h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oops! Naughty me! <./>ThePost</.>

shazz

I'd suggest that Abort, Retry, Ignore? isn't 'somewhat in the style of The raven...', it's a very deliberate, and very clever pastiche.

Still not as good as James Earl 'The Voice of God' Jones doing it in the Simpsons though.

Blake can be good, though like Tennyson, his bad bits are very bad indeed. I must say that Masefield appears to be doomed to the deliberate death of 'oh he wrote that poem, the one that everybody misquotes.' I certainly can't name another one by him.

Titania - "One of my favourite poems is 'Abort, Retry, Ignore?' - unfortunately the poet is unknown: http://www.emule.com/poetry/?page=poem&poem=3653" Very good! Many thanks for the tip.

The 'Abort, Retry, Ignore?' poem seems to be especially popular with s who still remember those back-up disks the size of a dinner plate... Eh... make that 'bigger than dinner plates' - and much heavier!

I always found the Romantics the best, particularly when it came to living what they preached, but for a more modern voice, what about Ted Hughes? At his best, he could (can) stand shoulder to shoulder with anyone else.

My absolute favorite poet is Rumi, in just about any translation from the Ancient Persian.

After that comes Keats, Mark Strand, cummings, and Wordsworth.

Currently I like John Donne (especially 'Negative Love') Sylvia Plath (especially 'Daddy') and Christina Rosetti (especially 'Goblin Market').

Hey Amy - I like the Tennyson bit on your page. Ulysses is one of my favourite poems by the old Laureate. 'All times I have enjoy'd greatly..'

Often the brow does not have to be high or furrowed deep to infer truth (What!)

POINTY BIRDS
POINTY, POINTY
ANOINT MY HEAD
ANOINTY, NOINTY

Chevy Chase

Last time I quoted - and got removed - so I'll have to tell you to go look, but my favourite poet is Rudyard Kipling, very unfashionable, but such power.

When I was at school our history master had 'If' pinned to the wall - taught me more than he ever did.

Thankye Corsair.

My favorite poet is..and ever shall be..Federico Garcia Lorca.

I have two favourite poets, one is John Keats as I particularly enjoy reading his odes (To Autumn, On a Grecian Urn, To a Nightingale) and his splendid poem "Isabella, or the Pot of Basil" and the other is William Wordsworth for this poem:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vale and hills
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Ever since I had to learn this poem by heart at school, it has remained a firm favourite of mine.

Can I just register my vote for Ted Hughes?

(Mainly for "Crow"... I must be bit strange )

I would have to say my favorite is also Robert Frost, but T.S. Eliot ranks up there, especially the Love Song of P. Alfred something or other. The best line is
"I should have been a pair of ragged claws,/
scuttling along the floors of silent seas."

Does anybody else think that
"Beethoven with an african beat."
is a good start to a poem? It could mean so many things. I love it, I came up with it yesterday as I was walking.

Well Ozymandias (I bet I spelt that wrong!) ranks as my all time favourite poem. Step forward Mr Shelley...

I have a soft spot for John Hegley though. Anyone who can write umpteen books of poetry about his glasses, and a nice cup of tea gets my vote every time!

There's a line from Walter Savage Landor - a minor poet really, though a gifted translator - which goes somethng like:-

I warmed both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks; and I am ready to depart.

It a rare kind of stoical acceptance not seen since Hamlet's 'if not now then 'tis to come' etc.
Austere, romantic, noble and honest in just a few lines. Great stuff.

HOWS ABOUT WINNIE T. POOH AND COTTLESTON PIE?

"COTTLESTON ,COTTLESTON COTTLESTON PIE
A FLY CAN'T BIRD BUT A BIRD CAN FLY
ASK ME A QUESTION AND I'LL TELL YOU WHY
COTTLESTON COTTLESTON COTTLESTON...JAUNDICED CENTROPETALLY OBESE MULTINATIONAL CONGLOMERATE OWNED REVENUE GENERATIING ICON."

I'M PARAPHRASING THOUGH.