Fare thee Well, and so it ’tis…
English: Daguerreotype of the poet Emily Dickinson, taken circa 1848. (Original is scratched.) From the Todd-Bingham Picture Collection and Family Papers, Yale University Manuscripts & Archives Digital Images Database, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
we part with such sweet sorrow,
the course is spent,
Come again Aprile as would t’morrow.
True–it’s over. Every day the Cricket has Mused her way through National Poetry Month. Thanks for joining and I look forward to next year. Thanks for the stop bys, comments, and new followers.
My favorite poems? Certainly. Glad you asked. Here a a couple I never tire of:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
254
“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—
And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—
I’ve heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.
Emily Dickinson
English: Billy Collins at D.G. Wills Books, La Jolla, San Diego Deutsch: Billy Collins bei D.G. Wills Books, La Jolla, San Diego (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Introduction To Poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
Billy Collins
Emily rocks. Hands down, she is ThE Poet who has changed the landscape of verse, that is except for The Bard. Now, as for Billy. He’s cool. He is such a poet pro he’s even been named Poet Laureate (high honors, that). His “Teaching Poetry” always reminds me to NOT beat the snot out of a poem when teaching poetry.
What are your absolute all time favorite poems?
Related articles
- Lovely Voices: Billy Collins, the power of understatement. (speak-for-yourself.com)
- Put a Poem In Your Pocket (cricketmuse.wordpress.com)
- No Fooling It’s National Poetry Month (cricketmuse.wordpress.com)
Pam Webb 
Thank you for celebrating poets and poetry all through April!
Loved every day of singing the praise of verse!
“Hope” is the thing with feathers— etc. That is what “”I” call poetry. Just beautiful , It really sings. It penetrates and reaches the soul, just doesn’t bounce straight off you. And this one made me cry. Beauty does that.
Emily’s verse is amazing. I appreciate her way of penning the human experience more each time I read it. Thanks for stopping by this month…
Many of my favorite poems have the word “Nantucket” in them.
Ahem. I’ll see myself out.
Are you sure you aren’t thinking of limericks, hmmmm