National Poetry Month: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

April is National Poetry Month and I have been sharing a few of my favorite poems here on my blog. If you visit The Literature Network you can find the work of several authors to read and enjoy for free, like Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death….”

This poem from Sonnets from the Portuguese: A Celebration of Love is a favorite. I love how she says “I love thee with the passion put to use…In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints…”

What do you think? Enjoy your day and thanks for stopping in.

================================

disclaimer: Nothing in this post is available for download, the photo is my own.

Advertisements

National Poetry Month: Anne Sexton

.
April is National Poetry Month. I enjoy reading poetry, the beauty and rhythm of the words, the way a poem can evoke feelings in the reader. I find that reading poetry is a form of catharsis.

Today I will share a snippet of one of my favorite poets, the phenomenal and intense Anne Sexton.

From You, Doctor Martin:

And we are magic talking to itself,
noisy and alone. I am queen of all my sins
forgotten. Am I still lost?
Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself,
counting this row and that row of moccasins
waiting on the silent shelf….

-quoted from The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton. Read From You, Doctor Martin in its entirety by clicking here.

Have you read Anne Sexton? Who is your favorite poet?

================================

disclaimer: Nothing in this post is available for download, the photo is my own. Some of the links in the post are affiliate links. If you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission.

Pablo Neruda: If You Forget Me

Pablo Neruda breaks my heart in the best way. I can’t pick a favorite, but If You Forget Me is up there. His work is best read in Spanish as he wrote it, there is something that gets lost in translation but the work is still beautiful nonetheless in English. He evokes emotion with his words and I dip into my little Neruda collection from time to time just to savor it.

everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
-read the poem in its entirety here

What do you think of this one?

April is National Poetry Month, follow this link for more.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

disclaimer:
The photo above is my own and is not to be removed from this post.

Killing The Love

Seeing how April is National Poetry Month, I wanted to share a few of my favorite poems these few weeks.  I like Anne Sexton so much because her poetry is so raw. She put it all out there and there is something to be said for that. Her poems are passionate and intense.

A snippet from a favorite of hers called “Killing the Love”. 

I am the love killer,
I am murdering the music we thought so special,
that blazed between us, over and over.
I am murdering me, where I kneeled at your kiss.
I am pushing knives through the hands
that created two into one.
Our hands do not bleed at this,
they lie still in their dishonor….

Read the poem in its entirety here: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/killing-the-love/

What do you think of this one? Do you have a favorite Anne Sexton poem, or a favorite by another poet?

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your day.

++++++++++++++++++++++
disclaimer:
The photo above is my own and not to be removed from this post.

Book Tour: WTF by Laura Foley

source: Free review copy courtesy of Poetic Book Tours
title: WTF
author: Laura Foley
genre: poetry
published: 2017
pages: 29
first line: The night before his imprisonment….

Blurb:
Laura Foley’s “WTF” refers to her father’s initials and, slyly, to the abbreviated colloquial exclamation, in a pun that laughs and cuts, in this reckoning with a fraught father-daughter relationship. These spare poems communicate more like snapshots than narrative lyrics, beginning with sympathy and gratitude, moving through disappointment, anger and resentment, without ever losing compassion, as Foley examines her father’s formative WWII experiences and, consequently, how he shaped her experience and character, ending with a positive recognition of her father in herself.

Read some sample poems here: https://www.readcwbooks.com/foley_poems.html

My thoughts:
I enjoy reading poetry very much and as soon as I saw the blurb and title for WTF by Laura Foley it caught my attention. “WTF” are her father’s initials, William Thomas Foley, and she wrote this collection in his memory. WTF was a WWII vet and most of the twenty poems here reflect on this. A few of the poems are about his being a POW, about playing cards with him and about her parents getting divorced.

Born twelve years later, I learn
for him the war is never over.
-WTF by Laura Foley

This is a quiet collection and poetry comes from the heart, the best kind I think comes from heartache and I felt that in this set.