My favourite poet in English is a relatively unknown fellow called James Elroy Flecker.
Legolas Send a noteboard - 23/03/2010 07:11:03 PM
He tends to write rather nostalgic, romantic stuff, often connected to Antiquity and/or Islamic culture, being a Classicist and Orientalist by trade, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Possibly not entirely what you like, considering the conspicuous absence of any English-language 18th or 19th century poets in your list, but oh well...
See link for an anthology of his stuff on Project Gutenberg, although that leaves out his famous Gates of Damascus (well, famous is relative... but Agatha Christie referred to it in one of her books, anyway ), which you can find at http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2000/08/gates-of-damascus-james-elroy-flecker.html
His most famous poem is probably the first one in the anthology, called "To a Poet A Thousand Years Hence":
"I who am dead a thousand years,
And wrote this sweet archaic song,
Send you my words for messengers
The way I shall not pass along.
I care not if you bridge the seas,
Or ride secure the cruel sky,
Or build consummate palaces
Of metal or of masonry.
But have you wine and music still,
And statues and a bright-eyed love,
And foolish thoughts of good and ill,
And prayers to them who sit above?
How shall we conquer? Like a wind
That falls at eve our fancies blow,
And old Moeonides the blind
Said it three thousand years ago.
O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.
Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you by the hand,
I send my soul through time and space
To greet you. You will understand."
Other than Flecker, I really like the few poems I know by Yeats (his famous two, i.e. "No Second Troy" and that one with the "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold" line of which the title now escapes me), and some really famous stuff like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner that I doubt needs further recommendation.
I could recommend some Dutch-language poets - you might like some of Achterberg's better religiously themed stuff, and I refuse to believe anyone can dislike van Ostaijen - but I'm afraid there's not much by them that is translated.
See link for an anthology of his stuff on Project Gutenberg, although that leaves out his famous Gates of Damascus (well, famous is relative... but Agatha Christie referred to it in one of her books, anyway ), which you can find at http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2000/08/gates-of-damascus-james-elroy-flecker.html
His most famous poem is probably the first one in the anthology, called "To a Poet A Thousand Years Hence":
"I who am dead a thousand years,
And wrote this sweet archaic song,
Send you my words for messengers
The way I shall not pass along.
I care not if you bridge the seas,
Or ride secure the cruel sky,
Or build consummate palaces
Of metal or of masonry.
But have you wine and music still,
And statues and a bright-eyed love,
And foolish thoughts of good and ill,
And prayers to them who sit above?
How shall we conquer? Like a wind
That falls at eve our fancies blow,
And old Moeonides the blind
Said it three thousand years ago.
O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.
Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you by the hand,
I send my soul through time and space
To greet you. You will understand."
Other than Flecker, I really like the few poems I know by Yeats (his famous two, i.e. "No Second Troy" and that one with the "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold" line of which the title now escapes me), and some really famous stuff like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner that I doubt needs further recommendation.
I could recommend some Dutch-language poets - you might like some of Achterberg's better religiously themed stuff, and I refuse to believe anyone can dislike van Ostaijen - but I'm afraid there's not much by them that is translated.
This message last edited by Legolas on 23/03/2010 at 07:12:02 PM
Poetry: care to recommend me some?
23/03/2010 06:57:49 PM
- 912 Views
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester?
23/03/2010 07:04:39 PM
- 725 Views
Re: Rebekah is not prepubescent. Ergo, no. *NM*
23/03/2010 08:06:33 PM
- 311 Views
Hey. Rochester is actually quite good *NM*
23/03/2010 08:17:50 PM
- 292 Views
And amazingly explicit. *NM*
23/03/2010 08:35:13 PM
- 315 Views
Yes
23/03/2010 08:37:55 PM
- 738 Views
That has to be the best (if, admittedly, only) poem on premature ejaculation I've ever read.
23/03/2010 08:52:12 PM
- 613 Views
Apparently it was quite fashionable to write them during the Restoration
23/03/2010 08:56:31 PM
- 574 Views
My favourite poet in English is a relatively unknown fellow called James Elroy Flecker.
23/03/2010 07:11:03 PM
- 998 Views
What languages do you speak?
23/03/2010 08:51:18 PM
- 651 Views
Some Spanish and German
23/03/2010 08:57:59 PM
- 677 Views
Pablo Neruda? *NM*
23/03/2010 09:11:26 PM
- 327 Views
This is why I will never recommend А́нна Ахма́това/ Anna Akhmatova to anyone who
24/03/2010 04:16:07 PM
- 725 Views
Emily Dickinson? *NM*
23/03/2010 10:37:19 PM
- 307 Views
I loathe her *NM*
24/03/2010 04:41:57 AM
- 313 Views
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot.
24/03/2010 04:13:54 PM
- 848 Views
it is a good one
24/03/2010 08:22:46 PM
- 670 Views
I read a couple of Edward Thomas poems recently that I really liked
26/03/2010 03:14:31 PM
- 739 Views
coming in late, but haven't seen anyone mention langston hughes? *NM*
30/03/2010 04:14:52 PM
- 331 Views