April is the Cruellest Month

Since April is National Poetry Month I thought it would be apropos to center my blog theme for the coming weeks upon my favorite poems. But first, a little background of my poetic taste to put the upcoming entries into context:

My taste has changed with my age. When you’re a kid just discovering what poetry is (with its rhyming, meter, wordplay, etc.), the obvious choice is Dr. Seuss. I still enjoy reading Green Eggs and Ham. I would read it in a box. I would read it to a fox. I would read it here or there. I would read it anywhere.

 

Then I really liked Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses. My favorite poem of that anthology is The Land of Counterpane.


Source: http://images.nypl.org/index.php?id=1699310&t=w

When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay,
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes or an hour or so
I watched my leaden* soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brough my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.

(By the way, a “counterpane” is like a quilt, only it doesn’t have any filling in it. Basically it’s two sheets sewn together. I know everyone has been wondering about this. You’re welcome.)

Next was my Emily Dickinson faze. This faze was really boring and mostly consisted of my mooning around, being antisocial, and writing derivative verse.

After the überseriousness of Dickinson, I needed an Ogden Nash faze to balance me out. I prefer Nash’s shorter poetry, not only because they’re easy to memorize and therefore useful for impressing people by quoting, “Who wants my jellyfish? / I’m not sellyfish”**, but because they’re pithy.

Finally, my favorite poet at present (Contrary to popular belief, I have not read every poet in existence. Yet. So he may be displaced by a late entry) is T.S. Eliot. My favorite of his works is The Waste Land. I know, I know, I’m not very original in my taste; but I’d rather be unoriginal and genuine than original and fake. Eliot’s poetry appeals to me because it touches on themes that are timeless. He draws on a lot of references to ancient and classic literature, history, and mythology, which makes me feel like Nicolas Cage unlocking clues in National Treasure as I trace back Eliot’s references to their original sources.

So now I am amped up to talk about poetry. I have at my side a “copybook”; a notebook I’ve kept through my adult poetry reading, filled with my favorite passages of various works. Let me share them with you.

*I think I know why this kid was sick. He had lead poisoning. Ah, the things we learn when we read our childhood favorites from an adult perspective.

**So far I have had no success with impressing people with that one. They like the “Candy is dandy / But liquor is quicker” one better for some reason.