where can i find new poetry?
December 17, 2009 7:52 AM Subscribe
i am looking for some new poetry/poet recommendations.
i love nikki giovanni, sharon olds, mary oliver, ee cummings, adrienne rich, neruda. i'm looking for new pieces that talk about love, friendship, connection, growth, new beginnings, hope. a broad range of topics. i have found it difficult to find new poets and works, even though i have discovered some treasures by randomly searching the poetry foundation website, by searching online and by attempting to pick up random books in the bookstore.
any suggestions that you may have, whether uber-romantic, comical, would be appreciated. i am not looking for super cheesy stuff though. have plenty of that in my journals from high school and college.
thanks so much!
anya
i love nikki giovanni, sharon olds, mary oliver, ee cummings, adrienne rich, neruda. i'm looking for new pieces that talk about love, friendship, connection, growth, new beginnings, hope. a broad range of topics. i have found it difficult to find new poets and works, even though i have discovered some treasures by randomly searching the poetry foundation website, by searching online and by attempting to pick up random books in the bookstore.
any suggestions that you may have, whether uber-romantic, comical, would be appreciated. i am not looking for super cheesy stuff though. have plenty of that in my journals from high school and college.
thanks so much!
anya
Louise Glück. (The Garden is pretty representative.)
Charles Simic.
W. S. Merwin.
Rainer Maria Rilke. (stick to the Stephen Mitchell translations.)
posted by four panels at 8:05 AM on December 17, 2009 [2 favorites]
Charles Simic.
W. S. Merwin.
Rainer Maria Rilke. (stick to the Stephen Mitchell translations.)
posted by four panels at 8:05 AM on December 17, 2009 [2 favorites]
Your taste in poetry seems somewhat similar to mine, and I also really like Lucille Clifton, Derek Walcott, (specifically the poems in Midsummer) and Jack Gilbert ("Married" and "The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart," among others, can be read here).
Other than asking for recommendations, I find a lot of new poetry by buying inexpensive poetry anthologies at second hand bookstores and library book sales. Anthologies can be pretty expensive new, but some of the ones I've enjoyed are Contemporary American Poetry and Word of Mouth.
posted by cimton at 8:13 AM on December 17, 2009
Other than asking for recommendations, I find a lot of new poetry by buying inexpensive poetry anthologies at second hand bookstores and library book sales. Anthologies can be pretty expensive new, but some of the ones I've enjoyed are Contemporary American Poetry and Word of Mouth.
posted by cimton at 8:13 AM on December 17, 2009
I will never stop recommending this book. Hayden Carruth's collection The Voice That Is Great Within Us is fucking stupendous. It's hardly new, but it contains multitudes. I apologize in advance if this stuff is too moldy for what you're asking for.
posted by Skot at 8:21 AM on December 17, 2009
posted by Skot at 8:21 AM on December 17, 2009
I have to assume that by "new" you mean "new to me." In which case, I'm a fool for Edna St. Vincent Millay.
posted by greekphilosophy at 8:28 AM on December 17, 2009
posted by greekphilosophy at 8:28 AM on December 17, 2009
Ted Hughes is fucking excellent.
As you're looking for love, friendship, connection, growth, new beginnings, hope,
Birthday Letters is wonderful place to start.
posted by French Fry at 8:50 AM on December 17, 2009
As you're looking for love, friendship, connection, growth, new beginnings, hope,
Birthday Letters is wonderful place to start.
posted by French Fry at 8:50 AM on December 17, 2009
I can never get enough William Carlos Williams. Pediatrician and poet, he moves me. Paterson is a good place to start.
posted by scarykarrey at 8:56 AM on December 17, 2009
posted by scarykarrey at 8:56 AM on December 17, 2009
I should note Ted Hughes is dark and at times very sharp in his emotional currency so while he can be tender and (imho) very uplifting. It's akin to cummings in that it can often be unsettling. But it's terrific poetry.
posted by French Fry at 8:57 AM on December 17, 2009
posted by French Fry at 8:57 AM on December 17, 2009
+1 to Louise Glück, particularly her collection The Wild Iris.
Also, Amy Clampitt.
posted by dr. boludo at 9:13 AM on December 17, 2009
Also, Amy Clampitt.
posted by dr. boludo at 9:13 AM on December 17, 2009
Marilyn Hacker, especially Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons.
posted by expialidocious at 9:14 AM on December 17, 2009
posted by expialidocious at 9:14 AM on December 17, 2009
Billy Collins! Check out Nightclub and Love:
Also, I don't know if he's quite what you're looking for, but it's hard to get better than WB Yeats
posted by bookgirl18 at 9:17 AM on December 17, 2009
Also, I don't know if he's quite what you're looking for, but it's hard to get better than WB Yeats
posted by bookgirl18 at 9:17 AM on December 17, 2009
Always enjoyed Jimmy Santiago Baca...
Start with Martin; And, Meditations On The South Valley... A great Native/ Chicano voice that transcends cultures and hits on a lot of topics you enjoy.
posted by priested at 9:28 AM on December 17, 2009
Start with Martin; And, Meditations On The South Valley... A great Native/ Chicano voice that transcends cultures and hits on a lot of topics you enjoy.
posted by priested at 9:28 AM on December 17, 2009
Don Coles is the best Canadian poet of the past 30 years for my money, and his love poems are totally beautiful and heartbreaking. there's a few poems you can read here. My favourite book of his is called Forests Of The Medieval World and there's a pretty terrific selected poems from Vehicule called How We All Swiftly that's a solid overview of his best work.
Karen Solie and Richard Harrison are pretty special too.
Being a Canadian Poetry student I'm not too up on my contemporary poetry from outside Canada but I do really love those Best American Poetry anthologies. The 2008 edition turned me on to Dave Snyder and got me to reassess Paul Muldoon. Highly recommended.
I've found Slate's poetry department to be pretty consistently good, and there's all sorts of interesting journals about. Upstreet is a solid American journal, and there's my perennial Canadian favourite, Contemporary Verse 2.
POETRY IS REALLY GOOD.
posted by tealsocks at 9:42 AM on December 17, 2009
Karen Solie and Richard Harrison are pretty special too.
Being a Canadian Poetry student I'm not too up on my contemporary poetry from outside Canada but I do really love those Best American Poetry anthologies. The 2008 edition turned me on to Dave Snyder and got me to reassess Paul Muldoon. Highly recommended.
I've found Slate's poetry department to be pretty consistently good, and there's all sorts of interesting journals about. Upstreet is a solid American journal, and there's my perennial Canadian favourite, Contemporary Verse 2.
POETRY IS REALLY GOOD.
posted by tealsocks at 9:42 AM on December 17, 2009
Mary Oliver -
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
posted by pintapicasso at 10:48 AM on December 17, 2009
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
posted by pintapicasso at 10:48 AM on December 17, 2009
Response by poster: these are all wonderful links and ideas so far. thank you to all of the suggestions!
posted by anya32 at 10:59 AM on December 17, 2009
posted by anya32 at 10:59 AM on December 17, 2009
Seconding Simic and Merwin, in particular I like the playfully erotic collection Aunt Lettuce, I Want to Peek Under Your Skirt by Simic and Merwin's The Shadow of Sirius. Also seconding Anne Carson.
posted by Alex Voyd at 10:59 AM on December 17, 2009
posted by Alex Voyd at 10:59 AM on December 17, 2009
Lots of great suggestions here. I think you might like this book by Lorna Dee Cervantes. Here is a poem from it that I quite like.
posted by katie at 11:28 AM on December 17, 2009
posted by katie at 11:28 AM on December 17, 2009
Brenda Hillman
+ 1 for Charles Simic, Louise Gluck
posted by citywolf at 12:50 PM on December 17, 2009
+ 1 for Charles Simic, Louise Gluck
posted by citywolf at 12:50 PM on December 17, 2009
I'm not personally as into the "hopeful" vein of poetry you wish to mine, but offhand here are some that lean warmer than normal but my tastes that I like nonetheless, and/or have aesthetic affiliation with one or more of the poets you mention liking already:
posted by ifjuly at 1:28 PM on December 17, 2009
Wislawa Szymborska, Gerald Stern, Lorine Niedecker, Yusef Komunyakaa, Jeffrey McDaniel, Ronald Koertge, Rita Dove, Billy Collins, MS Merwin, Frank O'Hara, Diane Wakoski, Federico Garcia Lorca, Juan Ramon Jimenez, Jorge Luis Borges, Michael Ondaatje, Naomi Shihab Nye, Lyn Lifshin, Lucille Clifton, Toi Derricotte, Janet Bernichon, Alice Fogel, Elizabeth Smart, Kathleen Raine...if you want to go back farther, maybe:
Hopkins, Issa, Tu Fu, Wallace Stevens, Eliot, Auden...maybe too edgy/sad but just in case:
Ai, Kim Addonizio, Jennifer Lesh, Larissa Szporluk, Elaine Equi, Jerome Sala, Charles Simic, OLD James Tate (we're talking Absences, brand-spankin'-new-young-poet James Tate), Anne Sexton (too obvious and old?), Dennis Nurkse, Robert Creely, Dilys Laing, John Rybicki, Matthea Harvey, Philip Levine, Nazim Hikmet...Lots of people like Rachel Carson, though those that don't REALLY don't. Lorna Dee Cervantes is a lot of my friends' favorite poet, hands down; I've been meaning to check her out myself.
posted by ifjuly at 1:28 PM on December 17, 2009
Oh, I thought of a really great hopeful poet (er, "poets," sort of): Fernando Pessoa's many heteronyms. A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe is as good as any a place to start, I s'pose.
posted by ifjuly at 1:30 PM on December 17, 2009
posted by ifjuly at 1:30 PM on December 17, 2009
A blog-brain-dump of my favorite poets over the past ten years (excellent poets above excluded, of course):
Wendell Berry**, Denise Levertov**, Miller Williams**, Tony Hoagland, Bruce Smith, Lowell Parker, Wislawa Szymborska, Czeslaw Milosz, Donald Justice, Vassar Miller, Ted Kooser, John Ciardi**, Adam Zagajewski, XJ Kennedy, Erika Meitner, Jorie Graham, Brian Patten**, Lucille Clifton
Ah, I loves me some poets!
** -- Super double secret favorite poets
posted by cross_impact at 1:52 PM on December 17, 2009
Wendell Berry**, Denise Levertov**, Miller Williams**, Tony Hoagland, Bruce Smith, Lowell Parker, Wislawa Szymborska, Czeslaw Milosz, Donald Justice, Vassar Miller, Ted Kooser, John Ciardi**, Adam Zagajewski, XJ Kennedy, Erika Meitner, Jorie Graham, Brian Patten**, Lucille Clifton
Ah, I loves me some poets!
** -- Super double secret favorite poets
posted by cross_impact at 1:52 PM on December 17, 2009
I really like Kay Ryan, the new poet laureate. She's awesome.
Other favorites of mine: C.P. Cavafy. Mark Doty. Anne Sexton (not all that happy, of course).
posted by lysimache at 3:05 PM on December 17, 2009
Other favorites of mine: C.P. Cavafy. Mark Doty. Anne Sexton (not all that happy, of course).
posted by lysimache at 3:05 PM on December 17, 2009
Seconding Wislawa Szymborska and especially Kim Addonizio. I would add Dorianne Laux and Linda Pastan.
Here's some Addonizio:
"What Do Women Want?"
I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.
posted by Rain Man at 5:27 PM on December 17, 2009
Here's some Addonizio:
"What Do Women Want?"
I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.
posted by Rain Man at 5:27 PM on December 17, 2009
thirding Wislawa Szymborska. She's ridiculously good. And it is translated, so I can't even imagine how much more amazing she must be in her native Polish.
posted by dublin at 6:12 PM on December 17, 2009
posted by dublin at 6:12 PM on December 17, 2009
Response by poster: wow! thanks again everyone! these are wonderful suggestions that have already led me to beautiful prose!
posted by anya32 at 2:08 PM on December 18, 2009
posted by anya32 at 2:08 PM on December 18, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
One day it will vanish,
how you felt when you were overwhelmed
by her, soaping each other in the shower,
or when you heard the news
of his death, there in the T-Bone diner
on Queens Boulevard amid the shouts
of short-order cooks, Armenian, oblivious.
One day one thing and then a dear other
will blur and though they won't be lost
they won't mean as much,
that motorcycle ride on the dirt road
to the deserted beach near Cadiz,
the Guardia mistaking you for a drug-runner,
his machine gun in your belly—
already history now, merely your history,
which means everything to you.
You strain to bring back
your mother's face and full body
before her illness, the arc and tenor
of family dinners, the mysteries
of radio, and Charlie Collins,
eight years old, inviting you
to his house to see the largest turd
that had ever come from him, unflushed.
One day there'll be almost nothing
except what you've written down,
then only what you've written down well,
then little of that.
The march on Washington in '68
where you hoped to change the world
and meet beautiful, sensitive women
is choreography now, cops on horses,
everyone backing off, stepping forward.
The exam you stole and put back unseen
has become one of your stories,
overtold, tainted with charm.
All of it, anyway, will go the way of icebergs
come summer, the small chunks floating
in the Adriatic until they're only water,
pure, and someone taking sad pride
that he can swim in it, numbly.
For you, though, loss, almost painless,
that Senior Prom at the Latin Quarter—
Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan, and you
just interested in your date's cleavage
and staying out all night at Jones Beach,
the small dune fires fueled by driftwood.
You can't remember a riff or a song,
and your date's a woman now, married,
has had sex as you have
some few thousand times, good sex
and forgettable sex, even boring sex,
oh you never could have imagined
back then with the waves crashing
what the body could erase.
It's vanishing as you speak, the soul-grit,
the story-fodder,
everything you retrieve is your past,
everything you let go
goes to memory's out-box, open on all sides,
in cahoots with thin air.
The jobs you didn't get vanish like scabs.
Her good-bye, causing the phone to slip
from your hand, doesn't hurt anymore,
too much doesn't hurt anymore,
not even that hint of your father, ghost-thumping
on your roof in Spain, hurts anymore.
You understand and therefore hate
because you hate the passivity of understanding
that your worst rage and finest
private gesture will flatten and collapse
into history, become invisible
like defeats inside houses. Then something happens
(it is happening) which won't vanish fast enough,
your voice fails, chokes to silence;
hurt (how could you have forgotten?) hurts.
Every other truth in the world, out of respect,
slides over, makes room for its superior.
posted by sickinthehead at 8:04 AM on December 17, 2009 [4 favorites]