Young Writers Society

In honor of NaPo, why not share your favorite poems with us? By this, I mean your favorite poems by another author. Perhaps at the end of NaPo, I'll make a thread where you can share your favorite poem written by you.

Here's one of my absolute favorites. TW: gaslighting (a form of mental abuse)

Language warning, but this will always be my favorite. Incredibly funny, well written, and topical.

this maybe a bit dark ( violence, death, gore, etc. ), but i like it. edmund c. blunden: "third ypres"

Here's What Our Parents Never Taught Us


You will stay up on your rooftop until sunlight peels away the husk of the moon,
chainsmoking cigarettes and reading Baudelaire, and
you will learn that you only ever want to fall in love with someone
who will stay up to watch the sun rise with you.

You will fall in love with train rides, and sooner or later you will
realize that nowhere seems like home anymore.

A woman will kiss you and you’ll think her lips are two petals
rubbing against your mouth.

You will not tell anyone that you liked it.
It’s okay.
It is beautiful to love humans in a world where love is a metaphor for lust.

You can leave if you want, with only your skin as a carry-on.

All you need is a twenty in your pocket and a bus ticket.
All you need is someone on the other end of the map, thinking about the supple
curves of your body, to guide you to a home that stretches out for miles
and miles on end.

You will lie to everyone you love.
They will love you anyways.

One day you’ll wake up and realize that you are too big for your own skin.

Molt.
Don’t be afraid.

Your body is a house where the shutters blow in and out
against the windowpane.

You are a hurricane-prone area.
The glass will break through often.

But it’s okay. I promise.

Remember,
a stranger once told you that the breeze
here is something worth writing poems about.

With good music in my ears

I could not hear my fears

I dream of a life with you

But couldn't get to that point of view

Music is a beautiful ecape

From the reality I live in

Music, leads to the soul deep within

@popsicles -- that is a beautiful poem! Friendly reminder that this thread is more for posting other author's poems (rather than just your own, which can be shared in separate threads). A good way to figure out what to post in a forum thread is by reading the first post.

Here's a poem by Don Marquis that I would consider my favorite:
"the lesson of the moth"

i met a moth the other night
who loved to play with fire
he was trying to break into a hundred watt bulb
to fry himself on a wire.

i said to him, sir, if you keep that up
your years will be painfully few,
do you play with fire because you like it
or because it's the conventional thing for moths to do?

he looked at me all starry eyed,
and fluttered his wings as he softly sighed;
'have you ever seen the secret heart of a flame?
how many creatures have ever seen
the secret heart of a flame?
we moths would rather see beauty once
and then just cease to be
then never see any beauty at all
and live an eternity
so we wad up our lives into one little ball
and into the flame we shoot it all!
into the flame we fly ... what a wonderful way to die.'

'goodbye!'

and before i could stop him, the crazy little blighter
he flew right into the business end of a cigarette lighter
and BZZZZ
no more little blighter.

well, we would say that moth was a fool, i guess
but there's one thing i cannot deny:
i wish there was something in this world i wanted
as much as he wanted ... to fry.

@alliyah By replying to this I'm admitting to stalking older forum topics, but oof, I needed to say that the last stanza of that moth poem killed me. I didn't see it coming because the poem's language is rather simple, but damn, that impact

One of my favorite poems. For the Fallen, by Laurence Binyon:

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.


Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.


They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.


They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.


But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;


As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

I really love these two:
[*]The Bells - Edgar Allan Poe
[*]Because I could not stop for death - Emily Dickinson

Charge of the Light Brigade by Lord Alfred Tennyson



I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

II
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

III
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.

IV
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

V
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

VI
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

Tracy K. Smith, former US Poet-Laureate made a beautiful found-poem from snippets of Civil War letters from African American soldiers and families to President Lincoln, I first heard her speak about this poem from the podcast "On Being" with Krista Tippett (I really recommend checking out her poetry segments if you like hearing poets talk about their poetry -> you can read/listen/download the podcast I'm talking about here). This poem is really incredible, and kind of makes me want to try writing a found-poem myself.