realiz wrote:A poem of the night.

Wild Nights
By Emily Dickinson
~

This is one of my all time favorite poems! It always makes me happy to read it and a little wistful.

Saffron wrote:

realiz wrote:A poem of the night.

Wild Nights
By Emily Dickinson
~

This is one of my all time favorite poems! It always makes me happy to read it and a little wistful.

I'm with you, Saffron, definitely a happy/wistful thing happening here. I'm becoming an Emily Dickinson fan.

I love this poem. My daughter read it during our 4th Advent celebration.

Simplex Munditiis

Still to be neat, still to be dressed,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all the adulteries of art;
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

I love the Wild Geese Poem. I have never heard it before.

I have so many favorites, here is one that I really like

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.

farmgirlshelley wrote:I love the Wild Geese Poem. I have never heard it before.

It is one of my favorites! Glad you found something you like in our little poetry thread.

This thread has been silent too long and as I type these key strokes, I am thinking, it is a favorite poet that I am about to post, not just a favorite poem. The more I read the poetry of Li-Young Lee the more I love his poetry. He is lyrical and romantic and humble. I highly recommend listening to him read his own poetry. You can easily find him online. His ability to read and his spoken voice are as lovely as his written words. His poetry has a sensuality that I identify with. The following poem is a favorite of mine.

Early in the Morning

While the long grain is softening
in the water, gurgling
over a low stove flame, before
the salted Winter Vegetable is sliced
for breakfast, before the birds,
my mother glides an ivory comb
through her hair, heavy
and black as calligrapher's ink.

She sits at the foot of the bed.
My father watches, listens for
the music of comb
against hair.

My mother combs,
pulls her hair back
tight, rolls it
around two fingers, pins it
in a bun to the back of her head.
For half a hundred years she has done this.
My father likes to see it like this.
He says it is kempt.

But I know
it is because of the way
my mother's hair falls
when he pulls the pins out.
Easily, like the curtains
when they untie them in the evening.


This poem in particular and many of Lee's poems capture what we can not say or dare not say, what we can not own for fear of exposing a vulnerability, decorum's sake or fear of being too attached. For if we are attached than we are pained at the loss. It seems to me that sometimes what we can not say is the most true and meaningful thing.

That is nice. For some reason it reminded me of the "order in disorder" poem we had a while back, though it's not really the same. I think the "favorite poem" thread and "poem of the moment" often overlap. I know that when I think of a favorite poem, it also seems like a poem of the moment, so I might post it there.

I'd like to post one more poem by Li-Young Lee and I will include a link to commentary on Li-Young Lee's poetry and also, him reading this poem.

Immigrant Blues
by Li-Young Lee

People have been trying to kill me since I was born,
a man tells his son, trying to explain
the wisdom of learning a second tongue.

It's the same old story from the previous century
about my father and me.

The same old story from yesterday morning
about me and my son.

It's called "Survival Strategies
and the Melancholy of Racial Assimilation."

It's called "Psychological Paradigms of Displaced Persons,"

called "The Child Who'd Rather Play than Study."

Practice until you feel
the language inside you, says the man.

But what does he know about inside and outside,
my father who was spared nothing
in spite of the languages he used?

And me, confused about the flesh and soul,
who asked once into a telephone,
Am I inside you?

You're always inside me, a woman answered,
at peace with the body's finitude,
at peace with the soul's disregard
of space and time.

Am I inside you? I asked once
lying between her legs, confused
about the body and the heart.

If you don't believe you're inside me, you're not,
she answered, at peace with the body's greed,
at peace with the heart's bewilderment.

It's an ancient story from yesterday evening

called "Patterns of Love in Peoples of Diaspora,"

called "Loss of the Homeplace
and the Defilement of the Beloved,"

called "I Want to Sing but I Don’t Know Any Songs."

Poetry.org Li-Young Lee: Valentine's with a Straight Face

DWill wrote:That is nice. For some reason it reminded me of the "order in disorder" poem we had a while back, though it's not really the same. I think the "favorite poem" thread and "poem of the moment" often overlap. I know that when I think of a favorite poem, it also seems like a poem of the moment, so I might post it there.

DWill: I agree with the overlap of the two threads. I do hope you will post the poem.