So here’s the thing: I read very little (basically no) poetry. When I find a thing I like, I really like it . . . but the rest of it more or less bounces off my skull without leaving a mark. Result is that I don’t read much poetry, because the odds of me finding one of those things that will embed itself in my brain instead of poinging off my cranium are too low to make it worth the effort.

But! I have an internet at my disposal!

So those of you who are lovers of poetry: please recommend things to me that you think I would like. To assist in narrowing down that field, here are things I know I like in poetry:

* Narrative, because brain likey story.
* Aural devices, such as meter, rhyme, alliteration, and so forth. (With exceedingly rare exceptions, I bounce hardest of all off free verse.)
* Generally a darker mood; not sure why, but poems about how happy somebody is tend to draw less of my attention.
* Allusions to things I know about, be it mythology or pop culture or what have you.

I would also be interested in seeing the poetically-minded among you ramble on about why you like poetry: how you read it, what you think about when you consider a poem, etc. Theoretically we had a “poetry appreciation” segment in my high school English classes, but, well. High school.

I’ll put specific examples of what I like behind the cut, for space reasons.

I like “The Raven,” because it’s very aural; I like “Of the Awful Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles, Together with Some Account of the Participation of the Pugs and the Poms, and the Intervention of the Great Rumpus Cat” for the same reason, though that one’s pretty goofy. I appreciate a good classical Japanese haiku or tanka (uh, in translation; I don’t read well enough for the original), though I usually need footnotes to explain to me all the nuances — haiku and tanka are just about the only semi-decent poetry I’ve ever written, for which I blame credit the L5R game I’m running. To pick something more modern, I like Steven Eng’s “Storybooks and Treasure Maps.” I like Neil Gaiman’s “Instructions,” but mostly because I have a recording of him reading it; that doesn’t really register on me as poetry so much as a piece of interesting flash fiction.

This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calmed — see here it is —
I hold it towards you.

I encountered this verse of Keats’ in Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, and it put shivers down my spine that have never gone away.

“And this is the word of Mary,
The word of the world’s desire:
‘No more of comfort shall ye get,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.'”

That’s from G.K. Chesterton’s Ballad of the White Horse, and again, it hits the “shivers down the spine” note for me — especially if I quoted the whole bit leading up to it, but I’m trying not to type up too much stuff here.

I should note that I’m leaving out Shakespeare’s blank verse, partly because Shakespeare, duh, and partly because the context of a play means I don’t relate to that stuff primarily as poetry.

(I’m also leaving out all Latin poetry because a lot of that relies on being able to tie your word order into knots.)

And if you’ve read this far — basically, the reason I’m posting this is because I’m still thinking thinky thoughts about description in prose, and I suspect my ability on that front might be improved by a greater poetic sensibility. Which I am unlikely to develop spontaneously, so I’m hoping that more extensive exposure to poetry will help me along . . . but to do that as anything other than a pointless chore, I need to find more poetry I like.