[throwaway43]

Neruda is my favourite.

    I want to do to you , what the spring does to the cherry trees.

Here's another one

    Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
    I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

How he is able construct such powerful verse out of simple words and concepts always blows me away. Though it looks easy I've never seen a good imitation of his style.

Then there's this poem by Phillip Larkin that I like.

    They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   
    They may not mean to, but they do.   
    They fill you with the faults they had
    And add some extra, just for you.

    But they were fucked up in their turn
    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   
    Who half the time were soppy-stern
    And half at one another’s throats.

    Man hands on misery to man.
    It deepens like a coastal shelf.
    Get out as early as you can,
    And don’t have any kids yourself.

Shakespeare's sonnets are good.

    Let me not to the marriage of true minds
    Admit impediments. Love is not love 
    Which alters when it alteration finds,
    Or bends with the remover to remove:
    O no; it is an ever-fixed mark, 
    That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
    It is the star to every wandering bark,
    Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
    Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
    Within his bending sickle's compass come; 
    Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
    But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
    If this be error and upon me proved,
    I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

Classical poetry is just really hardcore when you consider how hard it is to write within the constraints of rhyme , meter and the chosen form. It's definitely in the hacker spirit of doing things like the JS1K contest , or maybe crazy assembly optimised demos.

Also checkout Charles Bukowski and Coleridge.

Genius.com is a wonderful way to read poetry.

[jfaucett]

"I want to do to you , what the spring does to the cherry trees." I've never seen that in english, so I looked it up (http://albalearning.com/audiolibros/neruda/poema14-sp-en.htm...) I guess it goes without saying, but english really doesn't do him justice, rhyming trees with kisses is pretty poor compared to cerizos and besos which is perfect rhyme. But I suppose poetry is about the most difficult thing to translate b/c of the many levels from phonetical to subtle contextual and semantical differences that are all overlayed and compacted into a few small verses. I certainly wouldn't want to / couldn't translate it.

But yea, in spanish my favorites are Neruda and Borges (see: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generaci%C3%B3n_del_45). I found this link which has a lot of other good poets IMHO for instance ruben dario or mario benedetti (http://www.cubaeuropa.com/cubarte/poesia/PoesiaLatinoamerica...).

In english I just nerd out on the old the stuff and for some reason never really got into anything newer... I like chaucer, spencer, milton, shakespeare, plus just reading through all those in the original is so cool after a couple pages you slip into another world and time, nice escapism.

[xcrunner529]

I would like to become more "cultured" and just aware of more words, forming sentences, communicating, and have more to call on for expressing my feelings.

What is the best way to get into poetry more? Read a couple a day or something? I would actually really like to read Shakespeare, but most seem to be of the mind that you really need a class or something to really get the translation.

[jfaucett]

well, if you want to get into the older stuff like shakespeare I would suggest just diving in. At first, just lookup the words you dont know and after maybe one play you should have already learned enough to understand his style and language and "get" his works on their face value.

as far as literary references go - aka john milton - (basically the only reason you'd need a class), I really think you'd just have to read/know most of the greek/roman classics and the bible to be able to get most of them. But no worries, if you enjoy reading the classics are a blast, the hebrew old testament is packed with pretty cool stories (the mad king Nebuchadnezzer) and it doesn't get much better than the iliad and odyssey.

[sebkomianos]

> rhyming trees with kisses is pretty poor compared to cerizos and besos which is perfect rhyme

I read the spanish version from the link you posted and, although I don't speak spanish, it doesn't look like there is any other rhyme at all in the whole poem. Am I right? Do you think that this was intentional - does it mean something in spanish/latin american poetry?

[jfaucett]

No there's rhyming all over the place in this one, just not always on the end of the line. But first and second stanzas, in the 4th just take for example:

"Pasan huyendo los pájaros. El viento. El viento"

huyendo rhymes with viento, pasan alliterates with pajaros, and the "l" en los and "o" in pajaros fits very nicely with the "l" and "o" in the repition of "el viento".

In english you see the translator trying to get it somewhat with birds and by :

"The birds go by, fleeing. The wind. The wind."

[aggie]

> cerizos and besos which is perfect rhyme

Since letters in Spanish have only one sound, '-izos' and '-esos' cannot be made to rhyme without distorting the pronunciation of one of the words. I don't see how that makes 'perfect' rhyme.

[probably_wrong]

He actually had a typo there. It's 'cerezos', not 'cerizos'.

[avn2109]

+1 for Coleridge, especially the first stanza of Kubla Khan [0].

Also, I'm surprised to see nobody here recommending A.E. Houseman. His Reveille is my favorite poem:

... Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying: Hear the drums of morning play; Hark, the empty highways crying 'Who'll beyond the hills away?' ...

[0] http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173247

[aptwebapps]

I read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency before ever coming across Coleridge's Kubla Khan and spent quite a bit of time (this was before I was on the Internet) trying to find the rest of the poem. I was quite disappointed once I figured things out but on the plus side I understood what happened in the book afterwards.

[delibes]

A personal favourite of mine, by Coleridge :-

http://www.orgs.miamioh.edu/anthologies/bijou/vissat/Workwit...

Why? Because in the movie Groundhog Day, when Phil Connors has had his moment of enlightenment/peripety, he quotes :

"And winter, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!"

Knowing this poem makes the film better. Knowing how widely popular Coleridge became makes the poem better.

[daveslash]

Houseman's a favorite of mine as well.

[0xdeadbeefbabe]

Hurray, I've been looking for that Larkin poem since college.

[ta82828]

Neruda + Pop band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWnM45HLe_A

[tapichu]

Wow! I though nothing could be cornier than Neruda.

[ridgeguy]

I'll join you in appreciating Neruda. Me gusta especialmente Los Versos del Capitan. Night on the Island, just one of the gems.

http://www.akirarabelais.com/vi/o/thelibraryofbabel/neruda/c...

[aryamaan]

Genius.com is a wonderful site.