Young Writers Society

So way back when, probably when I was eight or so, I read this poem in a book in the library. I was compelled to read it out loud, till I got the rhythm. It started my love affair with poetry. Ironically I have a lot of trouble getting the rhythm right in my poems, so when I feel totally out of sync, I read this again and it helps. For those who haven't read it, or those who have even, Read it again out loud, I promise it'll help you just a bit.



Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
(Under the vine of the dark verandah)?
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,
Do you remember an Inn?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteeers
Who hadn't got a penny,
And who weren't paying any,
And the hammer at the doors and the Din?
And the Hip! Hop! Hap!
Of the clap
Of the hands to the twirl and the swirl
Of the girl gone chancing,
Glancing,
Dancing,
Backing and advancing,
Snapping of a clapper to the spin
Out and in --
And the Ting, Tong, Tang, of the Guitar.
Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?

Never more;

Miranda,

Never more.

Only the high peaks hoar:

And Aragon a torrent at the door.

No sound

In the walls of the Halls where falls

The tread

Of the feet of the dead to the ground

No sound:

But the boom

Of the far Waterfall like Doom.

For me, I think it was The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. I absolutely adore it and the rhythm is genius. God, I wish I could write as rhythmically as he could.

I think one of the first poems I fell in love with, one of the first I ever read, was Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas. That's what made me realize the beauty of poetry. I'd really never read any before and just assumed it was all sentimental nonsense, whose popularity and continued existence and attention was based on the analyzing and picking apart to the bare bones by English teachers. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing to analyze poetry. I just didn't have a good teacher to show me that. I thought it was ridiculous to assign all these hidden meanings to words, without having any basis in reality for the assumptions. What I didn't realize was that one of the best things about really good poetry is how it can be interpreted any way the reader pleases, it can be molded to fit their life. I realized that when I took that Dylan Thomas poem a certain way, and then read a little paragraph at the bottom telling me that it was really about his father.

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost

We had to recite that poem in fifth grade for graduation, I think. We had to memorize it, which I found surprisingly easy. I still remember it up till this day.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both,
And be one traveler, long I stood.
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

And on and on and on again. I could spend the rest of the day reciting this, but anyway, that really showed me that poetry isn't just a bunch of words that sounds pretty. (That's really what I thought it was, way, way back.) Fifth grade was pretty much writers block heaven, so I didn't have time to write. But when i got into sixth and seventh grade, that poem stuck with me for a long, long time.