats:

When You Are Old

When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars

Answer 7

The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. Has a cool cadence as you read it aloud.

Answer 8

look up robert louis stevenson i may not have spelled it right. he is really famous