Anna James

I'm an avid poetry reader and I think that it might be a good idea to have a poetry-exchanging thread, so I just made this one.
I plan to post a poem every day or so, and will invite everyone to share their favorite poems.
I will post a link when I can find what I want to post already on the net, and if I can, I will write it in my post.
I will start with Edgar Alan Po - "The Raven"
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/poe/raven.html

fivefive

In all languages?

Anna James

I think that the rule of the forum is English only...but I use Bulgarian, Russian, some Serbian, and to some point French, so I would take links in those languages for private use. I don't use Chinese though...I had read some stuff in Russian translation, poems from the "Tan era"...does this mean anything to you? Translation changes things so much that one hardly can recognize them...sadly, one cannot learn all possible languages.

fivefive

Oh, I did not know the rule for the forum is English only.

Translation of an article loses thr beauty of original text, not to say of a poem. But it's equally hard to be able to appreciate a poem in a second language. For the moment, I am only able to enjoy poem in Chinese or some sentences in peom in Japanese if it was composed by kanji. But I'd love to learn from your posts

Anna James

Why don't you ask one of the moderators about the language?
I personally wouldn't mind if you post in Chinese, may be someone else will be able to use it, even if I can't.
Otherwise, I hear you about the translations - I personally can't stand them /that's why I started learning English 15 years ago in the first place/, but, alas, there are only so many languages one can learn enough to use them...
I probably will post only English and American poetry, may be a vary rare translation from Russian, if I find one I think it's really good and carries the message well.

Linschoten

Why not have poems in other languages if accompanied by an English translation?

The Bean Field, by John Clare

A beanfield full in blossom smells as sweet
As Araby, or groves of orange flowers;
Black-eyed and white, and feathered to one's feet,
How sweet they smell in morning's dewy hours!
When seething night is left upon the flowers,
And when morn's sun shines brightly o'er the field,
The bean bloom glitters in the gems of showers,
And sweet the fragrance which the union yields
To battered footpaths crossing o'er the fields.

He spent the latter part of his life in a lunatic asylum, here is a poem that he wrote there:

I AM! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes;
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that 's dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod—
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept—
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,—
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.

Chookie

We've done this before, but it's about time the subject was resurrected. Try this link for some excellent poems:-

http://www.historum.com/showthread.p...t=poems+poetry

alsoubani

below is a poem by Imru' al-Qais who was assassinated by emperor Justinian II

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-p...-imru-al-qays/

Anna James

I really liked the second poem of John Clare. I never heard of him, shame on me. Imru al'Qaias is a new name for me too. Thank you, guys!
Here is a link to the "Ballad of Reading Gaol", by Oscar Wilde. It's long, but it's stunning.
http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poe...ading_goal.htm

General Michael Collins

A Poem I learn off by heart two years ago; It refers to the United Irishmen's rebellion of 1798. they were defeated easily, partly because they fought muskets with pikes, but mostly poor organization was to blame. After the rebellion the shame of such a disastrous defeat was heavy on Irish minds, and this poem was printed to honour the dead.

Who dares to speak of '98
Who Blushes at the name,
When Cowards mock the Patriots fate
Who hangs his head in Shame?
He's all a knave, or half a slave who slights his country thus;
But a true man, like you man,
Will Fill your glass with us.

Here's their memory,
May it be for us a shining light,
To cheer our strife for liberty and teach us to unite.
And though Good and ill be Ireland's still,
And Sad as theirs your fate,
And True men, be you men,
Like those of '98.