My favourite poems!

Hello! I’m going to be participating in escapril again this year, (a poetry writing ‘event’ created by Savannah Brown during which I will write a poem every day in April following a series of prompts), and I decided that to celebrate the almost beginning of that I would share a few of my favourite poems, and poetry videos. I am not going to be analysing the poems or saying why I like them because that would make this post very long, so all I’ll say is that these are all poems I always return to, or poems that have inspired me or had a notable influence on poems of my own. You will notice that all the poems I’ve listed are by the same few people, and that’s because they’re my favourite poets! I honestly could have made this post so long, but I tried to keep it to a fairly selective list. Plus I may post more in the future! I hope you enjoy 🙂

somewhere i have never travelled – E. E. Cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

Love is more thicker than forget – E. E. Cummings

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

Let it go – E. E. Cummings

let it go – the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise – let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go – the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things – let all go
dear
so comes love

today i’ve decided to speak to the trees – Savannah Brown

today i’ve decided to speak to the trees
maidenhair, dogwood and buckeye, wing-tipped seraphim
spread speak quiet, for them to talk you must
make some admissions, like catholic confession.

so i tell them, i often feel like i am looking at
life in the profile instead of straight on, or like all the
world lies behind a keyhole and in the vignette of my vision
is the things i don’t know.

i tell them i asked too many questions in sunday
school and look where that got me, and sometimes
i hold my breath for too long to remind myself what
i stand to lose.

like i’ve been invited to a party, handed a drink,
and am now waiting to be forced out the door mid-sip
the rest of them continue but i will no longer be
welcome. i hope they’ll pull the curtains

i tell them thinking of these things with any
conviction is like pushing together magnets of opposite
polarity. it’s a fact determined by the primal nature of the
world that my mind would rather be flung to the
corner of the room than considered itself disposable.

sometimes i am thankful for my hot animal flesh
sometimes i am so deeply distressed by my hot animal flesh
that i write poems to try and transcend the biological.
maybe hearts bragging ‘i am’ isn’t as useful
as bragging ‘i matter’.

the trees say perhaps we don’t bury, we plant.
the trees suggest reality, like history, is a story told
by the winners. the loving, the beating, the conscious and nestled in between the cracks we don’t step on lives the
seams that keep the cosmos from splitting.

so i curl in the jagged roots like a womb,
and the trees remind me that being human was the
hardest thing they ever had to do.

Note: the video she originally posted with this poem is now private and I couldn’t find the original written poem either, so I can only hope the formatting of this is somewhat correct. I still wanted to include it here because it’s my favourite poem by her but I am very sad it’s gone from her channel.

If I never see you again – Charles Bukowski

If I never see you again
I will always carry you
inside
outside

on my fingertips
and at brain edges

and in centers
of centers
of what I am of
what remains.

The strongest of the strange – Charles Bukowski

you won’t see them often
for wherever the crowd is
they
are not.
those odd ones, not
many
but from them
come
the few
good paintings
the few
good symphonies
the few
good books
and other
works.
and from the
best of the
strange ones
perhaps
nothing.
they are
their own
paintings
their own
books
their own
music
their own
work.
sometimes I think
I see
them– say
a certain old
man
sitting on a
certain bench
in a certain
way
or
a quick face
going the other
way
in a passing
automobile
or
there’s a certain motion
of the hands
of a bag—boy or a bag—
girl
while packing
supermarket
groceries.
sometimes
it is even somebody
you have been
living with
for some
time—
you will notice
a
lightning quick
glance
never seen
from them
before.
sometimes
you will only note
their
existence
suddenly
in
vivid
recall
some months
some years
after they are
gone.
I remember
such a
one—
he was about
20 years old
drunk at
10 a.m.staring into
a cracked
New Orleans
mirror
facing dreaming
against the
walls of
the world
where
did I
go?

Bonus: My favourite poetry videos!

If you decide to love someone – Miles Carter

There will be days like these – Miles Carter

Growing young – Miles Carter

(or anything else by Miles Carter)

madness of two – Savannah Brown

a poem for ohio – Savannah Brown

loving like an existentialist – savannah brown