Friday Five #12

Poems That Left Their Mark

I distinctly remember when I first learned about poetry. I was in fourth grade, and my beloved teacher Mrs. Fisher introduced poetry to us by reading several, and then she had us write our own. (One of my earliest poems began with the lines, “Fish, fish in the blue sea / please cone out and play with me.” My genius was evident even then.) One of my proudest moments in that class was when Mrs. Fisher read one of MY poems aloud. Was it any good? Of course not. Did that matter at the time? Not one bit. From that moment on, I was hooked on poetry. Over the years I have read hundreds and hundreds of poems—some assigned for classes I took and others on my own—and I have never regretted time spent reading poetry. I realize that for many, poetry is mystifying. Why can’t poets just say what they mean? For me, poems are puzzles to be solved, art to be studied, images to be devoted to memory. Poetry is chocolate for my soul. For this edition of Friday Five, I give you some of the poems that instantly struck a chord with me and have remained engrained in my consciousness. I’m linking the more contemporary poems instead of quoting them in their entirety because I don’t want to break any copyright laws. Please do go and read them. Savor them.

1. “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota” by James Wright. The last line of this poem gutted me when I first read it in college, so naturally all of the poems I wrote after reading it started to have a “gut punch” in the last line. I still have not entirely broken myself of this tendency.

2. “Sonnet 116” by William Shakespeare. I first read this poem in high school and for some reason I can’t recall besides my sheer nerdiness, I memorized it. I can’t quote all of it now, but those opening lines get me every time¹.
   

   Let me not to the marriage of true minds

   Admit impediments. Love is not love

   Which alters when it alteration finds,

   Or bends with the remover to remove.

   O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

   That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

   It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

   Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

   Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

   Within his bending sickle's compass come;

   Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

   But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

   If this be error and upon me prov'd,

   I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

3. “Holy Sonnet X, Death Be Not Proud” by John Donne. Two sonnets on the same list! I don’t even like sonnets all that much as a general rule (don’t tell my former English professors), but how can you not love this one’s final lines? Donne himself is a rather fascinating character; I would like to read a biography about him someday.²
   
   Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
   Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
   For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
   Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
   From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
   Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
   And soonest our best men with thee do go,
   Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
   Thou' art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
   And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
   And poppy' or charms can make us sleep as well
   And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
   One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
   And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

4. “From Blossoms” by Li-Young Lee. I carry several lines of this poem around with me: “O, to take what we love inside” and “There are days we live/ as if death were nowhere/ in the background; from joy/ to joy to joy.”

   

5. “Gate A-4” by Naomi Shihab Nye. This poem is structurally different from every other poem on this list, and I came to it the most recently. Still, it’s possible that I have read it almost more than any of the others. I love the way it captures the beauty of humanity, the way we can make community in such a place as an airport. “Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere…Not everything is lost.”

Now it’s YOUR turn: If you have a poem/poems you love, please share them with me!

1. It also doesn’t hurt that Paris Geller maliciously quotes this to Rory on Gilmore Girls in one of my favorite episodes, The Deer Hunters, from Season 1. (And yes, Paris was using Shakespeare for evil, bless her).

2. I adore this clip from the movie Wit, starring Emma Thompson, that discusses this poem. (Be warned: if you watch the whole movie, you will absolutely cry. But it’s worth it.)