Guess what? I wrote this and forgot to publish it, until Roger goosed me. Oops.

Today ends National Poetry Month, and I considered writing some kind of summation, but I’ll just leave it at this: Read poetry. It isn’t hard and doesn’t have to make you feel like you’re back in English class. (Unless you liked English class, as I did, in which case, hey, it can totally feel like you’re back in English class!)

Here is one of my favorite of Tennyson’s poems, whose concluding lines are often quoted in inspirational settings. It’s a wonderful paean to the eternal desire for new life and new experiences, even when we are nearing the dusk of our lives.

See you next April!

Ulysses
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

     This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

     There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

If poetry is dead, as they say, why do so many people still write poetry? Why is there so much poetry in social media outlets like Tumblr and Instagram?

I’m guessing it’s because poetry isn’t dead.

Like many readers, I discovered the poetry of Lang Leav through Tumblr, where she posts her own work. She’s not just a Tumblr poet, but rather an artist who has been honing her craft for years, but it’s amazing how much of her audience — for poetry, one of the oldest art forms — comes from so recent a development as Tumblr.

Poetry absolutely abounds online. Is it all good? Of course not. But much of it is intended as poetry has always often been intended: a snapshot, through words, of the thoughts and feelings of a certain soul.

it is a terrible thing
to love the unreachable;

i found this out
on a friday night
where in a whole room of people
the world starts and ends
on your lips and
i knew i was staring at
the dusting of your freckles
but couldn’t resist

it is a terrible thing to love
your friends

i am burning alive
for it.

(via)

at the tender age of 23
i received the Nobel Prize
for daydreaming
and everyone applauded
a standing ovation
and then i woke up
standing in the kitchen in my underwear
in front of an open refrigerator
with one hand on the door
and the other loosely in my side
as if i was just looking for some midnight snack
i looked down
at my body
in the pale refrigerator light
didn’t remember how I got here
must have been sleepwalking again
didn’t even know
for how long i was standing there
but my body felt
intensely cold

(via)