National Poetry Month, Part 2

As promised, our second in a series of favorite poems from Gaithersburg Book Festival Committee members as part of our celebration of National Poetry Month, a time when schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets throughout the United States band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. (And make sure you check out our first installment from this series if you missed it.)

From Commitee member and author Paul Stankus:

• “Jaberwocky” by Lewis Carroll: I love the made-up words that roll off your tongue as you say them.
• “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree…” I always wondered about the exotic culture surrounding this mythical Xanadu and what it would have been like 800 years ago in Kublai Khan’s court.
• “Oh Captain, My Captain” by Walt Whitman — You see it in the “Dead Poet’s Society” movie and you think that it is this really cool, really heroic poem, and ironically, it is very dark and mournful. I always liked the juxtaposition between the words as written and the modern interpretation that has arisen from it.

How about you, dear readers? Fan of those poems mentioned above? Or are there other favorites you prefer? Post below!