GoodPoetry

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"A Poem" by Teyuna Trynea Darris

A poem does not have to rhyme It simply shares a record of a tale about some interesting/practical event that all humans share.

A poem is a dream of the pictures we live (daily) of the stories we see, hear, taste, touch--- smell.

A poem is a reflection of the people, of the dream, of the vision, of the fight, of the struggle, of the hurts and sorrows

and freedoms and captivities and triumphant victories and defeat and loss and hopes. A poem is a story of a genre of an outlet,

of a means to share

of an outstrecthed hand of a friend who is seeking of a man who is weeping.

A poem is…

A poem is…

A song

A dance

A folding of the hands

An observation

A cry

An inclination---

A try

And celebration.

A poem is a poem.

Teyuna T. Darris

January 23rd, 2009

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"Invictus" by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

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"The New Colossus"

BY EMMA LAZARUS

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

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""The Arrow and the Song" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow"

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;

And the song, from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend.

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“GoodPoetry”

What are the prerequisites For good poetry? Is it the layout on the page

Or, a pretty word to calm fears

Or, to stir emotion

Or, to put you in-between?

Does good poetry sound good?

Are its iambs and pentameters in perfect mode? (or, is it form?) Is it a sonnet or a villanelle?

Does it rhyme or unrhyme,

And can it have the rhythm, And not have the rhyme?

Is it sexy, seductive, sassy, and sweet?

Or, is it conserve-ed, passive, humble and bleak?

Don’t ask me to define a good poem

For all the world

could not contain its potential

And no author, nor critic could pen, or contend its true definition.

What is good poetry?

Let the poem decide.

Written @ 8:56pm on 08/30/2011 by Teyuna T. Darris

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We’ll Go No More A-Roving by Lord Byron

So We'll Go No More a Roving

BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)

So, we'll go no more a roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a roving

By the light of the moon.

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"My Poetical Side"

by Teyuna T. Darris

I just thought I'd unleash

My poetical side.

'Cause in everyday life,

I live to hide.

Need something of freedom:

From time to time

Need something of feeling:

To kiss my prime,

To hush my cries

To love my eyes.

I just thought I'd show

My virgin side:

All kids and maude---

The unaduletered tide.

See, I don't tend to fancy things:

Just those crystal, cloudless,

Truthly things.

But, since this long time,

I thought I'd hush my mawky,

Ad stick to truth:

Not fraud and lofty.

See feelings of rue

And silent ado.

This time, I'll refine:

My poetical side.

by Teyuna Trynea Darris

from "Stuff I Wrote from My Heart"

Follow @tdarris on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr.

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"Let America Be America Again" by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That’s made America the land it has become.

O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—

For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,

And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came

To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?

Surely not me? The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we’ve dreamed

And all the songs we’ve sung

And all the hopes we’ve held

And all the flags we’ve hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay—

Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,

We must take back our land again,

America!

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!

From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes.

"The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams; Read by Teyuna Darris

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"The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams;

so much dependsupon

a red wheelbarrow

glazed with rainwater

beside the whitechickens

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"Fog"

BY CARL SANDBURG

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.