Meme: Poetry

[fourzoas]

Yanked this from hobbitblue.

When you see this post, post a poem to your LJ. She chose one of my favorites (Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art," a gorgeous villanelle), but here's another I quite like. YMMV.

"A Map of Love"
Donald Justice

Your face more than others' faces
Maps the half-remembered places
I have come to while I slept—
Continents a dream had kept
Secret from all waking folk
Till to your face I awoke,
And remembered then the shore,
And the dark interior.

Donald Justice links:
"Men at Forty" (another favorite poem)
Wikipedia entry
The Poetry Foundation

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Now this will require some thought. I have so many poems I love, that I find thought-provoking, beautiful, or inspiring...

I've not come across Donald Justice before...

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

Oh, I could have thought on this one for hours if I'd let myself, but the little voice whispered his name and I went seeking the book.

I adore what Donald Justice does with form; this poem is a really simple one, but he inhabits the sestina and the villanelle and introduced me to the pantoum, all the while bending and breaking and shaping them to make them his own.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough I listened to the whisper of the little voice in my case too!

[ebbyzone.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have no idea which poem I will pick for this meme (but I know it will be by Pablo Neruda).

I do like the poem you posted quite a bit; I've not read the works of Donald Justice before.

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

Oooo...Neruda! Lovely!

As I noted to Pers above, Donald Justice is just gorgeous; I highly recommend reading around in his work. There's a good volume (New and Selected Poems) that will give you a nice tour-n-taste.