Monday 28 February 2011

Poetic Ponders (3)


During this year studying English Literature and Creative Writing, I’ve developed a new appreciation for poetry. With this in mind, I thought that I’d start a new weekly feature on So Many Books, So Little Time in which I share with you my favourite poems. They may be ones I discover on my course or ones I’ve loved for a long time.

Hopefully some of you will join me in sharing some awesome poems.

Continuities – Walt Whitman (1855)

Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form--no object of the world.
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.
Ample are time and space--ample the fields of Nature.
The body, sluggish, aged, cold--the embers left from earlier fires,
The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;
The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual;
To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns,
With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.

Unlike the poems of the previous two weeks, I discovered this poem through a book; The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. It’s a beautiful and moving poem that reminds me of Noah and Allie’s story every time I read it. It’s absolutely stunning.


Sophie

1 comment:

  1. As soon as I read the first line, The Notebook sprange to mind! I love that movie (though, the book, not so much)! I remember the old Noah (I forget the actor's name) saying that first line in the movie, and as soon as I read it, I heard him reciting the whole poem - though I don't think he actually does in the movie. I think it's the part where old Ally says "I think I knew him" - Walt Whitman. For that reason, I love it, but unfortunately, I don't get it exactly. I'm one of those people who needs to read poems along side an analysis to get what they're saying.

    My Poetic Ponders can be found here.

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