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Poetry of Life
has a mission. To bring to life the poems of young people to help them
express their joys, sadness, triumphs and conflicts - the raw details of
life. Contemporary as well as historic poets are given their voice here
for poems written when they were young. .
If you would like to have your poems considered for use on in this new
book this site,
email them to
Young Poets. Click here to see the
rules. All winners will be notified by email and receive a "Top 100
Young Poets" certificate with information about this recognition sent to
the winners' college and hometown newspapers. (This award will also be a
useful addition to your college and job applications.)
This book will be offered free of charge as a download when it is
published in March, 2008. If you enjoy the book, you will have an
opportunity to make a contribution to Virginia Tech through a direct
internet connection. The paperback book will also be sold to the general
public with 30% of the profit being contributed to Virginia Tech.
We
include some of the most beloved poems of poets written when they were young.
Visit on this site: Famous poets when they were
young in age or spirit
Poets from William & Mary College in
Williamsburg
Poem from Baruch College in New
York
Note: This website and book have no
connection with Virginia Tech. It is a voluntary project by students and
others who care about this great school.
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What Is Poetry?
by Aileen Judd
Poetry is a
difficult genre of writing to define. Poetry is not merely prose
reorganized into a column of text and made to rhyme. Poetry is much more
than just the sum of the words.
It is a form of expression
that deals with emotions, often succinctly and presented in an obscure
way. To me, poetry is one person’s emotional experience distilled into its
purest form and put down on the page.
American poet Robert Frost put it best when he said, “Poetry is when an
emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”
Poetry is a genre prized for
its creativity of form, for which there are virtually no rules. For some
poets every single word and punctuation mark in a poem holds
significance, leaving the poem open to interpretation and much debate on
behalf of readers. Poetry ranges from thought-provoking to a pleasant
read, from shocking to comforting, and from expressing isolation to
expressing universality.
Italian poet Salvatore Quasimodo wisely defined poetry as “the
revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and
personal which the reader recognizes as his own,” demonstrating poetry’s
ability to be both unique to its writer and universal at the same time.
Poetry relies on both content and form to give it meaning, a process
which requires meticulous editing on the part of the poet. Edgar Allan
Poe summarized this idea when he said, “Poetry is the rhythmical
creation of beauty in words.”
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Announcing a new search for 100 great
young poets to light a hundred candles for the Virginia Tech victims of
April 16
Click here
for the rules if you would like to enter a poem
to
help honor Virginia Tech as the faculty and students continue to recover
from this terrible tragedy. |
She Walks in Beauty
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
Sonnet 01
Go Valentine and tell that lovely maid
Whom Fancy still will pourtray to my sight,
How her Bard lingers in this sullen shade,
This dreary gloom of dull monastic night.
Say that from every joy of life remote
At evening's closing hour he quits the throng,
Listening alone the ring-dove's plaintive note
Who pours like him her solitary song.
Say that her absence calls the sorrowing sigh,
Say that of all her charms he loves to speak,
In fancy feels the magic of her eye,
In fancy views the smile illume her cheek,
Courts the lone hour when Silence stills the grove
And heaves the sigh of Memory and of Love.
Lines Written in Early Spring
I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
To her fair works did nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it griev'd my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Through primrose-tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trail'd its wreathes;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
The birds around me hopp'd and play'd:
Their thoughts I cannot measure,
But the least motion which they made,
It seem'd a thrill of pleasure.
The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
If I these thoughts may not prevent,
If such be of my creed the plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
Imitation
A dark unfathom'd tide
Of interminable pride -
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild, and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision on my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my worldly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it pass'd on
I care not tho' it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Descent of the Muse
Out of the dim swirling mists and
clouds
enshrouding the ethereal light
of the infinite eternal depths
Beyond,
emerges a darker shadow,
taking shape, gathering Form,
as if the surrounding confusion,
Ominously,
were condensing into…
something
substantial:
Opaque Clarity.
Out of this Silence
comes the Storm.
The darkness deepens—
an awesome flash dazzles,
echoing, reverberating,
Illuminating the Night—
by weathering the
intense,
unrelenting,
torrential
Frustration,
Inspiration, arduously brought, has
been
Found Unsought.
And so the clouds part,
the haze dissolves,
suddenly vanishing
into wispy tendrils of Memory
that disperse with time
but for this moment are
Utterly Eclipsed
by the spectacle bursting forth
in blazing celestial glory:
a scintillating prismatic rainbow
surge,
a fountain of perpetually flowing—
—Meaning and Nonsense:
Brilliance and Beauty made Real
Harmonious Truth.
© 2006 Timothy Page
Bad News
Senseless. Meaningless. I sit
here transfixed,
bombarded from all sides. I
can’t feel it.
Tired of this reality, I gaze
into a vacuum full of perfect
teeth.
I am afraid they will devour me
but at least I’ll see what is
impending—
if I turned it off they’d still
be lurking.
I hope the man with the mustache
was wrong
or the world is turning inside
out and
nobody is trying to pull the
plug.
© 2007 Timothy Page
On Paper
Sure, it all works on paper,
but that gets blown away out here
in the real world,
where the sun still shines
(as long as it’s not raining)
and time is money
that doesn’t buy happiness
or grow on trees
but some people still can’t get enough
Thrill from the unexpected,
ineffable
ebb and flow
that defies Reason
and wrecks reasons—
but there are enough of those
to hide from
and most of the ones they give you
work on paper
but blow away out here
in the real world.
© 2006 Timothy Page
Sonnet
The jealous sky has nothing on your eyes
Which luminously gleam the deepest blue.
To lose myself in them would be unwise
For then I could not bear to part from you.
Your hair is brighter than the golden sun
And I admire every single strand
And wish to, one time, be allowed to run
My fingers through it, silken in my hand.
Adored by all you are- to you they flock
Like sheep which seek a pat from Master wise.
And you, my dear, so kindly do unlock
A gentle smile that does not reach your eyes.
Though I do love thy looks, as now you know,
The simple truth is that I loathe you so.
Aileen Judd
February 23rd
7 pm brings death
in the form of a phone call.
Beloved is dead
and no one knows how.
Tears fall, and outside
the moon smiles down
on the tiny graveyard
and the laughing couple.
Aileen Judd
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Snow in
the Urban Twilight
The devil’s iced pitchforks hurl
Into his parade of streetlights and skyscrapers -
White gravel cast from the Gardener’s satchel,
Frozen hearts sped from Cupid’s well-intentioned bow
Slam into an abandoned car on the corner -
Lonely ashes from post-apocalyptic skies
Encapsulate the urbanites’ volunteered
Fears within alabaster spheres in flight,
Snow in the urban twilight.
Devin DeBacker
Hinges Creak
Hinges creak.
A child tiptoes forward,
The man
rushes out,
With a commando’s stealth,
With the
cacophony of an untuned orchestra,
Careful to avoid the glass fragments,
Almost
crashing into a nearby wall.
While he dodges a far-flung fork
As he sweeps
her into his arms,
And peers over the counter’s edge,
His lover,
A man,
His fiance,
A monster,
His
sweetheart.
His father.
The diamond
anxiously gracing her finger.
The child’s screams echo from the doorway,
Skipping
through the doorframe,
In terror,
In joy,
The door slams shut,
The oak
glides back across carpet,
And hinges creak.
And hinges
creak.
Devin DeBacker
If Here Were There
If here were there and there were here,
There would be no more waiting,
No more imagined touch,
No miles – just inches.
If here were there and there were here,
A tender caress wouldn’t be held in reserve,
Kisses wouldn’t be signed in X’s and O’s,
And your fingers wouldn’t be left cold.
If here were there and there were here,
I wouldn’t have to remember
The feel of your legs against mine
Or imagine your tender emerald gaze.
Yet if here were there and there were here,
Time would stop and wait for us to cross,
Love still would occupy most thoughts,
And only one heartbeat would be heard,
If here were there and there were here.
Devin DeBacker
Dear Rachel…
You are Aphrodite
or Helen of Troy,
the example of beauty to the world.
You are a flower, pink in bloom,
the ‘why’ behind the earth, the sun,
and the cool rain.
You are a smile,
an unexpected wink,
an infectious laugh in a crowded room of strangers.
You are my favorite song,
playing on the radio,
echoing through the open windows to passerbys on the sidewalk.
You are a sunrise,
without which waking becomes a mere chore;
You are a sunset,
giving meaning to day and night.
You are Hailey’s Comet,
a rarity of exquisite wonder and grace;
You are afternoon sunlight,
streaming through the clouds
and dancing upon the grass.
You are a saved love letter,
thoroughly explored,
tattered, cherished,
re-read, folded,
and read yet again.
You are a lit firecracker,
speeding skyward, bursting
into a frenzy of rainbow confetti.
You are an emerald,
a floating rose petal,
the never-ending horizon,
the living embers of a roaring fire.
You are a spirited soul from a long-forgotten place,
centuries past millenniums ago –
yet you have lived a hundred
thousand lifetimes since then,
just so I could love you.
Devin DeBacker
Daybreak
The lingering dew on the oak tree drips with the rhythm of relative
time,
Thickening and dripping as a heavy winter’s sap;
The accompaniment of silence’s orchestra -
Too early for the familiar songs of birds,
Too late for nature’s nocturnal cacophony of crickets -
These as the glimpse of the night’s affairs, the as-yet-unseen horizon.
The translucent ripples pass hesitatingly through the amber tea,
The streams of light reflecting and moving upon its surface by my
swaying head,
Converge into one light stream as my eyes retreat from the white mug;
The stillness of the tea after all movement has ceased,
The stillness of nature reflected by the motionless morning nectar,
How the moment’s privacy is bought by the morning’s quiet.
The gradual extirpation of early tranquility with the arrival
of a
reluctant breeze,
Carrying the rest of the day,
Transform these gentle ripples, the morning’s stillness,
the honey’d
nectar into a brief memory,
Beckoning the splintering of first dewdrop.
Devin DeBacker
Baruch College
find your way
tripped by reality
you fall hard
and land on
the truths of life.
slowly
you have to gather
all the pieces of yourself
and put the puzzle back together.
Justina Ng
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