Mr+Derby's+favourites

 **The poetry I like**

include component="comments" page="Mr Derby's favourites" limit="10" toc**I have very eclectic tastes in music and in poetry. I can never quite settle on a specific poet or poetic movement that I feel defines my taste. Below is a brief overview of the poems and poets that have impacted on me over the years.**

Throughout school, the idea of the Romantic poets gave me an idea of poetry that simply did not appeal to me. But, years later, I came to discover that the Romantics were intensely political poets who were trying to change the world in which they lived. Shelley's "Ozymandias" has always stayed with me, especially now that we live in a world where we seem so invinsible. "Ozymandias" reminds us that our civilisation will one day be as dust in the same way as the ancient cultures of Egypt and Babylon.

media type="youtube" key="krbX-9ugbI4" height="165" width="204" align="right" Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.**
 * I met a traveller from an antique land

A lyric is a poem that has a single speaker conveying their thoughts and emotions. A sonnet is a particular kind of sonnet which consists of 14 lines in iambic pentameter. "Ozymandias" is a sonnet, but it challenges the conventions of lyric poetry by three speakers: the poem's persona, the traveller, and Ozymandias.

The rhythm of the poem creates a sense of the vastness and the emptiness of the landscape being described. This rhythm is created in large part by the use of punctuation in the middle of lines. This use of punctuation, known as caesura, forces the reader to pause. This use of caesura, or pause, is best demonstrated in the final lines: Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.** The pauses in these lines create a sense of echo as we imagine a silent landscape where only the visage on the once great king remains. The effect of this is to remind us that no matter how great, how mighty we may think we have become, we are doomed to the decay of the ancients.
 * Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Another aspect of the poem that particularly struck me was the imagery of the face of the king. The "sneer of cold command" bespeaks the tyranny of the dead ruler. The seeming fear of the sculptor is present in his constuction of the ruler's ruthless visage compounds the irony of the scene, for despite the greatness of the king and his power over his people, he is at the mercy of the sands that slowly decay his great works.

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"Digging" by Seamus Heaney
The first time I heard Heaney's poetry was when I was a student teacher. Like the Romantics, Heaney is an intensely political poet, but his refusal to be pinned down by any singular political position makes me admire him all the more.

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Def Poetry Jam
Whenever I hear someone say that poetry is dead or that the only poetry is in modern music or rap, I point them towards Def Poetry Jam, an American television program that showcases the vibrance of poetry in the modern world. Poetry is a powerful medium that forces us to think about the world in which we live. The sample poem here is called "Dis Poem" by Muta Baruka.

The Road Not Take by Robert Frost

 * (1915)**

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.