Readings of great or naff poems

Alfred Edward Housman (pronounced /ˈhaʊsmən/; 26 March 1859 -- 30 April 1936), usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems were mostly written before 1900. Their wistful evocation of doomed youth in the English countryside, in spare language and distinctive imagery, appealed strongly to late Victorian and Edwardian taste, and to many early twentieth century English composers (beginning with Arthur Somervell) both before and after the First World War. Through its song-setting the poetry became closely associated with that era, and with Shropshire itself.

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 fact I cannot sing does not mean I will not === From William Shakespeare's Much ado about Nothing Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no more Of dumps so dull and heavy. The fraud of men was ever so Since summer first was leafy. Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into hey, nonny, nonny. === https://youtu.be/8Sm6uoJTS3I https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50653/song-sigh-no-more-ladies-sigh-no-more

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 -- May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. After she studied at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she spent a short time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Thought of as an eccentric by the locals, she became known for her penchant for white clothing and her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even leave her room. Most of her friendships were therefore carried out by correspondence.

The Game "Ginger Mick was a likeable rogue who, before he answered the call to arms to defend democracy, sold fresh rabbits in the streets of Melbourne. This book by CJ Dennis tells of his tender love for Rose and his experiences at war in North Africa. The verse is full of humour and pathos and truly captures the spirit of the era. Contents: INTRODUCTION I. DUCK AN' FOWL II. WAR III. THE CALL OF STOUSH IV. THE PUSH V. SARI BAIR VI. GINGER'S COBBER VII. THE SINGING SOLDIERS VIII. IN SPADGER'S LANE IX. THE STRAIGHT GRIFFIN X. A LETTER TO THE FRONT XI. RABBITS XII. TO THE BOYS WHO TOOK THE COUNT XIII. THE GAME XIV. "A GALLANT GENTLEMAN"

Uncle 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. Contents A Spring Song The Intro The Stoush O' Day Doreen The Play The Stror 'at Coot The Siren Mar Pilot Cove Hitched Beef Tea Uncle Jim The Kid The Mooch o' Life

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.

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.

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..

Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 -- 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet of the naturalist movement, although in several poems he displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.

The Sentimental Bloke (1919) is an Australian silent film based on the 1915 Australian poem The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke by C.J. Dennis. This is Dennis' last poem. Not written in the vernacular.

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.

The Journey of the Magi is a poem by T. S. Eliot. The poem was written after Eliot's conversion to Christianity and confirmation in the Church of England in 1927 and published in Ariel Poems in 1930.

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

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.

"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.

Edmund Spenser (c. 1552 -- 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English language.

Charles Wolfe (14 December 1791 -- 21 February 1823) was an Irish poet. Born at Blackhall, County Kildare, the youngest son of Theobald Wolfe of Blackhall (descended from the Wolfe family of Forenaughts House, Co. Kildare), by his wife Frances, daughter of The Rev. Peter Lombard. Wolfe's grandfather (a first cousin of Lord Kilwarden) was the godfather, but widely believed to be the natural father of Theobald Wolfe Tone. Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, KB (13 November 1761 -- 16 January 1809) was a British soldier and General. He is best known for his military training reforms and for his death at the Battle of Corunna, in which his force was defeated but gained a tactical advantage a French army under Marshal Soult during the Peninsular War.

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Persian: رباعیات عمر خیام) is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in Persian and of which there are about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayyám (1048--1131), a Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer. A Persian ruba'i is a two line stanza with two parts (or hemistechs) per line, hence the word "Rubaiyat", (derived from the Arabic root word for 4), meaning "quatrains".

War "Ginger Mick was a likeable rogue who, before he answered the call to arms to defend democracy, sold fresh rabbits in the streets of Melbourne. This book tells of his tender love for Rose and his experiences at war in North Africa. The verse is full of humour and pathos and truly captures the spirit of the era. Contents: INTRODUCTION I. DUCK AN' FOWL II. WAR III. THE CALL OF STOUSH IV. THE PUSH V. SARI BAIR VI. GINGER'S COBBER VII. THE SINGING SOLDIERS VIII. IN SPADGER'S LANE IX. THE STRAIGHT GRIFFIN X. A LETTER TO THE FRONT XI. RABBITS XII. TO THE BOYS WHO TOOK THE COUNT XIII. THE GAME XIV. "A GALLANT GENTLEMAN"

The Trap 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.

"Suicide in the Trenches" is one of the many poems the English poet Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) composed in response to World War I, reflecting his own notable service in that especially bloody conflict. Sassoon was a brave and gallant upper-class officer who eventually opposed the war, but he never lost his admiration for the common soldiers who had to fight it. Sassoon felt contempt for the political leaders and civilian war hawks who, safe in their power and comfort, sent young men off to die in huge battles that seemed futile and pointless. It was first published February 23, 1918 in Cambridge Magazine, then in Sassoon's collection: Counter-Attack and Other Poems. The poem is written in iambic tetrameter and consists of twelve lines in three stanzas. The poem exemplifies the sensibility of war poets in "avoid[ing] sentimentality and self-pity while describing the realities of war". It tells of the suicide of a young man sent off to war and attacks the "'smug-faced' crowds who greet the returning soldiers". This is one of the poems referenced when Copp states, "It was with poems like these that Sassoon, more than any other trench poet writing in English, brought home to an uninformed public the true reality of the ghastly nature of the war." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_Trenches === I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy, Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum, He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again. You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you'll never know The hell where youth and laughter go. === AUAWN1110321

CJ Dennis' Australaise, written circa 1915 and proudly sung as soldiers went to war. I left out the extra word. Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis, better known as C. J. Dennis, (7 September 1876 - 22 June 1938) was an Australian poet famous for his humorous poems, especially "The Sentimental Bloke", published in the early 20th century.

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.

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (22 January 1788 -- 19 April 1824), commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was an English poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Amongst Byron's best-known works are the brief poems She Walks in Beauty, When We Two Parted, and So, we'll go no more a roving, in addition to the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential.