Sing, Muse!

I decided to link up to a Poetry Celebration for the month of April, because who doesn't celebrate poetry when they can?!!?  We are to answer the following questions.  So here goes.........

What are some poems you like?

Sonnet #130
  William Shakespeare

Sonnet # 143
William Shakespeare

Pied Beauty
  Gerard Manley Hopkins

Hope is the Thing With Feathers  
 Emily Dickinson

Jenny Kissed Me
Leigh Hunt

Under the Goldwood Tree  
John Duffy

After the Night Office
 Thomas Merton

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
 Robert Frost

The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Langston Hughes

Her Praise
William Butler Yeats

What are some poems you don't like?

"The Highwayman"...ugh.  Sorry, whoever wrote it.

Are there any poets whose work you especially enjoy?  If so, who are they?

William Wordsworth

Emily Dickinson

William Butler Yeats

William Shakespeare

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Robert Frost
Langston Hughes

Do you write poetry?

Yes, but not in a long while, alas.  My #4 Creative Child writes poetry, however.  It is lovely stuff.

Have you ever memorized a poem?

Ah, yes....I have memorized poetry with my children over the years in our home school day.  Most of Robert Louis Stevenson's children's poems,The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Glow Worm, Casey At the Bat, and Paul Revere's Ride are some we have tackled.  I have also memorized several of Shakespeare's sonnets with my theater kids.

Do you prefer free verse or rhyme in poetry?  
I like both free verse and rhyme in poetry.  As long as it is pithy, rich in vocabulary and meaning, and "falls trippingly from the tongue" so to speak.  I do not, however, like stream of consciousness poetry.  I find it affected.  

My favorite poets are English, but I also really like the view of the world given to us by the early America poets.