Two of My Favorite Poems for National Poetry Month. Do you have a favorite to share?

April is National Poetry Month

I wanted to drop in and share two poems with y'all.

Any of you have a poem you especially love?  I'm always interested in hearing new bits of poetry, and am especially fond of modern poetry with a bit of whimsy.  But there are as many different types and styles poetry as there are fiction - and we all have different tastes, styles, and forms of expression we enjoy.  If you have a particular favorite, I'd love it if you'd leave it in the comments section, please!

O.K.

So.

Here's two of my favorites . . .

Two poems about red dresses  (you know how I'm partial to the color red  .  .  .  ) .

Two poems about the same thing, and yet they're about as different as different can possibly be.

Here they are -


Enjoy!




The Red Dress
by Dorothy Parker

I always saw, I always said
If I were grown and free,
I'd have a gown of reddest red
As fine as you could see,

To wear out walking, sleek and slow,
Upon a Summer day,
And there'd be one to see me so
And flip the world away.

And he would be a gallant one,
With stars behind his eyes,
And hair like metal in the sun,
And lips too warm for lies.

I always saw us, gay and good,
High honored in the town.
Now I am grown to womanhood....
I have the silly gown.


AND . . .



The Red Dress (or What do Women Want)
by Kim Addonizio

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.






 













(excerpted in part from earlier post dated April 1, 2009 - Needing a little red in my life)