Bobby Ball
Bio: I love poetry. But I'm picky. No one pays me to read and write poems. It's more of a labor of love. I guess that puts me in good company. This is a project to discover why some poems strike you deep, deep down, while others leave you cold. I've got some ideas, and I'm eager to learn. I'll show you some of mine. Maybe we'll learn something new.
Poetic Champions 
I am impressed by your blog and your poems. I can’t resist sending you some of my old and somewhat obscure favorites to see if you have read them and might comment on them. This one, in my memory, was titled, On the Eve of his Execution but is called merely Elegy on this site: http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/my-prime-of-youth-is-but-a-frost-of-cares
For many years I was drawn to “tell off” poems, such as that poem of great magnitude, Maggie May, and I found a great one: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175282. So very short and sweet! I also wrote one but I can’t imagine what happened to it. It started, You left my bed too early while I slumbered, anticipating tears…
I must have also been drawn to epitaphs (see above)! I love this, and it’s probably less obscure than my previously listed favorites.
Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me;
“Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.”
–This is the epitaph Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) wrote for himself. It is carved on his gravestone at Vailima in Samoa. http://www.consolatio.com/2008/04/robert-louis-st.html. I had this in my head when I wrote a simple poem about 9/11. I might be able to find it on one hard drive or another but I certainly would never post it on an open forum. Thank you for the thoughtful insight you have shared on this blog. It is great fun to think about poetry again.
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Candace, thank you for your kind words. that Sarah Teasdale poem is just excellent! (I would love to hear the rest of your “You left my bed too early …” poem!
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