Who's Your Favorite Poet?

[blobru]

First there is the call to bring in the muscular cigar roller, who is strong enough to crank the old fashioned ice cream machine and will dish out the "concupiscent curds" (delicious ice cream) for those attending the wake.

The wenches (prostitutes) will attend in the same outfits they wear when they are working.

The boys (customers) are poor and will bring flowers in old newspapers.

Then the line, "let be be finale of seem" or let reality be the end to speculation, the only divinity is the one who provides the good and comfort, not who it might "seem" to be, such as God, but the cigar roller/ice cream provider.

The dead woman was poor and she doesn't have a proper burial shroud, so they make do with an old embroidered cloth that they take from a cheap dresser, but it doesn't cover her whole body so if her rigid feet protrude they prove that she is dead and silent, not where it might "seem" she is now, in a better place.

The only god is the god of now, the one who provides the good.

The poem is very symbolic with all life, young boys and girls, occupying the kitchen, and only a dead body in the bedroom.
I hope this helps.

Wanting to follow up on RedIbis' excellent reading with my own very hit-and-miss marginalia. Amazing poem moreso every time through.
The narrative juxtaposes the midst of life in the first verse with the moment of death in the second. Most words are short, unpretentious, modern. One theme among many is the shift from theism to atheism, immortal values to mortal. Rather than an essay, easier to just annotate each line:

Call the roller of big cigars,

cigars are of course passed out after births; cigars burn down, out; celebration of life, finite

The muscular one, and bid him whip

in a poem short on long words, 'muscular' is the first 3-syllable... (also nb: 5 straight short i's, 5 hard c's, vs long i, soft c, in "ice")

In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.

...and 'concupiscent' the first 4-syllable, hiliting the carnal, in-linking the ice-cream, which obviously melts, finite enjoyment. the appearance of the long u, the first long vowel since roller's o, anticipates the long i and e in "ice cream": the modern's transcendent here and now. And though it be Freudian cliche, the phallic cigar and maternal milk cups bracketing the quick strokes of those short i's and hard c's may be a less than chance coincidence of symbolism and onomatopoeia.

Let the wenches dawdle in such dress

courtship: wenches, girls available, dawdle = waste time as if you have too much

As they are used to wear, and let the boys

used to wear ~ fashion, timely; note also the biblical mood -- 'let'

Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.

cut flowers which will fade; "last month's newspapers" passage of time, discarded paper, old news

Let be be finale of seem.

finale, telos: what is real -- being -- is experience -- seeming -- presence, materialism (genesis of the modern)

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

the empire of the senses, empiricism. the emperor of "ice-cream", the non-eternal; the "only", god is no god. (emperor short vowels: god only experience; ice-cream long: the moment transcendent.) is the emperor, the transcendent, made of ice-cream too? then he too is of the moment, and will pass...

Take from the dresser of deal,

deal = pine, suggests coffin / church? (repository of custom)

Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet

glass vs ice, eternal vs non-eternal; lacking three, the [invisible eternal] trinity? that sheet, page? bible?

On which she embroidered fantails once

fantails = birds display, mating, life, flying, symbolically spirit; embroidered... once wrote of living spirit; ex-courtship (spirit & body)

And spread it so as to cover her face.

is she nature? humanity? the church (Song of Songs), religion? the religious 'icon' maybe, human qua ideal. does the sheet (ideal) cover, describe, satisfy, all of it (human life and death). i.e., she is mortality, life; the sheet, scripture; together, religion

If her horny feet protrude, they come

the funereal 'sheet' cannot cover the fact of her own death, explain it; life's end evil ("horny" ~ devil)

To show how cold she is, and dumb.

cold as ice, and mindless, life finally ice cream; dumb, senseless: no experience after-death, no afterlife

Let the lamp affix its beam.

religion started with "Let there be light"; religion ends with this, 'lamp' modern light (replacing the sun [first god], cf Picasso's "Guernica"); affix ~ 'fiat', beam -- 'cross'-beam?

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

amen (Stevens for most if not all of his life was an atheist. maybe it's what set his poetry apart: he can't 'cheat'. I think Stevens is the first poet of the 'transcendent' here and now. & my favorite poet, re OP).

 

[Piggy]

That's what I mean by the opalescence of linguistic ambiguity.

On the other hand, you have poems like this:

This is just to say
I have eaten the plums
that were
in the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

--William Carlos Williams

I had a student once who was enormously frustrated by this poem. The discussion did not satisfy him. "But what does it MEAN?!" he demanded.

"It means he enjoyed the plums," I said. "Isn't that enough?"

 

[RedIbis]

Wanting to follow up on RedIbis' excellent reading with my own very hit-and-miss marginalia. Amazing poem moreso every time through.
The narrative juxtaposes the midst of life in the first verse with the moment of death in the second. Most words are short, unpretentious, modern. One theme among many is the shift from theism to atheism, immortal values to mortal. Rather than an essay, easier to just annotate each line:

Call the roller of big cigars,

cigars are of course passed out after births; cigars burn down, out; celebration of life, finite

The muscular one, and bid him whip

in a poem short on long words, 'muscular' is the first 3-syllable... (also nb: 5 straight short i's, 5 hard c's, vs long i, soft c, in "ice")

In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.

...and 'concupiscent' the first 4-syllable, hiliting the carnal, in-linking the ice-cream, which obviously melts, finite enjoyment. the appearance of the long u, the first long vowel since roller's o, anticipates the long i and e in "ice cream": the modern's transcendent here and now. And though it be Freudian cliche, the phallic cigar and maternal milk cups bracketing the quick strokes of those short i's and hard c's may be a less than chance coincidence of symbolism and onomatopoeia.

Let the wenches dawdle in such dress

courtship: wenches, girls available, dawdle = waste time as if you have too much

As they are used to wear, and let the boys

used to wear ~ fashion, timely; note also the biblical mood -- 'let'

Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.

cut flowers which will fade; "last month's newspapers" passage of time, discarded paper, old news

Let be be finale of seem.

finale, telos: what is real -- being -- is experience -- seeming -- presence, materialism (genesis of the modern)

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

the empire of the senses, empiricism. the emperor of "ice-cream", the non-eternal; the "only", god is no god. (emperor short vowels: god only experience; ice-cream long: the moment transcendent.) is the emperor, the transcendent, made of ice-cream too? then he too is of the moment, and will pass...

Take from the dresser of deal,

deal = pine, suggests coffin / church? (repository of custom)

Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet

glass vs ice, eternal vs non-eternal; lacking three, the [invisible eternal] trinity? that sheet, page? bible?

On which she embroidered fantails once

fantails = birds display, mating, life, flying, symbolically spirit; embroidered... once wrote of living spirit; ex-courtship (spirit & body)

And spread it so as to cover her face.

is she nature? humanity? the church (Song of Songs), religion? the religious 'icon' maybe, human qua ideal. does the sheet (ideal) cover, describe, satisfy, all of it (human life and death). i.e., she is mortality, life; the sheet, scripture; together, religion

If her horny feet protrude, they come

the funereal 'sheet' cannot cover the fact of her own death, explain it; life's end evil ("horny" ~ devil)

To show how cold she is, and dumb.

cold as ice, and mindless, life finally ice cream; dumb, senseless: no experience after-death, no afterlife

Let the lamp affix its beam.

religion started with "Let there be light"; religion ends with this, 'lamp' modern light (replacing the sun [first god], cf Picasso's "Guernica"); affix ~ 'fiat', beam -- 'cross'-beam?

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

amen (Stevens for most if not all of his life was an atheist. maybe it's what set his poetry apart: he can't 'cheat'. I think Stevens is the first poet of the 'transcendent' here and now. & my favorite poet, re OP).

This was a very enjoyable read. I especially like how you illustrated the symbols of impermanence. I agree with your last statement, as well. I've always found Stevens to be a very Eastern (as in Asian or Buddhist) poet, contrasted by the reality of his life as an insurance lawyer. You can find contrasts all over his work, as might be reflected in his two homes, one in cold Conneticut and one in lush and warm Key West.

Speaking of Picasso, Stevens' "The Man with the Blue Guitar" is outstanding.

Dare we explicate "Sunday Morning"? After all it is Sunday morning and I am not in church, but I am drinking coffee.

 

[RedIbis]

That's what I mean by the opalescence of linguistic ambiguity.

On the other hand, you have poems like this:

This is just to say
I have eaten the plums
that were
in the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

--William Carlos Williams

I had a student once who was enormously frustrated by this poem. The discussion did not satisfy him. "But what does it MEAN?!" he demanded.

"It means he enjoyed the plums," I said. "Isn't that enough?"

This is a great one, as well. I'm always reminded of Williams' dictum, expressed in "Spring and All"(?) "No ideas but in things." I could be mistaken in which poem that originates.

 

[Piggy]

This is a great one, as well. I'm always reminded of Williams' dictum, expressed in "Spring and All"(?) "No ideas but in things." I could be mistaken in which poem that originates.

I think it's from "A Sort of Song".

Y'know, I love the whole gamut.

If Williams gives us well-placed keyholes thru which to spy on rich moments of our lives, then Hopkins gives us stained glass windows that simultaneously dazzle and illuminate.

The Windhover
To Christ our Lord​

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

And it's funny, some students would look at Williams and find nothing because it tends to be so mundane. "It's not poetry," they'd say. Others would look at Hopkins and find it not worth the trouble to parse his Gordian syntax.

I love it all!

 

[blobru]

This was a very enjoyable read. I especially like how you illustrated the symbols of impermanence. I agree with your last statement, as well. I've always found Stevens to be a very Eastern (as in Asian or Buddhist) poet, contrasted by the reality of his life as an insurance lawyer.

If religion won't comfort: modern poetry, and insurance policies?

You can find contrasts all over his work, as might be reflected in his two homes, one in cold Conneticut and one in lush and warm Key West.

Speaking of Picasso, Stevens' "The Man with the Blue Guitar" is outstanding.

Dare we explicate "Sunday Morning"? After all it is Sunday morning and I am not in church, but I am drinking coffee.

But wasn't it about having beer for breakfast, and dessert, and...

O heck, wrong Sunday Mornin'.

Here's Stevens'. I'd say it roughly repeats the philosophical pattern of "The Emperor...", only here the contrast isn't abrupt, but shaded tropically -- Stevens' genius at re-inventing tropes -- vaguely melancholic liminal "psychologue", melancholy catalyst to the questioning, insight, and vague tranquilility at poem's and day's end. Bet he wrote this one at Key West (while the Emperor's gottabe a northerner)...

Is too long for a line-by-line, (unless that coffee's really strong)!

 

[Piggy]

O heck, wrong Sunday Mornin'.

But hey, let's not dis Kris, either:

I woke up Sunday morning
with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad,
So I had one more for dessert.
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes
and found my cleanest dirty shirt.
I shaved my face and combed my hair
and stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.

I'd smoked my brain the night before
with cigarettes and songs I've been picking.
So I lit my first and watched a small kid
cussing at a can that he was kicking.
And as I crossed the empty street I caught
the Sunday smell of someone frying chicken.
And it took me back to something
that I'd lost somehow, somewhere along the way.

On a Sunday morning sidewalk,
wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
Cause there's something in a Sunday
just makes a body feel alone.
And there's nothing short of dying
half as lonesome as the sound
Of a sleeping city sidewalk
and Sunday morning coming down.

In the park I saw a daddy
with a laughing little girl that he was swinging.
And I stopped beside a Sunday school
and listened to the songs that they were singing.
Then I headed back for home,
and somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringing.
And it echoed through the canyons
like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.

On a Sunday morning sidewalk,
wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
Cause there's something in a Sunday
just makes a body feel alone.
And there's nothing short of dying
half as lonesome as the sound
Of a sleeping city sidewalk
and Sunday morning coming down.

 

[nettiemoore]

I also love Wallace Stevens. My favourite is "A Rabbitt as King of the Ghosts."

And Phillip Larkin.

And Kris Kristofferson.

 

[Piggy]

An interview in a documentary on Kit Carson reminded me of an important omission:

N. Scott Momaday

Another one I'd forgotten:

Quincy Troupe. Now academically disgraced for lying on his resume about his lack of formal education, but a dynamite poet nonetheless.

Poem for Magic

take it to the hoop, “magic” johnson,
take the ball dazzling down the open lane
herk & jerk & raise your six-feet, nine-inch frame
into the air sweating screams of your neon name
“magic” johnson, nicknamed “windex” way back
in high school
cause you wiped glass backboards
so clean, where you first juked and shook
wiled your way to glory
a new-style fusion of shake-&-bake
energy, using everything possible, you created your own
space to fly through--any moment now
we expect your wings to spread feathers for that spooky takeoff
of yours--then, shake & glide & ride up in space
till you hammer home a clothes-lining deuce off glass
now, come back down with a reverse hoodoo gem
off the spin & stick in sweet, popping nets clean
from twenty feet, right side

put the ball on the floor again, “magic”
slide the dribble behind your back, ease it deftly
between your bony stork legs, head bobbing everwhichaway
up & down, you see everything on the court
off the high yoyo patter
stop & go dribble
you thread a needle-rope pass sweet home
to kareem cutting through the lane
his skyhook pops the cords
now, lead the fast break, hit worthy on the fly
now, blindside a pinpoint behind-the-back pass for two more
off the fake, looking the other way, you raise off-balance
into electric space
sweating chants of your name
turn, 180 degrees off the move, your legs scissoring space
like a swimmer’s yoyoing motion in deep water
stretching out now toward free flight
you double-pump through human trees
hang in place
slip the ball into your left hand
then deal it like a las vegas card dealer off squared glass
into nets, living up to your singular nickname
so “bad” you cartwheel the crowd toward frenzy
wearing now your electric smile, neon as your name

in victory, we suddenly sense your glorious uplift
your urgent need to be champion
& so we cheer with you, rejoice with you
for this quicksilver, quicksilver,

quicksilver moment of fame
so put the ball on the floor again, “magic”
juke & dazzle, shake & bake down the lane
take the sucker to the hoop, “magic” johnson,
recreate reverse hoodoo gems off the spin
deal alley-oop dunkathon magician passes
now, double-pump, scissor, vamp through space
hang in place
& put it all up in the sucker’s face, “magic” johnson,
& deal the roundball like the juju man that you am
like the sho-nuff shaman that you am, “magic,”
like the sho-nuff spaceman you am

I'd like to make a plug here for some of the lesser-known poets I've mentioned, who will be known by poetry buffs, but probably not by casual readers. Oh so worth discovering:

Li-Young Lee
T.R. Hummer
Judson Mitcham
Coleman Barks
Yusef Komunyakaa

Lee especially. For my money, there's no one around now who's better.

And Komunyakaa's "Dien Cai Dao" may be the best contemporary war poetry in English.

Oh, almost forgot...

Fred Chappell
Jim Carroll

 

[RedIbis]

If religion won't comfort: modern poetry, and insurance policies?



But wasn't it about having beer for breakfast, and dessert, and...

O heck, wrong Sunday Mornin'.

Here's Stevens'. I'd say it roughly repeats the philosophical pattern of "The Emperor...", only here the contrast isn't abrupt, but shaded tropically -- Stevens' genius at re-inventing tropes -- vaguely melancholic liminal "psychologue", melancholy catalyst to the questioning, insight, and vague tranquilility at poem's and day's end. Bet he wrote this one at Key West (while the Emperor's gottabe a northerner)...

Is too long for a line-by-line, (unless that coffee's really strong)!

True, the poem is far too long for an explication here, but suffice it to say it is very much an internal debate between the validity of Christianity and earth based religions, such as paganism, this line is stunning:

"Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, within whose burning bosom we devise our earthly mothers waiting sleeplessly."

 

[gumboot]

Dylan Thomas
William Shakespeare
John Masefield
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Marshall Mathers (no really)
J R R Tolkien
James K Baxter
Hone Tuwhare
William Wordsworth
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Edgar Allan Poe

And I know this is incredibly immodest of me, but can I say "myself"?

I thought I'd expand by quoting my favourite lines from each of these poets, since most people appear to be posting entire poems they like.

Dylan Thomas

To begin at the beginning:
It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine tonight in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows' weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.
-Under Milk Wood


William Shakespeare

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps to this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle'
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
-Macbeth


John Masefield

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
-Sea-Fever


Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, ne breath ne motion,
As idle as a painted Ship
Upon a painted Ocean.

Water, water every where
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water every where,
Ne any drop to drink.
-The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner


Marshall Mathers

NSFW - potentially offensive lyrics

See the problem is, I speak to suburban kids
who otherwise woulda never knew these words exist
Whose moms probably woulda never gave two squirts of piss
'til I created so much mother****in turbulence!
Straight out the tube, right into your living rooms I came
And kids flipped, when they knew I was produced by Dre
That's all it took, and they were instantly hooked right in
And they connected with me too because I looked like them
That's why they put my lyrics up under this microscope
Searchin with a fine tooth comb, it's like this rope
waitin to choke; tightenin around my throat
Watchin me while I write this, like I don't like this (Nope!)
All I hear is: lyrics, lyrics, constant controversy, sponsors working
round the clock to try to stop my concerts early, surely
Hip-Hop was never a problem in Harlem only in Boston
After it bothered the fathers of daughters startin to blossom
So now I'm catchin the flack from these activists when they raggin
Actin like I'm the first rapper to smack a **** or say faggot, ****!
Just look at me like I'm your closest pal
The posterchild, the mother****in spokesman now for...

-White America


JRR Tolkien

I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew:
Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.
Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,
And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree.
Beneath the stars of Ever-eve in Eldamar it shone,
In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion.
There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years,
While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Elven-tears.
O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day;
The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away.
O Lórien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore
And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.
But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?
-Galadriel's Song of Eldamar


James K Baxter

Alone we are born
And alone die;
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
Over snow-mountain shine.

Upon the upland road
Ride easy, stranger:
Surrender to the sky
Your heart of anger.
-High Country Weather


Hone Tuwhare

Where are the men of mettle?
are there old scores
left to settle?
When will the canoes leap
to the stab and kick
the sea-wet flourish
of pointed paddles?
will the sun play again
to the skip of muscles
on curved backs bared
to the rain's lash
the sea's punch?
to War! to War!

where are the proud lands
to subdue - and women?
where are the slaves
to gather wood for the fires
stones for the oven?
who shall reap
the succulent children whimpering
on the terraced hill-top?

no more alas no more
no raw memory left
of these
nor bloody trophies:
only the fantail's flip
to cheeky war-like postures
and on the sand-hill
wry wind fluting
the bleached bones marrowless
-Old Man Chanting In The Dark


William Wordsworth

Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
-Imitations of Immortality


Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
-The Charge Of The Light Brigade


Edgar Allan Poe

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting —
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! — quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted — nevermore!
-The Raven


Me!

Take from me old age and wisdom,
Relieve of me glory and fame.
These things I do not have use for,
Let lesser men live for that aim.

Mine is a life made for service,
A life lived without any greed.
My blood is cheaper than water,
For masters to spend as they need.

For I am the empire’s soldier,
Serving the Senate on high.
A son of the legions I am,
My duty to fight and to die.

But for my life you’ve expended,
In payment I do not make claim,
Except for a place on a wall,
And that you remember my name.
-Will Of The Legion

 

[Piggy]

William Shakespeare

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

I once heard an interview w/ O'Toole when he told about doing Monday matinees of the Scottish play in London, when locals would come out for the cheap shows, and one day when he got to that line, an elderly lady in the front row turned to her friend and said, "That would be Thursday."

Cracked him up right there on stage.

 

[orpheus]

These days, Georg Trakl.

 

[Lilith]

I LOVE e.e.cummings.
(

I chose e.e. cummings' poetry for the topic of a report in 10th or 11th grade (early 80's) and fell in love with his style. I still enjoy reading poems aloud when I'm all alone, and just feel the way the words flow together, and create a mood. Why, it's almost wooish!

Later I settled on GG Byron as a favorite, but I like many other poets. Even no-names. Back in the 80's I used to read and post to rec.arts.poems newsgroup - I was repeatedly impressed with the writings by "regular" people.

One of my favorite poems that I learned as a child (from the Haunted House and Other Spooky Poems and Tales, of which I still have both the 45 and the book!) goes like this:

It isn't the cough
That carries you off
It's the coffin
They carry you off in.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Anonymous and Bennet Cerf, as well as Ogden Nash, are my faves.

Anonymous is the authoer of a book on my shelf: The Limverick. 1700 of them.

Shel ranks right up there.

Kipling, Chesterton, and Poe also on my list.

DR

 

[Marshall]

Nobody has mentioned Roethke. I can't say he's my favorite. Our son just came to visit and happened to recite some and I asked about it and he found this web site for me with a few Roethke.
Here's a sample, about a woman he loved that seems to have been a bit too wild for him:
http://gawow.com/roethke/poems/122.html ("I knew a woman...")

Here's another about a cross-country trainride at night:
http://gawow.com/roethke/poems/32.html ("Night Journey")

 

[Marshall]

I don't know. I've never Kippled before.

Langston Hughes
Mary Oliver
Ted Kooser
Ogden Nash
Gary Soto
Wilfred Owen
Richard Wilbur
Okay ... Kipling

and the person who wrote Western Wind - Anonymous

Someone who knows and likes Richard Wilbur's poetry! I didnt see any other mention of Wilbur in the thread---may have missed something.
Also Mary Oliver. I remember liking one of hers very much about a Humming bird. And another one about Wild Geese. So much I'd like to get them and paste them in here some time.

"Westren wind, when wilt thou blow?
the small rain doth down rain,
Christ that my love were in my arms
and I in my bed again!"

The sailor cannot leave harbor and return home until the wind changes. Thanks gypsyfish for reminding me of these that I find I know by heart but had not thought of for many years.

"The turtle lives twixt plated decks
that [forget adverb] conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle
in such a fix to be so fertile."

I'll get the Mary Oliver I like some other day.

 

[Reivax]

I second Charles Bukowski...

Dinosauria, We

Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
Pissed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter.

-Charles Bukowski

 

[KinskiTemper]

I'm not too knowledgeable about poets, but Yeats, Poe and Blake spring to mind.

 

[Captain Obvious]

Thomas Hardy; a greatly underrated poet.