THAT poem.

[Amy-Rose]

Does anyone else remember that poem? The one that came from nowehere to capture your heart and convert you into the poetry enthusiast that you are today? I can quite vividly remember sitting in English class when one particular line from one particular poem suddenly caught my attention. It was this:

"If in some smothering dreams you too could pace."

I could almost hear an outraged Wilfred Owen shouting right at me. I felt as if he was dragging me right into his nightmare, so I too could see the haunting sights that had made him so strongly opposed to war. This was the first time I saw how powerful poetry can be and to this day I am fascinated by its potential...

[BenJohnson]

Great question.

And thus among these rocks he lived,
Through summer heat and winter snow:
The Eagle, he was lord above,
And Rob was lord below.

The lines above were in a film I watched called Restless Native at age 14. I'm not sure why but they had a bigger impact on me than hours spent in English class and I was hooked ever since.

[shuyun]

that poem for me is:

My Shadow
by Robert Louis Stevenson

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow--
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes goes so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close behind me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the Sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

I learned it in first grade and it's so musical, I remembered wanting to memorize it without my teacher telling me.

For most part that's how I like my poetry to be, accessible. I get high brow at times, but i prefer it when my target audience understands what I wanted to say rather than be praised for any technical thing I did.

[Henry P]

Virtually anything by Gerard Manley Hopkins after he found his style with "sprung rhythm", but especially the "Windhover"

[Mr. Bergstrom]

Strangely enough I can't remember a particular poem or poet drawing me into poetry. Tupac Shakur inspired me to write poetry. I was 16 at the time and going through a lot of personal problems, his music just helped me through it. Since I couldn't rap haha, I decided to go down the road of poetry. I found that I couldn't stop writing and reading poetry, I couldn't get enough of it! Eleven years later and I still get the same buzz off it!

[rantingpete]

As Ben said, 'great question'.

It was most definately the lyrics on the Jam album 'Sound Affects' that got me into writing poetry. Songs such as 'Man in the Corner Shop', 'Pretty Green', 'Monday' and 'That's Entertainment'. Don't forget back then there was no internet and very few magazines contained poetry especially by 'young poets'. So, access to poetry was either the 'classics' or Ted Hughes/John Betjamin. That's why I started my poetry fanzine.

John Cooper-Clark, Edward Lear, Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Billy Childish have impressed me but Bukowski, and more recently, Jim Burns have inspired me.

By the way, I love the poem Shuyun has posted - My Shadow.

[bastet]

from "the marriage of psyche" by kathleen raine
the title to the book by gavin maxwell.."ring of bright water"
read when i was about 10.
i loved the book..although it is not poetry..but the quote and the poem it is from made its way into my heart.

"..He has married me with a ring, a ring of bright water
Whose ripples travel from the heart of the sea,
He has married me with a ring of light, the glitter
Broadcast on the swift river.
He has married me with the sun's circle
Too dazzling to see, traced in summer sky.
He has crowned me with the wreath of white cloud
That gathers on the snowy summit of the mountain,
Ringed me round with the world-circling wind,
Bound me to the whirlwind's centre..."

[Petz-Hampel-Zaworski]

The Voice
Under the Waterfall
Beyond the Last Lamp

Thomas Hardy

I remember little fromm my youth and less from school, but Poems in focus still remains as does Hardy.

Woman much missed
how you call to me
call to me
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me
But as at first
when our day was fair :cry2: