Rody Gorman

End of Term

http://www.stanzapoetry.org/2012/participant.php?participant=376

Michael Donaghy

Machines

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/26439

Sylvia Plath

The Applicant

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=7084

Pablo Neruda

I do not love you except because I love you

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-do-not-love-you-except-because-i-love-you/

Mark Doty

A Green Crab's Shell

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15633

Charles Simic

Cameo Appearance

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do;jsessionid=71152F5B87EB119AE0DE4B8E53CA504E?poemId=5562

Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill

The Language Issue

http://www.thepoem.co.uk/poems/dhomhnaill.htm

The original poem is in Irish Gaelic from her collection 'Pharoah's Daughter.'

Sharon Olds

I go back to May 1937

http://poemhunter.com/poem/i-go-back-to-may-1937/

Eugenio Montale

In the Greenhouse

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/17016

William Blake

LOVE'S SECRET

by: William Blake (1757-1827)

EVER seek to tell thy love,

Love that never told can be;

For the gentle wind doth move

Silently, invisibly.




I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart,

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.

Ah! she did depart!




Soon after she was gone from me,

A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly:

He took her with a sigh.

Chase Twitchell

A Mysterious Heart

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182178

Brendan Kennelly

I See you Dancing, Father

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=207

Christopher Reid

Extract form 'Scattering'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/05/costa-poetry-award-a-scattering-christopher-reid

Walt Whitman

From pent-up aching rivers....

(Extract from 'Leaves of Grass')

From pent-up aching rivers,

From that of myself without which I were nothing,

From what I am determin'd to make illustrious, even if I stand sole among men,

From my own voice resonant, singing the phallus,

Singing the song of procreation,

Singing the need of superb children and therein superb grown people,

Singing the muscular urge and the blending,

Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless yearning!

O for any and each the body correlative attracting!

O for you whoever you are your correlative body! O it, more than all else, you delighting!)

From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day,

From native moments, from bashful pains, singing them,

Seeking something yet unfound though I have diligently sought it many a long year,

Singing the true song of the soul fitful at random,

Renascent with grossest Nature or among animals,

Of that, of them and what goes with them my poems informing,

Of the smell of apples and lemons, of the pairing of birds,

Of the wet of woods, of the lapping of waves,

Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land, I them chanting,

The overture lightly sounding, the strain anticipating,

The welcome nearness, the sight of the perfect body,

The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back lying and floating,

The female form approaching, I pensive, love-flesh tremulous aching,

The divine list for myself or you or for any one making,

The face, the limbs, the index from head to foot, and what it arouses,

The mystic deliria, the madness amorous, the utter abandonment,

(Hark close and still what I now whisper to you,

I love you, O you entirely possess me,

O that you and I escape from the rest and go utterly off, free and lawless,

Two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea not more lawless than we;)

The furious storm through me careering, I passionately trembling.

The oath of the inseparableness of two together, of the woman that loves me and whom I love more than my life, that oath swearing,

(O I willingly stake all for you,

O let me be lost if it must be so!

O you and I! what is it to us what the rest do or think?

What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other and exhaust each other if it must be so;)

From the master, the pilot I yield the vessel to,

The general commanding me, commanding all, from him permission taking,

From time the programme hastening, (I have loiter'd too long as it is,)

From sex, from the warp and from the woof,

From privacy, from frequent repinings alone,

From plenty of persons near and yet the right person not near,

From the soft sliding of hands over me and thrusting of fingers through my hair and beard,

From the long sustain'd kiss upon the mouth or bosom,

From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, fainting with excess,

From what the divine husband knows, from the work of fatherhood,

From exultation, victory and relief, from the bedfellow's embrace in the night,

From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips and bosoms,

From the cling of the trembling arm,

From the bending curve and the clinch,

From side by side the pliant coverlet off-throwing,

From the one so unwilling to have me leave, and me just as unwilling to leave,

(Yet a moment O tender waiter, and I return,)

From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews,

From the night a moment I emerging flitting out,

Celebrate you act divine and you children prepared for,

And you stalwart loins.

"From Pent-Up Aching Rivers" is reprinted from Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman. Brooklyn: Fowler & Wells, 1856.

Czeslaw Milosz

A Poor Christian looks at the Ghetto

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-poor-christian-looks-at-the-ghetto/

Shakespeare

Sonnet 130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Lady of Shalott

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow veil'd,
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?

Only reapers, reaping early,
In among the bearded barley
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly;
Down to tower'd Camelot;
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers, " 'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

And moving through a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot;
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls
Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad
Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes through the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two.
She hath no loyal Knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often through the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot;
Or when the Moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed.
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazon'd baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armor rung
Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, burning bright,
Moves over still Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining.
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And around about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.

And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance --
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right --
The leaves upon her falling light --
Thro' the noises of the night,
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and Burgher, Lord and Dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."

by Alfred Lord Tennyson (Victorian poet, 1809-1892)

Kwame Dawes

Tornado Child

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/181397

To hear the poet read his work, click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-guTTBeivg

Osip Mandelstam

Extract from Tristia

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I have studied the Science of departures, in night’s sorrows, when a woman’s hair falls down. The oxen chew, there’s the waiting, pure, in the last hours of vigil in the town, and I reverence night’s ritual cock-crowing, when reddened eyes lift sorrow’s load and choose to stare at distance, and a woman’s crying is mingled with the singing of the Muse. Who knows, when the word ‘departure’ is spoken what kind of separation is at hand, or of what that cock-crow is a token, when a fire on the Acropolis lights the ground, and why at the dawning of a new life, when the ox chews lazily in its stall, the cock, the herald of the new life, flaps his wings on the city wall? I like the monotony of spinning, the shuttle moves to and fro, the spindle hums. Look, barefoot Delia’s running to meet you, like swansdown on the road! How threadbare the language of joy’s game, how meagre the foundation of our life! Everything was, and is repeated again: it’s the flash of recognition brings delight. So be it: on a dish of clean earthenware, like a flattened squirrel’s pelt, a shape, forms a small, transparent figure, where a girl’s face bends to gaze at the wax’s fate. Not for us to prophesy, Erebus, Brother of Night: Wax is for women: Bronze is for men. Our fate is only given in fight, to die by divination is given to them. Osip Mandelstam Russian poet 1891-1938

Kathleen Jamie

Mr and Mrs Scotland are Dead

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do;jsessionid=EEA1B548335B58EB55821EDD6FBF0854?poemId=191

George Herbert

PRAYER. (I)

PRAYER the Churches banquet, Angels age,
Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth ;

Engine against th’ Almightie, sinner's towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six daies world-transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear ;

Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,
Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,
Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bels beyond the stars heard, the souls bloud,
The land of spices, something understood.

George Herbert was a 17th c Metaphysical poet.

Seumas Heaney

From 'The Lightenings'

http://www.thepoem.co.uk/poems/heaney.htm

Gwyneth Lewis

How to Knit a Poem

http://uk.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=10471

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Paul Muldoon

Why Brownlee left

http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/schools/11_16/poetry/relationships2.shtml

Wislawa Szymborska

Cat in an Empty Apartment

I'm posting this poem by Wislawa Szymborska in tribute.
Her death has just been announced.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060528073407/http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~zbzw/ph/szym/szym.htm

Cavafy

Ithaka

http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=74&cat=1

William McGonigall

The Tay Bridge Disaster

Only joking.

Just one verse to give you a taster:

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

If you must read on, click on http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/gems/the-tay-bridge-disaster

Possibly the worst poem ever written by the poet often voted the worst in the world. (Mind you, Wordsworth had some crackers.)

Simon Armitage

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do;jsessionid=948C28C5054B435500740E8549161521?poemId=90