I started reading and enjoying poetry at the same time when I first started reading for pleasure (that was probably form class I) but my proper introduction to poetry was in class VIIth. That was when I started reading (and writing) poems with a sort of purpose, tried to understand and analyse them. I may not have always seen them in the same way as they were written (because most of the time nothing is written explicitly in the poems) but I did start seeing them in my own way and relate it to something that I know. Poems have that beautiful property... each time you read them, they bring out a new meaning, sometimes one totally different from the previous and all readers interpret them in their own way not necessarily in the way, the poet wrote them.
So here are some of the poems that I carry in my heart and mind...(and this is not an exhaustive list). For now I will list only 14 of them for 2 reasons... 1) they r on varied subjects and 2) I could find the links to these. (I would have given 15, but I lost one of the links. The poem is A Musical Instrument. See if you can find the link. )
1.Casabianca
I read this long back but even today when I read it, I get the chills in my spine and my voice gets almost choked when I reach the last stanza. I wonder if such an incident can occur in the present days!
2.O Captain! My Captain!
The poem is beautiful, but I realised its true worth when I came to know that it is a allegory. I was told it was written after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The rhythm is so wonderful that I keep reading it again and again.
3.Success is counted sweetest
A message that all of us realises at least once. Ask the losers what they have lost, not the winners what they have won. Emily Dickinson has written on varied subjects but her strength (I felt) is that she can bring out pain in a way that u start admiring it and well, she has a different way of looking at even the day-to-day things. But this poem still stands out!
4.I'm Nobody
I have mentioned the last stanza in a prevoius post of mine. Each time I read this, I feel the poet is sharing a secret with me and I wonder what would be my answer. I cannot disagree but I guess I cannot agree either.
5.I had been hungry all the years;
From the same poet. Is it not true that once we get what we wanted we forget its worth and if we would have not got it, it would have become all the more precious. Why is it so?
6.Song
What do you say? There are very few people who can say that they don't want to be remembered. Even I am not one of them. This poem still touches me, "if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget"
7.The Solitary Reaper
This one comes from the memory of my school days. And I am sure I must have reminded some of you as well. Can you hear that tune echoing in your mind? It is amazing, how words can incite our imaginations. Some of my very earlier poems are inpired by this poem. I just cannot forget it! (neither do I want to.)
8. Sweetest Love, I do not go
The words were remembered after the first time I read it :) pretty good isnt it? I dont know which is more beautiful, the words, the rhythm or the way both of them are presented!
9.La Belle Dame sans Merci
This is remembered because of my English Literature Sir. The speciality of this poem, he said, was that it can be interpreted in many ways, (3 of them I remember). I would have never gone to the depths of this without his guidance. Infact, it was he who made me realise, poems are wonderful in so many ways. I am grateful to him. As for this poem, hopefully, none of us ever get entrapped in the false enticements of this world.
10.Hope is the thing with feathers
Emily Dickinson, yet again! See the last line "Yet, never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb--Of Me". Tells everything about "hope" in so few lines. Doesn't it? I just love this poem.
11. The Road Not Taken
Well, how many of us in a situation of taking decision, decides in this way? Very few. One poem that rings in my ears if I ever feel, I am walking out of the crowd. have faith in yourself. If you cannot have, how can others?
12. Verses
The pleasures and pains of solitude all encompassed in one poem. More pain, less pleasure! All in all a poem you cannot disagree to.
13. Milk for the Cat
You know, after I read this poem, I actually observed a cat and realised it really does happen this way! Nice observation (not mine, the poet's). And of course, written in a wonderful way, I can almost see the cat. Can't you?
14. I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud
Well if I havent mentioned this, I havent mentioned anything at all. Read and enjoy. Poets like wordsworth have brought nature right in front of the readers through his poems. Nobody has to see the daffodils to realise how wonderful they are and nobody can help remembering these lines (once read) each time he/she looks at a row of flowers (not just daffodils, any flowers.)
Enjoy!!! Any choices from your side that I should read, drop in the links please.
(This had been a draft from Nov 5th 2005. I felt I shud publish it finally. Now that will keep you busy for some days. Will it not?)
