What poets are you reading now?

I'm starting this thread partly so I can take names.

I find I'm often disappointed if I try to simply browse here or there for a new voice, a new-to-me poet to read, even though there are thousands who might be exactly what I want and need to feed my poem hunger. Finding the right ones just isn't easy. Too often I've gone ahead and bought a book on the strength of a poem or a line or two, and been sorry I made the choice.

Had a little better luck the other day in B&N, when I picked up a book by Nick Lantz, How to Dance as the Roof Caves In, which so far hits the right notes for me, but I'm even more enjoying a book I sought out on Amazon because someone here mentioned the poet Jack Wiler, and I googled a single poem of his that knocked my socks off. The book I got by him is Fun Being Me.

So those are the poets (outside of AW) whom I'm reading now.

Tell, tell, who are you reading? These are short books and I'll be in need again, soon.

No?

Okay, I'll talk to myself for a while, then, and maybe someone who's reading a poet they love will feel moved to chime in at some point.

I'm not so in need of new poets/books at the moment as I was about to be when I posted this thread, because at a library book sale I found, in a bin of books sold by the bag (for a quarter) three volumes of The Best American Poetry anthologies, those for 1990, 1992, and 1998.

So that will keep me fortified for a while. As a matter of fact, it's almost too rich a diet all of a sudden. I'm just paging through the 1990 volume, picking and choosing (no prose poems yet, can't quite go there) and I have run across some amazing pieces. So far the two favorites are a short piece by Yusef Komunyakaa, called "Facing It" about encountering the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the slick black stone of it is a mirror.... and a longer piece by Galway Kinnell called "When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone" comprising 11 segments. I am sorry; I can't begin to describe it well. It's as though someone, alone, is ruminating on some of the odd and poignant and disturbing and revelatory places one visits and occupies, when one has lived a long time alone....

And holding this book and the others I've not even opened yet gives me the question, are poems simply ephemera? Here are these tremendous pieces of art, and who will ever have known of them let alone experienced them? I mean, here I am, not totally ignorant, not very well read but certainly appreciative, and I would never have known of any of these pieces outside the happenstance of that library bin sale.

Well, and my hunger.

And I know everything is ephemeral, really, even big paintings in ancient sturdy museums valued in the millions of dollars and seen by millions of eyes. Eventually, ephemera.

Still, these poems are just lost there in these books. I mean, most of them won't be taught in school or read aloud by parents to their children, or, well, anything.

It's just very strange, to me.

Ham, I bet that's the problem, the English language. It's a shame though. However I suspect that with some persistence the subtleties will begin to open up for you. And good grief, stay away from that FB crapola, for pity's sake.

Usher, thanks for the names. Owen and Brooke I know I've read some of, not so sure about the others. There is so much out there!

Cass.

Who's the translator, Neegh? I love me some Hafiz.

She translates from the original? That's most cool.

I've read Ladinsky's translations, owned a couple of his books at various times, but it has been a while. Thanks for the reminder.

poetinahat said:

I feel a bit terrible that I've only come to read anything by James just as we're about to lose him.

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That seems to happen to me a lot. When a poet is dead or dying, I hear of their work and go after it. Until then, it's often lost in the noise!

William Haskins said:

elizabeth bishop

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Thanks for mentioning her. She was made U.S. Poet Laureate the year I was born. I've always enjoyed her work when I encountered it but never owned a collection.

Interesting, I googled her name after this mention here, and in one of the poems I found online, Arrival at Santos, there's the most extreme use of enjambment I've seen and I don't quite know why it's done this way.

The poem is in four line stanzas, but why she did this I can't yet see (bolding mine of course):

skirt! There! Miss Breen is about seventy,
a retired police lieutenant, six feet tall,
with beautiful bright blue eyes and a kind expression.
Her home, when she is at home, is in Glens Fall

s, New York. There. We are settled.
The customs officials will speak English, we hope,
and leave us our bourbon and cigarettes.
Ports are necessities, like postage stamps, or soap,

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I'll have to look at that one more deeply. I read just a few pretty fast and that caught my eye. Maybe that's the only reason why.

ETA: Oh now I see. It's done to keep the rhyme pristine. Hmm!

I don't know if I have read his work before though it's likely I've run across it. Googling brought these six of his sestets, from that book, as a taste. They are quite wonderful and I'll read them more slowly later on; for now my favorite is "Future Tense".

Paying closer attention to the whole poem, I find it makes more sense. The experience of arrival, particularly at that moment, was disjointed and a bit hectic? Shaky? Anyway, it seemed to be seamless with the poem, so I don't feel bothered by it, just amused in a way.

ETA: I'm thinking of the motion of a docked boat, bumping against the stanchions (I think they're called) -- it could jar your speech in just that way.

Thanks for that name (and wonderful poems). I did a doubletake. Two nights ago I dreamed rather vividly of a group of students who were writing poetry (which I read and enjoyed in the dream). Their teacher, whom I met, was named Jack York.