I would consider myself an extremely creative person. I recently took a poetry class here at Kent State to fulfill a requirement for my creative writing minor and loved it. Through the course, I was taught that poetry doesn’t have a single formula. There are so many different ways to write a poem. So, I’ve compiled a list of poems that moved me and allowed me to think outside the writing norms. A handful of the following poems might not seem like poetry after the first read, but what is poetry? This is the question we set out to find throughout the course, and I’ve concluded that poetry is in the words you use. Now without further ado let’s dive into these poems.
- The Force That Through the green fuse drives the flower -Dylan thomas
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The following poem by Dylan Thomas contains so much emotion, simply from the words he uses. These words are what hold and guide you through the poem. They are words that are music to your ears, or appeal to your brain or to your body and heart. Words from the following poem that appealed to my brain, body and heart are: destroyer, crooked, wintry, streams, whirls, lime, gathers, calm, heaven and stars. Now, let’s read the poem and break down the meaning of it:
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.Throughout the poem, Thomas uses nature as a metaphor for time. The poem is trying to tell the reader that time is the common “force” that unites all of existence. Time is what causes a flower to bloom but also to wither; in the same way time causes the speaker’s blood to pulse but ultimately leads the blood to stop flowing. Did you get the meaning the first time around? If not, that’s very understandable, seeing as I also did not grasp the meaning after one read. What I love about poetry is that it can sometimes be a puzzle. Re-reading and breaking down the words and phrases to come to an interpretation is all part of the fun.
https://poets.org/poem/force-through-green-fuse-drives-flower
- anyone lived in a pretty how town -E. E. Cummings
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Anyone lived in a pretty how town by E. E. Cummings is an extremely musical poem. Through rhyme and repetition, Cummings gets the message of this poem across in an uplifting way. Let’s read:
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rainchildren guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by morewhen by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to hersomeones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dreamstars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by wasall by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rainNow, while the message of the poem is simpler to figure out than Thomas’s The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower, one can miss it if one begins to get lost in the musicality and rhyme of the poem. Which, I absolutely found myself doing. The poem taps into themes of solitude, societal norms/conformity and community. He criticizes the latter, the accepted norms of life and the drive and pressure to fit in throughout the entire poem.
- my picture left in Scotland -Ben Jonson
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The next poem by Ben Jonson had me from the first line. The beauty within it is what drove me forward, and I was not disappointed as I contained through, line after line, each seemingly more beautiful than the last. It is these beautifully constructed lines that make the poem seem more serious than it actually is.
I now think love is rather deaf, than blind,
For else it could not be,
That she,
Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,
And cast my love behind:
I’m sure my language was as sweet,
And every close did meet
In sentence of as subtle feet
As hath the youngest he,
That sits in shadow of Apollo’s tree.
Oh, but my conscious fears,
That fly my thoughts between,
Tell me that she hath seen
My hundreds of gray hairs,
Told seven and forty years,
Read so much waist, as she cannot embrace
My mountain belly and my rock face,
As all these, through her eyes, have stopped her ears.
Jonson’s My Picture Left in Scotland is said to be a humorous story about rejection from the viewpoint of someone who was turned down for a relationship. For those without vast knowledge of Greek Mythology, The Reference to Apollo’s tree comes from the story in which Eros makes Apollo fall in love with the nymph, Daphne because Apollo mocked his archery skills. When Apollo tries to pursue Daphne, she rejects him. When Daphne grows tired of his advances, she calls on her father for assistance, and he transforms her into a laurel tree. The reason the laurel tree is connected to the god Apollo in Greek mythology is because Apollo covered himself in laurel leaves and referred to them as his unique symbol to commemorate his love for Daphne.
- Tears -Walt Whitman
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In this Walt Whitman poem, we see more appeals to rhythm and music, but this time around it is due to the words Whitman uses. Words such as: solitude, shinning, desolate, muffled, shapeless, streaming, embodied, rising, careering, dismal, sedate, decorous, countenance, regulated and pace. Wow. A lot of words, i know, but it was these words that created the musicality in the poem for me.
Tears! tears! tears!
In the night, in solitude, tears,
On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck’d in by the sand,
Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate,
Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head;
O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears?
What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch’d there on the sand?
Streaming tears, sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries;
O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps along the
beach!O wild and dismal night storm, with wind—O belching and desperate!
O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance
and regulated pace,But away at night as you fly, none looking—O then the unloosen’d
ocean,Of tears! tears! tears!
In Tears, Whitman illustrates the harm that can result from suppressing one’s emotions. The words I discussed above serve as not only musicality but the imagery within the poem. For a very informational dive into the meaning behind this poem, click here:
https://www.123helpme.com/essay/Walt-Whitman-Tears-FJCXK5WPNKM
- Musee des Beaux Arts -W. H. Auden
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Musee des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden is a poem I feel pushes the boundaries for what is typically considered a poem. It reads like a story, and it very much is but it is once again the words used within that shift the feeling from not just a story, but poetry.
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just
walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy
life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.So, what story is being told through this poem? Auden writes about observing Old Masters paintings in a museum gallery. Old Masters were the great Renaissance artists who portrayed scenes from early Christianity and the life of Christ, for example. Breughel’s The Fall of Icarus particularly strikes an impression on Auden. The painting depicts the moment when Icarus descends into the sea after flying too close to the sun on wax-bonded wings. Although it is evident that it is not, we might assume that this catastrophe would be the painting’s main focus. The poem begins to give perspective on life and death through Auden’s eyes.
- A portable paradise -Roger Robinson
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Roger Robinson’s A Portable Paradise is more conforming to what may be considered a typical poem. I personally love the poem as I feel it serves as a sort of anecdote that Robinson’s grandmother once told him.
And if I speak of Paradise,
then I’m speaking of my grandmother
who told me to carry it always
on my person, concealed, so
no one else would know but me.
That way they can’t steal it, she’d say.
And if life puts you under pressure,
trace its ridges in your pocket,
smell its piney scent on your handkerchief,
hum its anthem under your breath.
And if your stresses are sustained and daily,
get yourself to an empty room – be it hotel,
hostel or hovel – find a lamp
and empty your paradise onto a desk:
your white sands, green hills and fresh fish.
Shine the lamp on it like the fresh hope
of morning, and keep staring at it till you sleep.The meaning behind this poem is quite beautiful. Robinson wants the reader to see “Paradise” as a collection of items that are meant to be carried, “concealed,” and then secretly treasured as a remedy for life’s hardships and stresses. What is your portable paradise? My portable paradise is a set of bracelets I wear given to me by my mother. They might be hidden from long sleeves, but I wear them not as a fashion statement, but as a sort of serenity, to help me swerve at the curves life throws at me.
- When we were 13… -Hanif Abdurraqib
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Yet another poem that challenged me to think outside the normal conformity of poetry. Hanif Abdurraqib’s when we were 13… tells a story with great imagery. Now the reason I have not yet used the full title of this poem is not just because it is long but because it is part of the poem in a way that, typically, titles are not. The title has a double use in this case. It is not just the title, but the first line of the poem in a sense:
When We Were 13, Jeff’s Father Left the Needle Down on a Journey Record Before Leaving the House One Morning and Never Coming Back
and this is why none of us sing along to “Don’t Stop Believin’”
when we are being driven by Jeff’s mom, four boys packed in the
backseat tight like the tobacco in them cigarettes Jeff’s mom got
ridingshotgun with us around I-270 in a powder blue Ford Taurus where
four years later Jeff will lose his virginity to a girl behind the East
High School football field then later that night his keys and pants
in the school pool so that he has to runhome crying to his mother with an oversized shirt and no pants,
like a cartoon bear, and the next day when I hear this story, I will
think about what it means for someone to become naked two
times in one night to rush into the warmth of twowomen, once becoming a man and once becoming a boy all over
again but right now it is just us in this car with Jeff’s mother, that
cigarette smoke dancing from her lips until it catches the breezefrom the cracked front window and glides back towards us a
vagabond, searching for a throat to move into and cripple while
Neal Schon’s guitar rides out the speakers and I don’t know how
many open windows a man has to climb out of in the middle of the
night in order to have hands that can make anything scream like
that.nothing knows the sound of abandonment like a highway does, not
even God.in the 1980’s, everyone wrote songs about someone leaving except
for this one cuz it’s about how the morning explodes over two
people in one bed who didn’t know each other the night before
when alonewas the only other option and their homes had too many mirrors
for all that shit and so it is possible that this is the only song written
in the 1980’s about how fear turns into promise
I think I know this because there is so much piano spillingall over our laps that we can’t help but to smile since we still black
and know nothing can ransack sorrow like a piano.Jeff’s mother’s hand trembles and still wears a wedding ring so she
pulls over to the side of the highway and turns the volume up so
loud after the second guitar solo when the keys kick in again that
we can barely hear the cocktailof laughter and crying consuming the front seat until the song
fades away and the radio is low again and the ring once on Jeff’s
mother’s hand is on the side of the highway beneath us, a sacrificeand so maybe this is why grandma said a piano can coax even the
most vicious of ghosts out of a body.and so maybe this is why my father would stare at the empty spaces
my mother once occupied, sit me down at a baby grand and
whisper play me something, child.I will once again say, I loved this poem because of how it made me change my way of thinking when it comes to poetry. In my Poetry class this past semester, I wrote a poem using this format, and it may just be one of my favorite poems I’ve ever written. Now, the meaning of this poem is not hard to grasp, as it is one large story being told, interrupted here and there with a short side story/back story. A feature this poem has, starting with the title, is how the lines link together into run-on sentences. This gives a sense of urgency as you read through the poem. The plot builds and builds until you find the end of a sentence. Which, I feel is a very effective way for a story such as this to be told.
- What you missed that day you were abset from fourth grade –Brad Aaron modlin
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The poem I have chosen to complete my list is by Brad Aaron Modlin. The poem puts into words the why didn’t they teach us ____ in school joke. But, truthfully it is not a joke and we really should have been taught more real-world skills, but I digress:
Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took
questions on how not to feel lost in the darkAfter lunch she distributed worksheets
that covered ways to remember your grandfather’svoice. Then the class discussed falling asleep
without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—something important—and how to believe
the house you wake in is your home. This promptedMrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing
how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts
are all you hear; also, that you have enough.The English lesson was that I am
is a complete sentence.And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation
look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking
for whatever it was you lost, and one personadd up to something.
None of these lessons are being taught in a fourth-grade classroom. Modlin uses the poem to talk about learning to grow up by yourself and in addition, wonders what life lessons might look like if they could be taught by a teacher in grade school. Modlin uses a humorous yet genuine approach to explore the idea of what we might have missed on that day in fourth grade when we weren’t there. Modlin takes something as mundane as missing a day of school and turns it into a poem of (possibly) a classmate recounting that you missed all of life’s more compassionate and wise lessons while you were gone. Therefore answering the why didn’t they teach us ____ in school question. The answer? They did in fact teach it, you were just absent. The poem has so many hard-hitting lines. For example, The English lesson was that I am is a complete sentence. Self-love is so important, so I appreciate this line very much. I also love the closing stanzas. And all those nights spent looking for whatever it was you lost, one person add up to something. This line is so powerful and emotional for me. The fact that Modlin can start his poem off with humor, and by the end, shift to a much more sincere message is incredible, and he’s done it so well.
With that, my hope is that at least one of the poems above moved you to think about poetry in a new light. So, if you are a creative person like me, go and write with your newfound knowledge of poetry and see what you can create! If you’re not a writer, I hope you enjoyed reading and dissecting these poems with me!
