Americans' Favorite Poems

These poems are classics and more recent treasures. American authorship is not a prerequisite of favored status. Chaucer and Frost coexist pleasantly in this succulent collection of meter and rhyme.

e. e. cummings: complete poems 1904-1962 & i thank you God for most this amazing...

He doesn't punctuate his sentences. I was aghast by this celebrated author's poor of mechanics until mom explained that "he did that on purpose".  Really??? The next logical question was whether or not I could throw out upper case too...i attempted as much when she wasn't looking.

e.e. cummings was my mother's favorite. I love the fact that my meat and potatoes, future-home-maker-of-America thoroughly appreciated cummings' modern style. His work is dear to my spirit as well -- particularly this piece (hear the author's own reading). Eric Whitacer's composition for SATB is beautiful (of course), but Gwyneth Walker's SSA captivates me every time I hear it. Incidentally, cummings' burial site is located in the region where I will soon dwell. This move is a major uprooting, a cause for reflection and thanks.

i thank you God for most this amazing... (65)

e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Sound and Sense

Happy National Poetry Month! Perrine truly did introduce me to the world of poetry. I credit my appreciation for John Donne to this textbook. Here's one of the poems I committed to memory senior year:

Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person'd God

BY JOHN DONNE

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.