Help Me Find Poets

3 November 2006

When I was writing technical articles regularly, my blog was an invaluable tool. I could float ideas to a global audience and get great feedback that would help shape my thoughts before my writing went to press and international distribution. Given I have enjoyed dialog with a number of readers and writers whose poetic sensibilities seem similar to my own (Nick, Pearl, Michael, Collin, Carol and Jenni just to name a few), and given Pandora For Poetry doesn’t exist yet, I thought I might likewise solicit feedback on part of my reading list for my upcoming semester at Pacific. Here’s what I have so far:

  • B.H. Fairchild, Early Occult Memory Systems…
  • Robert Wrigley, In The Bank Of Beautiful Sins
  • Gregory Orr, Concerning the Book that is the Body…
  • Renate Wood, The Patience Of Ice
  • Li-Young Lee, The Winged Seed
  • Louise Glück, Ararat
  • Dorianne Laux, What We Carry
  • Joseph Millar, Fortune
  • Joan Aleshire, This Far

As well as a number of books (at least one each) from faculty members with whose work I am less familiar. I strongly suspect I will really like those books as well, but the ones above are an even stronger suspicion based on previous experience with the author.

So, given that list, what else would you recommend? Or do you think some other book by one of the above authors is stronger, or more in line with the rest? Or, if you’ve been following my blog for awhile and think you know what I like, what else might you recommend that has nothing to do with the above list, but still is something you think would inform my study of poetry? Or what do you like, that doesn’t have anything to do with what I might like, that you still think I just have to read?

Similar Articles:

  1. Help Me Find Poets IV (The Final Installment)
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Posted in MFA, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (20)

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  • http://shootingpoets.blogspot.com/ Nick Bruno

    Well I would suggest that you put my book on the list…..Wait a minute! – I don’t have one out yet! ….Meanwhile you might try Robert Thomas’s “Dragging the Lake.”

  • Robert

    Apparently he read at my old Alma Mater’s Lunchtime Poetry Series in ’03 — but it looks like it ain’t online no more. Shame.

    Is this poem somewhat representative of his work?

    http://www.poems.com/sleeptho.htm

  • http://carolpeters.blogspot.com Carol Peters

    How did you construct your list? What are you aiming for?

  • Robert

    Hey Carol, good question. Honestly, in this first semester, I’m aiming for exposure to other poets I whose work I might resonate with. Obviously my intent in the next two years is to develop more specific areas of craft to study, and to inform my reading (and writing) with those goals. But for now, I’m grazing, and looking for themes to emerge both from what I write and what I like to read. Sometimes it’s a forest-for-the-trees kind of situation. Anything you notice?

  • http://www.pagehalffull.com/humanyms/ Pearl

    His autobiography The Winged Seed, and Ararat, are on my to read list.

    Any focus for the list beyond resonance? American, or other? living or dead? classic canon or anyone?

    If you wanted to look at anthology-scope you might get a great chance of someone piquing your interest. You might look at
    Lane’s Breathing Fire 2. For discussion http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2005/08/its-been-some-34-years-since-al-purdys.html

  • Robert

    Hi Pearl, thanks for the link. I’m focusing on contemporary as much as posisble, since my background is in criticism so far, and I’m looking to strenghten my understanding of contemporary voice. I prefer works originally written in English to translations, since so much of translated poetry is the work of the translator. That said, I also read Spanish, and enjoy facing-page. Anthhologies are probably a great place to get ideas for the list — though a lot fo what I want to investigate is what makes a body of work (i.e. book) into a cohesive whole, so I’m focusing on actually reading complete books to that end. Thanks for any thoughts you might have.

  • Nick Bruno

    Robert,

    “Dragging the Lake” is his latest book out from: Carnegie Mellon University Press. (for further info. – http://robertthomaspoems.com/) I got hooked on his poetry with this:

    The Man Who Could Not Fly

    Off work, at the corner of Howard and Spear,
    I walk past windows of Parmesan wheels,
    ropes of garlic, and cheese from the white oxen
    of Tuscany. The bay breeze salts my throat.
    My wings carefully folded against my spine,
    six layers of gilt-edged feathers
    folded each morning like an origami crane
    to fit inside my crisp tucked shirt,
    begin against my will to ripple, to chafe.
    A burning in my shoulder blades spreads
    down my ribs as I get closer to the pier.
    Pigeons strutting on the plaza give way
    to the gulls and forked-tail terns of the sea.
    On the sidewalk downtown, men and women
    pass me to converge at the edge of the water.
    The first ones are already aloft, gliding
    toward the Farallon Islands, just visible
    in the distance. A woman takes off her coat,
    drops it in the street, and the power of the dark
    blue pinions that emerge is unbelievable, lifting her
    as she cries klea, klea to the rasping krrekk, krrekk
    of a man whose white scapulars beat into the gale.
    They have forgotten everything but the lashing wind,
    the occasional glint of a fish far below, and the glare
    as they dive toward the sun. I take off my shirt,
    and my huge, unwieldy wings slowly unfold
    and compose themselves. Heavy as armor,
    they hang useless and serene. Why must I
    come day after day to watch those appalling
    plunges, that awful hovering, the ecstatic
    shrieking wheels while I stand in the dusk,
    my iridescent plumage dignified and rigid?

    First published in The Sewanee Review. ^

  • Robert

    Wow. Thanks, Nick. That’s some pretty badass magical realism.

  • http://stickpoetsuperhero.blogspot.com Michael Wells

    Robert:
    It is interesting to see your list and hear your thoughts as well as that of others. Early Occult Memory Systems by Fairchild is good. I sat in on a Masters Wriers workshop he did- impressively creative mindprocess he has.

    Li-Young Lee – here is someone I have casually read and love, I’d like to get into his work more myself. Likely a good choice.

    Louise Glück – I’m not knowledable about Ararat
    but I have read someo f her other works. She is a tough voice to get into for me anyway, but an important one none the less. I’d think a good contemporary for your list.

    Dorianne Laux is great! I like how she takes on humanity in her work. Reationships, love loss, She reminds me of Sharon Olds in a small way (who I am quite fond of) though her language is perhaps not as direcy as Olds is.

    I could sugest some others but our tasts may overlap, I probably appreciate abstraction perhaps more than you do.

    I do think the faculity list for Pacific looks exciting.

  • Robert

    Hey, thanks Michael. I think probably good for me to branch out into more abstract stuff as well. I’m not looking to box myself in (nor “lose my voice” as they all warn about MFA programs) — just read great poetry and learn from it. So if anything strikes your fancy send it my way. I’ll also keep watching your blog for tidbits of course.

    I’m really excited to meet Dorianne Laux and learn from her. The more I check them out, the more I realize I couldn’t ask for a more appropriate faculty for where I’m at right now in my writing process.

  • http://www.collinkelley.blogspot.com Collin

    I highly recommend Cecilia Woloch’s “Late” and Barbara Jane Reyes’ “Poeta en San Francisco.”

  • Robert

    Thanks, Collin. I’ll definitely check these out!

  • jenni

    A few Living poets that I reread OFTEN:
    August Kleinzahler (Green Sees Things In Waves)
    Jean Valentine (Door In The Mountain)
    Henri Cole (The Visible Man)
    Gary Snyder (Turtle Island)

  • Robert

    Great tips, thanks. Gary Snyder is coming to the Ojai Poetry Festival next year:

    http://www.ovlff.com/poetryfestival/poetryfestival.htm

  • http://www.pagehalffull.com/humanyms/ Pearl

    Contemporary?

    Anything from http://www.brokenjaw.com/ broken jaw press or from http://www.brickbooks.ca/ (they have a favorite books link)

    Currently reading aubade from broken jaw press.

  • Robert

    Excellent. Thanks for the leads.

  • http://www.robertthomaspoems.com Robert Thomas

    Hey, thanks for the plugs for my poems! As far as who I’d recommend, you might try Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s book The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart. There’s an excerpt from her long poem “Circus Fire” at http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16914, but the excerpt doesn’t really do justice to “Circus Fire, which is an amazing poem.

  • Robert

    Thanks for stopping by, Robert. I’m looking forward to reading Dragging_The_Lake. Ain’t it grand to be someone’s homework? (Especially when student-selected.)

  • Dapowell

     Hi Robert, that’s a good, long list already. I’d suggest Major Jackson, the recent Marianne Boruch book entitled Book of Hours, and Dianne L. Seuss. If you liked Dorianne’s lecture on O’Hara et. al. I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Young.

    Best,

    Doug

    • Anonymous

      Thanks, D.A. Appreciate your suggestions!