[A. E. Stallings]

Is there a poem that you adore, but which, um, you might think twice about claiming in a crowd of sophisticated MFA grads? (OK, as for me, I'm shameless.) A poem which, despite of, or maybe even because of, its arguable flaws--an old-fashioned sentimentality, some odd jangles, Jingoism, etc., you love unconditionally? This is one of my favorites. I love it despite of (because of?) the jingle killing/chilling--and one of my favorite lines of all time is "the demons down under the sea." It has a strange power (the embarassment of riches in terms of sound--anaphora, internal rimes, etc., the almost mythopoeic narrative). (There are also elements here which seem to prefigure Ransom--the "high-born kinsmen", the death by chills.) I'm given to walking around the house reciting it when in a certain mood. The Library of America series American Poetry gives the last line as "In her tomb by the side of the sea", but I always knew it as "by the sounding sea", which seems to me superior.

Annabel Lee

by Edgar Allan Poe


It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;--
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love--
I and my Annabel Lee--
With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven
Went envying her and me;
Yes!--that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we--
Of many far wiser than we--
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee,

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie die by the side
Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride
In the sepulchre there by the sea--
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

[Howard]

"A Brilliant Day"

O keen pellucid air! nothing can lurk
Or disavow itself on this bright day;
The small rain-plashes shine from far away,
The tiny emmet glitters at his work;
The bee looks blithe and gay, and as she plies
Her task, and moves and sidles round the cup
Of this spring flower, to drink its honey up,
Her glassy wings, like oars that dip and rise,
Gleam momently. Pure-bosom'd, clear of fog,
The long lake glistens, while the glorious beam
Bespangles the wet joints and floating leaves
Of water-plants, whose every point receives
His light; and jellies of the spawning frog,
Unmark'd before, like piles of jewels seem!

Charles Tennyson Turner

[Lilith]

the great advantage of being alive
(instead of undying) is not so much
that mind no more can disprove than prove
what heart may feel and soul may touch
-- the great (my darling) happens to be
that love are in we,that love are in we

and here is a secret they never will share
for whom create is less than have
or one times one than when times where --
that we are in love,that we are in love:
with us they've nothing times nothing to do
(for love are in we am in i are in you)

this world(as timorous itsters all
to call their cowardice quite agree)
shall never discover our touch and feel
--for love are in we are in love are in we;
for you are and i am and we are (above
and under all possible worlds) in love

a billion brains may coax undeath
from fancied fact and spaceful time --
no heart can leap, no soul can breathe
but by the sizeless truth of a dream
whose sleep is the sky and the earth and the sea.
For love are in you am in i are in we

-- e. e. cummings

This and, of course, "anyone lived in a pretty how town." What can I say? I was wooed by my husband-to-be with e. e. cummings poetry. We did a tag-team reading of "the great advantage of being alive" as part of our wedding ceremony -- he read stanzas one and three, I read stanzas two and four. Sentimental? Hackneyed rhyme? Of course. But somehow that just doesn't matter for me with this poem. And probably one of the reasons I married the man I did is because he too can make room in otherwise more sophisticated poetic tastes for someone like cummings.

[MacArthur]

In an Artist's Studio

ONE face looks out from all his canvasses,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans;
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.

A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer greens,
A saint, an angel;--every canvass means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.

He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him
Fair as the moon and joyfull as the light;
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.

Christina Rossetti

This is actually not that bad of a poem...just that I esteem it at better than its worth.

[A. E. Stallings]

Howard,

"jellies of the spawning frog"! Wonderful!

Lilith,

I bet the Cummings made for a very romantic wedding ceremony (and wooing). His poetry features in Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters," I think, as a wooing device. "no one, not even the rain, has such small hands"?

[A. E. Stallings]

Originally posted by MacArthur:
[b]In an Artist's Studio

ONE face looks out from all his canvasses,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans;

Ha! Ain't that the truth!

The sonnet gains, I think, from our awareness of facts outside the poem. I didn't know this one. Thanks for posting.

[Richard Wakefield]

Alicia:
As I read your question, before scolling down to see your example, Poe's wonderful soundfest came to mind. I learned it as a wee thing and used to recite it aloud with my father, and a part of me still thinks that all that delightful noise and gothic imagery is what makes a true poem. However, I don't feel the least guilty. Like the songs that were on the radio at certain important moments in my life, that poem casts its spell partly through the associations that bring to it. Well, if love ain't subjective, I don't know what it is.
Richard

[Roger Slater]

I don't think anyone needs to be ashamed of loving cummings. He was actually the first poet I ever read with enthusiasm, back in high school. At his best, when he's not overdoing his signature techniques, he writes absolutely lovely poems, such as the one from Hannah and Her Sisters (hearing Michael Caine read it helps, I guess). And there's one that begins "since feeling is first, whoever pays attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you," and ends with "and death, i think, is no parenthesis," which has fondly resided in my memory for almost thirty years.

And how can anyone interested in poetry not admire Annabel Lee? Just for the sweep of its meter, the bounce, the craft, etc. Empty of substance, perhaps, it shows us the power of pure technique. Almost like "Jabberwocky" (a poem I prefer), it evokes and moves and engages while saying very little of substance.

The nearest thing I have to a poem I feel guilty to like is "Casey at the Bat."

[robert mezey]

No good reason that Alicia and others should not love
the poems they love---it's not a matter of reason. I've
always been fond of Eugene Fields' "Little Boy Blue"
which is as sentimental as they come. But we don't need
to make unnecessary claims for these helpless affections.
I feel some gratitude to Cummings for the pleasures he
gave me in my teens, but I couldn't read him now---he'd
just make me wince. And Poe, well, a lot of folks love
Poe, having come on him in very early in life, but again,
why claim that "Annabel Lee" is an example of good poetic
art? It was not for nothing that Emerson (a really good
poet) called Poe "the jingle man." All his poems, all I
can think of, are deficient in craftsmanship, not to
mention sense. But of course, some of my dislike
of his work is subjective. As I said in a clerihew,

Edgar Poe
I would rate very low:
I simply cannot bear
His dank tarns and hyacinth hair.

[Lilith]

LOL Alicia! I can just imagine the look on my sweetie's face when I tell him I've found out his secret: taking romance tips from Woody Allen (!!) -- and I thought I knew the man I married

I suppose it goes without saying, Roger, that if I was really "ashamed" of cummings, we wouldn't have read it at the wedding in front of 200+ people! But it is interesting how many folks have reservations about him. I also had the experience of cummings being the very first poet I ever read and loved. I'll admit that now, after years spent learning more about the craft of poetry, some of his poems have less appeal for me than they once did. But I hope I'll always be able to read him with delight and admiration.

I know many others who also view him as a poet of their earlier years, and who say they can no longer read him with the same excitement. In fact, I've had people claim that cummings provides a litmus test of sorts; they want to argue that those of us who keep loving him are somehow fundamentally different (as poets and as people) than those who grow out of it, or never liked him at all.

Even though I think I have to agree that all this is "not a matter of reason," (and while I certainly don't feel any need to defend the poems I love, I would hardly call those affections "helpless") I do wonder about all of this. What an interesting question to pose, Alicia!

Lilith