Top 10 most powerful poems (ever!)

Poetry is a massive part of literature and storytelling. We so often use poems at weddings, funerals and special occasions to express emotion.

They are incredibly engaging - there is practically a poem for any situation at any given time. They tell human history; both our mistakes and our triumphs. They tell entirely what it means to be part of the human experience.

This makes poetry powerful. But, what are the most powerful poems of them all? Here's my top 10 - with a brief outline on each one:

10.Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd

- Most people might remember this poem from studying it in school. Whether it's a burden to you, or you adore it, there's no denying it's pretty brilliant. I mean - Shakespeare literally says 'if you can prove to me that love isn't real - then I never wrote anything'. One of the THE BEST WRITERS of all time actually said that. So, if you can actually prove that love isn't real...then you can prove that all of Shakespeare's work is worthless (that's one hell of a task).

9.The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate

When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be

The Century's corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

And I was unaware.

- Thomas Hardy is one of my absolute favorite writers. This poem is about his blunt atheism; and how it makes him feel like an outcast in a world of religious believers. The Darkling Thrush is a bird - not necessary an extraordinary bird either. Yet, as it sings, it makes Hardy think 'why are you even bothering? we are all going to die anyway'. By the end of the poem, Hardy doesn't come to some dramatic epiphany that God is real and all is good. No, that would be too unrealistic. Instead, he ends on the note that perhaps there is something; he doesn't just understand it. He almost says 'How can everyone else - even this bird - find a meaning in life, and I can't? there must be something I am unaware off'.

I can't help but feel sorry for Hardy and relate to his confusion.

8.Daffodils by William Woodsworth

I wandered lonely as a Cloud That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills, When all at once I saw a crowd A host of dancing Daffodils; Along the Lake, beneath the trees, Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.

The waves beside them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: -- A poet could not but be gay In such a laughing company: I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude, And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the Daffodils

- This poem is probably the happiest on this list. Some poems can have the illusion of being cheerful, but they actually turn out very bleak. This isn't one of them - I promise. It's genuinely light and smiley. The poet is simply walking through a field of daffodils, while feeling a bit miserable and glum. He notices the flowers appear to be dancing, as are the waves in the lake. He makes a point of saying the daffodils are even better at dancing than the waves. He decides from then on that whenever he is feeling down - he will remember those daffodils. It's a wonderfully cute reminder to find optimism even when you feel hope is lost.

7.Variation on the word sleep by Margaret Atwood

I would like to watch you sleeping. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun and three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief at the center of your dream, from the grief at the center. I would like to follow you up the long stairway again & become the boat that would row you back carefully, a flame in two cupped hands to where your body lies beside me, and you enter it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary

- This poem is another which has some nice tones to it, but it is certainly heavier than the daffodils in the last poem. The poet's voice tells us how she wants to be with the one she loves - not just sexually but also in mind and soul. It explores the emotion of overwhelming and all consuming admiration. The voice almost sounds sacrificial - as though she will do anything and be anything for her lover.

6.to my wife by oscar wilde

I can write no stately proem As a prelude to my lay; From a poet to a poem I would dare to say. For if of these fallen petals One to you seem fair, Love will waft it till it settles On your hair. And when wind and winter harden All the loveless land, It will whisper of the garden, You will understand. And there is nothing left to do But to kiss once again, and part, Nay, there is nothing we should rue, I have my beauty,-you your Art, Nay, do not start, One world was not enough for two Like me and you

- The poet in this poem believes his writing is worthless, which is a good start. Again, it is a poem about love. It appears that he means to say even if only his lover likes his writing, that will be good enough for him. He eludes to the fact that she will understand his writing when winter (winter being hard times in life) eventually comes. It will make sense, only to her, as he is writing it for her. The poem seems very personal, and even reading it feels like reading an actual secret love letter or diary.

5.mid-term break by seamus heaney

I sat all morning in the college sick bay

Counting bells knelling classes to a close.

At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying—

He had always taken funerals in his stride—

And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram

When I came in, and I was embarrassed

By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'.

Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,

Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.

At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived

With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops

And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him

For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,

He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.

No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four-foot box, a foot for every year.

- This poem is very personal to the poet himself. The subject of the poem is the death of Seamus Heaney's younger brother. The sibling, Christopher, was killed in a car accident at age four - as it says in the final, heartbreaking line 'A four-foot box, a foot for every year'. The poem focuses on the impact the death has on his family and is in fact rather muted regarding his own emotions - making them even more poignant. Usually we won't assume that the poem at hand is actually relative to the poets life - but in this case the poem is indeed autobiographical. Not to mention terribly sad, and none the yet powerful because of its portrayal.

4.lady lazarus by slyvia plath

Herr God, Herr Lucifer

Beware

Beware.

Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair

And I eat men like air.

- This isn't actually the full version of the poem, this is just the finishing stanzas. But I welcome you to read the full version online elsewhere - it really is something else altogether. This poem is both disturbing and intriguing. It's the literary equivalent of watching a horror film through your fingers - you want to see whats happening, but it's just too weird and scary to fully watch. These last stanzas will give you an idea of just how wonderful strange it is.

3.stop all the clocks bt w.h huden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good

- Similar to 'Mid-term break', this poem is about overwhelming grief and loss. The poem presents an unrelenting negative attitude that many of us feel when having lost something or someone from our world. We sometimes can't help but feel in that moment that time should stop moving, and all should stop existing, because the pain of bereavement feels never ending and hopeless. Unfortunately, what the voice in the poem wishes for is that all clocks are stopped - something which is impossible. This impossibility exemplifies the other impossibility of having someone back after they have died. In a way, the poem conveys that time will move on - whether you like or not - so therefore, the pain won't go away, but it may dilute.

2.ozymandias by percy shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

- This poem is essentially a mockery of power and 'Kings'. In the poem, a traveler tells of huge two stone legs that stand in the desert. Near them on the sand is a stone head, which is broken and ruined. The features are disturbing, as Shelley describes. On the pedestal it reads 'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'. Despite the statues demanding and dominant claim - the land around it is empty and bleak, showing no sign of an empire or any legacy. This poem featured recently in Hollywood - in Alien: Covenant. I won't spoil the film for those who haven't seen it, but it plays as a device of foreshadowment and hypocrisy - all I can say it, look out for it when its mentioned. Now you've read it, you might get an idea of what it means to the film...

1.Baby Shoes by Ernest Hemingway

For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.

- This is one of the most spine chilling, devastating sentences I have ever read. In fact - it's probably THE most devastating thing I have ever read. There's nothing quite like it. Although it is often refereed to as a 'six word novel' rather than a poem, I had to put it in. Supposedly, the short story was crafted when Hemingway made a bet of $10 with his friends over lunch that he could write a story in just six words. After each of his friends put in their $10, Hemingway wrote the famous line on a napkin. He passed the napkin around, and collected his winnings. Woah.

Is there a poem I missed that you think should be on this list? Email me at danniob98@gmail.com or send me on a message on Instagram: @dansbookclub

and tell me what you think are truly some of the best poems off all time.