My Favorites Poets
“Heard Melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter”(Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn). Poetry is like Unheard Melody. They(poems) are “unnumbr’d sounds that evening store; the song of birds, the whisp’ring of the leaves, the voice of waters. – and thousand others more”(Keats: How Many Bards Gild The Lapses of Time). Let me go ahead with my chioce.
Charles Baudelaire:
French Symbolist Poet- also called Decadent poets. The Words in his poetry simply speak to you. The principle themes of his poems are Beauty, Sex and Art. One of the poets who applied synesthesia(aberration of senses) in his poetry. His poetry was always controversial, due to subjects of his poems. His works(Referring only to poems) are Les Fleurs du Mal(The Flowers of Evil) which will remain my favorite forever. The poems in the collection of The Flowers of evil are CONSECRATION, THE ALBATROSS, ELEVATION, CORRESPONDENCES, ’I PRIZE THE MEMORY. . .’, GUIDING LIGHTS, OVERCAST, BEAUTY, OBSESSION
HYMN TO BEAUTY, EVEN WHEN SHE WALKS, CARRION, GET DRUNK. All these poems are sensuous and sometimes even obscene but candid and poetic. I quote here some of the lines which I love:
* Ocean, I hate you! For I recognize
the sobs and insults of my own despair,
the bitter laughter of a beaten man
repeated in the sea’s huge gaiety.
Night! You’d please me even more without these stars
which speak a language I know all too well-
I long for darkness, silence,
nothing there. . . **(Obsession)
John Keats
Keats’ poems are delight to the ears. One of the famous Romantic Poets known for sensuousness and Beauty. Who would ever forget his Endymion, Ode to Grecian Urn and Nightingale? The very name Keats is synonymous with Beauty. Greatness needs no testimony .Keats is great. Some very thought-provoking lines from Keats
* Stop and Consider! life is but a day
A fragile dewdrop on its perilous way **(Life and Death)
*Ah! Dearest love, sweet home of all my fears
And hopes’ and joys, and painting miseries, -.
Lost in soft amaze
I gaze I gaze**(Ode to Fanny)
His other famous works are The Eve of St Agnes and La Belle Dans Sans Merci(I do not have space to mention all.
Robert Browning:
Victorian poet. A Poet who was optimistic when the world around him was melancholic and losing faith in God. All his poems are classical in nature- adaptations from Greek and Roman Literature. He was not a famous poet during his times which is reflected in his poetry itself. His poems fascinate me. It is philosophical and beautifully melancholic in its tone . I mention some of his famous poems here About Vogler, Fra Lippo Lippi, Andrea Del Sarto, My Last Duchess .
*My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!
- - How could you ever prick those perfect ears,
Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet-
My face, my moon, my everybody’s moon,
Which everybody looks on and calls his, ** (Andrea Del Sarto)
These are lines which I like - Andrea says this about his wife(think of these lines)
Emily Dickinson:
American Poet – lyrical, who lauded solitude. Her poetry is considered modern in tone. All her poems were published posthumously in three volumes. Some of the poems which I like are I Died for Beauty, I am nobody, Who are You?, Success is counted Swetest and many more(since I have all the three volumes). Her poetry is philosophical simple and lonely. A writer obsessed with Death- which is also the main theme of her poems.
* I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us -don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.*
Kamala Das(Suraiya)
An Indian writer in English –from Kerala- known for her complex and changing moods(even in personal life). The predominant themes of her poems are Sex, Love and Society. Though some of them would feel otherwise, she is a good poet- infact a true Poet. Her famous works are Summer in Calcutta(poetry; Kent’s Award winner), 1967: The Descendants(poetry), 1973: The Old Playhouse and Other Poems, The Anamalai Poems(poetry), Only the Soul Knows How to Sing(poetry), 2001: yaa Allah(collection of poems)published by [IPH]
* Or show his wounds to us, no god lost in
Silence shall begin to speak, no lost love
Claim us, no, we are not going to be
Ever redeemed, or made new**(Descendants).
Robert Frost:
American lyrical poet. Every one would be familiar with this poet. Frost freezes me. Such lovely lines and such simple philosophy - characteristic of his poems. This is how his poems are classified A boy’s will, North of Boston, Mountain Interval, New Hampshire and West Running Brook. Mending Wall, Home Burial and After Apple picking from North of Boston; and The Road not taken from Mountain intreval.
The Road Not Taken is my favorite poem.
Robert Burns:
Scottish – Romantic poet. His poetry is lyrical, emotional and sentimental. Essentially Scottish in Nature. Some of my favourite poems are Ae Fond Kiss and the most famous O my luve’s like Red Red Rose.
W.B Yeats:
A modern Poet. His poems are spiritual and philosophical and also mysterious. Some of the poems which I like are The Tower, Hour Glass and Among school Children.
John Donne:
Metaphysical, unique comparisons and essentially sarcastic are characteristics of his poems. I hope you all remember the titles Valediction Forbidding Mourning, The Canonization. He is also known for his holy sonnets.
Gerald Manley Hopkins:
Modernist. Known for his spiritual poems- The Wreck of the Deutschland is my favourite. Some of his other poems are Felix Randall and Carrion Comfort.
Note: I do not mention Tagore and Wordsworth because they are more than poets to me.
Waiting ur comments - do chip in ur favourites too