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Poems About Life
by Ken Sanes
Poems About Life: A Selection - jump down to the first section
The poems that are linked to on this page (with a few exceptions at the bottom) are by me. Their subject is the essentials of life and the human condition, which is to say, they are about love and compassion, and joy in nature, as well as about the more disturbing aspects of life, including suffering, war and death. Some are about the passage of time and the meaning of art and, perhaps most importantly, about a sense of awe at the world.
The purpose of these "poems about life" is to use the power of words to evoke experiences that can deepen and enrich your perceptions of yourself and the world. And to evoke experiences in you that are deep and rich in themselves.
The poems take a number of forms. Some rhyme, and play with language and ideas in a way that I think many readers will enjoy. Some are filled with poetic elements even though they don't include rhyme. And some have a more prose-like quality in which most of the lines are still coherent units of meaning that unfold on the page.
A fair number tell stories. Some -- especially
some of the better poems that use little or no rhyme -- are filled with
emotion, and try to evoke a sense of empathy with the speakers.
But whatever form they take, most of these poems depict humanity trying
to find what is good and true -- but also driven by fear and
destructiveness -- as it struggles with a difficult world and with
motivations that are hard to understand. Some also depict humanity's
struggle with the ultimate limitation -- mortality -- which makes them
poems about life as well as death.
Most are relatively easy to follow, so people who have come to think of
reading a poem as a chore (or a test!) may still find
a lot to like here. A few of the poems are more complex and
enigmatic because they need to be that way to have their effect.
In their essence, all are performances. Or at least they are
more like performances than
they are like essays (which is true of poetry in general). They are
patterns of words that use meanings, stories, sounds, imagery and
ideas to give the reader an experience of a kind that
can't be had any other way.
On another page, there are also a handful of
short stories,
some of which offer a portrait of the human condition similar to what is
found in the poems. And there is a page of commentaries on one
category of poems about life -- nature poems
by well-known poets. These expand on the themes of the website by
revealing how nature poetry is an expression of the human condition.
On this page, I recommend starting with the
first section below, titled, "Poems
About Life: A Selection." If your preference is rhymed poetry, you
can read the second, third, fifth, sixth, and eighth poems in that section,
directly below, and
then look at the next section titled "Poems
About Life: Rhymed Poems." Most of the rest don't use rhyme. There are also a handful of links to
poems about life by other writers at the bottom of the page.
I hope you like what I have to offer. If these poems about life and death work for you, they will put you more
in touch with your own humanity, and deepen your experience of yourself
and the world around you.
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You can send any communications to letters at kensanes dot com
Poems About Life: A Selection
A selection of rhymed and unrhymed poems
about life that I think you will
enjoy.
This Is the Kind of Day
An expression of joy
at the arrival of
new life
in
spring. This poem will appear in a literary
journal in April.
Representations
This light romp of a poem asks if we can know
the world, or even ourselves, or if everything
we think we know is just a
representation in
the brain.
A Day, Just Now
Ecstasy in nature, briefly put.
Things To Do While Waiting
An oddly upbeat poem about life and death that
readers
will, hopefully, find ironic,
fun and a little
bit
haunting.
Lookout at the Lake
One of two
"lookout" poems, this is an example of
what
I refer to as
dialectical
poetry, which is
based
on the play of
apparent contraries and opposites.
The End of History
An expression of horror at the history of violence
and the way it could culminate in a nuclear war.
Please be
aware
that
some people may
find the
content and
treatment of this poem
disturbing.
The Marchers
Fascism goes Gothic, in a poem about
marchers who become the living dead. The poem
uses
an unusual technique to create its effect.
Awe of Nature
A poem that asks: how can we be
in
awe of
nature's beauty when
we are
appalled by
all the
death and suffering?
Passages
A prose-like story poem about life, death,
the
passage of
generations and selfless love.
Call and Response
A story about summer camp, the unfolding of life,
and a suffering world. It is
also
an ars poetica,,
suggesting something
about
why we
tell stories
and create literature.
4: There is only one story
6: It is an important truth
These are parts four and six of the longer poem
"Let Me Tell You a Story," which can be accessed
further down the page. They are philosophical
statements in poetic form about why we tell
stories.
Poems About Life: Rhymed Poems
Rhymed poems that play with words and ideas in a way that
I think many readers will also like.
An Idea From Mystical Philosophy
This poem conveys an idea from mysticism
in which the world is described
as
something
that is being
thought by a cosmic
mind.
Time Scheme
A brief poem about poetry, time and death.
To His Reluctant Sweetheart
A poem, based on ideas from
physics
and brain
science, in which a suitor, of sorts, has
a message
about how
we should
live in a
mind-boggling universe.
Telepocalypse
A disturbing encounter with customer service
voicemail leads to unexpected results, in a
poem that is still in revision.
The Lookout
The second of two "lookout" poems, this has
to do with poetry and perception.
Away From Our Door
This straightforward poem about the threat of
war and nuclear attack is an attempt to express
something a lot of people feel about the world
situation.
Poems About Life: Without
(or Mostly Without) Rhyme
Pie Talk
An apple pie a la
mode with a convincing sales
pitch
tries to talk someone out of
listening to a
very frustrated
broccoli.
Apostrophe To Winter
The speaker in this poem talks to winter about the
snow,
the
darkness
and the cold -- and about spring --
until finally
it becomes clear the speaker is also
talking
about something else.
The Course of Life
One of the site's various poems about life,
the course it takes, and its end. It explores the
truth,
as we often perceive it, about how our lives unfold.
The Leader
Portrait of a demagogue and empire-builder, with
a theme and story that are similar to the poem,
"The Marchers," but with a different form and focus.
The World After
A post-apocalyptic story about the long
sweep
of history.
Library Book Sale
An unexplained occurrence in a library basement.
Looking at a Poet on a Bridge, Looking
If this poem works for you, it will be a wild
roller
coaster ride through a vision of history.
;\
/
,
Gothic horror through punctuation,
in a poetry
form
I call a punctuation pictogram. And, yes, that's
the
title.
I Am the
Venus of Laussel
An ancient work of art speaks about the past
and present.
We
Remember Maria
A poem about memory....and love.
The Librarian
A poem about a "librarian," who "sits beyond
the edge of time."
At Bullough’s Pond
One of various poems about life on the site,
this poem is about two ways of
experiencing
the world.
Family
A poem about the
ultimate
dysfunctional family.
Two Last Poems
One of these is the poet's
obligatory, dreaded long poem.
The other, I think, is a less
appealing poem than the others,
so it gets a place of
honor at the bottom of the list.
Let Me Tell You a Story
This is a long poem about life and storytelling, seen
against
the panorama of
history.
The
poem is in nine
sections.
Among other things, it portrays
humanity caught
in the snare
of time -- and its own
foibles.
Clues To a Crime
This is another of various poems about life and the
meaning of
things.
Bonus page: Short Poems
A few other poetry websites and off-site poems about life:
PoetryCircle Forum
Life Poems
Poems about
Life
Life Poems and Poetry
Poems on Life
Stream Of Life by Rabindranath Tagore
Life by Charlotte Bronte
A Psalm of Life by Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow
Poems About
Life by Maya Angelou: Alone
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Poems
About Life by William Shakespeare: Sonnets 73 and 55
All the
world's a stage from As You Like It
Poems About life by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: What Is Life?
Human Life
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Note: A literary device that is used (or used in a modified form) in a small number of these poems can variously be described as fragmentation, juxtaposition, the creation of collage-like forms or spatial form. This is where parts of the poem don't follow the conventional progression of narrative flow, description or the unfolding of an argument. Instead, there is a break between parts of the poem, so the poem seems to jump from one thing to another in a way that, hopefully, intensifies the reader's experience.
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A note from the author
I have another website of prose essays at transparencynow.com, and here is information about what people have said about that website, and how it has been used in classrooms.
Please send your thoughts to letters at kensanes dot com .
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