Great Poets

. Bardolatry He boasted an iambic ear, That playwright with insight, Shakespeare; Yes, Measure for Measure He’s given much pleasure With Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear. The Bard’s jealous fellow, Othello, Brings lust, unjust murder and bellow— You’re after a laugh? Then check out Falstaff Or Malvolio’s tights of bright yellow. In mystic Midsummer Night’s Dream  Titania’s a mean fairy queen; There’s Puck, of wild antic, And Bottom, a frantic,...

. “A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” ---Robert Frost An Essay by Adam Sedia To many in America, Robert Frost is the grandfatherly originator of “The Road Not Taken,” and a few other selected quotations printed on motivational posters. He is relegated to the status of Mahatma...

. Advice from Dante “If you hear nostrums* in the market cried, Behave like men, and not like witless sheep.” ---Dante, Paradiso, Canto V Behave like men, and not like witless sheep. The CDC has shown no evidence That covering one’s face with cloth will keep The people near us...

. The poet has now escaped Hell, and has arrived in Purgatory or what he calls the StairWell. But he seems to have been abandoned by Dante, and has a fresh set of problems to confront. In this first section of the Canto he encounters an unexpected companion to help...

. On Rembrandt's "Return of the Prodigal Son" Three centuries have passed since it was wrought--- A work of art transcendent yet humane. The tender play of feelings Rembrandt caught: A wastrel son disgraced, prostrate with pain; Humiliated by the sin he sought But somehow freed from Pride’s eternal stain,...

  Dear Edgar, __We’re sorry our response has taken so much time, but it grieves and pains to tell you that you’ve missed our paradigm. __While past works were droll and erudite ---nay, frighteningly “sublime!”--- we just couldn’t help but notice, Ed, Alas! This thing shows rhyme!     Tonia...

. . Prince Hamlet Speaks About Election Fraud Prince Hamlet speaks about election fraud:"O villainy! Ho! Let the door be locked.Treachery! Seek it out." And this we laud:A voice half crazy yet all true that rockedA kingdom, laying bare the crimes withinThat had enwrapped the nation in a plotTo seize control...

  Perfectionist Inclined Maligned by self-encasing brine, defined By certainty's demise, self-image lies Within a shrine. Perfectionist inclined, I crouch transfixed in infinite surmise: Confined by shell, by husk, cocoon intact, Unshattered yet, afraid to fall, afraid To try to fall, while each and every act Desires a release from...

  The Falcon “In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire?” ---William Blake, The Tyger Falcon, falcon, flying high Over pines that scrape the sky, What ingenious deity Has framed your feathers, formed...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=21&v=kRrLsMIaDcM      

by Sultana Raza In April 1820, Keats was already aware that he had tuberculosis, and in spring of that year, he was experiencing fever, a bad chest, and lots of anxiety, specially about not being able to finish his poems, and that he would remain obscure. He’d previously nursed and...

Edmund Spenser by Margaret Coats Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) wrote 121 sonnets of rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee, including 87 in his love sequence Amoretti. The Spenserian sonnet differs from the Shakespearean because its three quatrains are linked by rhyming couplets. This variant is sometimes treated as the third important...

  https://youtu.be/bYg-ITiEEyM   "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud," also known as "Daffodils," the poem by former British Poet Laureate William Wordsworth (1770-1850) read by the President of The Society of Classical Poets, Evan Mantyk, and filmed by Katy Mantyk on May 10, 2020, Mother's Day.     Daffodils, or...

  Oxford "University"? Its preference now: diversity. The Homers, Ovids, Virgils--- Now peanuts for the squirrels! This "school" now gives instruction In Western Civ destruction The classics? writing heinous! Let's write about the anus And other body parts Now central to the arts. When Rome went down to dust To...

  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...