Good (or at least decent) poetry for fantasy rpgs?

[harpy]

I've read in posts that many people use poetry in their RPGs. I've never encountered that, but I thought I'd like to give it a try as extra trimming for age old tales, clues and hints for quests, etc.

I'd like to find poetry that is either short, or there are good chunks that can be lifted from a longer poem, that I could use in the game.

In general I'm looking for things that are just 4 to 10 lines, and prefer poems that rhyme. This isn't about doing poetry slams, but just adding an extra bit of punch to add flavor.

I could and probably will take a stab at writing my own awful poetry, but if there are gifted poets that I could use material from then all the better.

In many ways I'm just looking for stuff like what you can find in The Hobbit, such as:

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

On silver necklaces they strung
The light of stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, from twisted wire
The melody of harps they wrung.

But I'd like to find sources of material that aren't widely read so that people don't get thrown out of the story when they realize its Tolkien.

 

[karlindel]

I personally have used poems in several campaigns, as prophecies, as guidance (they found a series of poems by an ancient bard laying out how to defeat an ancient evil), and the like.

It would help to have a better idea of what kind of poetry you are looking for.

For example, if you want a stanza or two of a dwarven drinking song, here's one that looks amusing: Dwarven Drinking Song, Adrian H. Wood, SciFi Fantasy Art

 

[Oni]

Depending on what you're looking for you might find some good bits here.

Poetry by Clark Ashton Smith

Here's a snippet from one.

I met a witch with amber eyes
Who slowly sang a scarlet rune,
Shifting to an icy laughter
Like the laughter of the moon.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The Kalevala - Finnish mythology was set to Teutonic meter, easy to remember, and sounds good spoken aloud.
Wainiemonen, old and truthful,
Did not learn the words of magic,
In Tuoni's gloomy kingdom,
In the kingdom of Manalla,
Sat he then and long debated,
Well considered, long reflected,
Where to find the magic sayings....

My spelling may be quite a bit off, and some of the words may be wrong, but I remember quite a bit of the Kalevala, thirty years and more since reading it.... (I may go back and check later, but that sort of misses the point.)

Hiawatha was also set to Teutonic rhythm, as was Lewis Carrol's response - Hiawatha's Photographing. (Even the intro used that meter, used that meter in the mocking....) [In an age of imitation, I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy. Any fairly practised writer, with the slightest ear for rhythm, could compose, for hours together, in the easy running metre of 'The Song of Hiawatha.' Having, then, distinctly stated that I challenge no attention in the following little poem to its merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid reader to confine his criticism to its treatment of the subject.]

The Auld Grump, easy to do ex tempor as well.

*EDIT* Added, then fixed, the link

 

[Mercurius]

Where to begin? Depending upon what sort of vibe you want, you can look into Ancient or Medieval Creation Myths, epic poetry or odes, religious scripture, or pretty much anything from pre-Industrial times, East or West, North or South. A few examples:

The Babylonian Enuma Elish, with the slaying of Tiamat by Marduk (no, not Bahamut!).

The Nordic Voluspa, which is where Tolkien got a lot of his names from, including Gandalf.

Also, look for material from the bards and troubadours of the Middle Ages; the troubadours especially if you want love poetry.

The Bhagavad Gita (and the Mahabharata as a whole) has some great stuff for an Indian feel, especially Chapter 11 where Krishna famously declares "I am time, the agent of the world's destruction, now grown old and set in motion to destroy the worlds." -- from the excellent George Thompson translation, North Point Press).

Further east you have Lao Tzu and other Taoists, as well as Zen koans and the Buddhist Tantras--if you want a more contemplative vibe (for a monk-based campaign!).

And of course you can't go wrong with Homer.

There is so much!

 

[TheAuldGrump]

For Delta Green I have used The Wasteland (T. S. Elliot) and Second Coming (W.B. Yeats).

A bit of Browning can also work - and you may want to look around, some of his poems had two different versions, one for public consumption, the other... a trifle bawdy. Cooleridge can be useful as well, Ryme of the Ancient Mariner comes to mind. Poe... go for some of his more obscure poems - from The Sleeper as an example:

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold-
Some vault that oft has flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals-
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone-
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.

The Auld Grump