Can anyone point me to some good poetry that's not boring?

Question

because at the moment im writng an essay which is proving to me that i dont like poetry all that much! What can you recomend?

the essay is on London by William Blake and Composed upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth, also there are questions on The Darkling thrush by Thomas Hardy, Auguries of innocence by William Blake and finally O what is that sound by W.H Auden

Answer 1

Might I suggest that you go to the library and read poems by many different authors until you find a style that doesn't bore you, If you can't, then poetry is probably not in the tea leaves for you. I find it exhilarating, and like to read most styles if well written.

Answer 2

Saul Williams is an amazing contemporary poet!

This excerpt is from one of his books called "She"

i presented
my feminine side
with flowers

she cut the stems
and placed them gently
down my throat

and these tu lips
might soon eclipse
your brightest hopes

***

she had nothing
but time on her hands:
silver rings, turquoise stones
and purple nails

i rubbed my thumb
across her palm:
a featherbed
where slept a psalm

yea, though i walk
i used to fly
and now we dance

i watched
my toenails blacken
and walked a deadened trance

until she woke me
with the knife edge
of her glance

i have the scars to prove
the clock strikes
with her hands

***

i have seen the truth
many times
but for the first time
she saw me

i wore suspenders
for the judgment
in my pants

***

i laced my shoes with sorrow
and walked a weary road
dead end streets
don't come undone
with double knots

wing tipped shoes
that walk on air
through vacant lots

***

she kept her deck
beneath her pillow
and had promised
me a reading

she stuck a bookmark
in my heart
and walked away

it was autumn then

the leaves
suddenly flames
the sidewalk
burning cinders

i walked the streets
as if the sun
had called me boy
mad at the world
on aging feet

shuffling
her cards

shuffling
my feet

head
to the sky
blue

the clouds
her cards

the clouds:
her cards

shuffling
the skies

a storm passes
new clouds appear:
the chariot
the priestess

the moon
in broad daylight:
an omen

***

love is an unbridled horse
with one wing out-stretched
the other tucked and folded
on the right side

the horse galloping
towards a cliff
knowingly
panting just enough
for you to think
he's laughing

he?
love is male?

love is a dumb horse
with silver streaks
and a sometimes penis

a sometimes penis?

on thursdays
the rest of the week
she grazes
and paints her hooves
with red mud
making tracks

through the fields
which disappear
soon after they appear

because nature has a way
of changing
the same way
it remains

http://www.saulwilliams.com/

Answer 3

The suggestion of an obedience class is an excellent one. Read here https://tr.im/H3J67
It will help your dog learn to behave around other dogs, and help keep your training moving forward as you'll want to be prepared for the next class. Also, a good instructor can be a wonderful resource, someone to help you with any questions or concerns about your dog. Leash training can take a LOT of time and patience, depending upon the dog. I'm not sure what you mean by 'horrible on a leash' but my basic suggestion is that you take a lot of yummy treats with you on walks. When your dog behaves well on the leash (not pulling) praise her and give her treats. Change direction a lot so that she learns to pay attention to YOU and where you are going. It's also helpful to teach a "Watch Me" command such that whenever your dog looks at you you praise her and give her a treat. About chewing, yes a Kong is a great chew toy. Some dogs also like Nylabone brand bones. I suggest also teaching a "Leave It" command. You use this when she shows interest in chewing on something she shouldn't. Then immediately give her something she is allowed to chew, such as the Kong stuffed with somethig yummy. This same command will be helpful on walks when she wants to sniff or eat something she shouldn't. Again, when she does leave the item alone, be sure to give lots of praise. I would look into an obedience class right away. I think that you'll find that a good obedience class can help enormously! Good luck and enjoy your new dog.

Answer 4

Tell me about it I did an essay on Wordsworth didnt like him much either though liked William Blake!!!

Emily Dickinson is really good my favourite poet. Sylvia Plath is really good too, Roger McGough, very funny!! . Actually a good one is John Wilmott Earl Of Rochester (played by Johnny Depp in the Libertine) read his!!! Try Edgar Allan Poe too!! Ginsberg and modern American poets. Those are just a few!!

Answer 5

Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickinson, John Crowe Ransom, Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost are great.

Answer 6

Poetry is the same as any other medium, what some people love, others hate! It is quite personal. I also used to hate poetry, but when I did my Higher English at college, I came to enjoy it, now I'm doing English Studies at Uni I absolutely love it (most of it!). Best advise would be to read an anthology with lots of different poets and therefore different styles and try to find something you like. Personally I really enjoyed Christina Rossetti, very beautiful poems, but a bit morbid in places - like a lot of Victorians were! Good luck with your search and I really hope you find poetry you will come to love as much as I have.

Answer 7

Maybe try some of these:

Try Sharon Olds:

Sex Without Love

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

Sharon Olds

Or Billy Collins:

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.

Billy Collins

Or Pablo Neruda:

Tonight I Can Write

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

Write for example: ‘The night is fractured
and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’

The night wind turns in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.

I can write the saddest lines tonight.
To think I don’t have her, to feel I have lost her.

Hear the vast night, vaster without her.
Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass.

What does it matter that I couldn’t keep her.
The night is fractured and she is not with me.

That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off,
my soul is not content to have lost her.

As though to reach her, my sight looks for her.
My heart looks for her: she is not with me


The same night whitens, in the same branches.
We, from that time, we are not the same.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her.

Another’s kisses on her, like my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but perhaps I love her.
Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long.

Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms,
my soul is not content to have lost her.

Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer,
and these are the last lines I will write for her.

Pablo Neruda

Or Charles Simic:

Eyes Fastened With Pins

How much death works,
No one knows what a long
Day he puts in. The little
Wife always alone
Ironing death's laundry.
The beautiful daughters
Setting death's supper table.
The neighbors playing
Pinochle in the backyard
Or just sitting on the steps
Drinking beer. Death,
Meanwhile, in a strange
Part of town looking for
Someone with a bad cough,
But the address somehow wrong,
Even death can't figure it out
Among all the locked doors...
And the rain beginning to fall.
Long windy night ahead.
Death with not even a newspaper
To cover his head, not even
A dime to call the one pining away,
Undressing slowly, sleepily,
And stretching naked
On death's side of the bed.

Charles Simic

I hope at least one of those worked for you.

Best,

Todd

Answer 8

Allen Ginsberg, W.B. Yeats, Kahlil Gibran, Harvey Wasserman, Bertolt Brecht.

Answer 9

Start with Shel Silverstein. Technically children's books but clever rhymes you'll enjoy. Then look in the bookstore for modern collections of poetry. Really modern. Dorothy Parker is also wonderful. Razor sharp wit. Once your committed read Howl by Allen Ginsburg.

Answer 10

this is poetry is aimed more at kids than teens, but Shel Silverstein is a great poet, and a very amusing one to boot. I like Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman as well. If you can't find anything at all, see if you can use the lyrics of a powerful, emotional song (which is just poetry with music).