Readings of great or naff poems

Edwin Brock (19 October 1927 -- 7 September 1997) was a British poet. Brock wrote two of the best-known poems of the last century, Five Ways to Kill a Man and Song of the Battery Hen.

Kubla Khan is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep in 1816. According to Coleridge's Preface to Kubla Khan, the poem was composed one night after he experienced an opium influenced dream after reading a work describing the Tartar king Kublai Khan. Upon waking, he set about writing lines of poetry that came to him from the dream until he was interrupted by a person from Porlock. The poem could not be completed according to its original 200-300 line plan as the interruption caused him to forget the lines. Although the specific details of Coleridge's Preface are debatable, he most likely composed Kubla Khan during autumn 1797 but left unpublished and kept for private readings until 1816 when, on the prompting by George Gordon Byron, it was made available to the public.

"And did those feet in ancient time" is a short poem by William Blake from the preface to his epic Milton a Poem. The date on the title page of 1804 for Milton is probably when the plates were begun but the poem was printed c. 1808. Today it is best known as the hymn "Jerusalem", with music written by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916. The song is best heard as part of a crowd of screaming spectators, but this is what I got.

"Jabberwocky" is a poem of nonsense verse written by Lewis Carroll, originally featured as a part of his novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1872). It is considered by many to be one of the greatest nonsense poems written in the English language. The poem is sometimes used in primary schools to teach students about the use of portmanteau and nonsense words in poetry, as well as use of nouns and verbs

"If—" is a poem written in 1899 by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the "Brother Square Toes" chapter of Rewards and Fairies, Kipling's 1910 collection of short stories and poems. Like William Ernest Henley's "Invictus", it is a memorable evocation of Victorian stoicism and the "stiff upper lip" that popular culture has made into a traditional British virtue. Its status is confirmed both by the number of parodies it has inspired, and by the widespread popularity it still draws amongst Britons (it was voted the UK's favourite poem in a 1995 BBC opinion poll). The poem's line, "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same" is written on the wall of the centre court players' entrance at the British tennis tournament, Wimbledon. The entire poem was read in a promotional video for the Wimbledon 2008 gentleman's final by Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. According to Kipling in his autobiography Something of Myself, posthumously published in 1937, the poem was inspired by Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, who in 1895 led a raid by British forces against the Boers in South Africa, subsequently called the Jameson Raid. This defeat increased the tensions that ultimately led to the Second Boer War. The British press, however, portrayed Jameson as a hero in the middle of the disaster, and the actual defeat as a British victory.

Ann Taylor (30 January 1782 - 20 December 1866) was an English poet and literary critic. In her youth she was a writer of verse for children, for which she achieved long-lasting popularity. In the years immediately preceding her marriage, she became an astringent literary critic of growing reputation. She is, however, best remembered as the elder sister and collaborator of Jane Taylor. Ann Taylor's son, Josiah Gilbert, wrote: 'two little poems"My Mother," and "Twinkle, twinkle, little Star," are perhaps, more frequently quoted than any; the first, a lyric of life, was by Ann, the second, of nature, by Jane; and they illustrate this difference between the sisters.' Both poems attracted the compliment of frequent parody throughout the 19th century.

"My Country" is an iconic patriotic poem about Australia, written by Dorothea Mackellar (1885-1968) at the age of 19 while homesick in England. After travelling through Europe extensively with her father during her teenage years she started writing the poem in London in 1904 and re-wrote it several times before her return to Sydney. The poem was first published in the London Spectator in 1908 under the title "Core of My Heart". It was reprinted in many Australian newspapers, quickly becoming well known and establishing Mackellar as a poet.

Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552 -- 29 October 1618) was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, and explorer who is also largely known for popularising tobacco in England.

A Banjo Paterson poem Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, OBE[2] (17 February 1864 -- 5 February 1941)[3] was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural andoutback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales where he spent much of his childhood. Paterson's more notable poems include "Waltzing Matilda", "The Man from Snowy River" and "Clancy of the Overflow". http://conservativeweasel.blogspot.com/2011/12/on-kileys-run.html

John Milton (9 December 1608 -- 8 November 1674) was an English poet, author, polemicist, Puritan and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England. He is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost.

Norman MacCaig (14 November 1910 -- 23 January 1996) was a Scottish poet. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity

"Ozymandias" (pronounced /ˌɒziˈmændi.əs/) is a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in 1818. It is frequently anthologized and is probably Shelley's most famous short poem. It was written in competition with his friend Horace Smith, who wrote another sonnet entitled "Ozymandias" In addition to the power of its themes and imagery, the poem is notable for its virtuosic diction. The rhyme scheme of the sonnet is unusual and creates a sinuous and interwoven effect.

Jon (Howie) Stallworthy (born 18 January 1935 in London) FBA FRSL is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Oxford. He is also a Fellow and (twice) Acting President of Wolfson College, a poet, and literary critic.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. (28 July 1844 -- 8 June 1889) was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets. His experimental explorations in prosody (especially sprung rhythm) and his use of imagery established him as a daring innovator in a period of largely traditional verse.

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, redivided into twelve books (in the manner of the division of Virgil's Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification; the majority of the poem was written while Milton was blind, and was transcribed for him

Arthur Hugh Clough (1 January 1819 -- 13 November 1861) was an English poet, the brother of suffragist Anne Clough (who ended up as principal of Newnham College, Cambridge), and assistant to ground-breaking nurse Florence Nightingale.

Andrew John Young (29 April 1885 -- November 25, 1971) was a Scottish poet and clergyman. His status as a poet was recognised quite late and he received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1952.

Wystan Hugh Auden (21 February 1907 -- 29 September 1973, pronounced /ˈwɪstən ˈhjuː ˈɔːdən/) who signed his works W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet, born in England, later an American citizen, regarded by many as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. His work is noted for its stylistic and technical achievements, its engagement with moral and political issues, and its variety of tone, form and content. The central themes of his poetry are love, politics and citizenship, religion and morals, and the relationship between unique human beings and the anonymous, impersonal world of nature.

Spring Song The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke is a verse novel by Australian novelist and poet C. J. Dennis. The book sold over 60,000 copies in nine editions within the first year, and is probably one of the highest selling verse novels ever published in Australia..

Sonnet LX William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright

Edward James Hughes OM (17 August 1930 -- 28 October 1998) was an English poet and children's writer, known as Ted Hughes. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.

The Maniac's Song Ann Taylor (30 January 1782 - 20 December 1866) was an English poet and literary critic. In her youth she was a writer of verse for children, for which she achieved long-lasting popularity. In the years immediately preceding her marriage, she became an astringent literary critic of growing reputation. She is, however, best remembered as the elder sister and collaborator of Jane Taylor.

"People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centred. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of being selfish or ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies. Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you. Be honest and frank anyway. We spend years building what another can destroy overnight. Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people may forget tomorrow. Do good anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you try to help Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give the world your best, anyway. In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them, anyway. " === http://conservativeweasel.blogspot.com.au/2017/09/do-it-anyway-kent-keith-poem.html videos by David Daniel Ball for the Conservative Voice Author of History in a Year by the Conservative Voice http://www.amazon.com/David-Ball/e/B01683ZOWG https://www.facebook.com/DaODDBallWriter/?ref=bookmarks I was raised as an Atheist. I learned, after reading the Bible, that God loves me, and you. This is his song for you too. He loves you, and wants to be with you. All the elements are me and mine. ARIA ISRC number AUAWN1709523

In 1830, possibly aware of Pierre Dénys de Montfort's work, Alfred Tennyson published his popular poem "The Kraken" (essentially an irregular sonnet), which disseminated Kraken in English with its long-standing superfluous the. The poem in its last three lines, also bears similarities to the legend of Leviathan, a sea monster, who shall rise to the surface at the end of days. Tennyson's description apparently influenced Jules Verne's imagined lair of the famous giant squid in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea from 1870. Verne also makes numerous references to Kraken, and Bishop Pontoppidan in the novel.

The Listeners Walter John de la Mare (pronounced /ˈdɛləmɛər/[1]), OM CH (25 April 1873 -- 22 June 1956) was an English poet, short story writer and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and "The Listeners".