What’s your favourite poem or play from school days?

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30 Ideas to Celebrate National Poetry Month

https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/national-poetry-month/

National Poetry Month - Writing Prompts

1. Describe your favorite childhood memory.
2. Pick a color and use your senses to describe it.
3. Write an acrostic about your favorite holiday.
4. Write a limerick.
5. Write a poem about a family member.
6. Write a poem about a dream.
7. Write a poem about weather (rain, snow, wind, sun, etc.).
8. Write a poem that includes your five senses.
9. Write about a memory triggered by a smell.
10. Write a poem about advice for someone.
11. Write a poem with a repeating line.
12. Write a poem about a regret.

Poetry favourites:

How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Friendship by Stevie Smith

The pleasures of friendship are exquisite,
How pleasant to go to a friend on a visit!
I go to my friend, we walk on the grass,
And the hours and moments like minutes pass.

Happiness by Stevie Smith

Happiness is silent, or speaks equivocally for friends,
Grief is explicit and her song never ends,
Happiness is like England, and will not state a case,
Grief, like Guilt, rushes in and talks apace.

Conviction by Stevie Smith

I like to get off with people,
I like to lie in their arms
I like to be held and lightly kissed,
Safe from all alarms.

I like to laugh and be happy
With a beautiful kiss,
I tell you, in all the world
There is no bliss like this.

Ode on a Grecian Urn by JOHN KEATS

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Favourite quotations from school days

From Hamlet by William Shakespeare

“I have of late—but wherefore

I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of

exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my

disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to

me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy,

the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament,

this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why,

it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent

congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man!

How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties,

in form and moving how express and admirable,

in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like

a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!

And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man

delights not me—no, nor woman neither, though by

your smiling you seem to say so.”

From Hamlet by William Shakespeare

To be, or not to be? That is the question—

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep—

No more—and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveler returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action. —Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia! —Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.

Death of a Salesman Quotes

“Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be … when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“The jungle is dark but full of diamonds, Willy.”

― Arthur Miller, Death Of A Salesman

“A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism

“You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism

“I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“I stopped in the middle of that building and I saw — the sky. I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and time time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become
what I don't want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous,
begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am! Why can't I say that, Willy?”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Sometimes...it's better for a man just to walk away.
But if you can't walk away? I guess that's when it's tough.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“I don't say he's a great man. Willie Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Pop, I'm nothing! I'm nothing, Pop. Can't you understand that? There's no spite in it any more. I'm just what I am, that's all.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Be loving to him. Because he’s only a little boat looking for a harbor.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“A man is not a bird, to come and go with the springtime.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Well, I spent six or seven years after high school trying to work myself up. Shipping clerk, salesman, business of one kind or another. And it's a measly manner of existence. To get on that subway on the hot mornings in summer. To devote your whole life to keeping stock, or making phone calls, or selling or buying. To suffer fifty weeks of
the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off. And always to have to get ahead of the next fella. And still — that's how you build a future.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“The only thing you've got in this world is what you can sell.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“See, Biff, everybody around me is so false that I'm constantly lowering my ideals...”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Will you let me go for Christ's sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“It's a measly manner of existence. To get on that subway on the hot mornings in summer. To devote your whole life to keeping stock, or making phone calls, or selling or buying. To suffer fifty weeks of the year for a two week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off. And still-that's how you build a future.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Nobody dast blame this man. You don’t understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there’s no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple spots on your hat and your finished. Nobody dast
blame this man. A salesman is got to dream boy, it comes with the territory.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Willy Loman: I don't want change, I want Swiss cheese!”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman, and you are Biff Loman!”

― Arthur Miller , Death of a Salesman

“To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“When I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Charley: He won't starve. None a them starve. Forget about him.
Willy: Then what have I got to remember?”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Figure it out. Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there's nobody to live in it.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“But then, it’s what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, and plenty of women. And still, goddammit, I’m lonely.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“On the road I want to grab you sometimes and just kiss the life outa you”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“HAPPY: All right, boy. I'm gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It's the only dream you can have-- to come out number-one man.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“As a character in another Miller play (After the Fall) remarks, the past is holy. Why? Not merely because the present contains the past, but because a moral world depends on an acceptance of the notion of causality, on an acknowledgment that we are responsible for, and a product of, our actions.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back--that's an earthquake. And then you get a couple of spots on your hat, and you're finished.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“How can they whip cheese?”

― Arthur Miller , Death of a Salesman

“If personal meaning, in this cheer leader society, lies in success, then failure must threaten identity itself.”

― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman