After a long hiatus while I finished my masters dissertation (Memory and reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda, for anyone interested) and spent six weeks in Nepal (lovely country, amazing experience), I decided to recommence blogging with a completely different style of post.
Today being National Poetry Day, I thought I would share a selection of my favourite poems. They are not necessarily chosen as examples of great poetry (though many of them are), they are simply poems that have resonated with me, and stayed with me over the years. As some of them are rather long, I will provide links to them for you to read elsewhere, should you so desire. They are presented at random, I found it hard enough to pick only 10 poems, let along actually rank them.
1. The Lady of Shallot
This is the first poem I remember reading or hearing (though it probably wasn't the actual first), and almost certainly has a lot to do with my life-long fascination with all things Arthurian.
2. Song
Rossetti I first discovered at A-level, and went on to study her again during my degree, proving that studying literature doesn't ruin it for everyone!
3. The Highwayman
Noyes I credit, at least in part, with my first education in poetic metre. This is another poem I remember from an age almost certainly far too young to fully appreciate it.
4. The Dream of The Rood
Presented here in the same form that I first truly read it (the page also offers translation options), this is the poem through which I fell in love with Old English as an eager young Oxford student. My first real encounter with the model of 'Christus Victor', it is a poem I re-read every Easter, it is a beautiful example of Old English dream visions.
5. Because I could not stop for Death
This, I think, has stayed with me purely because it was on my Oxford entrance paper, though I cannot remember the other poem I wrote on.
6. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Proving that I don't only like English poetry pre-1900, this one I love because of a class in sixth form where someone suggested it is about Father Christmas. A lovely poem in its own right, it was this reminder of the sheer multiplicity of meanings that poetry allows that really made me fall in love with it.
7. Despised and Rejected
The first free verse poem I ever actually liked, Rossetti demonstrates in poetry what Picasso did with art - that to break the rules well you first need to understand the rules you are breaking. The poem might be in free verse, but it is a masterpiece of rhythm and rhyme.
8. The Jabberwocky
Because this list would be incomplete without some nonsense poetry, and this poem is everything that was silly in my childhood.
9. The Charge of the Light Brigade
Celebrating and castigating an act of utter stupidity, this is the third of the poems that shaped my young and impressionable mind.
10. Warning
This has been recited to my parents too many times to count, though I am pleased to say that neither wears a red hat yet.
Bonus: Message Clear
Just for sheer brilliance, this poem I have discovered too recently for it to be one of my ten that have stayed with me, but still deserves a mention. (For an easy to read version, go here)
I hope you have enjoyed this brief voyage through my psyche, there are many poems I left out, and many far more wonderful examples of the form, but these are my ten, and I hope you enjoy them.
