Mrs Darwin by Carol Ann Duffy
I’ve had 180 More, compiled by Billy Collins, for some time now. Blissfully, I’ve had a little leisure this weekend to read it. I’m planning on bolstering my file considerably, but for now I just want to share this short one. I’m (dorkily) amused.
Mrs Darwin
By Carol Ann Duffy
7 April 1852
Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him—
Something about that Chimpanzee over there reminds me of you.
Wow, this took me like 15 minutes to figure out…not a great day lol! So funny, I laughed for like a minute when I (finally) figured it out.
My absolute favorite: And Did Those Feet - William Blake, and some good ones: Full Fathom Five - William Shakespeare and Western Wind - Anonymous is good too.
Also, may I suggest some of Tim Burton’s poetry? It’s really great too.
I did just visit the Natural History Museum in London, part of which is practically a shrine to Darwin, so it just clicked with me!
Thanks for the recommendations!
Your welcome. I’m in the process of collecting my favorite poems and putting them together in a book. You know how you can send it to a publisher online (Lulu is the one I’m going with) and they will make X number of copies for you. I didn’t have many favorite poems and it has been so fun doing this little process, not to mention the fact that I love many of the poems you post, so finding favorites here is easy.
That’s a neat idea. Are you restricted to poems in the public domain?
I definitely go back and reread my favorites through this site. My favorite aspect of posting a PotD is that I’m always finding new favorites!
I don’t know if I’m restricted…it’s a private book so I didn’t even think about that.
Do you need permission if there’s just two copies? I’m not selling them or anything, just one for me and a backup.
I don’t really know much about copyright law. I post poems that are not in the public domain and I haven’t gotten busted (yet!). Perhaps for personal use it’s acceptable, as long as you’re not making money?
Well I hope so or I’m in trouble…
Can I ask what your favorite poems are?
Heavens! There are far too many to list… I love just about everything by Edna St. Vincent Millay, but some of my favorites are: Ebb, The Suicide, Interim, On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven, and To a Friend Estranged from Me. Likewise, I think that Naomi Shihab Nye is amazing, but I especially love Famous, Kindness, Because of Libraries We Can Say These Things, and A Way Around.
And some others, in no particular order. I could never have an exhaustive list, though…
Eating Poetry by Mark Strand
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by William Butler Yeats
Friendship by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Women’s Novels by Margaret Atwood
Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden
One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
The Incentive by Sarah N. Cleghorn
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee by Emily Dickinson
Mending Wall by Robert Frost
Helen by H.D.
O Cheese by Donald Hall
Two Truths by Helen Hunt Jackson
Permanently by Kenneth Koch
A Winter’s Tale by D.H. Lawrence
Mezzo Camin by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Monody by Herman Melville
An Athenian Reminisces by Vassar Miller
The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
Emily Dickinson and Elvis Presley in Heaven by Hans Ostrom
The Waking by Theodore Roethke
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments by William Shakespeare
Ozymandias and Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Old Friendship by Eunice Tietjens
Exeunt by Richard Wilbur
Let No Charitable Hope by Elinor Wylie
Clever. I like it.
Some of those are really nice, others are not really my style, but I can see why people like them.
Do you have any songs on this site? I mentioned this to another poetry loving friend and he said that he had never thought of songs as poetry…I don’t really get why he wouldn’t. After all songs are just poems with notes.
I was wondering if you could do me a small favour? Read This Tornado Loves You by Neko Case, just read the lyrics and let me know what you think?
I think that song lyrics can be poetic, but in general I don’t post many song lyrics. The ones that spring to mind are Richard Cory by Paul Simon (based on a poem of the same title by Edwin Arlington Robinson) and Guardians by Adrienne Jones (recorded by Mad Agnes).
I can’t say that This Tornado Loves You really resonated with me, but I have never heard the musical version.
I really like Guardians, the lyrics are pretty. I listened to Richard Cory and that was great.
Really? I love the lyrics of This Tornado Loves You. Maybe if you listen to it you’ll like it better. I like how the song is kinda upbeat but the lyrics are quite dark. I also love the fact that she is the tornado, which is why I think it stand up as a poem for me.
Can anyone tell me their thoughts of this poem.
About tone/mood and the background of it. How clever you think this poem is and what it insinuates. I just need different minds and interpretations :)
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