When I was an undergrad, we read Rolfe Humphries' Lucretius. Decades later I see it is very fine modern blank verse. Since I never see his name anywhere, he must be an underrated poet. Other translators of the classics, such as Fitzgerald, Lattimore, and Fagles, are possibly underrated even if much read, considering their role in keeping poetry alive.

I hope to post more fully on this before long, but I will consider Frank Stanford to be "underrated" until the battlefield where the moon says I love you is widely recognized as one of the greatest American poems ever.

One of my favorite poems is by Vachel Lindsay, another often forgotten, overlooked, or underrated poet:

The Flower-Fed Buffaloes

The flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
In the days of long ago,
Ranged where the locomotives sing
And the prairie flowers lie low:
The tossing, blooming, perfumed grass
Is swept away by the wheat,
Wheels and wheels and wheels spin by
In the spring that still is sweet.
But the flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
Left us, long ago.
They gore no more, they bellow no more,
They trundle around the hills no more:
With the Blackfeet, lying low,
With the Pawnees, lying low,
Lying low.

And here's another one:

Euclid

Old Euclid drew a circle
On a sand-beach long ago.
He bounded and enclosed it
With angles thus and so.
His set of solemn greybeards
Nodded and argued much
Of arc and of circumference,
Diameter and such.
A silent child stood by them
From morning until noon
Because they drew such charming
Round pictures of the moon.

Taufiq Rafat, another uderrated Pakistani poet
 

Hello David / and friends,

Hope you'll be doing fine. Thanks for liking Duad Kamal's poems and also for saying hello....stand obliged. Here is another Pakistani poet who wrote poetry in English like Duad kamal and created a Pakistani idiom. Though Daud excelled in precision and mastery over the language. Taufiq's poems are taught in prescribed curriculum in secondary school and college courses in USA, Australia, Africa as well as here in Pakistan. Due to my efforts poems of Duad kamal and Taufiq Rafat have been included at graduate level English Literature courses under Pakistani/Post-colonial Literature in English category by Gomal Unversity Dera Ismail Khan, Khyberpakhtunkwa where I live.
Here is a very simple poem by Taufiq Rafat displaying the culture of Indo-Pakistan sub-continent:

Vultures

Like vultures they gather
when someone dies.
Cousins and uncles and aunts
not seen for years
are dolefully here
heads wagging and generating cries
for each newcomer to the house.

After two or three days
they will be gone
(who knows for how long)
with a back-patting embrace,
and bedding borrowed from neighbours
and the hired crockery
will be counted and returned.

Lahore 24 June,1981

Hope the wry humour of the poem perfectly reflects what happens when a dear one dies in the family here in our culture. Thanks to everyone......warmest regards/Abid

Here's an interesting blog with a whole string of pieces about neglected poets (click on that label):

http://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/

Duncan

Vachel Lindsay's not forgotten by me. That first poem about the Buffalo I found in a Penguin anthology, though it is true a rather old one. ALL his poems can be found on the internet. Go see.


A Dirge for a Righteous Kitten

To be intoned, all but the two italicized lines, which are to be spoken in a snappy, matter-of-fact way.

Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.
Here lies a kitten good, who kept
A kitten's proper place.
He stole no pantry eatables,
Nor scratched the baby's face.
He let the alley-cats alone.
He had no yowling vice.
His shirt was always laundried well,
He freed the house of mice.
Until his death he had not caused
His little mistress tears,
He wore his ribbon prettily,
He washed behind his ears.
Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.

George Starbuck isn't as popular around here, or anywhere, as I would expect. His poems are pop-art graffiti done in day-glo colors: urban and erudite and oozing with technique.

the Staunch Maid and the Extraterrestrial Trekkie
hommages à Julia Child

Stand back, stand back,
Thou blob of jelly.
Do not attack
A maid so true.
I didn't pack
My Schiaparelli
To hit the sack
With a thang like you.

You maniac!
Go raid a deli.
Pick on a snack
Of barbecue.
A nice Cal-Jack?
Some Buoncastelli.
Here, have a daiq-
Uiri. Have two.

Like a Big-Mac
Machiavelli
She tossed him crack-
Ers and ragout.
She fed him rack
Of lamb, sowbelly,
Absinthe and cack-
Leberry stew.

And while she crack-
Ed the eggs and velly
Adroitly hack-
Ed the lamb in two,
Like that weird ac-
Tress on the telly,
Kept up the wack-
Y parlez-vous.

You shall not lack
For mortadelle.
You shall not lack
For pâte à choux.
You shall have aq-
Uavit quenelle
Mit sukiyak-
I au fondue.

Not yet you stack
Of paralelly
Pulsating vac-
Uoles of goo,
You sloshing brack-
Ish stracciatelli
Of dental plaque
And doggy doo!

I still must frac-
Ture the patellae
And baste the back-
Sides of a few
Agneaux-de-Pâques-
Avec-Mint-Jelly
Before I ac-
Quiesce with you.

I said back back!
Have Mrs. Shelley
Or Countess Drac-
Ula re-do
You you great hack-
Work by Fuseli.
I'm not the quack
To unscramble you.

She threw him mac-
Kerel en gelée,
Mulled Armagnac,
Ripe Danish blue.
She staggered back.
He swore by Hell he
Had come to shack
And not soft-shoe

Just at the ac-
Me of Indeli-
Cacy and ac-
Rimony too,
While she distrac-
Ted him pellmelly,
The massed attack
Came in on cue:

Her Uncle Zack
From Pocatelly,
The whole Galac-
Tica and crew
On a Kawasak-
I-Granatelli-
Ford-Lotus trac-
Tor cab crashed through.

They had a tac
Nuke from New Delhi.
They had a black-
Snake from the zoo.
A few Kojak-
Eries from Telly.
Biff Bam Fppplt Twack.
Poop poop a doo.

They hacked that frac-
Tious vermicelli
Till the tentac-
Ulations flew.
A rather tack-
Y, rather smelly
Business, but chac-
Un à son gout.

Without a knack
For belly-belly,
Without the ac-
Umen to do
Celeriac
Farcie Duxelle,
What would a crack-
Er damsel do?

I second Orwn on George Starbuck. The wit of him! Check out his "Space-Saver Sonnets," but also notice how endlessly inventive he is:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/george-starbuck

I agree with Bill that Rolfe Humphries was an excellent translator. I still like his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses more than any other I have seen.

Susan

A lot of names come to mind -- everyone here will have lost causes to nurse, if they're wise. John Heath-Stubbs, Roy Marz, William Meredith, R.H. Morrison and William Jay Smith are some of mine. I wouldn't argue that they're great poets, just that they've written some poems that touched me.

At any rate, I haven't seen Kathleen Raine mentioned, so I thought I'd offer this:



The Pythoness

I am that serpent-haunted cave
Whose navel breeds the fates of men.
All wisdom issues from a hole in the earth;
The gods form in my darkness, and dissolve again.

From my blind womb all kingdoms come,
And from my grave seven sleepers prophesy.
No babe unborn but wakens to my dream,
No lover but at last entombed in me shall lie.

I am that feared and longed-for burning place
Where man and phoenix are consumed away,
And from my low polluted bed arise
New sons, new suns, new skies.

xxxxx- Kathleen Raine

Two of my personal torches:

Englishwoman Ruth Pitter, though she was the subject of a recent biography by Helena Nelson (must read!).

Henri Coulette, Pasadena homeboy, dead 22 years, despite the best efforts of Donald Justice, Robert Mezey, Dana Gioia, and most recently, Gregory Dowling, who's been trying to coax a note from me, which I hope to have to him on the first good day.

Frank

I'm glad to see my nagging and wheedling are having some effect on that conscience of yours, Frank...