The Post Where I Reveal My Favorite. Poem. Ever. Today, Anyway.

This was really, really hard because I like so many different poems for so many different reasons.

I looked through everything: Neruda, Auden, Burns, Teasdale, Browning, Keats, Dickinson, cummings, Frost - and more and more. I remembered poems I had forgotten and saw my tastes change throughout my life.

Finally, I remembered it. And this is my favorite poem. Today, anyway.



The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by William Butler Yeats

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

I can't remember poetry.

When I was in middle school, I loved Edgar Allen Poe's "Annabel Lee."

When I was in high school, I loved Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman."

Now I'm a wife, a mom, and sometimes a sort of intellectual. I know I like Sara Teasdale. I know I like e.e. cummings. I know I like W.H. Auden. (Apparently, I only like people with initials instead of names.)

I just don't know what poem I like best. It's been so long since I've even contemplated poetry - I gave that up as a genre for myself a very long time ago. I'm a tiresome and uninspired poet.

So, Katie has inspired me (see the "slightly savage" blog link to the right). This weekend, I'm going to figure out what my favorite poem is.