Baraka_Guru

I'm going to chime in on poetry.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is pretty classic, as is Beowulf. There is a ton of other ancient works that are epic in scope, but my reading is limited in that area, generally.

I also tend to think of the more recent Paradise Lost, which, in my mind, is one of the most powerful epics ever written if you include technical, aesthetic, cultural, and metaphysical considerations. Plus, within those lines you will find some of the best turns of phrase you'll find anywhere in the English language.

I'm also going to throw in Don Quixote and Pound's Cantos as other epic works I've read worth mentioning, the latter being essential to the development of long poems through the 20th century to today.

I'll also mention Ulysses, though I never finished it. (I don't know anyone who has.) One day I'll do it...one day.... (What says 'epic' more than that?)

Oh, and shoutouts to the Lord of the Rings, the Odyssey, and the Iliad.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot