Great Poets

  Personae and scene: Vergil and Dante, somewhere in the mid-region of Hell. Dante: Honored Vergil, tell me where we’re going— It’s hard for me to take in what you’re showing Without some preparation. I can’t deal With shocking sights that make my blood congeal. Already I’m a quaking nervous...

  Cruising down an LA freeway, hustling for a little leeway Passing many a rusted relic from Detroit's Plutonian shore. Hoping all would turn to see me, knowing all would want to be me Driving in my Beemer dreamy-eyed, contented to my core. With my canvas top popped open and...

  translation by Jonathan Shoulta Andromache Will you, my Hector, forever go away to where with unmatched hands Achilles makes Patroclus bloody off'rings? ____________________Who will teach your little one with strength to throw the spear, or how to honor the gods, if what I fear occurs and Orcus devours you?...

  The blind poet awakes and feels his way Into the living room, where light of day Will find his daughters ready to preserve The words of truth and beauty that disturb His sleep, and roll forth from him like a spool Of thread that needs a needle to give...

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ6QuvFS068    

  Years ago—I still remember: final Thursday in November, I was in my kitchen cooking food to rival feasts of yore; To and fro sashaying, hopping, slicing, dicing, mincing, chopping, Dish by dish—no time for stopping, for so daunting was the chore: Playing hostess for Thanksgiving—such a monumental chore ____I...

Fleas with apologies to Joyce Kilmer I think that I shall never see A creature horrid as a flea. A flea who makes a little nest Inside the fur of doggy’s chest; That treats us like a free buffet, Sucks our blood, then jumps away; A flea whose bites cause...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh3gMcOUFao

A Clerihew is a four-line comic poem with a rigid rhyming scheme, aabb, but no metric requirements. It stands in stark contrast to the strict metric requirements with no rhyming scheme in the Iliad. This poetic form was invented by E. C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley (1875-1956), British humorist and author....

Judges: Michael Curtis, Amy Foreman, Reid McGrath, Adam Sedia A few words from Judge Michael Curtis: In apology: If you, fair writer, did not win, take heart, This juror read for craft more than for art, And we both know that art can be subjective, So, tend your craft, in...

Winners announced here! Write a short poem that begins with one line from any Shakespeare play or poem. The poem should be two to four lines in length. Post it in the comments section below under your full name and general area of residence (“Bob Smith, Denver, Colorado”). Two entries...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9LEnZ9T4F0&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be  by John Keats When I have fears that I may cease to be __Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery, __Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the...

  Birthday Apology William Shakespeare was born April 26, 1564 If all the world’s a stage, and all the men are women, myne eye be true, I gauge; her beard doth need a trimmin’!     The Last Poet Advanced in years and bent in bone, I shed no tears;...

The following are excerpted from James Sale's upcoming book Divine Comedies.   Exit from Hell I did well in life. But everything is real in Hell –Dante, Canto 29 The exit from Hell is always difficult –Colonel Percy Harrison Faucett Surely, the way is simple, I did well, So why...

by Evan Mantyk As the border wall with Mexico that President Trump is building gains greater and greater attention, so too has the early 20th century poem, “Mending Wall,” by American poet Robert Frost. The poem takes issue with the old proverb “good fences make good neighbors,” which happens to...

Moscow Zoo We saw the mass grave at the Moscow Zoo. A sullen man dug up a human skull Then held it high for journalists to view. Forensic specialists arrived to cull Remains and clues from this forgotten plot On which the zoo still plans to cage a bear. The...

The Odyssey, 21.388-22.125, translated with an eye on Homer's instinctively cinematic style. by Mike Solot The cowherd, Philoetius, quickly but quietly slipped out To fasten the gates of the courtyard. He picked up a rope He had seen on the porch—a ship’s cable made of papyrus— And used it to...

after Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" __Once upon an evening dreary, I searched for news, at least in theory, Over many a dubious and mendacious channel that I abhor— __While I surfed, nearly barfing, suddenly there came a harping, __There was someone roughly berating, berating everything I stand for. “‘Tis some moron,”...

by Evan Mantyk Where is Homer? The epic poems of the famous Greek bard were the cornerstone of education for young Socrates, Alexander the Great, Roman emperors, William Shakespeare, and every serious scholar in the Western world until the last 50 years. Yet, today they have nearly disappeared from school...

by Charles Eager William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, in 1770—the same year as gave us Beethoven, Hegel, and Hölderlin—and died at the age of eighty, rich in the knowledge of his huge accomplishments, in Rydal Mount, Westmorland, in 1850. In those eighty years, Wordsworth brought a unique poetry...

A short film by Gleb Zavlanov. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxnDmkKqaF4&feature=youtu.be Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,...

By James A. Tweedie Call me a snob but I am generally attracted to what is commonly referred to as “great art” or the “masterpieces.” Over the years I have looked at famous paintings and I have looked at less famous paintings. I have decided that famous paintings are famous...

By David B. Gosselin William Shakespeare (baptized April 26, 1564 - died April 23, 1616) is arguably the greatest writer in any language. His poetry is not only one of the most exalted examples of what an immortal sense of creative identity can accomplish, but it is in a sense...

Wordsworth’s Lament I wandered lonely as a cloud—Oh dear! I watched the dance of daffodils—Oh my! When on my couch in vacant mood I lie I feel their wealthy fluttering draw near. I see them toss their heads like twinkling stars; A sparkling, sprightly, jocund company. I gaze, I gaze,...

. by David Bellemare Gosselin Today, seldom is Edgar Allan Poe's voice heard as it's drowned out by the popular notions of Poe as some sort of deranged man whose stories and poetry are simply the product of his own sick mind. The myth of Poe as some sort of...

In another lifetime I was William Blake When I saw his work That was my take He wrote about love And the human heart I thought I was him Right from the start He wrote about London Tiger burning bright His influence looms In whatever I write He wrote about...

By Carter Davis Johnson In a period where American literature was considered peripheral and amateur, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) helped create a national literature to challenge European authors. His poetry heralded the unique mythology, history, and nature of America. With lucid imagery and accessible meter, Longfellow became a leading poet and...

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I wandered, drunk and weary, Over many a quaint and dimlit alley of forgotten doors— While I plodded, barely standing, suddenly I heard a chanting, As of someone softly ranting, ranting from the darkened doors. “It’s some other drunk,” I muttered, “chanting from the...

By David B. Gosselin The nature of the subject matter discussed in Dante Alighieri’s lyric poetry, his canzoni, has been debated time after time, generation after generation. While the Dantisti as they are called, the Dante scholars, will often take up the habit of prating on individual details and individual poems,...

Homer’s Iliad I.1-47. Translation in the epic hexameter, the meter of the Greek. Sing of the wrath, my goddess, of Peleus’ son Achilles, doomed and destructive, which gave the Achaeans numberless sorrows, sending so many robust souls down to the house of Hades, spirits of heroes, but bodies abandoned as...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (born February 27, 1807 - died March 24, 1882) was an American poet of the Romantic period. He served as a professor at Harvard University and was an adept linguist, traveling throughout Europe and immersing himself in European culture and poetry, which he emulated in his poetry. Before...

by Annabelle Fuller John Keats (born October 31, 1795 - died February 23, 1821) began life as the son of a stable-owner, and ended it as an unmarried, poor and tuberculosis-ridden young man. Somewhere along the way, he managed to become one of the most beloved poets of the English...

Any treatise claiming critical review of verse, whether in the widest sense, or, as in this case, the result of compressed choice, purely down to the author’s own consideration, I hasten to add, is probably deigned to fail as an intelligent summation of poetry penned by John Keats. That said,...

by Dusty Grein The Man The American poet Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, CA. He spent his first 40 years mostly unknown, and it wasn’t until after returning to the United States from England—where he had his first two books of poetry published—near the...

John Milton (Born December 9, 1608 – died November 8, 1674) was an English poet of the late Renaissance period. He is most noted for his epic poem on the fall of Satan and Adam and Eve’s ejection from the Garden of Eden, Paradise Lost, which he composed after having gone...

By David Gosselin The answer to the above question is of course no. Shakespeare and Dante are not dead because every true poet is immortal. However, much of our contemporary thinkers seem to be under the impression that they are dead, and that they are not as relevant and talented...

Of course, I like to see rainbows, But my heart hasn’t leapt for one; I’ve not wandered like a cloud blows, Though I’ve been lonely in the sun. Oh, I like Nature, that’s for sure— I just can’t feel Wordsworth’s amour. I’m sometimes in a pensive mood (And, yes, my...

  Re-visiting Dante “For Dante it was a strict rule not to rhyme the word ‘Christ’ with any other word except itself” – Clive James Inferno Down we went like no other care were there; No sense we’d be bedraggled, drowned, doomed, or lost; All that mattered was now, that...

Dante’s Inferno, Canto I (Poem by Dante Alighieri / translation by J. Simon Harris in terza rima) In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself again in a dark forest, for I had lost the pathway straight and right. Ah how hard it is to describe,...

By Joshua Philipp The poetry of John Keats is known for its light and dreamy nature. Even in his time, in the early 1800s, he was considered old-fashioned, both in his topics and in his style of writing. He was set in sharp contrast to one of his contemporaries, Lord...