• ✍️ WORDS ✍️

    Welcome Guest!

  • Words Moderators: Shambles

Who are your favorite poets?

Well, I must say Yeats, Colridge, Milton and Byron. I like the romantics.
From modern times, Robert Smith, Thom Yorke and King Missile's John S. Hall.
This is by John S. Hall. It may be prose, but it still is a great piece.
Jesus was way cool
Everybody liked Jesus
Everybody wanted to hang out with him
Anything he wanted to do, he did
He turned water into wine
If he wanted to he could of turned wheat into marijuana, sugar into cocaine or vitamin pills into amphetamines.
He walked on the water, and swan on the land
He would tell these stories, and people would listen
He was really cool.
If you were blind or lame, you just went to Jesus, and you would be healed. That's so cool.
He could've played guitar better than Hendrix
He could've told the future
He could'be baked the most delicious cake in the world.
He could've scored more goals than Wane Gretzsky
He could've danced better than Barishnakov.
Jesus could've been funnier than any comedian you can think of. Jesus was way cool.
He told people to eat his body and drink his blood. That's so cool.
Jesus was so cool.
But then some people got jealous of how cool he was, so they killed him.
But then he rose from the dead! He rose from the dead, danced around,and went up to heaven
I mean, that's so cool!
Jesus was way cool.
No wonder there are so many christians.
And no, King Missile isn't a christian rock group. They released that song "Detachable Penis" a few years back.
 
one of my favs you wont have heard of...
philip lui age 9.
the wild ones are coming
coming for me,
the one named albert
the leader is he.
i call him fat albert
he hates that name,
then they beat me and beat me
again and again.
when i read this 15 years ago in a school poetry competition- i cried and cried...
it never left me.
i hope you grew up big and strong philip.
[ 20 February 2002: Message edited by: eddi spgeddi ]
 
Sylvia Plath
Robert Frost
Emily Dickenson
Shel Silverstein
E E Cummings
Persy Shelley
POE
Shakespeare
Lord Byron
Longfellow
and many more :)
 
Figured this thread was worth reviving... I think it’s a worthwhile exercise, especially if people post examples of their favourite poet’s work. :)

I have many favourite poets. Let's see, of those already mentioned, I love Neruda, Lorca, Cummings, Rilke, Plath, Frost, Dickinson, Blake, Shelley, Byron, Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Dylan Thomas, Whitman, Eliot, Bukowski, Ginsberg, Stevens, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Heaney, Auden, Chaucer, Milton, Yeats, Poe and William Carlos Williams.

And in terms of lyricists, I agree that Thom Yorke, Robert Smith and Jim Morrison all deserve a mention. Actually I’m a huge fan of Radiohead, The Cure and The Doors. After all, when you combine visionary lyrics with transportive, out-of-body music, something incredible has to happen!

But to bring up a few poets who haven’t been mentioned yet, I’d have to say that Arthur Rimbaud, David Antin, Frank O’Hara, and the late, great Australian poets John Forbes and Michael Dransfield have made big impressions on me.

I’d recommend any of Rimbaud’s work, especially the hallucinatory Illuminations.

David Antin could perhaps be called a ‘performance philosopher’ as much as a poet. Most of his printed work is actually transcripts of live performances, usually on a theme (e.g. time), sometimes involving anecdotes, always challenging presuppositions, always pushing the envelope of what spoken/written language can do.

And I’ll give a quick taste of the last three poets I mentioned:


Frank O’Hara: Poem

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up


John Forbes: Angel

not serious about drugs
and into the sky that's
open like a face and
when night arrives the
smiling starts we being
our own stars as the days
pass in their cars and
the stereo fills with mud
we don't care we walk
in the rhythm of a face
that's awake in the air
and I'd like to kiss you
but you've just washed
your hair, the night goes
on and we do too until
like pills dissolving
turn a glass of water
blue it's dawn and we
go to sleep we dream
like crazy and get rich
and go away.


Michael Dransfield: Flying

i was flying over sydney
in a giant dog

things looked bad
 
I don't know enough actual poets really to have favourites....

If we can include songwriters though, I'll chuck in Brian Molko, Marilyn Manson and Tori Amos. There are lots of other artists I like more or who may be more musically talented, but these are the ones whom I consider really gifted at actually putting words together to make an impact.
 
Yeah, Brian Molko and Tori Amos are both incredible lyricists. Can't say I'm a big fan of Marilyn Manson (maybe I just find his image and media hype off-putting), but then again I've never seriously sat down and read his lyrics.

My favourite lyricists would be Morrissey and Leonard Cohen... and Thom Yorke is right up there too.
 
For those who haven't experienced Morrissey (I hadn't until 2 years ago), click here for a website devoted to his words.

For anyone who's ever felt the dispair of loneliness, here are the lyrics to I know it's over - the music is even more incredible...

(Wordy) I love John Forbes' Angel (l)
 
ice-9 said:
since i have never really picked up a poetry book...i'd have to say that there are several ppl in this forum who are currently my favorites.
yeah, sounds cliche and cheesy but it's true.
:)
Click to expand...

I have to agree. Wholeheartedly, and for the same reason.

I do have a very short list of non-bluelighters:
Allen Ginsberg - I remember hearing a recording of Sunflower Sutra and being blown away. I think that was the beginning of all this (poetry, not writing in general) for me.
James Douglas (aka Jim) Morrison - for both his poetry and his lyrics.

And from reading this thread, I think I may find some more :D
 
My all time favorite is Arthur Rimbaud.

As well as

Charles Baudelaire
Edgar Allen Poe

(I really identify personally and poetically with these 2)

Jim Morrison was the one that got me to start writing in the first place.

Dylan Thomas
Walt Witman
Allen Ginsberg
Jack Kerouac
Gregory Corso
William Blake
Jim Carroll
Ted Berrigan
Frank O'Hara
Diane Di Prima
Emily Dickenson
Jenniffer G. (a friend of mine)
Samual Coleridge
Gary Snyder
Philip Whalen
Michael McClure
Henry David Thoreau
Jewel Kilcher
Lee Ronaldo

and others.....
 
I will never tire of reading the Rilke, Neruda and Ginsberg poems in this thread. Poetry at its purest... :|

EM, I can definitely understand how the Sunflower Sutra would pull you by the ear into the realm of writing. :)

The Frog, that's a very solid list. Some excellent recent American poets in there.

Lately I've been reading a lot of Australian poetry, especially MTC Cronin, Jennifer Maiden, Michael Farrell, Dorothy Porter, Ken Bolton, Judith Wright, Emma Lew, Luke Davies, Ouyang Yu, Grant Caldwell, Toby Davidson and Andy Jackson. The last two are a couple of younger poets who often perform in and around Melbourne. You can check out examples of their work in the latest issue of Going Down Swinging, which publishes Australia's best fringe literature, along with comics and a spoken word CD. %)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top