What will your verse be?
Dead Poets SocietyPeter Weir
Keating: We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse." That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?
Keating: Now I'd like you to step forward over here. They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? --- Carpe --- hear it? --- Carpe, Carpe Diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.
Keating: O Captain, my Captain. Who knows where that comes from? Anybody? Not a clue? It's from a poem by Walt Whitman about Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Now in this class you can either call me Mr. Keating, or if you're slightly more daring, O Captain my Captain.
Keating: No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.
Keating: We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse." That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?
Neil: I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life ... to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Hopkins: The cat sat on the mat.
Keating: Congratulations, Mr. Hopkins, yours is the first poem to have a negative score on the Pritchard scale. We're not laughing at you. We're laughing near you. I don't mind that your poem had a simple theme. Sometimes the most beautiful poetry can be about simple things, like a cat or a flower or rain. Poetry can come from anything with the stuff of revelation in it. Just don't let your poems be ordinary.
Keating: A man is not "very tired". He is exhausted. Don't use "very sad." Use, come on Mr. Overstreet, you twerp.
Knox: Morose?
Keating: Exactly. "Morose." Language was developed for one endeavor, and that is, Mr. Anderson. Come on, are you a man or an amoeba? Mr. Perry.
Neil: Uh, to communicate?
Keating: Nooo!! To woo women!
Todd: Truth is like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold. You push it, stretch it, it'll never be enough. Kick at it, beat it, it'll never cover any of us. From the moment we enter crying, to the moment we leave dying, it'll just cover your face as you wail and cry and scream.
Keating: Now we all have a great need for acceptance, but you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular. Even though the heard may go " That's bad." Robert Frost said, " Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I, I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference." I want you to find your own walk right now, your own way of striding, pacing: any direction, anything you want. Whether it's proud or silly. Anything. Gentlemen, the courtyard is yours. You don't have to perform. Just make it for yourself.
List of Poems in Dead Poets Society
She Walks In Beauty - Lord Byron
The Ballad of William Bloat - Raymond Calvert
The Prophet - Abraham Cowley
To the Virgins, Make Much of Time - Robert Herrick
The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost
The Congo - Vachel Lindsay
Sonnet XVIII - William Shakespeare
Excerpt from Ulysses - Alfred Lord Tennyson
Excerpt from Walden - Henry David Thoreau
O Captain My Captain - Walt Whitman
O Me! O Life! - Walt Whitman
Song of Myself XVI - Walt Whitman
Song of Myself Section 52 - Walt Whitman
by © Sreekesh Menon at
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