Which is your favourite poem and why?

Without You by Adrian Henri. I love all his poems. I first read this as an impressionable 18 year old and it really touched me. His poems are quite funny but also very moving.

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hard to say why I like it.....it just encapsulates all I think is best and beautiful, and, having faith, I like the religious bit at the end.

Having read others choices I'm now going to refresh/discover some treasures either forgotten or never known. I remember learning a poem at school when I was about five and having to recite it to family many times. Still remember it now but need to look up the title and poet.

Someone is a knocking at my wee small door
Someone is a knocking I am sure sure sure
I opened, I listened, I looked to left and right
But nought there was a stirring in the still, dark night.

Can't properly remember the rest so shall consult Dr Google.

My friend, Jane is a talented published poet and I love most of her work but particularly the one that she wrote about me!

My favourite one was penned by my brother when we were young. It starts first we saw the morning light.
My second favourite is from 4 weddings and a funeral.
Stop all the clocks .

Stop all the clocks by W H Audin.

I Will Wear Purple by Jenny Jones. When I was younger it summed up the older person I wanted to become. Now I am at a certain age I do my best to live by it's mantra. Growing older can be quite joyful when responsibilities of child care and careers have ended.

I have a few favourites:

Daffodils by William Wordsworth (being Welsh we had to learn it off by heart at school!)

The Tiger by William Blake (loved this since I was a child as the tiger has always been my favourite animal)

The Soldier by Rupert Brooke (a sonnet but having had several family members in WWII, it always made me emotional when I read it)

Favourites change. At high school I loved Keats’ Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom friend of the maturing sun-because every time we read it, the boys would splutter at the word bosom! John Betjeman’s Group Life: Letchworth saw us through the endless weeks of chicken-pox. Then “I’m Nobody by Emily Dickinson.
Now this one sticks in my mind. Enjoy!
CAITHNESS SELF-LIFT CHAIR
The Bower in Bexhill-on-Sea provides a quiet life
For people who are shattered after years of mortal strife.
A care home for the elderly, where no-one seems to care
And recently a test-bed for the Caithness Self-Lift Chair.
The patron and the matron, one a major, one a nurse
Think old ladies are appalling, and old men even worse.
They need helping, they need lifting and there isn't cash to spare.
So they've swopped a girl called Tricia for the Caithness Self-Lift Chair.
The old folks at the Bower all liked Tricia - she was nice
And she listened to their stories, though she'd heard them once or twice
- And now she's gone, the lounge is quiet. The inmates sit and stare
Until suddenly a noise comes from the Caithness Self-Lift Chair.
Mrs. Mould's forgetful, sad and paranoid and moody -
She hates that Richard Madeley and she can't abide that Judy.
But suddenly she's flying in a shower of underwear
Propelled across the ceiling by the Caithness Self-Lift Chair.
The others watch her progress - as her mighty knickers snag
On the sharp undusted antlers of a taxidermied stag.
They exchange conspiring glances
- can they do it, do they dare?
For the Bower bought a dozen of the Caithness Self-Lift Chair.
They open all the windows,
move the chairs across the floor,
Apart from one that Mrs. Thomas jams against the door.
Each one sits and faces freedom, and says a silent prayer -
"Lord, carry me away now on my Caithness Self-Lift Chair".
One by one the chairs spring into life, and pensioners are hurled
Across the cliffs of Bexhill to return to the real world.
Mrs. Roberts' chute has opened, she has landed on the beach
She is joined by all the others, they enjoy a wine gum each -
They unfold their pack-up Zimmers, and they turn to face the Bower
And they shout out "Sod off, matron!" in a voice of awesome power.
The inmates of the Bower, free from care and free as air
Unchained from sheltered living by the Caithness Self-Lift Chair. © RICHARD STILGOE

The Listeners, by Walter de la Mare.

W. H. DAVIES
Leisure

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War’s annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die

(Remembered from school where I then strangely thought 'wight' meant an island in the Solent)

See the happy moron
He doesn't give a damn.
I wish I were a moron.
My God! Perhaps I am.

Anon

hold fast to dreams
for if dreams die
life,s like a broken winged bird
that cannot fly

Some lovely poems have been mentioned stirring wonderful memories and reminding me of how much I used to love reciting poetry. I was brought up on "Palgrave's Golden Treasury", a great favourite of my father. I particularly love "Lord Ullin's Daughter" by Thomas Campbell, very atmospheric when recited out loud, and "I Remember I Remember" by Thomas Hood. Pam Ayres was also a great favourite in our family.

The Highwayman.

Also 'To his mistress going to bed" by John Donne" is worth a read, although not if easily shocked

Chocolate cake by Michael Rosen . Watch a video of him reciting it. It always makes me laugh!

So many, difficult to choose, but among others:
The Way Through the Woods/The Listeners/Anything else by Walter De La Mare
Gulls/This is just to Say - William Carlos Williams
Anthem for Doomed Youth - Wilfred Owen
November - Thomas Hood
Warning - Jenny Joseph

Inversnaid by Gerard Manley Hopkins - especially the last verse

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

William Butler Yeats - When You Are Old.
Why? Because it's beautiful.

Love all of Maya Angelou’s poetry especially ‘Phenomenal Woman’ which is both sassy and inspirational. Reminds me of all the strong, supportive and funny women in my family.

Love this thread ‘Bakingmad’.

From A Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson. We had a particular minister in the sixties who often based her sermons on lines from the poem. Lovely woman.

Desederata...words to live by

I like The Donkey by G K Chesterton. I find it very moving,and love the tale of something reviled becoming something heroic.