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I’m trying to stay off social media today, but in the past in times like these I’ve seen some amazing poetry shared by friends. So: what is your favorite poem (or poems)? What lines from poetry live rent free in your head? Do you have any poems memorized?
(We’ve talked about favorite songs before, but not poetry!)
For my $.02, my favorite poems are longstanding ones, chosen years ago. (Spoiler alert, they’re all a bit moody.)
As a whole I have carried these poems with me, and read, and reread them — for decades, at this point — and it’s fascinating every time. I still remember how I felt when I read them the first time, but there have been layers of feelings and meanings added over the years. There is a lot of discourse over what the poems mean, of course, and I’m sure there’s a “right answer” out there, but I tend to let my moods guide what the poems mean, and different lines in the poems will hit me differently over the years.
Prufrock is fairly Basic, I suppose — is it a Karen poem at this point? Hmmn. Do I dare to disturb the universe, indeed.
I memorized “anyone lived” for a college class and still know about 80% of it by heart. When I was pregnant with my eldest son I used to say it out loud, to my belly, all the time — I’m not sure why, to be honest. One day shortly after his birth, though, in those hazy days of new motherhood, he would not stop crying, and I started reciting the poem… and he stopped crying. I like to think he recognized it, and it calmed him.
45 Mercy Street I came to by Peter Gabriel, who has a lovely, dark, layered song called “Mercy Street.” The first time I bought “nice” speakers, this was the song I would ask the BestBuy (or whatever) guys to play. The poem itself isn’t terribly cheery, and obviously Anne Sexton’s life was not a happy one. I’m generally a happy person, but the “what can it matter” line basically lives rent free in my head.
Two more random thoughts on poetry: First, the book, Love That Dog, is an absolutely amazing children’s book if you have a kiddo who doesn’t like reading.
Second, I’ve always enjoyed Lin-Manuel Miranda’s performance at the White House Poetry Jam in 2009 — the performance is amazing, of course, but there’s also something… uplifting?… about the way everyone laughs at him when he starts describing what would become the musical “Hamilton;” many think it is a joke. My eldest son went through a big Hamilton phase, as so many kids do, and I’ve shown him that performance as evidence that good ideas aren’t always recognized as brilliant from the getgo, and you have to persevere.