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Im sure I could scroll through 30 pages of threads here to find my answers, but I saw two poems mentioned in a comment that possibly everyone who doesn't know poetry has heard of.
The Raven
Howl
I know there's others, id put
Leaves of grass
and maybe
The Odyssey
But aren't there others?
The rubaiyat?
Fox in sox?
Tommy?
Peanut butter honey banana sandwiches
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08-06-2021, 10:40 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-06-2021, 10:42 AM by Quixilated.)
Shakespeare sonnets 18 and 116
Dickinson “Because I Could not Stop for Death”
Frost “The Road not Taken”
Angelou “Still I Rise”
cummings “i carry your heart with me”
Kipling “If”
Blake “The Tyger”
Carroll “Jabberwocky”
The Soufflé isn’t the soufflé; the soufflé is the recipe. --Clara
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08-06-2021, 11:03 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-06-2021, 11:06 AM by CRNDLSM.)
I have heard jabberwocky, Shakespeare sonnets might have to all be bundled, gonna have to read the rest, thank you!
Can't forget divine comedy
Paradise lost
Peanut butter honey banana sandwiches
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I would exclude true epics of any sort and religious literature.
Paradise lost is a mock-epic, so gets through....just barely
There's a strong geographical bias to any such list. For instance, The Raven is not known that well outside of the US, while 'If' is known pretty much everywhere in the English speaking world....but anyone who's heard of it has heard the poem.
A poem that everyone's heard of but few have read - with good reason - would be The Canterbury Tales.
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Edward Lear, "The Owl and the Pussycat"
and for people born pre-1960, "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee (used as a TV sign off, when TV used to go silent at midnight)
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By likelihood of having heard (of) rather than absolute quality...
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Old Ironsides
And can't forget Longfellow:
The Village Blacksmith
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
The Song of Hiawatha (epic, not a parody but often parodied)
But quality without most knowing who wrote them...
Recessional (Kipling again)
Dover Beach
Non-practicing atheist
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The Wasteland
Ithaca
And…
Any man’s death diminishes me
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore, never send to know
___ ___ ___ ___ ___
__ __ for thee
