World Poetry Day: From the sublime to the sublime

As we celebrate World Poetry Day, a number of us at Firstpost created a list of the poetry that mattered most to each of us. The collection is an eclectic one – but with a common thread. Each is sublime, in its own way. Read our selection, and use the comments section to share your pick.

Venky Vembu’s favourite is Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’. Here’s a taste of it .

“If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, ’ Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!”

Durga Raghunath’s choice is new, contemporary; very today. Elizabeth Alexander wrote ‘Praise Song for the Day’ for Obama’s inauguration.

“Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair. Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus. A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

You can see Alexander reading her work here .

Sandip Roy went of the beaten path to share Agha Shahid Ali’s ‘ A nostalgist’s map of America ’ with us. It’s different, and makes you pause, now and again, as you allow it to soak in.

“I’m making this up, I know, but since you

were there, none of it’s a lie. How did I

go on? “Wings will rush by when the exit

to Evanescence is barely a mile?”

the sky was dark teal, the moon was rising.

“It always rains on this route”, I went on,

“which takes you back, back to Evanescence,

your boyhood town”.

Arun George suggests E E Cummings and ‘ Somewhere I have never travelled ’.

“Somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience,your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near”

Rajanya Bose makes do with second best, as her first choice would be “Norjhorer Shopnobhongo” by Tagore. As far as poetry in English is concerned, she doesn’t hesitate in choosing Eliot’s ‘Love song of J Alfred Prufrock’. This stanza should make you want more .

“Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question …

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Ayeshea Perera’s first recommendation is the haunting ‘ Invictus ’ by William Ernest Henley.

“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.”

Adrija Bose sticks to her favourite, though it’s in Bengali. Here’s the English translation of Sukumar Roy’s “Ekushe Ain”, The Rule of 21 , translated by Sujoy and Chandana Chatterjee

“The fine for teeth-chattering is 4 rupees flat,

for growing a mustache a bit more than that -

a hundred nickles, paid out in cash,

plus 21 prayers with both hands clasped.”

And finally, we come to mine. It’s difficult to choose just one, so I’ll choose two.

The first is Robert Herrick’s ‘ Upon Julia’s clothes ’, a poem that taught me what perfect meter was.

“WHENAS in silks my Julia goes, Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows That liquefaction of her clothes.”

And the second is the genius of Roald Dahl and ‘The Anteater’. There’s a wonderful animation and reading of this nasty piece of work, so rather than read it, SEE it and HEAR it !.

What’s your favourite piece of poetry? Use the comments option to share it with the rest of our readers. And, on this note, have a great World Poetry Day!