New Blog,
Poetry, does its beautiful depths enter your heart?
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https://interestingliterature.com/2018/01/10-of-the-best-poems-about-the-heart/
LITERATURE
10 of the Best Poems about the Heart
Are these the greatest heart poems? Selected by Dr Oliver Tearle
Poets have often written about the heart. Whether they’re discussing desire, or being broken-hearted by loss or unrequited love, or the boundless joy they feel in their hearts when encountering the wonders of the natural world. Here are ten of the best poems featuring hearts.
SELECTION-- Only the first three of the ten listed -RJL….
(1.)
Sir Philip Sidney, ‘My true love hath my heart, and I have his’.
My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange one for the other given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a bargain better driven.
His heart in me keeps me and him in one;
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:
He loves my heart, for once it was his own;
I cherish his because in me it bides …
The poem is taken from Sidney’s long prose work the Arcadia, a pastoral narrative which Sidney composed in around 1580. The speaker of the poem in Book III of the Arcadia is a shepherdess, pledging her love for her betrothed, a shepherd who rests in her lap; this poem sees her describing the ‘bargain’ struck between the two lovers.
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(2.)
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 46.
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar,
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
A closet never pierced with crystal eyes,
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies …
In this sonnet, Shakespeare argues that his eyes and heart are engaged in a fight to the death, over who should have the right to own the image of Shakespeare’s beloved, the Fair Youth. The poet’s heart argues that it knows the truth of the young man, and no eye, no matter how clear, has ever penetrated that truth. Shakespeare concludes that his eyes own his beloved’s outward visible appearance, while his heart has rights over what’s inside.
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(3.)
John Donne, ‘Batter my heart, three-person’d God’.
Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labour to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue …
This is a remarkable sonnet because, although it was written after Donne’s confirmation as a priest in the Church of England, it is teeming with the same erotic language we find in his earlier ‘love sonnets’. This is the aspect of Donne which prefigures (and possibly influenced) a poet of 250 years later, the Victorian religious poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who often addresses God in the same breathless, excited way that we see in this sonnet. (Hopkins also favoured the sonnet form, as demonstrated by his most famous poem, ‘The Windhover’, as well as by many of his other best-loved poems.) Donne’s sonnet also ends with a very daring declaration of desire that God ‘ravish’ him – much as he had longed for the women in his life to ravish him in his altogether more libertine youth.
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My three sonnets composed for this blog.
My interpretation of life, love, this world
poetry writing- and the experiences of life
that have set me to be a dedicated lifelong
poet that goes my own way, regardless of
any that think I should conform more to their
ideas on poetry and how to express myself.
(1.)
Alas! So Shoot Me, I Grieve What Was Lost
Alas! So shoot me, I grieve what was lost
Not just youth, but those things Time took away
Within aching heart comes an icy frost
Covering epic pains of such decay!
One may ask, how dare I so complain?
Does Nature cry about hard falling rain?
Yet does not this world its ills promote well?
Oft with sorrows borne from depths of Hell?
Dare I choose to such dark verses to write?
Have I not truly joined in the fight?
Alas! So shoot me, I grieve what was lost
Not just youth, but those things Time took away
Within aching heart comes an icy frost
Covering epic pains of such decay!
Robert J. Lindley,
Sonnet, repeat stanza ( with triple couplets )
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(2.)
Those Lush And Tender, Soft Welcoming Lips
Those flowing curls, glowing luscious mane
Sexy smile, flowering as desert rain
Bountiful beauty, sent to ease heart's pain
Lovely blessing sent for this soul to gain.
Ravishing essence with sweet touch to match
My hesitation, thinking what is the catch
That such a beauty would now my way pass
A goddess, sweet speaking to this poor lass.
Those lush and tender, soft welcoming lips
With true beauty, grace, and curvaceous hips
Yes beauty, as could launch a thousand ships
And greatest king's treasure surely eclipse.
Those tender kisses that were sent both ways.
May we forever - remember that day!
Robert J. Lindley,
Sonnet,
( And Life, Its Journey Ever Sped Onward )
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(3.)
Does Basking Moon Ask Strolling Stars For More
Of beauty, earth, wind and soft glowing sky
Dares this artist to weep tears asking why
Heart and soul must pay such a heavy price
And shed blood for it to ever suffice?
Does basking moon ask strolling stars for more
Space and time to heavenly night explore
And cast upon earth a much deeper hue
To inspire such in poets such as you?
Does dawn its resplendent new rays withhold
That gift, that gleaming beauty to be sold
Or Mother Nature fail to gift new birth
Or poets fail to cast beauty's true worth?
Do these quizzing queries set well in verse
Or fail as being dated and quite terse?
Robert J. Lindley,
Sonnet,
( And what of life, love and this thing we call earth ? )
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https://discover.hubpages.com/literature/Poems-and-Poetry-The-Heart-of-a-Poet
JAN 4, 2015
Poems and Poetry - The Heart of a Poet
REBEKAHELLE
Poetry Has Form and Structure
Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. Iambic pentameter first appeared in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in late 14th century.
Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. Iambic pentameter first appeared in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in late 14th century.
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Poets have been writing poetry since time began. Poems begin in the head and heart, not with the pen. A poet is not necessarily someone who writes poems, but is someone who sees the world poetically, and is able to express it by way of language.
Most people can compose a poem, but the simple act of writing doesn't make a poet. A poet looks at the world and sees poetry, in everything, and is able to express it with specific language. A visual artist may see the world through images and is able to express it with paint. A musician may hear the world and express it with sounds.
A poet therefore, must be able to use language to convey emotion, depth, reality, fantasy, hope, despair, love, death, illusion.
Without poetry, humanity has nowhere to hang its soul. A good poem can give us hope or laughter, tears, joy. A great poem can remind us of the magnitude of life itself. Life is so multidimensional, if we dare to enter into the life of a poem.
How Is a Poet Inspired?
The poet has the task of crafting language in order to give inspiration, in whatever form, to the reader. The world is the poets canvas. There are some poems waiting to be born, begging to be written. A poet will know when this happens.
A poet can be inspired at any moment, in the most unlikely environments, by the most seemingly, non-poetic topics or situations.
It could be the look in the eye of a passerby, or the sound of an unrelenting wind, the horrific image of a war torn road, the causal glance into the blue of the sky, the complexity of disease or famine, the beauty of love or its painful departure. Poetry is the ability to express what readers need to feel.
Part One: Life ~ V1~
"If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain."
Emily Dickinson ~
The heart of a poet belongs to the world. A poet writes for the masses realizing the reader is an individual. Once the poem is written and published for others to read and discover, now the poem belongs to the reader.
It is this relationship between the reader and the poem that is the very heart of a poet. A reader will bring what he brings to the poem and make it meaningful. The poet’s work is accomplished. A poem is like any work of art in this respect, it has individual meaning in understanding and perception.
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What Is the Heart of a Poet?
I have written poems in which readers assumed I was writing about a personal experience. This is certainly not the case. A poet must be able to write in such a manner that it conveys a real experience that may be universal in feeling. And of course, poets will use real life experiences as inspiration, and yet be able to separate themselves from the poem and appeal to the whole of humanity.
Composing a poem requires skill, knowledge of language, styles of poetry and figures of speech, feeling, and a selflessness, wanting to express. A poet must read poetry.
A Noiseless, Patient Spider~
" NOISELESS, patient spider,
I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, --seeking the spheres, to connect them
Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul."
Walt Whitman~
Poetry is the lifeblood of civilization, giving it meaning and reason, hopelessness, joy, depravity, serenity, humor, recklessness and abandon, humility, compassion, love, death, life, a sense of purpose. The heart of a poet weaves a thread of humanity throughout the world. Enjoy it, read it often, compose it with love and respect.