I have been flagging poems I like from The Pushcart Book of Poetry, and am now halfway through the anthology. It is excellent. Here is my list so far:
| Poet | Poem | Press |
| Stephen Berg | “Variations on the Mound of Corpses in the Snow“ | Chicago Review |
| John Ashbery | “All Kinds of Caresses” | Chicago Review |
| Naomi Clark | “The Breaker” | Red Earth Press Anthology |
| Ruthellen Quillen | “West Virginia Sleep Song” | Magdalen |
| Norman Dubie | “There is a Dream Dreaming Us” | Porch |
| Dave Smith | “Snow Owl” | Antaeus |
| Tess Gallagher | “The Ritual of Memories” | Graywolf Press Anthology |
| Stanley Kunitz | “Quinnapoxet” | Antaeus |
| Seamus Heaney | “The Otter” | Antaeus |
| Allen Grossman | “By the Pool” | The Paris Review |
| William Stafford | “Waiting in Line” | Barnwood Press |
| C.K. Williams | “From My Window” | The Paris Review |
| James Wright | “The Journey” | Logbridge-Rhodes, Inc. Anthology |
| Derek Walcott | “Europa” | Antaeus |
| Mary Oliver | “Moles” | The Ohio Review |
| Heather McHugh | “I Knew I’d Sing” | Kayak |
| Hilda Morley | “That Bright Grey Eye” | Ironwood |
| Pattiann Rogers | “The Power of Toads” | The Iowa Review |
| Philip Appleman | “The Trickle-Down Theory of Happiness” | Poetry |
| Susan Mitchell | “The Explosion” | Ironwood |
| Galway Kinnell | “The Fundamental Project of Technology” | American Poetry Review |
| Mark Doty | “Turtle, Swan” | Crazyhorse |
| Stephen Dobyns | “The Noise the Hairless Make” | Sonora Review |
| Jane Hirshfield | “Justice Without Passion” | Zyzzyva |
| Stephen Dunn | “Tenderness” | Poetry |
| Leslie Adrienne Miller | “Epithalamium” | Open Places |
| Sharon Olds | “May, 1968” | Poetry |
I remain unapologetic about my diversity of taste–from alpha to omega, Ashbery to Oliver. Yet such diversity sometimes makes it difficult to actually know what I like.
By keeping track of poet, poem, and press, I not only discover (or reinforce) my interest in certain poets, but begin to see what presses carry them repeatedly. Antaeus, Chicago Review, Ironwood, and Paris Review are all now on my radar as possible next subscriptions. [Correction: Antaeus and Ironwood are no more.]
How do you find the poets and journals that take the top of your head off? Is your process more organic? Or do you use some form of meta-analysis, like what I have done, above? With a limited budget (of money and time), how do you know what to read next?