What is the state of poetry today? It seems far away and long ago to me. But that turns out to be where my attention has been directed, rather than what poetry has been doing.
There are lists of the greatest poems. On all the lists is William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 with its famous first line: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
What is Emily Dickinson's most famous/celebrated poem? "Because I could not stop for death - this was published after her death. Seems fitting.
Lord Byron's most famous poem starts "She walks in beauty, like the night"
Frost's "The Road Not taken" - a poem that we remember by its name rather than its first line which is: Two road diverged in a yellow wood"
Another famous first line is: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
John Donne's "No man is an island, Entire of itself:" Such a memorable opener.
Here's the Reader's Digest article with extracts of the poems HERE.
For a more extensive list of mostly 20th century and beyond poems check out this entertaining article HERE.
One of poetry's great questions? Is poetry dead. People certainly ask it a lot or they ask variations such as "does poetry still matter? Here's an entertaining title: "The ultimate and decisive is poetry dead article"
Looks like poetry is alive for a lot of writers and journalists.
That handrail at Niagara Falls is instantly recognizable to me. I took the recent picture and removed most of the people. It seems poetic now.
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