Rhoda's Poetry Bookshelf

Poetry Links

Poetry Pages--Robert Frost
Exhibitions: Keats
John Keats--Romantic Poet
T.S. Eliot
Shakespeare
Shakespeare's Globe
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) County Guy
Acacia Vignettes Poetry--Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte, and Others
Siegfried Sassoon
Biography of Siegfried Sassoon by Michele Fry

My mother was a High School English teacher. Her greatest love was poetry and while growing up I had the privlege of sitting by her side and listening while she read from her beloved poets. Her favorites were Emily Dickenson, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Shakespeare sonnets, and Robert Frost. My mother had a wonderful delivery and a way of bringing these poems to life the like of which I have not heard since she died about ten years ago.

Through my mother's love and knowledge of poetry, I have come to value it also, though never as much as she did. I do count myself fortunate that by having lived with her during my formative years, I am not as ignorant about great poetry as I would have otherwise been. Through the years, I have learned to appreciate these great poems and the masters who created them. A great poet successfully articulates the pains of unrealized ambitions, aging, loving, and living. Such poets can present the darkest moments of life as something profound and thoughtful rather than something dreadful. Through poetry, John Keats captures his reflective study and speculation of characters on a Grecian ern and imortalizes these musings. Simple pleasures like the riotous sprouting of daffodils bring joy even on the bleakest winter days when one sees them through the eyes of William Wordsworth. These masters transcend all time, culture, and age, and reach their audience throughout the years on a deep, heart-felt level while at the same time forcing their audience to face life thoughtfully. In a few carefully crafted stanzas, we laugh, weep, reflect and rejoice in the varied experiences of life.

SOUND AND SENSE, a college anthology my mother always valued, asks in its first chapter, "What is Poetry?" Differentiating poetry from other forms of writing, it concludes: "Poetry takes all life as its province. Its primary concern is not with beauty, not with philosophical truth, not with persuasion, but with experience. Beauty and philosophical truth are aspects of experience, and the poet is often engaged with them. But poetry as a whole is concerned with all kinds of experience--beautiful or ugly, strange or common, noble or ignoble, actual or imaginary. One of the paradoxes of human existence is that all experience--even painful experience--when transmitted through the medium of art is, for the good reader, enjoyable."

I do not pretend to be an expert in the field of poetry. I do not write it and I don't often read it, but I do know its value and I have oftentimes experienced its magic. There have been so many times I have faced a decision in life and then immediately am drawn back to Frost's two roads diverged in a yellow wood. When I see the turmoil in my country and in the world around me, I am reminded of Frost's words,

There are many wonderful poetry sites on the Web. I haven't begun to collect all of the best ones, but I am working on it. Be sure to visit often, for I intend to feature something new every few weeks.