Hijacked Meme from Tony Robinson: Top Poems

There are so many.  These are just the first 10 in my head this morning, one of which I’ll share (and which must be read aloud, aloud).

Jack Gilbert – The Abnormal is Not Courage (and) Between Poems

Joan Larkin – Litany

CK Williams – Hog Heaven

Sam Coleridge – Frost at Midnight

Allen Grossman – The Work

John Donne – Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

Elizabeth Bishop – The Fish

Brendan Galvin – Fear of Gray’s Anatomy

Robert Hayden – Frederick Douglass

**

The Work

A great light is the man who knows the woman he loves

A great light is the woman who knows the man she loves

And carries the light into room after room arousing
The sleepers and looking hard into the face of each
And then sends them asleep again with a kiss
Or a whole night of love

                                       and goes on and on until
The man and the woman who carry the great lights of the
Knowledge of the one lover enter the room

                                                                   toward which
Their light is sent and fit the one and the other torch
In a high candelabrum and there is such light
That children leap up

                                   unless the sea swallow them
In the crossing or hatred or war against which do no
Pray only but be vigilant and set your hand to the work

Allen Grossman

Comments

[swanno]

Absolutely beautiful.

Grossman's poem puts me in mind of Susan Musgrave's Paul and the Full Moon, which was read at our wedding.

And I've always been a Donne fan. Memorized part of Meditation XVII ("for whom the bell tolls") during high school, and its themes continue to drive my worldview.

Thanks for sharing.

[The Exotic Spice]

Re: "The Work"

Yes, Yes, and Yes!

[David Koehn (TGAP)]

Donne is an interesting choice. I have a soft spot for all of Donne. If I had to pick one of Donne it probably would have been THE FLEA, though that is cliche I suppose.

Thanks for the list!

[Scoplaw]

David -

I think there's something to be said for just picking the poem that most speaks to you at that particular moment, regardless of what others a) would choose, or b) would think of your choice. No?

[David Koehn]

Scop...

"Yup, yup, yup..."

Swedish Cooks, The Muppets

:-)