Poetry Poll

No, not one of those statistical thingies; way too techie for me and not really what I'm after.

I thought it might be fun to share answers and musings on the following question:

What poem has affected you deeply?

There may be more than one, of course. Encouraged variants include: What poem did you enjoy memorizing? Do you still like to recite? What poem opened up new vistas for you? What poem's words still send shivers down your spine? What poem shocked you into mindfulness? Changed your point of view?

To all of which must be appended: Why?

I have to think about this one myself, so I will post with an update.

Methought we might be introduced to new works, new poets, and new insights to "old" poetry this way. I am eager to read what y'all have to share.

UPDATE: One poem that has affected me profoundly is Vergil's Aeneid. You can tell I actually read it (or much of it) because I spell Vergil the old Latin way (for Publius Vergilius Maro). I fell in love with Vergil's language and the oft-touted Vergilian simile. I became so engrossed in the whole complex of stories around the Trojan War (with a decided bias for the Trojans) that I will often begin to cry when parts of it are retold or re-enacted.

At age 16 I was translating the scene where Queen Hecuba finds King Priam doddering over to put on his armor and she tells him the battle is lost, he's too old to fight, and it's time to hang it up. Amid this conversation one of their sons is chased into their presence and slain right before a holy altar. I wept. In my mid-50s I was recounting this tale to someone unfamiliar with the whole myth of Troy. She was a Spanish tutor so I sat down and translated the same scene only this time into the best Spanish I could muster instead of English. I used the original Latin and a couple of English translations to do it. And I wept again.

I had read the story of Troy but the Aeneid made it more personal. When I read the Greek tragedies in later years they too were very human, very personal, very immediate.

Every once in a while I try to come up with a good simile, very much wanting it to be lovely, apt, and haunting in the way that Vergil's were. Ya gotta have a dream.

Conticuere omnes intentique ora tenebant
inde toro pater Aeneas sic orsus ab alto:

Infandum, regina, iubes renouare dolorem,
Troianas ut opes et lamentabile regnum
eruerint Danai, quaeque ipse miserrima uidi 5
et quorum pars magna fui.

--the BB