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my favorite poem

My favorite poem of all time is Lawrence Raab's "Attack of the Crab Monsters". This poem has been my favorite for more than 20 years, surpassing even my Sharon Olds crush. It has everything that belongs in the perfect poem (I think): a sense of humor, a sense of context -- it is based on the actual movie "Attack of the Crab Monsters", 1957 -- so it places the reader and poem in a very specific B movie scene -- surreal elements -- which work wonders on the unconscious (very important in poems ((to me)), a lovely flow from stanza to stanza -- great and surprising enjambments. Moreover, the pace and syntax work wonders and the second and first person make it intimate and funny. Plus: it says some really true things about love, how it can make you feel like a monster. Who has not wanted to say, at one point or another to a loved one "Sweetheart, put down your flamethrower"?

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My favorite poem

somewhere i have never traveled by e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any expression, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending:
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility whose texture
compels me with the color of countries
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens, only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.

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Yes, that's a very nice one.

Yes, that's a very nice one. I think I heard part of it in a Woody Allen film once.

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I love poems by ee cummings

Another e.e. cummings poem I love is My Father Moved Through Dooms of love.

He is my faborite poet

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Ishmael Reed is one of my favorite authors.

Everthing I have read by Ishamel Reed grabbed my attention and held it to the last line.

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Ishmael Reed is one of my favorite authors.

Everthing I have read by Ishamel Reed grabbed my attention and held it to the last line.