Poetry

Last night, in a trip down memory lane, Chris and I watched Dead Poets Society.  How horrible is is that so much of the poetry that I know comes from this movie?  Poetry is so beautiful and yet I have never found a book of poems to capture my attention to read.. well, maybe "Where The Sidewalk Ends".

via

I think I will get "Leaves of Grass" from the library.  If think if there is a book of poems worth trying to understand, that is it.

Dead Poets Society is such a great story of a teacher inspiring young men to think for themselves.  Every teacher wants to have this impact on his students (with possibly a little less drama).  Every student wants a teacher to have this impact on their life (with possibly a little less drama).

Have you scene Dead Poets Society ever or recently?  If you've never seen it, I would definitely recommend it -- although I want to specify, this is not a movie for children.  I saw this movie in high school and I think that was a great first age to see it.  This isn't a family movie for kids younger, than I'd say 15 years old.



Have you read any poetry recently?

"To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time"
by Robert Herrick
GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
    Old time is still a-flying :
And this same flower that smiles to-day
    To-morrow will be dying.

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"Walden"
Henry David Thoreau
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts of life,
and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived.

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"Leaves of Grass"
Walt Whitman

O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer. That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

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 Walt Whitman quote:
 I SOUND MY BARBARIC YAWP OVER THE ROOFTOPS OF THE WORLD.

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Henry David Thoreau quote:
 Most men lead lives of quiet desperation 

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"Ulysses"
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world....
For my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset...
Though we are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are---
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
 
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"The Road Less Traveled"
Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in the wood and I,
I took the road less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.