World Poetry Day

It's World Poetry Day today so, of course, it's the perfect time to remember our favourite poems!

Now, this isn't the first time we've thought about our favourite poems. When Nottingham was made a 'City of Literature' by UNESCO, we pulled together a list of our most treasured poems and why.

We still feel so honoured that Nottingham is a recognised City of Literature so we pulled together a few poems that really capture the essence of Nottingham for us. The poems we have chosen are about cities over the world but they really remind us why we love Nottingham so much. 

Cities are great, vibrant places to live and study and our favourite will always be Nottingham.

I Dream'd in a Dream

I DREAM’D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth;
I dream’d that was the new City of Friends;
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest;
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.

View of Nottingham from Capital FM Recording Studio.

City Trees

The trees along this city street 
Save for the traffic and the trains, 
Would make a sound as thin and sweet 
As trees in country lanes.

And people standing in their shade 
Out of a shower, undoubtedly 
Would hear such music as is made 
Upon a country tree.

Oh, little leaves that are so dumb 
Against the shrieking city air, 
I watch you when the wind has come, - 
I know what sound is there.

Rufford Abbey, Nottinghamshire.

In a Station of a Metro - Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

Light Night, Nottingham

A Sunset of the City - Gwendolyn Brooks

Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love. 

My daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls, 

Are gone from the house. 

My husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat polite   

And night is night. 

It is a real chill out, 

The genuine thing. 

I am not deceived, I do not think it is still summer   

Because sun stays and birds continue to sing. 

It is summer-gone that I see, it is summer-gone.   

The sweet flowers indrying and dying down, 

The grasses forgetting their blaze and consenting to brown. 

It is a real chill out. The fall crisp comes.   

I am aware there is winter to heed.   

There is no warm house 

That is fitted with my need. 

I am cold in this cold house this house 

Whose washed echoes are tremulous down lost halls. 

I am a woman, and dusty, standing among new affairs.   

I am a woman who hurries through her prayers. 

Tin intimations of a quiet core to be my   

Desert and my dear relief 

Come: there shall be such islanding from grief,   

And small communion with the master shore.   

Twang they. And I incline this ear to tin,   

Consult a dual dilemma. Whether to dry   

In humming pallor or to leap and die. 

Somebody muffed it? Somebody wanted to joke.

Nottingham Trent University

Beautiful City- Lord Alfred Tennyson

Beautiful city, the centre and crater of European confusion,

O you with your passionate shriek for the rights of an equal

humanity,

How often your Re-volution has proven but E-volution

Roll’d again back on itself in the tides of a civic insanity! 

The Left Lion.

We hoped you enjoyed reading our poems and we would love it if you tweeted us with some of your favourites at @NTUOutreach!